Barbies: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Them But Were Afraid to Ask.

[Achab]

Some facts I learned about the barbarians and their hordes. Be sure to add your own discoveries, thoughts etc

Barbarians

• Have culture and religion of the very original values of their home province.
• Have civilization rating of their home province.
• Their power rises in the province continuously. At double rate in a colonized province (0.20/0.40).
• The rising chance is 5 x barbarian power in a province.
• They have civilization rating of the province they rised from.
• They have culture and religion of the original (474 AVC) stats of the province they risen from.
• Destroy Colonies.
• Dont destroy colonies with population 7+.
• Pillage civilization by difference between their civ and 50 times the number of cohorts.
• Barbies of civ rating 50+ dont pillage.
• Hoard gold from occupied and sieged provinces.
• Can be bashed for the gold they colected and 0.1 slaves per cohort.
• Can change unowned province religion and culture as they pass them.
• When they occupy all the provinces of a nation they take over, changing goverment to military tribe and country culture and religion to that of their horde. The horde cohorts become army of the conquered nation. This is not Game Over, as player still retain control of the nation. The provinces are not converted.
• When they occupy only some provinces of a nation they can be persuaded to create a client state under their own banner or they declare independence after some time anyway. All the new military tribe nation provinces are force converted to culture and religion of the barbarians.
• When they accept offer to settle you gain 0.2 freemen per cohort settled in the occupied provinces.
• They are more easily persuaded to accept your offer when you have bigger army next province. They are unlikely to accept the offer when the horde is currently retreating from a lost battle.

 

[Emperor Leo]

Some really good facts there, Achab! Some of these I didn't know, so thanks!

 

[unmerged(106806)]

Some questions:

- what happends with the slaves you capture from killing barbies? I know where the money goes , but where do the slaves go? To the province? To the capital? To the region?
- is it better to settle barbies? So you get more freemen and thus more MP? Or is it better to kill and enslave them?

Kthx!

 

[Achab]

Some questions:

- what happends with the slaves you capture from killing barbies? I know where the money goes , but where do the slaves go? To the province? To the capital? To the region?
- is it better to settle barbies? So you get more freemen and thus more MP? Or is it better to kill and enslave them?

Kthx!

The captured slaves are spread between all of your provinces.

Settling baries requires you allow them to siege and occupy the province(s) 1st. After any successful siege the province loses 2.5% of its population. Also the civilization of the province is likely to drop, unless the barbies are actually civilized. So you should do some calculations prior determining whether it is profitable to settle them.

 

[unmerged(173060)]

I think they only check to spawn the 1st of each month?

Point 1 and 6 in your list are the same by the way.

 

[Hardradi]

Good post Achab.

This post has some interesting observations in relation to the clan changes arising from barbarian takeovers: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11279869&postcount=105

 

[SirGrotius]

Haha. Helpful information.

 

[UniversalWolf]

The captured slaves are spread between all of your provinces.

Interesting you posted this, because I've been experimenting a bit with barbarians lately; specifically I've been farming/hunting them for slaves. I've found out that this is a very viable strategy under the right circumstances. One reason it works is that the AI never does this.

I began a game as Lusitania and luckily had a 10 martial general. Lusitania begins with horses and two cohorts of cavalry. I disbanded my single militia cohort and made as many cavalry and horse archers as I could without going bankrupt. Then I began hunting barbarians.

Since I only had two provinces, my slave population rose really fast; and since slaves produce tax revenues, I soon had a thriving economy. After converting most of my freemen to citizens, converting to Military Republic and later Aristocratic Republic, and eventually colonizing the three provinces around Olissipo, I have a strange society with a small number of citizens at the top ruling over huge slave populations. Obviously manpower is an issue, but I make so much money in taxes I can afford lots of mercenaries if I need them. I'm trying to get to civic tech 5 as fast as I can so I can implement the Emancipation idea, which should take care of my manpower dearth.

The biggest problem is slave revolts. They seem very infrequent as long as I keep my stability positive, but the last time I was in negative stability I had a 22 cohort slave uprising. Still, every chance I get I hunt for barbarian hordes.

One thing I notice about this is that freemen are not desirable. You need them for manpower and to convert into citizens, but they don't give you anything in return. They don't generate money or research. Optimally, you want to have the lowest possible proportion of freemen you can get by with and survive. You want lots of citizens and lots of slaves, and just enough freemen that you're still converting them to citizens and you aren't crushed for manpower.

 

[UniversalWolf]

As a followup...

I got a bit bored with the Lusitania I'd created, so I switched to Rhodes to see if I could use the same slave-farming strategy. Rhodes obviously has only one province and no access to mercs at all. As my Lusitania game had progressed, Rhodes managed to stay safe and independent as most of the other greek minors were being gobbled up by Macedonia and and Egypt. Egypt in particular has gotten really big. They crushed Carthage and now own all of North Africa.

Anyway, slave-farming is awesome with Rhodes. In some ways this is the most fun time I've had playing EVR. I made a cavalry army that was so big it ran my meager manpower down pretty low and had me running budget deficits when it was fully funded. Luckily my tax income skyrocketed once I started crushing barb hordes. It only took two or three and my deficits disappeared.

I'm right around AVC 600 now, and Rhodes has 12 citizens, 13 freemen, and 47 slaves. I'm trading amber from Roman Paleoveneti so I'm getting a tax income in the 50s and I have about 1500 gold in the bank. I can afford a huge navy and lots of diplomacy. I'm also first in tech because I have only one province. If I can manage to get some papyrus I'll rocket ahead of everyone. Eventually I'll convert most of those slaves to freemen, which means I'll have tons of manpower - enough to make Rhodes an impregnable fortress if it isn't already.

The only caution to this strategy is that having very few freemen gives the populists an attraction bonus. I switched from Citizenship to Emancipation in order to balance things out a bit.

 

[richie]

Nice post, Achab.

One thing I have to add: in VV 2.1, when you defeat horde consisting more than one barbarian armies, you're only rewarded by getting slaves from the very first, original one. Very frustrating, especially if you finally slashed this mega 50 or even larger snowball knocking at your door.
I don't know if that was changed/fixed in 2.2 or 2.3 (hopefully yes)

 

[Cheexsta]

Another thing to add: when you defeat a barbarian army (wipe it out in combat or they accept a demand for surrender), 1/3 of the slaves you gain go straight to your capital and the rest are distributed amongst your provinces.

And richie: I don't think it's been addressed, I recall fighting a few barbarian armies before and being a little surprised at the resulting slave numbers. Not 100% sure, though.

 

[markmid]

I think they only check to spawn the 1st of each month?

Point 1 and 6 in your list are the same by the way.

Is there anyway to mod this?