Barbarians are boring

[HighseasPirate]

Barbarians presented a challange in Civ IV from time to time especially if you used the 'raging barbarians'. In Civ V they are boring to me. I have played several games and never lost a unit to a barb. Never once have I seen any barbs take over any city from anyone. I liked how in Civ IV you really had to protect your cities, surrounding countryside, and defenseless units from them. In Civ V, big deal. They don't seem to do anything but allow you to gain XP for your units or conquer a camp for a measly "37" gold. 37 gold? Why do all of my barb camps have 37 gold? Why can't there be some randomness to this amount. It isn't that difficult to program a random number to generate! Also, the barb ships are completely useless too. I've destroyed hundreds of them and they never fight back - EVER!!!!!!!!

Please fix the Barbarians.

[Shiav]

Barbarians presented a challange in Civ IV from time to time especially if you used the 'raging barbarians'. In Civ V they are boring to me. I have played several games and never lost a unit to a barb. Never once have I seen any barbs take over any city from anyone. I liked how in Civ IV you really had to protect your cities, surrounding countryside, and defenseless units from them. In Civ V, big deal. They don't seem to do anything but allow you to gain XP for your units or conquer a camp for a measly "37" gold. 37 gold? Why do all of my barb camps have 37 gold? Why can't there be some randomness to this amount. It isn't that difficult to program a random number to generate! Also, the barb ships are completely useless too. I've destroyed hundreds of them and they never fight back - EVER!!!!!!!!

Please fix the Barbarians.

try raging barbs on deity. the bastards almost destroyed my city. ONE MORE POST!!!!!

[SirMaru]

You can use Advanced Settings to end Barbarians totally.

[Martinoguy]

I enjoy Barbarians, plain and simple. They offer you something to do with your starting warrior and any other warrior you might build. They force you to strategize the location of cities. They give you gold and XP. They harass and pillage, just like barbarians are suppose to.

[belomeclone]

I'd like to see a Barbarian Uprising that is able to take over cities and become a Civ in its own right. It'd be the most realistic.

As for Raging Barbarians, I won a Civ IV game by rushing the Great Wall, and before I even built my second city the Barbarians had killed the other Civs. Raging Barbarians aren't exactly fair.

Barbarians in Civ V are stupid. They match the highest researched unit, so in the back corner of my empire where there is some tundra unrevealed, rifelemen come popping out, and I have to needlessly train my ancient units (or buy new ones) to quickly take care of the problem. And in the beginning of the game, they just wander around and don't attack anyone really.

And don't get me started on City-States ineffectiveness as allies. Oh thanks for declaring war on someone, why don't you sit there and do nothing during the war. Don't even offer me 5 gold for the war effort since you can't move your troops two tiles over to reach their city.

[Pulseczar]

I enjoy Barbarians, plain and simple. They offer you something to do with your starting warrior and any other warrior you might build. They force you to strategize the location of cities. They give you gold and XP. They harass and pillage, just like barbarians are suppose to.

They also blockade, keeping you from being able to work tiles in their vicinity until you kill them. I enjoy the Barbers, too, as my wife calls them.

I'd like to see a Barbarian Uprising that is able to take over cities and become a Civ in its own right. It'd be the most realistic.

If Barbarians became a civilization, they wouldn't be much of barbarians anymore, would they? Barbarians are basically anarchists that want very little government / social contract.

And don't get me started on City-States ineffectiveness as allies. Oh thanks for declaring war on someone, why don't you sit there and do nothing during the war. Don't even offer me 5 gold for the war effort since you can't move your troops two tiles over to reach their city.

That's funny. I used two City-States the other day very effectively to finish off my last two foes. I had 2 players on a separate continent and 2 CS's on that continent. Feeding CS's military units is extremely effective, if you are capable of building high-tech military units quickly. You avoid all gold up-keep costs, just to turn around and have all of these units basically at your disposal. You can build an army as big as you like, with zero upkeep and strategic resource consumption, if you give the army to a CS. Then when you are ready to send your army in, make sure you are allied with said CS's, and just declare war on whomever and watch them go. I made peace with the 2 players before the CS's could finish them, just because I wanted to toy with nukes, the battleship, and aircraft.

