Barbarians[]
Barbarians are present in every Civilization game, but in a world so wild and impervious, they role is heavily increased. There are typical barbarians units roaming in the wilderness: they will sometimes coalesce in small barbarian armies, or found a city. Sometimes the barbarian city, after a latency period, will start to gain culture and work the territory, going as far as to build a road network, as in the vanilla game. If a barb unit finds a goody hut, it may settle in as a defender. A new feature is the lair, one type for each basic barbarian unit type, that will spawn units until removed, like Graveyard for Skeleton. It may be advisable to keep some lairs around, as training fodder for your troops.
Several Random Events may trigger the creation of particular barbarian units (please refer to page). For example, a Castle may be haunted by a Ghost, or a Smoke (a feature that appears in a forest on the brink of catching fire) may create 3 Barbarian Mistform. Sometimes the random events are cruel; the created units pose a serious challenge to the player. The described group of Mistform, invisible to all units, will wander in your lands killing undefended and ignare workers and settlers for a long time.
Barbarian faction[]
Even if barbarian cities will never upgrade to minor civilization (it happens in some mods like Revolutions), the Barbarian faction plays an important role in the game. Many Heroes and Events are keyed off of them. Some Civilizations have a Barbarian trait, that allow them to start at peace with the barbarians until they become too powerful and lose the wild flavour. If you start at peace with the barbarians, it may be tricky to declare war to them when you want.
In order to get the "declare war" dialog you must find a barbarian unit that is not within barbarian territory, and then move into its tile by right-clicking on the barbarian unit (or right-click-and-hold on any tile, drag the targeting circle onto the barbarian unit's tile, and then release the right button). If you attempt to move into the barbarian unit's tile by clicking the goto icon (or pressing the shortcut key for that action, <G>) then the dialog will not appear. Also, if the barbarian unit is in barbarian territory then the dialog will not appear.
Alternatively, if you attack any HN barbarian unit (which will typically only be animals) then you will receive a declare war dialog regardless of where the barbarian unit is located.
After the early stages of the game there may not be any animals left and it may be difficult to find other barbarian units outside of barbarian territory. In this situation it is possible to use spells to declare war on the barbarians. For example, if you cast Scorch while in barbarian territory you will declare war on the barbarians. Likewise, if you strike a barbarian unit with an AoE damage spell (such as Maelstrom) then you will declare war.
Advanced barbarians[]
In the late game, free land is still available and if Raging Barbarian option is activated, incredibly advanced barbarian units will spawn. You may encounter Tier 4 Barbarian Units
| Barbarian unit |
Basic equivalnet |
Nature's Revolt | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goblin Worker | Woker | Wolf | |
| Goblin | Scout | Lion | |
| Skeleton | Warrior | Panther | |
| Lizardman | Hunter | Tiger | |
| ? | Axeman | Bear | |
| Orc spearmen | |||
| Orc Axemen | |||
| Wolf Rider | |||
| Goblin Chariot | Chariot | ||