Barbarians! WTF!!?? My First Civ III Experience

Adam Smith · August 30, 2002, 09:52

I've had Civ III sitting in the box for almost a year now till a got a computer big enough to run it. After getting a new computer a couple of weeks ago, I installed Civ III last night (no patch yet) and took it for a spin.

I played my usual Civ II settings: Deity, Continents, 4bil, max size board, max water, max barbs, max number of civs. I got off to a rather poor start as the Greeks (scientific, commercial) on a 6x20 continent which was about half desert and half plains. Nevertheless by about 1600bc I managed to scratch out three or four respectable cities and was moderately advanced.

In the process of exploring I knocked over a couple of barb huts, but a couple of well-placed hoplytes and veteran or elite units were able to deal with the occupants in the usual Civ II manner. Cities were reasonable well defended by Civ II standards, with one or two fortified hoplytes each, some of them veterans.

At this point the roof fell in. I was subjected to a "massive" barbarian attack which consisted of 25 conscript horse units from each of three directions simultaneously. (Scythians, Etruscans, and Minoans IIRC) Thats 75 #$%&*@$ units at once!!!! As horse after horse materialized from the same square, my first reaction was that the program must have hung. As they began to materialize from two other squares I realized I was maximum toast the minute they hit the road system. It was as if the entire population of the known world turned into barbarians and landed on my sorry-ass piece of sand at the same time.

What is going on here? Are these in fact barbarians, or something else? (as if it matters to the result) Where did they come from? How do you deal with them? Since I don't see the Etruscans on the list of civs, I presume they are not another civ. In two of the three cases the horse units appear to come from what looks like a small encampment; not a hut, but not quite a city. Are these huts, cities, units, or what? In one case I got rid of such an encampment after inducing the unit inside to attack me, and lose. Are there other ways to deal with this? Can encampments be absorbed into your civilization by culture?

Arrian · August 30, 2002, 10:00

Adam Smith,

Barbarians in CivIII work differently than in CivII. The barbarian encampments (the things you can attack and disperse for 25gold each) spawn units. Every couple of turns, they will put out a warrior or horseman. If a barb unit enters one of your cities, it will take some of your treasury or will destroy population or work you've been doing. It doesn't take the city. If you disperse an encampment (you have to attack it), that doesn't get rid of the barbs. A new encampment will soon pop up somewhere in the "fog of war." The only way to get rid of barbs is to settle the map, as they will not pop up within sight of civilization.

Barbarian uprisings occur when 2 civs have hit the middle ages. This happened very quickly in your game because you're playing Deity, where the AI has a HUGE advantage in tech, production, growth, ect. Plus, you were alone, and the others almost certainly had neighbors to trade tech with.

Some advice: no matter how good you were at CivII, do not start CivIII at Deity. Bad idea. Back off to warlord or regent until you get a firm grip on all of the gameplay changes. Trust me on this. I played CivII on Deity and pretty much won every time, and I'm really glad I started out at a low level and worked my way up.

That, and read the strategy forum.

-Arrian

vmxa1 · August 30, 2002, 10:41

THe cash from barb camps is handy in the early part of the game. I like to keep a horse unit on the prowl for them. It also serves as a means up buffing up your units. You can't get a GL from them, but you can make elites. It can be a frighting sight to see 8 horsemen barbs knock on your dorr and you have only a spearmen or even two. You get to sweat it out as they just keep coming and your saying please make this one the last one.

Gastric ReFlux · August 30, 2002, 11:15

Should we tell him about when the Barbs get ICBMs?

alexman · August 30, 2002, 11:41

Nah, lets leave that for his next thread:
Little Barbs with Big Toys! My Second Civ III Experience

hr_oskar · August 30, 2002, 11:56

Barbarians are much less dangerous in Civ3 anyway, IMHO - because they can't actually take your cities. If you see that one of your cities is going to fall to that massive uprising, just go trade away all your money etc.

They're more dangerous, though, in that Settlers and Workers have no defence value, so they need to be escorted.

Theseus · August 30, 2002, 12:09

Adam Smith,

Beyond the issue with barbs, you'll see that there are a LOT of differences between II and III.

Suggested reading:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=58720

hr_oskar · August 30, 2002, 12:17

Hmm, now that I think of it, I've never had to face more than one massive uprising at once... THREE?!?

Perhaps the AI sensed Adam's Civ2-deity-arrogance and decided to give him a run for it

Good for him I say - the sooner you realize you're not playing Civ2, the sooner you can start playing Civ3!

Gastric ReFlux · August 30, 2002, 12:20

Quote:

Originally posted by hr_oskar
Hmm, now that I think of it, I've never had to face more than one massive uprising at once... THREE?!?

Perhaps the AI sensed Adam's Civ2-deity-arrogance and decided to give him a run for it

Good for him I say - the sooner you realize you're not playing Civ2, the sooner you can start playing Civ3!

I have been able to correlate directly my arrogance level with incidents of spearmen taking out Modern Armor. My data is anecdotal and beyond reproach.

Konquest02 · August 30, 2002, 14:46

Quote:

Originally posted by hr_oskar
Hmm, now that I think of it, I've never had to face more than one massive uprising at once... THREE?!?

I once experinced 4 packs of 8 horsemen in one barbarian uprising, which is a lot to overcome only with a regular spearman...

