Barbarian (Civ2)

Barbarians are a non-playable civilization in Civilization II, representing nomadic hordes; bandit, pirate, and rebel states; peasant, slave, and ethnic uprisings; and chichimeca of human history. They are permanently hostile to every other civilization in the game, and subject to several special rules.

Overview

Barbarians are the only red civilization and go eighth in turn order.

During game setup, the player selects the level of Barbarian activity from one of four options:

• Villages Only: Barbarians will only spawn from villages. Confers a 50-point penalty to the player score.
• Roving Bands: Barbarian raids are infrequent and their armies smaller. Confers a 25-point penalty to the player score.
• Restless Tribes: The 'baseline' level of barbarian activity.
• Raging Hordes: Barbarian armies are larger. Confers a 25 point bonus to the player score.

Every 16th turn or 4th Oedo year, during the 8th turn segment, Barbarian units appear on the map, in either unoccupied land or in ships at sea that make landfall, alarming nearby citizens. During other players' turn segments (human or AI), exploring villages may unleash hordes of Barbarians!

Personality

The Barbarians are almost mindlessly aggressive, but will often agree to spare an undefended city in exchange for a bribe.

Instead of developing or trading for technology, the Barbarians roughly match the tech level of the other civilizations. Near the beginning of the game, they will attack with Archers and Horsemen from Triremes; they quickly get Chariots and Legions; during the Renaissance, they gain Frigates; and, by the end of the game, they use Cavalry and Partisans.

Barbarian Leader

The Barbarian Leader is a unique unit that accompanies the horde, usually stacking itself under the closest offensive unit. If there are no nearby combat units, it will flee from other civilizations' cities and eventually disband.

If, however, a civilization kills the leader, it receives a gold reward based on the level of barbarian activity chosen at the game's start (50 for "Roving Bands" up to 150 for "Raging Hordes"), representing the leader's ransom from custody. Note that if the leader is not the active defender in a stack, no ransom is paid, eg. killing a stack of multiple leaders will only pay ransom once.

If a Barbarian Leader is bribed, it turns into a standard Diplomat, regardless of the player's technological level.

City list

Barbarians do not build cities but they can capture them, which then fly a red flag. A Barbarian city will only produce more of the military unit that captured it and experience very slow growth. However, there is a list of Barbarian city names in city.txt that consists of the names of various peoples of antiquity and the early Middle Ages who were often regarded as barbarians. A name will be chosen at random from this list to describe a Barbarian unit's tribe in the dialogue box that pops up when it is about to capture a city and offers the chance to ransom for its safety instead.

1. 17
2. Huns
3. Visigoths
4. Ostrogoths
5. Sueves
6. Angles
7. Saxons
8. Franks
9. Jutes
10. Burgundians
11. Avars
12. Vandals
13. Alans
14. Bulgars
15. Magyars
16. Frisians
17. Picts
18. Langobardi

Gameplay

Barbarian units can be bribed to defect. This is the cheapest way to obtain troops, as the bribe cost is lower than the given unit's build cost. This occurs because the formula for calculating bribe prices factors in the target civ's gold reserve and distance from capital. Since the Barbarians have neither, the costs for bribing their units will always be lower than those of other civilizations.

Barbarian units often outclass the Warriors that maintain order in many players' early cities. Instead of allowing the Barbarians to attack and win, reducing the population of the city each time, it can make more sense to have the city garrison flee the city or disband itself. The ransom the Barbarians demand from an empty city depends on the amount in the player's treasury, so it also makes sense to buy production or give gifts until the treasury has a value between 50• & 74• (any more and the Barbarians will simply take it anyway; any less and the Barbarians will simply sack the city rather than ask for a ransom). Similarly, if it turns out that the Barbarians cannot be reasoned with or destroyed in time, it makes sense to sell off the most valuable building in the city before it is taken. If a city does not have many buildings to lose, it is often cheaper in the early game to allow the Barbarians to capture it and bribe the entire city back afterwards than to pay the city's ransom or to purchase each of the attacking Barbarian units individually.

The Barbarians cannot be contacted by the foreign minister, but a Diplomat or Spy can establish an embassy at a Barbarian city once during the game, revealing interesting factoids such the Barbarian civilization's leader being Attila the Hun. As soon as that window is closed, it cannot be reopened or recreated.

Scenarios and modding

Main article: Modding (Civ2)/Barbarians

Barbarians use the city style assigned to the first civilization defined in the Rules.txt file, by default, the Romans.

Barbarians can technically be made playable through hacking an existing save game, however they were not designed for human play, and the game interface will suffer numerous bugs.

See also

• Barbarian in other games

References

• William Keenan, "The Barbarian Paper" v1.2, Civ2 Scenario League, 4 March 2011.