[AlexFury]

I rather have to agree with the OP on this.

ALL I use for Barbarians is 'Raging' barbarians.

In all my games. I've lost maybe, MAYBE 10 units to barbarians, throughout however many games now, not counting the odd worker or settler captured by them, actually destroyed ones.

I've never yet had barbarians even attack a city, outside of pillage land around it, even when there were FOUR barbarian units surrounding the city on land and one in the water.

Overall, boring.

[Grashnak]

I generally turn barbarians off, but I'm dubious about the claim that the OP has never lost a single unit to barbarians. Nothing quite like attacking a barbarian encampment and then having another barb unit show up to finish off your weakened warrior.

[jpbar81]

I think barbarians are fine.

Just think of how boring the game would be WITHOUT them.

They perform their role well. To harass and to pillage every now and then. They keep you on your toes. They make you hesitate or at least be a little more wary when sending out unescorted settlers/workers. They give city-states a reason to contract you and gain their friendship.

Conversely, with regards to the barbarians becoming a little more tactical and INCREASING their numbers... if that became so then some civs would get wiped out and most city-states would get annihilated. I believe it's more fun to interact longer with city-states and civs and for actual civs to be doing the conquering... not barbs.

[Meerletalis]

Raging barbarians and fewer civs/minors on a larger map adds some interest to them.

[WildmouseX]

I'd like to see a Barbarian Uprising that is able to take over cities and become a Civ in its own right. It'd be the most realistic.

in Civ 4, barbs would found cities and the would grow - I would let their cities sit until they had all the good resources improved before taking them out. - great way to expand without building settlers. Once I left them their whole continent and they had four cities, with roads connecting them already as well when my stack-o-death returned.

after they settle a second or third city I would think they should have been able to turn into one of the un-used civs . might be worth looking into making a mod for that once they get the 70 city limit patched out.

[MrFusion]

...They don't seem to do anything but allow you to gain XP for your units or conquer a camp for a measly "37" gold. 37 gold? Why do all of my barb camps have 37 gold? Why can't there be some randomness to this amount. It isn't that difficult to program a random number to generate! ...

I keep thinking that too! Why 37?!

Here's my idea for improving barbarians:

• Have barbarians actually earn gold by:
  
  • Pillaging improvements
  • Defeating any units (each unit given a gold value, representing spoils of war. Think pirates.)
  • Ransoming defeated units back to any civ
  • Selling captured units to the highest bidders
• All barbarian money gets saved as a horde in their home camp EDIT: The amount of which you would never know UNTIL you raided the camp.
• If you raid their camp and win, you can either:
  
  • Take the whole horde and destroy the camp
  • Force the barbarians to 'work' for you and give you half of everything they earn from that point on (a bit like privateers)
  
  
  BUT... as a balance and to spice things up:
  
  
• Allow barbarians to SPEND their gold buying weapons technologies/units off you or your rivals!

This mechanic would open up some very interesting strategies and game twists... and finally make sense of why barbarians gain good techs.

EDIT:
Additional functions of controlling a barbarian camp:
If, on raiding a barbarian camp, you opted to 'control' the camp instead of taking the cash horde, you should be able to see whatever the barbarian units see (but not control their actions). This would represent using them as kind of remote spies - one of the benefits of controlling a camp rather than simply taking a gold lump sum.

If you defeated a camp and opted to control them (as opposed to destroying them and taking the gold) - you should also be informed if another rival was already controlling them. This would be valuable intel if you were wondering how that camp was getting lots of good weapons and only seemed to be attacking you!

[Martinoguy]

I keep thinking that too! Why 37?!