Search somewhere in the archives, Soren once unveiled the mystery of barbarian uprisings, but what has been said above is correct. In fact, if you still have uncolonized tiles by the time 2 civs reach the industrial era (which I doubt... especially on Deity!), you will have a barb uprising too.

--Kon--

DrFell · August 30, 2002, 15:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
The only way to get rid of barbs is to settle the map, as they will not pop up within sight of civilization.

They can also be stopped if you make sure all the continent is not under 'fog of war'. If you think you can't settle it fast enough, you could spread out warriors on mountains and hills throughout your land. This will stop new barb camps popping up.

Theseus · August 30, 2002, 16:24

I think it's great how Firaxis makes the point PRETTY damn clear that this is not your father's Civ2.

Just so you know, AS, I think most of us did the exact same thing in our first game... and all went, "WTF??!!"

Maybe not 3 stacks... but even 1 was enough for me.

Arrian · August 30, 2002, 16:49

DrFell,

Good catch. I actually thought of that after I posted and was too lazy to edit it in. Hey, it's a friday!

-Arrian

Lord Merciless · August 30, 2002, 17:41

Civ2 Deity players can get their butt kicked at Civ3 Warlord level. It's no shame if you can't keep up at the Civ3 Deity level.

vee4473 · August 30, 2002, 20:08

I really don't mean to sound antagonistic, but how can you complain about massive barbarian uprisings when you choose the maximum barnarian setting?

Theseus · August 30, 2002, 20:13

I think he didn't know what that means in Civ3... it's waaay different from Civ2.

vee4473 · August 30, 2002, 20:18

true,

the difficulty settings are alot different. sorry for snapping.

Theseus · August 30, 2002, 20:51

Happened to me too. And to make it worse (I CAN'T forget it), I had just set up a filler city, safe in the territory, and had saved up like 1000 gold. They defeated the Warrior I had in garrison, and proceeded to drain my hard-earned treasury.

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM!!!

Adam Smith · August 30, 2002, 21:03

When I went from Civ I to Civ II I read manuals, strategy guides, underlined, highlighted, started at lower levels, etc. etc., and it took months. This time I thought I would dive right in, even if it was just to get a good laugh. Oh well. Its off to the strategy forum. Thanks for the input.

alexman · August 30, 2002, 21:04

...and don't forget to get the latest patch!

Az · August 31, 2002, 07:13

Here's some tip though, how you can use barbarians to your advantage.

On huge maps, with large chunks of land, ( like the Earth map , for example ) , There are always enourmous parts of land that are never colonized. That's good . very good. You venture into that wilderness ,with around a dosen of your toughest units at the time ( My favourite : Samurai ) but even an Elite spearman will do . Each time you disperse an encampment, you get 25 gold. Another encampment will respawn in a distance of 10 squares max. I don't know why, explore the map with your tough , ( and preferrably fast ) units, and get cash from land that wouldn't be any good for you while colonized, due to corruption.
Also, when you have a great edge over the AIs in land coverage ( once again, big land maps ) , a good way to gain money, is to sell distanced , ( often conquered ) cities to the AI . it would pay as much as hundreds of gold coins immediately , plus it would make payments of tens of coins per turn for 20 turns. Remember that you wouldn't get any money from it ( due to the fact that the little cash you would gain from it, MAYBE , would be lost on improvements , and defence ) , and probably would even lose money .

Some tips from me , to get you started . There are tons of other strategies lying around in this forum , read them , use them , and abuse them. Good luck !

DrFell · August 31, 2002, 10:30

With the latest patch you can't sell off cities to the AIs... too exploitable

Az · August 31, 2002, 15:37

oh well. I didn't try v1.29 yet, But I've already downloaded it. Did they reduce corruption ? ( not dramatically , but significally, I hope )

DrFell · August 31, 2002, 16:01

A bit. And commercial is much better at reducing it too.

Chemical Ollie · August 31, 2002, 18:45

Most of the best CIV3 players on Apolyton have a very tough time beating Deity, and for a newbie to try - don't even think about it! It's total humiliation.

vee4473 · August 31, 2002, 18:49

I'm thinking that not being able to beat deity is not really that bad, since the computer supposedly gets many advantages that the human player does not...therefore, it's not a big insult if you lose.

It's like trying to beat someone at poker who has an ace, king, jack and queen up his sleeve. If you beat him, wow, your good, but, if not, who can blame ya..

Carver · August 31, 2002, 22:50

Quote:

Originally posted by DrFell
With the latest patch you can't sell off cities to the AIs... too exploitable

Oh....I guess I missed that in the readme. But you can never sell them? I'm not sure I like that...

DrFell · September 1, 2002, 02:19

You can still give them away anytime or demand for a peace treaty. People were using exploits such as selling off internal cities and watching them culture flip back a couple turns later, or selling them and then capturing them back the same turn.

Az · September 1, 2002, 06:44

actually, I never captured them back right away, neither expected them to culture-flip . These were conquered cities sized 6-8 that gave me the generous 1 gold. I sold them to rather prosperous civilizations half world around , moslty cities with horses ( I made sure they've already had horses, and I had more than enough of them myself ). I think that it would be better that the AI would simply considered it itself. damn , sometimes the CtP series sound so good , with it's scripting powers.

(waits to get killed by stonning )

Panag · September 1, 2002, 16:10

hi ,

try this ones ; set the barbarian basic unit as rifleman , the advanced as infantry , and the sea unit as destroyer , ....

this is a fast way to get elite units , ... and GL , ...

have a nice day