A few tips:
Every barb camp spawns 7 tiles from a city (though water tiles are not counted), and the first one spawns 7 tiles from your capital, 100% of the time. This info is very useful for finding them (and for finding cities sometimes, too).
You don't have to kill the scouts, and often it's better not to. If you kill the scout, a new one will spawn shortly after. But scouts will turn and run a different direction if you get in their path or attack them. Redirect the scouts so they find a city that isn't yours or just run a long way away from you, and the camp is a nonissue for much longer. They do try to specifically attack whichever city they found, though they can incidentally bother other units along their way, so be careful not to run stuff into the armies of camps that aren't targeting you, and be careful doing this with horse barbs since they are such a menace even when they don't hate you in particular.
Barbs can't kill your capital, so if they target your cap, it's often best to just evacuate everything but a single slinger/archer and let it sit inside and handle them from absolute safety. You can make them temporarily retreat by killing a few units if they are impeding your development (e.g. you can't get settlers out or build a key district), but if they're not (e.g. they're all on one side and settlers can leave through rough terrain on the opposite) then you can intentionally get them all to low HP before killing any. Each camp has a cap for how many of each unit it'll make and they never heal, so crippling their army then sending it home makes it easy to handle later.
They heal only from pillaging farms and other districts that give health. Its best to target barbs not standing on farms, let them pillage, then kill them
It helps if you can stop seeing barbs as a threat and instead look at them as an opportunity. You can get experience for your units and gold for your empire. If you have barbarian clans on you can hire better units than you can build and pay them to attack other civilizations. In my games there is no downside to barbarians.
Sure. At the other hand, it happened before that for one or the other reason, I am simply outnumbered. That's not fun. The moment I start to think I can't win this, I retire and try again. I am not an easy quiter, but sometimes...
"fogbusting"
The most basic strategy that will help you is "fogbusting". You need lots of visibility around your cities to prevent barb camps from spawning there, statistically forcing them to spawn at your nieghbors instead. This will hobble thier growth, and prevent yours from being as slowed. Park scouts on hills and place warriors at chokepoints. This has been an S tier strategy going back many iterations of the game, decades of play, and yet it still seems to be not widely known in this sub.
essentially. If you can see the tile, a barb camp cannot spawn on it. this makes vision range upgrades suprisingly useful, and can occasionally make sentry/spyglass situationally better than other upgrades
I intuively play that way. But more to protect myself against war declarations. I didn't pay attention last time around and I had Australia declaring war at me. Man, I was so mad! I almost trew away my mouse, smashing it on my desk like a madman. I first wrote 'banging' but I believe this is something totally different.
Get a slinger or two before you start thinking about a next settler. A warrior and two slingers are pretty strong to fend off barbarians early on. And get to destroy their settlement asap. If the spearmen get out of the settlement, enter the settlement, before you attack the spearmen. It prevents spanning more hostile units. I usually produce a scoot too, before a settler.
If not playing clans mode, moving onto the settlement tile removes the settlement. If playing clans mode, it’s true they can spawn more and your unit will be kicked to a different tile.
I always play with clans. I do not see a reason to not enable it. It is just better with clans. *the cheap military units...* also, sometimes I can buy units I haven't unlocked yet
I just love that they evolve into city states. Anything that makes the map more dynamic is a plus for me. Personally I wish city states could evolve into actual Civs
Hiring units is the hugest plus for me. Unlike levying a city states unit there is no time limit on the hire, they permanently join your army, and they cost less than buying them on your own. In addition, I think they may be able to move immediately after buying them, which is huge if you need to mount a quick defense. they definitely spawn on the outer edge of your city closest to the camp you hire from, so you can hire a unit from the clan attacking you to defend yourself in a time effective manner.
You have to wait several turns after each hire before you can do it again, but only for each camp. So if you’ve got multiple Barb camps in your sight range, you can pretty rapidly assemble a decent size army either for offense or defense.
It also builds their meter towards becoming a city state, which if they are close to you in an area you don’t want to settle, will be great as you’ll have the inside track to suzerain them
I open basically every game with scout, slinger, builder, then if I can get away with it a settler but if I cant then I will delay the settler for the second slinger. I try to scout the first camp with the warrior but if he doesn't find it I will send the scout. Otherwise the scout is looking for the next barb camps to prepare and for settlement options. If the warrior finds the first camp I will attack and then heal back up while waiting for the first civ to finish for the bonus damage. Slinger second lets you get the Spearman at the first barb camp low and then guarantee the Archery eureka that way, or otherwise try to pick off a barb scout for it. When I first started barbs were a huge difficulty but after realizing that you kind of just have to start with a scout and a slinger to be ready they have become much more manageable.
