How strong will the Barbarians be??

[Sun Zi 36]

In civ2 the Barbarians were never able to do anything (even with the hardest level) except maybe kill one or two of your scouting units. I've read that the barbarians now have towns theyraid from. But how strong are they? Could they ever invade civilised cultures and take their cities? I would like to see much stronger barbarians much like in real history the Huns and Goths and arguably the Mongols are also kind of barbarian. I think barbarians should be quite strong and hard to wipe out. In extreme cases they should be able to swallow up civilizations although in most cases the "culture" of the civilisation would assimulate the barbarians by causing the cities to revert under the civilization's control. Anyone knows how powerful the barbarians actually are in civ3?

[BeBro]

I agree with you, I hope we do not get these poor little barbs who attack against city walls wothout any hope. I think instead of those hordes of weak Civ2 barbs that pop up from a goodie hut there should be only 3 - 5, but real dangerous units.

[Skanky Burns]

Appologies for slightly OT...

I remember one game in Civ II where the poor Japanese were stuck on an island chain. Some barbarians landed near one of their newer cities, and captured it. Then, using that as a base, they then took over the other city on that island!! The barbarians were more powerful than the Japanese

Back on topic...

It would be good if the barbarians were of a tougher calibre than in the previous Civ games. The above situation was very funny, and id like to see more of that in Civ 3

[Sun Zi 36]

Yes that would be interesting. Although in the end the Barbarians would still get thrashed bcos they could never change their production.

I actually thought the weakness of the barbarians were so unhistoric that I played as the barbarians a few times. (by editing kind of some codes in the program). It's actually pretty cool. But the barbarians just doesn't pop up enough times to pose any threat to the computers. At most pillaging roads and farms and fortifying in the mountains so the commputers would get killed when attacking me.

I think stronger barbarians could blend a lot with the culture aspect of civ3. Barbarians are militarily strong but ultimately have to submit under civilizations bcos of their advanced culture. It would also be interesting to see civilizations uniting under the common threat of the barbarians (made available by diplomatic option).

[Inverse Icarus]

barbarians have encampments now. (god how many times have i said that )

they have little "spawning areas" around the map that certain amounts of units pop out of every so often. if you destroy an encampment it appears somewhere else you cant see (fog of war).

this will force people to have units stationed in the remote areas of their empire, to keep the barbarians out.

and maybe (probably) its just me, but Raging Hoardes was a bit of a challange, perhaps even more than that of an AI civ.

sending a lone settler out became a challange, and i often had to rush-build defensive units.

[Wiglaf]

Barbarians were never meant to be their own civ, or their own superpower in the original games. Instead they were suppose to be a deterrant to things like settler exploration or weak cities, like Uber said. So giving them too much power would be like adding another civ to the game, and making them less unique.

Maybe they should be a little stronger, but no random encounter with a super unit should be able to destroy your entire civilization.

[hetairoi22]

Originally posted by UberKruX

and maybe (probably) its just me, but Raging Hoardes was a bit of a challange, perhaps even more than that of an AI civ.

sending a lone settler out became a challange, and i often had to rush-build defensive units.

I agree, It's so annoying when they pop out of nowhere and take a newly founded city, before you get defenses.

PS: I usually play very scientifically, and don't have much cash $.$

¤.¤

[Admiral]

They should not necessarily be stronger, but should focus more on pillaging than on attacking walled cities. In Civ 2 only the partisans would pillage, and they would only pillage roads/RR. I think that all Barbarians should be able to pillage; this would cause them to become much more of an annoyance than in Civ 2.

[Inverse Icarus]

the barbarians did pillage. they only attacked when they were ajacent to another unit.

stupid algorithm it seems

anyway, the 2 move barbarian units (knights / Crusaders) pillaged a lot more than did the legions / archers.

with the new resource structure i suppose barbarians will be heavily into pillaging / sacking colonies

[Sun Zi 36]

I was wondering how much stronger the barbarians will get with the encampments. It still depends on how often they spawn out. If they don't spawn out very often, it still would be a pretty similar situation than in civ2.

I don't think the barbarians should just pillage. Pillaging just makes them annoying and nobody would like them. Actual barbarian invasion is much more fun and challenging. It would add a new dimension to the game as civs rush to take barbarian occupied cities so they don't have to declare war on another civ to take it's cities.

Yes barbarians should never be a superpower. I mean they are always minorities and doesn't have much culture so would get assimulated pretty soon once they get deep into the civilization. And i think barbarians shouldn't appear too randomly. They should come mainly in waves. Say once every 50 or 100 years there would be a particularly large number of barbarians being spawned out.

[saracen31]

I always had a tough time with raging hordes on Civ II. And just yesterday, I saw the barbarians take about 10 Japanese cities in a game on elite level. The Japanese only had 1 city left by the end of the game - the rest of their island was red.

I think the barbarian AI should be improved, but make them a lot tougher? I don't know.

[XarXo]

I BARBARIANS!!!! Is my *FAOURITE* thing in the game. I'm scenario maker and Barbarians are the perfect "bad guys", they NEVER stop their personal war with the others. But the only thing that I want is that when Barbarians stay in a city more than 40 turns or similar they became a new civ.

