H3: Barbarian Breakout tips?

[Suleman]

I played Barbarian Breakout (Allies) with a friend on the second-hardest difficulty, and we couldn't quite beat the map.

I was red, as Dungeon, with Shakti as the starting hero. I built towards City Hall and bought Pillar Of Eyes, too. I tried to take every resource and item on my side but I lost some troops while doing so.
My friend played Tower, with Solmyr as the starting hero. He rushed mages and didn't take as many of his own nearby resources, instead expanding a bit into the computer opponent's territory.

Is there any general strategy that would help with this map?

[Kristo]

You might try investing in a Citadel early on. If you can encourage your early encounters to be at home, the moat will give you a nice edge against the AI. You could also pick your factions so they match up with the creature generators in your part of the map. IIRC, these are Castle and Rampart.

[Corbon]

Castle is the best choice for Red because you gain access to a couple related generators (Archers, Swordmen) and it's a strong faction anyway (not a complete Stronghold counter but still strong).

Basically, you need a pot of luck on this map, because you never know when the first attack is going to roll in and the enemy has a complete unupgraded line-up in the first week. My Castle has often been attacked on Week 1 (I always play on Hard) and not having castle walls and at least 3 different stacks at that point is almost a certain game over, you might even get gang-banged from green and blue. On the other hand, attacks may occur after several weeks, leaving you to build at your leasure.

Don't bother defending the gold mine in the South and don't try too hard for the grail, your first main object should be defeating green to have a single frontier.

[Monte Cristo]

Yes, Castle for Red and Rampart for Tan. Red starting hero Orrin {Archery}. City Hall first, as you will really need funds on this map. If Archers Tower was pre-built, build Barracks and Monastery on days 6/7. Thats if you were not attacked. This is only one basic strategy for this map, other players may be able to give you better strategy's. The thing about map is that if the wandering level 5 or 6 monster join Green or Bllue, and the first attack comes early in week 2, you are in big trouble. I played it last night and 14 Master Genie's were after joining Green army, and he attacked on Week 2 Day 2. Start New Game instantly I did. Hope this is of some help to you.....

[BoardGuest808888]

He, I remember Banedon made a topic for this as well. He made me curious as hell that I played this map on one occasion.

What I can say about this map is, you got your enemy a high level barbarian on the offensive.

However, your enemy is mainly a 1 hero full army. He got no decent backup, and other barbarians produced in their stronghold are not really that much strong.

What I did is playing on the defensive for as long as possible. I was doing it with fortress & Bron (which faction not incidentally I'm best at & hero with certain handsome bonus).

I was able to hold the barbarians for about 1 months, including decimating the strongest starting barbarian without having to go down. The frozen land to the south does some help in delaying their attacks for a day or two which help a little.

After that much time, I went down with enough mighty gorgons to wipe their entire barbarian crap back to wherever they supposed to be.

What I can say are;
1. You play it defensively. You're not supposed to be aggresive, because the barbarians already are. And because of their more favorable pre-conditioning, you'll be out-aggresived anyway.

2. You play it with towns which are cheap and easily defensible. Your best shot might be Rampart, Fortress or Castle. Going for high-cost Tower or Dungeon is really risky. I prefer Fortress because then you got no moral penalty if you combine your troops with whatever remaining in the barbarian's stronghold once you capture one.

3. Don't go for either of this one:
Shooters (especially if you can't defend them well). The barbarians started with like 12 attacks(!) and given shooters' low HP & defense, even their orcs would outshoot whatever shooters you got.
Hi-level creatures. You'd better go with upgraded low level ones. When I played with Fortress, I got nothing more scary than mighty gorgon because wyverns and hydra are way too expensive.

4. Fight it like there's no next day. If your gnolls or dwarves or centaurs get wiped out, so be it. You're going to get them in droves each week anyway. The important thing is, you put the strongest enemies out of equation.

5. Don't invest too much in your town. Try to get into your enemies town instead and buy from their towns. By this, you deny them their weekly monster allowance and capitol build as well.