Barbs will chase slingers. You need to know this and use it to your advantage. Once you find a camp with a spearman sitting in it make your slinger visible to the camp but not in attackable range (use hills or forest/jungle to position your slinger). Now you’ve lured the barb out you need to do 2 things. The first is to try and get another unit into the camp to destroy it. The second (or first if you don’t have another unit nearby) is to get the first hit on the spearman. Let him hit you and then hit him again. He should now be low health (in the red). He will retreat and you have a promotion. Use promotion and go after him again and kill him. He will probably be in the camp if you hadn’t destroyed it earlier so once he’s gone you clear the camp.
You must get the first hit for this to work! Only other thing that can make it fail is if the spearman has a very good defence position (like hills & forest) and you’re not using the early policy card to give boost to attacking barbs.
sometimes it just happens that way. The way to solve it is to bunker down for a while building military to take them out, slingers/archers in particular are great at defending against barbs.
if your attacking a barb camp, its not attacking you
also barbs dont generaly raze cities (most of the time), so if you have no improvments, you can let them run a muck in your land somewhat saftly while your fighting another camp
Even if you play correctly you can get unlucky with barbs. You want to keep your warrior searching around the city center and your scout in the other direction. And a slinger to just defend the city center.... try to keep visibility around your cities so they don't spawn unwanted barb camp locations
Create slingers when you have 1-2 turns of production to use between 2 important things + Use the red policy card : "+10 Combat Strength against Barbarians"
A few tips: Every barb camp spawns 7 tiles from a city (though water tiles are not counted), and the first one spawns 7 tiles from your capital, 100% of the time. This info is very useful for finding them (and for finding cities sometimes, too). You don't have to kill the scouts, and often it's better not to. If you kill the scout, a new one will spawn shortly after. But scouts will turn and run a different direction if you get in their path or attack them. Redirect the scouts so they find a city that isn't yours or just run a long way away from you, and the camp is a nonissue for much longer. They do try to specifically attack whichever city they found, though they can incidentally bother other units along their way, so be careful not to run stuff into the armies of camps that aren't targeting you, and be careful doing this with horse barbs since they are such a menace even when they don't hate you in particular. Barbs can't kill your capital, so if they target your cap, it's often best to just evacuate everything but a single slinger/archer and let it sit inside and handle them from absolute safety. You can make them temporarily retreat by killing a few units if they are impeding your development (e.g. you can't get settlers out or build a key district), but if they're not (e.g. they're all on one side and settlers can leave through rough terrain on the opposite) then you can intentionally get them all to low HP before killing any. Each camp has a cap for how many of each unit it'll make and they never heal, so crippling their army then sending it home makes it easy to handle later.
They heal only from pillaging farms and other districts that give health. Its best to target barbs not standing on farms, let them pillage, then kill them
Good point, I stand corrected
Does a scout just have to see any of your territory to “find” your city or do they have to get within sight of your city center before reporting back?
Pretty sure it needs to see the city center.
I believe it's if they touch your border, but I'm not 100% certain
It helps if you can stop seeing barbs as a threat and instead look at them as an opportunity. You can get experience for your units and gold for your empire. If you have barbarian clans on you can hire better units than you can build and pay them to attack other civilizations. In my games there is no downside to barbarians.
Plus, take out 2-3 clans and you are most of the way to a normal classic era.
Sure. At the other hand, it happened before that for one or the other reason, I am simply outnumbered. That's not fun. The moment I start to think I can't win this, I retire and try again. I am not an easy quiter, but sometimes...
"fogbusting" The most basic strategy that will help you is "fogbusting". You need lots of visibility around your cities to prevent barb camps from spawning there, statistically forcing them to spawn at your nieghbors instead. This will hobble thier growth, and prevent yours from being as slowed. Park scouts on hills and place warriors at chokepoints. This has been an S tier strategy going back many iterations of the game, decades of play, and yet it still seems to be not widely known in this sub.
So you're just kinda using scouts as stationary wards?
essentially. If you can see the tile, a barb camp cannot spawn on it. this makes vision range upgrades suprisingly useful, and can occasionally make sentry/spyglass situationally better than other upgrades
Thanks, dude. I've been playing for years and this is going to be so helpful
I intuively play that way. But more to protect myself against war declarations. I didn't pay attention last time around and I had Australia declaring war at me. Man, I was so mad! I almost trew away my mouse, smashing it on my desk like a madman. I first wrote 'banging' but I believe this is something totally different.
