Where do you set Barbarians?

[MyOlde]

Barbarians are idiots. But, then, maybe I'm missing something. I set them at Sedentary so that they don't wander in and surprise me. (I just tried them at Roaming and all of a sudden there were Barbarian Knights when I had barely got spearmen going. I re-started and went back to Sedentary.)

But I'm wondering whether some kind of benefits increase the more violent the setting. Is there an extra benefit somewhere down the road to setting them at Roaming vs. Sedentary?

I tried No Barbarians once and got the impression that my warrior explorer found far fewer goody huts and so stayed with Sedentary.

What do you do? And why?

[planetfall]

I think it depends on which is more important to you a) techs or b) military upgrades.

If you are a builder, or mostly builder, I would suggest sendentary. You want the techs, warriors, settlers, but don't care about gold and unit upgrades.

If you are a warlord, you want them most aggressive. You are looking for early conflict opportunities to create 1) more elites, 2) a bit of gold when destroy barbarians, and 3) chance for GL.

Since I prefer builder over warlord, I usually play as sendentary. I tried one game roaming, and annoyance with Barbarians was greater than any advantage of having them moving. I did get a bit more gold and a few more elites, but hatted the hassle of being forced into early higher numbers of military units. I would rather build temples/roads/culture and some empire expansion in early game.

Your mileage may differ.

-- PF

[Inverse Icarus]

i usually do sedentary / romaning. i just hated my settler stacks being under constant siege.

in MP, they're going to be sieged all the time anyway by opponents, so why not crank up the barbariabs to all hell

[punkbass2000]

I typically go with random, though I've been using the AU Mod lately, and it's been seeming like there are no huts or barbarians, but I could be mistaken.

[Arrian]

MyOlde,

First off, unless you've modded the game, there shouldn't ever be barbarian Knights. Horsemen, yes.

Second, I believe that shutting off barbs totally also removes huts from the map.

I typically play with them on "roaming." I do warmonger, but anything over "roaming" and I start to have difficulties with the barbs. I'd rather just leave the setting down low... I always hated the barbs in Civ.

-Arrian

[Jon Shafer]

Either random or raging. There's nothing like finding a new continent with 20 stacks of 20 Barbarian horsemen each.

[vmxa1]

No leaders from barbs. I go with roaming. As Arrian said, no barbs no huts and sometimes I will do that for giggles. Raging is no value as really all you do is rush out and find the huts and stomp them and leave units around to prevent respawn. Roaming is reasonable as they can be controlled and give some action. You can go out and smash for the gold and let them respawn. Once in a while 8 horsemen come to see you. That adds a bit of excitement if you have only 2 units. It gets sticky if more than that show up and you have spearmen only.

[aahz_capone]

I'm always for raging, even though I'm a builder. It gives my units exp without having to war against the AI and it might just keep the AI on their toes too!

[Jaybe]

Raging or one setting less. And with no combat advantage over them (under the Difficulty Levels tab in the Editor), it can be touch and go. Of course, it is my hope that it also applies to the AI civs, so barbs can harrass them too.

[werdhertz]

I keep everything on RANDOM except my Civ... so... random!

[Jethro83]

I usually set them at Roaming. Though if I ever play as the Aztecs, I'll be going for Raging (once when I played as them, sending my jag. warriors out to hunt barbarian camps was the most profitable action in that game).

[jim_steer]

I normally play on roaming mainly because I like luring barbarians towards the AI's cities and workers and then watching all hell break loose
Sometimes if I am playing a mad warlord type game then I set it to raging, but I find that this normally distracts me from the true objective of the game which is crushing the AI.

[star mouse]

Raging Hordes. And mod the game to make the barbs tougher.

In my mod:
* Halve the combat bonus against barbs at every difficulty level.
* Barbarian sea unit = Privateer.

If I really want a screaming insanity raw-meat Barbarian game, I set the barbarian units to Archer/Knight instead of Warrior/Horsemen. There's few things that strike fear into you more than two or three stacks of 24 Barbarian Knights closing in on your cities. You have a chance with four Spearmen and Walls.

I have also found it interesting to tweak the units that barbarians can build, because this list governs what you can pop out of a goody hut. My mod allows Barbarians to build Archers and Horsemen as well as Warriors.

[Stuie]

Raging hordes and modded similiar to Starmouse. And they're still too weak IMO....

I wish they could still destroy and/or capture cities instead of just taking some gold/production and disappearing.

[MyOlde]

You guys are insane!

Aren't the other civs tough enough for you? I don't need a bunch of barbs picking away at me when my Aztec or German neighbours can't wait to do it anyway.

[Minmaster]

i like sedentary too over roaming but i think roaming gives u more goody huts than sedentary so i try to stay at roaming.

[cracker]

Don't be a fraid of barbarians because they are actually one of your greatest assetts in the game.

With the barb level set to raging you will get more barb villages and more barb warriors to attack and kill. If you are playing on lower difficulties (Monarch or below) you get an automatic attack bonus against all babrbarians so it is next to impossible to loose a battle if you understand the terrain bonuses.

More barbs equal more opportunities for training combat to promote your early units to veteran and elite. Any two victories in the same turn guranatees you a promotion. More elite units early equal more great leaders and virtually guarantee a win.

More barbs equal more barb camps and earn you 25 to 50 gold per camp destroyed. Once you learn the basics of the game you can farm barbs and harvest an extra 50 to 75 gold units per turn and rulle the world with your economic power.