Here's my idea for improving barbarians:

• Have barbarians actually earn gold by:
  
  • Pillaging improvements
  • Defeating any units (each unit given a gold value, representing spoils of war. Think pirates.)
  • Ransoming defeated units back to any civ
  • Selling captured units to the highest bidders
• All barbarian money gets saved as a horde in their home camp
• If you raid their camp and win, you can either:
  
  • Take the whole horde and destroy the camp
  • Force the barbarians to 'work' for you and give you half of everything they earn from that point on (a bit like privateers)
  
  
  BUT... as a balance and to spice things up:
  
  
• Allow barbarians to SPEND their gold buying weapons technologies/units off you or your rivals!

This mechanic would open up some very interesting strategies and game twists... and finally make sense of why barbarians gain good techs.

Sounds like the Free Space in Monopoly then, where anyone who happens upon the camp gets everyone's money put into it, if you play by the unofficial Free Space rules.

Allow barbarians to SPEND their gold buying weapons technologies/units off you or your rivals!

As for this though, they don't need to buy techs as it's given to them automatically ( barbarian destroyers anyone?). Buying more units might be interesting though.

[Davor]

I find Barbarians annoying. I never seen a Barbarian take over a city though, so not shure if they were programmed to do so, or just be an annoying factor.

[MrFusion]

Sounds like the Free Space in Monopoly then, where anyone who happens upon the camp gets everyone's money put into it, if you play by the unofficial Free Space rules.

Sort of - but there's a huge twist because you'd never be able to see how much gold was in the camp until you raided it.

So that camp you thought was building up a huge pile of cash (for you to 'harvest' later) might have actually just spent everything on rifles (sold to them by Alexander), and furthermore, Alexander might have been in control of the camp all along (if they got to it before you), taking half their income anyway - and he's been using the camp against you. So by leaving the camp too long, you've only been helping your rivals.

...or there might be a huge, untouched pile of gold waiting just for you.

I just think this would add so much fun to the game - and bring a kind of espionage dynamic back - by treating barbarians as pawns in the bigger game.

[kazman]

BUT... as a balance and to spice things up:
[*]Allow barbarians to SPEND their gold buying weapons technologies/units off you or your rivals!

This mechanic would open up some very interesting strategies and game twists... and finally make sense of why barbarians gain good techs.

I agree with that, nice idea.

Doesnt the 37 gold change depending on game speed? I could be wrong, havent played in a week or two (until some decent patches come out ill stick to sc2). But yeah its pretty damn random, shouldnt it be 42 maybe ?

I also find them a bit boring in V, I only play with raging barbarians then they can be quite a handful and fun to deal with.

As has been said, barbarian naval units == useless, they really need fixing.

In civ 4 I enjoyed how the barbarian camps could become cities. Maybe now with CS, if a barbarian encampment stays around long enough without being destroyed it can become a militaristic CS that is always at war with everyone.

[MrFusion]

As for this though, they don't need to buy techs as it's given to them automatically ( barbarian destroyers anyone?). Buying more units might be interesting though.

That's the problem - they are just given the best techs available for free (by the game) without reason or logic in the game world we are playing in.

My suggestion fixes this and gives the game a good system for barbarians to acquire techs and units in a fair way - by buying them via unscrupulous deals with the player or rival civ interactions. So yes - if Elizabeth wants to sell a destroyer or even nuke to my local barbarian tribe for 2000 gold to 'see what they do with it', then tough luck for me! Should have got rid of the camp before they could be such a threat.

In this way, barbarians could quite nicely represent terrorists in the modern era (dispersed rogue units wanting to cause mayhem to societies and trying to acquire new weapons) - and those civs who are discovered to have made deals with them could be seen as supporting terrorism. This could in turn lead to diplomatic mayhem and even war. An interesting and very topical game element!

The possibilities are huge!

[Jazzterisk]

[*]Allow barbarians to SPEND their gold buying weapons technologies/units off you or your rivals![/LIST]
This mechanic would open up some very interesting strategies and game twists... and finally make sense of why barbarians gain good techs.

