When the Barbarians are ahead of you

[Rufus T. Firefly]

In a recent game, another civ got to monnotheism before I did. Next thing I know, of course, Barb crusaders are on my land, attacking my cities. These cities are walled, on non-defense-bonus terrain, and the phalanxes are not vets. The phalanxes die like flies. A few turns later, I get monotheism. Again, Barb crusaders show up, again they attack my cities, again they come up against a new, rush-built crop of non-vet phalanxes...and the phalanxes dispatch them without their health bars ever even turning yellow. So: is that a coincidence, or ia there a defence disadvantage when the Barbs show up with units you cannot build yourself?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Good question...

What level are you playing?
Had you been attacked by barbarians before the first crusader onslaught?

I wonder if a sneak attack bonus was given to the barbarians. You know how sometimes there is some message as "do you want to declare war on the barbarians," or something similar. If there was a diplomatic quirk in that game, that would account for it. If not, then your guess is as good as mine.

Sounds like something to test over at the CivLab...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I was playing Diety/Raging. I don't recall if the Barbs had attacked me prior to that; if they did, it was with archers, and I'm sure I didn't have warrior code. Small map, if that matters. And they were all sneak attacks. Take it the lab, boys!

[debeest]

If I'm not mistaken, your walled-city phalanxes had defense strength of 6. The barb crusaders, with the 1.5-fold deity barb attack advantage, attacked with strength of 7.5. That gave the barbs a per-round attack advantage of 9-6. They should winthe battles pretty easily, but not overwhelmingly. Sounds like maybe you just had statistical samples that went in one direction the first time, and in the balancing direction the other time.

[Smash]

One thing I have seen on occasion is the barbs that land are vets 1 time and regulars another time.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

At deity, as debeest mentions, the attacks would have been 7.5 : 6 in favor of the barbarians. That's a 25% advantage, which would be enough to tilt the odds in their favor. What intrigues me is the difference between the two sets of barbarians.

As Smash says, if one was veteran and the other not, that accounts for the difference. Same with sneak attack or not.

It seems like a statistical aberration that your phalanx hardly needed bandages after the second attack. You got lucky with the dice that time, whatever the circumstance!

I'll try to test it this weekend...

[geofelt]

I sometimes think barb strength is influenced by where they attack from. An attack from a mountain always seems stronger. In this case, I suspect normal random variations.

[rah]

Were they attacking your capital in the second example.

Barbs seem to be cream puffs against your cap more often.
(even past when you have just two cities)

But I too believe it was just a string of rolls. If this was civIII, no one would have even questioned it and started crying "predetermined rolls" garbage.

RAH

[The Mad Viking]

You don't indicate whether the phalanx were fortified or not. If not, 7.5 to 6 for the barb. If so, 9 to 7.5 for the phalanx!

In either case, the odds are close enough for the results to go either way, but fortification could make the difference.