Barbs also distract the AI military units from other tasks and can help you set the real enemies up for an easy kill.

You may think you are helping yourself with a low barb intensity setting but in reality you just slow down your game and take away one of the best advantages you have to position yourself to smack the AI enemies and speed progress through the tech tree and the wonders.

[Minmaster]

i agree with cracker, but on diety, its kinda hard dealing with barbs. its a pain in the ass trying to take out a barb encampment on a mountain!

[pvzh]

If I play expansionist civ, I always set raging because rewards from goody huts are better. If I want to play builder/pacifist I turn them off. I kind of like extreme points.

On raging barbarian are not much of the problem if you have a spearman or to per city. Just let them plunder this rotten outskirt. Make sure there is nothing in the bank.

[planetfall]

Ok, you guys convinced me. Next time, Barbs = random or raging.

-- PF

[cracker]

The one caveat to setting the barbs high is that you have to understand uprisings.

These uprising are triggered by a total idiot programming decision that relates to the 2nd civ on the map entering a new age. (sorry Soren for not pulling punches, but from a gameplay standpoint this programming choice falls in the skinner box category of hidden torment intead of creative challenge).

All the barb camps in the whole world go psycho all on the same turn.

The size of the uprisings is set by the barb intensity level with 8 horsemen per intensity step (8 for roaming, 16 for restless, and 24 for raging).

In general, do not even think about defending against an uprising and learn to:
[list=1][*]Lead them to your enemies cities[*]Give away or spend all your gold in your treasury before they attack[*]move your military out of the frontier city and just give the city away to your worst enemy. Then the barbs will kill his military unit and sack his treasury and you can just walk back in an take the city back.[/list=1]

The largest number of barb horsemen I have every had to deal with in one turn is 240, and you can easily handle this once you know how the game is played.

[cracker]

Oh, and Planetfall,

Don't do random untill you cycle through a lot of the higher settings. Rnadom includes the low settings as well and you really do not want games with the barbs off.

If you can't make up your mind, just flip a coin. and then set the setting manually.

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by cracker
The one caveat to setting the barbs high is that you have to understand uprisings.

These uprising are triggered by a total idiot programming decision that relates to the 2nd civ on the map entering a new age. (sorry Soren for not pulling punches, but from a gameplay standpoint this programming choice falls in the skinner box category of hidden torment intead of creative challenge).

All the barb camps in the whole world go psycho all on the same turn.

The size of the uprisings is set by the barb intensity level with 8 horsemen per intensity step (8 for roaming, 16 for restless, and 24 for raging).

I haven't seen an uprising since getting the 1.29 patch, but under 1.17, this was not true. I occasionally had uprisings at different times in the game, especially when startning with a lot of jungle to one side of my civ, since I did not expand quickly in that direction.

I recall reading that an uprising happens if the camp is not destoyed after a certain number of turns.

In general, do not even think about defending against an uprising and learn to:
[list=1][*]Lead them to your enemies cities[*]Give away or spend all your gold in your treasury before they attack[*]move your military out of the frontier city and just give the city away to your worst enemy. Then the barbs will kill his military unit and sack his treasury and you can just walk back in an take the city back.[/list=1]

The largest number of barb horsemen I have every had to deal with in one turn is 240, and you can easily handle this once you know how the game is played.

If you can manage it, four or five spearman behind a wall seem to usually suffice. Even two will take out over half the attackers.

[punkbass2000]

Sorry One_Brow, but cracker is right. It was told by Soren a couple months ago.

[Catt]

Originally posted by One_Brow


I haven't seen an uprising since getting the 1.29 patch, but under 1.17, this was not true. I occasionally had uprisings at different times in the game, especially when startning with a lot of jungle to one side of my civ, since I did not expand quickly in that direction.

I recall reading that an uprising happens if the camp is not destoyed after a certain number of turns.

You can encounter 3 different uprisings during a game -- the 3 turns during which a second civ enters into the Middle, Industrial, and Modern Ages, respectively. But often the map is fully explored and/or settled by entry into the Industrial Age, so most players only experience one barbarian uprising in any given game. Also, if your territory doesn;t border "fog-of-war" (the only place where barbarian camps spawn) the world may experience an uprising but you won't hear hide nor hair of it.

The information that an uprising occurs only on the "2nd civ to advance to a new age" trigger (and not on any other good guesses at what causes an uprising - like a camp allowed to live for XX turns) comes from Soren Johnson, the Civ III AI programmer, in a thread here at Apolyton.

Catt

[vmxa1]

using units to prevent any fog of war near you is the easiest way to prevent uprisings. No camps, no uprising.

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
Sorry One_Brow, but cracker is right. It was told by Soren a couple months ago.

Soren is certainly the authority.

Still, it seems odd that in the same thred he mentioned this ("Best of the Best"), another poster appaently saw what I did on the 1.17 patch: multiple uprisings. There were under 20 turns apart for me, a little too close for separate ages.

I wonder if you receive a message only after the barbarians "home in" on one of your cities, so that they are generatede at the same time but you getmessages at different times.

[Theseus]

I'm still pissed off about the thread-jacking.

Seriously, I haven;t had to deal with uprisings in a loooong time. Knowing how they work, I'm tempted to allow one in order to experiment with some of the stronger early UUs in PTW.