I really really like that idea. You could almost have a cold war-like feel to the game (eg. There's a barbarian camp near to a rivals territory - they supply you with a few trinkets they've 'obtained' and you supply them with a few riflemen with which they use to attack or harass your opponent forcing them to use precious resources/time/money. Then end result is either your opponent is weakened without you having to wage war yourself, it may have slowed down their wonder/spaceship/culture progress making it harder for them to win).

I don't think it would be too hard to code/mod in. Perhaps, you could add a new tech allowing you to engage in such activities (e.g. Advanced diplomacy).

[Old School Role-Player]

That's the problem - they are just given the best techs available for free (by the game) without reason or logic in the game world we are playing in.

My suggestion fixes this and gives the game a good system for barbarians to acquire techs and units in a fair way - by buying them via unscrupulous deals with the player or rival civ interactions. So yes - if Elizabeth wants to sell a destroyer or even nuke to my local barbarian tribe for 2000 gold to 'see what they do with it', then tough luck for me! Should have got rid of the camp before they could be such a threat.

In this way, barbarians could quite nicely represent terrorists in the modern era (dispersed rogue units wanting to cause mayhem to societies and trying to acquire new weapons) - and those civs who are discovered to have made deals with them could be seen as supporting terrorism. This could in turn lead to diplomatic mayhem and even war. An interesting and very topical game element!

The possibilities are huge!

I think it's a great idea. Of course, that may be too much of a change for even an expansion. There can definitely be some great directions to go with barbarians, though.

Personally, I'd like to see the barbarians congregate around their camps for a few turns until they build up a sizable force. Then, when they have about 4 or 5 barbarians, then go out pillaging and raiding. It would be a good reason to keep at least a token military force at home, else the Gauls/Visigoths/Vandals get to sack Rome.

Perhaps instead of taking over your capital, barbarians would just destroy some of your most expensive buildings? Maybe even a small chance they could destroy a wonder in your city. Now THAT would be a cool barbarian uprising!

[HighseasPirate]

I generally turn barbarians off, but I'm dubious about the claim that the OP has never lost a single unit to barbarians. Nothing quite like attacking a barbarian encampment and then having another barb unit show up to finish off your weakened warrior.

I have come close to losing a couple of units before but, I haven't lost any yet that I remember. I have been careful I guess or lucky. Either way, I lost a hell of a lot of units, even cities, many times in Civ IV to barbarians and their uprisings. They just aren't fearsome enough to be barbarians in Civ V:. Barbarians should be very threatening and these just aren't!

[HighseasPirate]

I sure do like hearing about some of the ideas floating around for the barbs. Hopefully, they may integrate some of them into a patch or an expansion or even tweak the ideas to be even better!!!!! Let's hope.

[OniaPL]

I don't know if this helps you, but in the new patch bonus against barbarians is now 20% instead of 33%.

[Agent.0.Fortune]

I like bararians, especially raging barbarians. It means never having to build a worker.

[MrFusion]

I like bararians, especially raging barbarians. It means never having to build a worker.

I couldn't be more confused.

[kazman]

I couldn't be more confused.

Im guessing barbarians take other civ workers, you take theirs ? I generally have an excess of workers due to this. I also like this aspect of barbarians although its a bit cheeze

[Black Gate of Mordor]

That's the problem - they are just given the best techs available for free (by the game) without reason or logic in the game world we are playing in.

My suggestion fixes this and gives the game a good system for barbarians to acquire techs and units in a fair way - by buying them via unscrupulous deals with the player or rival civ interactions. So yes - if Elizabeth wants to sell a destroyer or even nuke to my local barbarian tribe for 2000 gold to 'see what they do with it', then tough luck for me! Should have got rid of the camp before they could be such a threat.

In this way, barbarians could quite nicely represent terrorists in the modern era (dispersed rogue units wanting to cause mayhem to societies and trying to acquire new weapons) - and those civs who are discovered to have made deals with them could be seen as supporting terrorism. This could in turn lead to diplomatic mayhem and even war. An interesting and very topical game element!

The possibilities are huge!

Love the idea, but I've got a single question.

Who would lead the barbs?

It couldn't be Ghengis, he's the mongol leader.

Perhaps Attila the Hun?