Got to watch that "Barbarian Wrath" setting

[Father Beast]

You know, the one just higher than "Raging Hordes"?

it doesn't change barbs from huts, but hwen there's an uprising, up to a hundred units spawn from a single stack. everybody nearby has to drop what they're doing and put it down.

this really backfired on me in a recent OCC game. I had founded my city on the neck of a peninsula, with room for another good city on the peninsula behind me. O f course, nobody did get past me to found one there, and it just stayed empty.

Then the hordes came. There were two uprisings in the early 1800's, BOTH on that peninsula (it was the only undeveloped part of the map. no place else to spawn). my poor city endured the onslaught of hundreds of riflemen and cannons over the next century, pollution went everywhere, global warming turned some squares to jungle, and I LOST THE SPACE RACE!!

it would have been worse except a passing viking ironclad wiped out on of the founding stacks (83 units destroyed )

[Blaupanzer]

Whoa! Eighty-three! A bit much to try and buy out. I sometimes leave spawning grounds and use diplo/spies to buy the guerillas. But 83 goes well beyond gold and sustaining power of the city or cities surrounding it. Doesn't sound like OCC needs the extra challenge of the higher barbarian spawning rate.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

83!?

Indeed, that sounds a bit much for a single city to thwart. Blaupanzer, it would be fun - just once, maybe - to buy up such a barbarian swarm near an AI city. Dozens of NON units suddenly on the neighbor's hinterland...

[Blaupanzer]

Marquis, did get a chance to do something similar on a large island swarming with barbs. Sailed around the edge with spies on transports, buying and loading the little devils. Got about 25 of them, all NON. Unleashed them on a second front of a civ I had been fending off for a while. The AI shifted its forces to deal with the invaders, including the spies. I then unleashed my counterattack from the opposite side to devastating effect. Never seen numbers even faintly resembling 83! These 25 were from three uprisings and one landing by the barbs on that island.

[Father Beast]

The "barbarian wrath" setting is available by editing the game.txt file. the part which lists the options for barbarians, just add a line at the bottom that says "barbarian wrath", and it will then show up as an option when starting a new game.

I also have a "sands of the sea" option below that, but i haven't tried it since I've heard it causes the game to crash.

The difficulty level makes a difference, too. around a hundred show up for an uprising at deity, only about 15-20 on chieftan. on deity +1 (known on my machine as "god Hates you") I think it's around a 150.

normally, a single city couldn't stand against such an onslaught, but a bug in civ2 makes your only city invincible to barbarians (not to the ai). a caravan in your city can defend it against unlimited barbs. I just went ahead and built apollo while they were attacking. problem was, they destroyed tile improvements and my pollution cleaning engineers.

[fluffy]

Originally posted by Father Beast
normally, a single city couldn't stand against such an onslaught, but a bug in civ2 makes your only city invincible to barbarians (not to the ai). a caravan in your city can defend it against unlimited barbs.

does that mean it can only be used for OCC? has anyone succeeded playing with multiple cities?

also, does this work with TOT?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
...on a large island swarming with barbs. Sailed around the edge with spies on transports, buying and loading the little devils. Got about 25 of them, all NON...

What shall we do today, sire?
Let's go shopping!

The only comparable story I have is a barbarian city on a small island - they kept pumping out archers. The city was cheap, and came with a pile of bad guys. Altho I had to disband almost everybody to balance the shield production, I got a cathedral out of the deal.

[splangy]

I was once in a democracy and I had 70+ cities, I had developed the ENTIRE WORD(except what the 1 city pet had done)! (yes, it was QUITE a undertaking) except for a 1 tile island... I went out with a BB and saw the stack of barbs, I attacked and saw the message " 120 units destroyed" ... Gee, ya think a army of over 1,200,000 would be harder to destroy...

[The Mad Monk]

Spawn points within a given game are fixed in TOT,and I believe its the same with standard civ. If you can identify the specific tile they are swarming out of, parking a unit on that tile should solve your problem.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Spawn points within a given game are fixed in TOT,and I believe its the same with standard civ. If you can identify the specific tile they are swarming out of, parking a unit on that tile should solve your problem.

If you're going to park units on top of the spawn tiles, why bother playing barbarian wrath at all? Unless you want to generate barbs to harass the AI, of course.

I don't play at the BW setting that often (I can usually find enough challenges at Emperor/Deity). However, one memorable game, there was a stretch of mountains between me and the Aztecs. Within this terrain was a spawn point which forced me to keep my closest city filled with units just to hang on to it. Uprisings would occur about every half dozen turns and they involved at least 15-20 barbs (I didn't think to count at the time). On mountain terrain, they were damn tough to get rid of. However, it was much worse for the Aztecs - they managed to lose 5 cities to the barbs - and I'm talking big, size 10+ cities. And this was after all concerned had developed conscription!

Which leads to my question: obviously, at higher levels this setting produces more barbarians per uprising - but does it also make the uprisings more frequent?

STYOM

[The Mad Monk]

Actually, I haven't used barbarian wrath, and I generally do not plug spawn points--why waste a perfect spot to train veteran units and buy NONs?

However, there are times that an awkwardly placed spot can destroy a game, as in Father Beast's case, above. In that instance, I think it's foolish to not take advantage of a perfectly reasonable strategem. Others build fortresses in the area as 'barb traps' and I haven't seen anyone complain about that.

If you want a rationale, I tend to consider it as imposing martial law on a local hot spot of dissent.

edit: cuz i cant spel

[Christantine The Great]

Just started playing a game with Barb Wraith. Romans, largest world map. My city in Mesopotamia is under constant assualt by chariots and horsemen. I intelligently built it on a river for the defense bonus and the phalanx is holding them off. Knights will be a problem, I predict.

Does this also work with pirates?

[Roman]

All I can say - wow.

[Christantine The Great]

They are EVERYWHERE! Blankets of barbs are in northern Europe and the Middle East. I can't expand at all! My cities are barely holding on!

[Alexander's Horse]

Is it a mod?

[Christantine The Great]

You have to do it manually. Go into the game.txt file in CivII and look for the barb level list (the one that appears when you start a game). When you find it (It's very hard, so much is in the file) put Barbarian Wraith right after Raging Hoards. You should be able to pick it when you start your next game.

[Alexander's Horse]

I like lots of barbs - sometimes its better to let them have a city for a while. They produce lots of cheap units - bribe the city and they are yours.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Which leads to my question: obviously, at higher levels this setting produces more barbarians per uprising - but does it also make the uprisings more frequent?
STYOM

Well, we know that the default 4 setting increase the frequency and number of barbs. It makes sense that higher levels would continue the trend - altho if it adheres to the pattern remains to be seen.

Does the barbarian attack factor (attack strength * (difficulty level * 0.25)) continue to increase at the deity+ levels? That is, would a barb legion (att. 4 at king, att. 6 at deity) have attack strength 8 at deity+2?

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by Christantine The Great

Does this also work with pirates?

I have played on this level and seen barb landings off ships (I think that's what you mean by pirates), and there's been only the usual 3 or 4. just like you'd get from a hut.