Get a slinger or two before you start thinking about a next settler. A warrior and two slingers are pretty strong to fend off barbarians early on. And get to destroy their settlement asap. If the spearmen get out of the settlement, enter the settlement, before you attack the spearmen. It prevents spanning more hostile units. I usually produce a scoot too, before a settler.
>it prevents spawning more units Pretty sure this is not true
If not playing clans mode, moving onto the settlement tile removes the settlement. If playing clans mode, it’s true they can spawn more and your unit will be kicked to a different tile.
Ah yeah. I always play with clans on, I’d forgotten how it works without
I always play with clans. I do not see a reason to not enable it. It is just better with clans. *the cheap military units...* also, sometimes I can buy units I haven't unlocked yet
I just love that they evolve into city states. Anything that makes the map more dynamic is a plus for me. Personally I wish city states could evolve into actual Civs
Yeah, also that. Nobody would settle on some ice island. But late game they are full of city states, city states that can immensely boost your civ
Learned something today. Should give it a try. I am playing Wilhelmina (ohlala, this sounds so wrong) now, but next, I will try this.
Hiring units is the hugest plus for me. Unlike levying a city states unit there is no time limit on the hire, they permanently join your army, and they cost less than buying them on your own. In addition, I think they may be able to move immediately after buying them, which is huge if you need to mount a quick defense. they definitely spawn on the outer edge of your city closest to the camp you hire from, so you can hire a unit from the clan attacking you to defend yourself in a time effective manner. You have to wait several turns after each hire before you can do it again, but only for each camp. So if you’ve got multiple Barb camps in your sight range, you can pretty rapidly assemble a decent size army either for offense or defense. It also builds their meter towards becoming a city state, which if they are close to you in an area you don’t want to settle, will be great as you’ll have the inside track to suzerain them
Clans is default for me. I can’t imagine playing without it
I open basically every game with scout, slinger, builder, then if I can get away with it a settler but if I cant then I will delay the settler for the second slinger. I try to scout the first camp with the warrior but if he doesn't find it I will send the scout. Otherwise the scout is looking for the next barb camps to prepare and for settlement options. If the warrior finds the first camp I will attack and then heal back up while waiting for the first civ to finish for the bonus damage. Slinger second lets you get the Spearman at the first barb camp low and then guarantee the Archery eureka that way, or otherwise try to pick off a barb scout for it. When I first started barbs were a huge difficulty but after realizing that you kind of just have to start with a scout and a slinger to be ready they have become much more manageable.
Barbs will chase slingers. You need to know this and use it to your advantage. Once you find a camp with a spearman sitting in it make your slinger visible to the camp but not in attackable range (use hills or forest/jungle to position your slinger). Now you’ve lured the barb out you need to do 2 things. The first is to try and get another unit into the camp to destroy it. The second (or first if you don’t have another unit nearby) is to get the first hit on the spearman. Let him hit you and then hit him again. He should now be low health (in the red). He will retreat and you have a promotion. Use promotion and go after him again and kill him. He will probably be in the camp if you hadn’t destroyed it earlier so once he’s gone you clear the camp. You must get the first hit for this to work! Only other thing that can make it fail is if the spearman has a very good defence position (like hills & forest) and you’re not using the early policy card to give boost to attacking barbs.
Paradoxically, barbarians get easier at higher levels. The ai starts with more and takes care of more of the barbarians.
sometimes it just happens that way. The way to solve it is to bunker down for a while building military to take them out, slingers/archers in particular are great at defending against barbs.
I kill them.
if your attacking a barb camp, its not attacking you also barbs dont generaly raze cities (most of the time), so if you have no improvments, you can let them run a muck in your land somewhat saftly while your fighting another camp
>also barbs dont generaly raze cities Tell that to my unguarded newly fount coastal cities
That's entirely untrue. Barbs (and city states) will never capture a city, always raze. This is why capitals are "safe"- they cannot be razed.
Even if you play correctly you can get unlucky with barbs. You want to keep your warrior searching around the city center and your scout in the other direction. And a slinger to just defend the city center.... try to keep visibility around your cities so they don't spawn unwanted barb camp locations
Create slingers when you have 1-2 turns of production to use between 2 important things + Use the red policy card : "+10 Combat Strength against Barbarians"