If nobody has noticed that the MAXIMUM of civs per game is 16 (and when you start are 8) is BECAUSE the Civ revolutions dividing the empires in two parts (8 x 2 = 16!!), The Zero Civilization (barbarians) could be the angular stone in this events, a premature capitol city falling in the ancient era dividing a medium empire could origine the two blocs of the world (like happened with French and Germans in the Sacre Roman Empire, or the Roman Empire and Byzance). Imagine an old and enormous empire in decadence that is divided, the minor kingdoms could cut them and balance the game in a modern era!!!

16 civs in game is possible, but with a lot of divisions, so... The possibility of an empire scession must be greately bigger no? Whta you can say us DAN MAGAHA?

[donarumo]

I like the SMAC idea of doing things. Were there was another group of creatures - in SMAC's case alien plants, that would be able to take the initiative and attack you for being in their terrirtory but could also be bent to the will of an advanced civ.

I think these creatures were just powerful enough to bother you sometimes and remained powerful enough through most of the game. I think the barbs in CivIII should be of similar power. Yes, they may destroy a couple of units, but they shouldn't threaten any but the weakest of cities.

I also think it would be very cool to have some sort of option of playing the barbarians. Perhaps buried in an editable file. Since they seems to be unique in the way they can simply respawn out of range, it would be interesting to play.

[tishco]

i thought there wud be 16 playable civs whaich cud be edited in some file so you start with 16, not revolutioning 8 so there is 16.

cos i'm new, can anyone please tell me how the revoltion works cos all i play on is dont restart civs and i havn't seen it happem

[Ralf]

Perhaps the barbarian-strength is customizeable? Quote from Gamespy's latest preview:

The game's level editor is incredibly diverse. Every aspect of the game can be tweaked. Required technologies, civilization effects, combat values, race attributes, governments, and more can be modified. The level of customization is so staggering that it's almost like creating an entirely new game. Modifications and scenarios are saved to a small file that can be used by any player with Civ III on their system. The developer hopes that the Civ community will get creative and conjure up some nifty scenarios for download.

[kolpo]

oh governments can be edited that is awsome I think that barabrians can then also be edited and I would like to do that because in reality wheren't the barabrians demons from hell who attack everyone they see, they where just primitive tribes who defended there lands, there was lot's of diplomacy between the Romans and the barbarians.
All civs have barbarians as roots, barbarians already exixts for 3 million years, civilization only for less then 10000 years. Those barbarians where certainly not mindless aggressive bastards who attacked everyone they see.

[Inverse Icarus]

tishco, having the game on "dont restart elininated players" doesn't matter with revolutions.

if there is a big enough civ (yours included), and its capital is taken, their civ splits in half.

i wish there was a better way of doing this in civ3, like it the culture of one area was less than the whole empire, or something.

you know, so certain "abused" cities (we all had those "war" cities that didnt have many buildings) would revolt into their own nation

[boca]

Regardless of how strong the barbarians will be, i think it will be cool if you could negotiate with them.
You know, maybe convice them to attack some neighbors for a little money or technology.
You can allways attack them without damaging your reputation, so this could be a new strategy.

[General Ludd]

You could negotiate with them in civ2, if they came to an undefended city, they'd often ask for a sum of gold for them to leave you in peace.

[Sabre2th]

That't not really negotiating. They could only make that one small demand. Besides, experienced civers should never have problems with that.

[star mouse]

mmm, barbarians ....

You must play differently with these guys wreaking havoc all over the map. Unescorted settlers are just asking for trouble. I usually send some defensive unit with them so they already have defense when they found the city. This is better anyway, because instead of having the new city use its own meagre resources to create non-veteran defense, you can get your better cities building veteran defensive units for new cities.

I remember when a barbarian raiding party found an undefended city one day and the barbarian leader said "we won't attack the city of ... if you give us 1300 gold". My choice was to give them most of my gold or lose the new city. But I actually HAD a choice, and I thought that was cool.

So you CAN negotiate with Barbarians sometimes, if they have a leader.

[Genghis John]

Hmm... Barbarians were always a minor annoyance at best, as long as you had some reasonable defensive units and or the Great Wall, you really didn't have to worry about them much at all.

I think it might be interesting if that changed in CivIII.

I'm not one of those historical accuracy obsessed civvers, but in reality for example the Mongols (who are not in the game damn it, so I'm using them as barbarians) were pretty much an unstoppable force, that had to be appeased and delt with, rather than ignored. Even the real Great Wall couldn't stop them.

A barbarian invasion should be a seriously threatening event to your civilization. And as such, should not happen randomly and frequently, but maybe once in a game. And the barbarian chief should have his own diplomacy, and separate AI goals.

Some suggestions:

simple pay off: I'll give you x$ to leave me alone (probably only good for a few rounds)

Bait and switch: Hey, you know the other civ on this island is incredibly wealthly, help me conquer them and I'll split the loot with you.

Etc.

All the while you would be building your own strength, in order to eliminate them from your civ. But make it so you HAVE to deal with barbarians, either militarily or diplomatically.

I think this would be a better gameplay solution, and more fun than simply swatting annoying mosquitos.

GJ

[boca]

And as i pointed out the beauty of this is that you can allways backstab them without affecting your reputation.