Barbarian Buildings

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Barbarian Buildings

Important Note
The Barbarian race gain +100 Gold for destroying enemy buildings.

Fortress
Like most keeps in the game, the Fortress produces the Barbarians' builder and offer some upgrades as it levels up, keeping some of the lower tier units in the game as it goes on. Also like most keeps, it's also large and time consuming to build, and with a new research to be had at each additional level, the Fortress can find things to do that can delay tiring. Fortunately, the Barbarians have nearly no need for crystal (effectively removing one mine type from the list of mines to fill), access to income upgrades in tier 2 and cheap units, which all means the Barbarians don't need to rely heavily on Thralls for mine-filling to carry them into the late game. As such, there isn't much need to build multiple Fortresses in a single base.

Tower (Barbarian)
Barbarian towers aren't the best in the game, but they're certainly not the worst. They possess great hit points but quite a poor offensive attack, as well as costing a considerable amount of stone. However, the Barbarian race acquire free gold upon destroying an enemy building and the race has little use for stone outside of buildings. This makes it easy for them to manage the cost of building their towers.

The real downfall for their towers is the poor piercing attack. Not only is 25 damage poor for a tower, but the attack type cannot be changed within the Barbarian race due to their only missile unit that can garrison towers also possessing a piercing attack. This means that piercing resistant units that would sponge the tower's attacks at the start of the game can still sponge those attacks right through to the end. However, there is still use of upgrading the towers with Barbarians, for they change the missile fired to their own spears. This will give the towers the exact same traits the Barbarian infantry would have - the Carry Through and even the Ignore Missile Resistance (when researched). This allows the towers to overcome some common tower-counter units that do not have a special resistance to piercing attacks, such as Dwarf Runners and Husks. In addition to that, the Carry Through trait batting off the incredible range the tower has can be incredibly lethal - skewing many enemy infantry with only a single attack.

Unfortunately, garrisoning the standard Barbarian infantry for this "lethal" attack also comes with a horrible side affect - missiles with the Carry Through trait always fail to hit units at point-blank range and causes the following Carry Through hits to also miss. This means that once an enemy unit has made melee contact with a garrisoned tower, then the tower becomes offensively useless! As such, you'll either need to wall your towers in to keep melee units away from them (although fliers will be unaffected by this) or place non-garrisoned towers ahead of them, drawing enemy units towards them first. Regardless of what you do, you'll probably end up un-garrisoning your Barbarians at some point.

Overall, the Barbarians' towers are capable of dealing immense damage when upgraded, but can be easily exploited through piercing resistant units and fast melee units that can even render the towers useless. This makes for a large need of support and management for the towers to be effective.

Camp
The Camp produces nearly all the units available to the Barbarian race, making it their core production building. This, of course, means you'll have need for many of them within your base. Fortunately, the Camp isn't a large building, so it is indeed plausible to fit many around your base without much hassle. However, the Camp does cost quite a bit of resources that can really get in your way very early game, especially when you add in the cost for the very useful Training research that it also offers. The Camp can also research another skill - Gladiators, but due to its limited effects, it can be pushed back and researched at a later time.

Scout Tower
Like most scout tower style buildings in the game, the Barbarians' Scout Tower comes with minor aerial defense and offers view sight upgrades, as well as being small and weak. The Scout Tower doesn't actually offer anything more than that, which does result in the building becoming completely useless in games without Fog of War or / and Hidden Map - it's poor aerial defense is simply too weak for it to be of any true merit to its existence.

Mill
The Income and Trade researches are truly amazing skills that any race who get them will always value their presence. With Barbarians not having much need for crystal and being rewarded free gold upon demolishing enemy buildings, the Barbarians can make excessive use of the Trade skill and, with the Income skills also researched, the Mill massive boosts the Barbarians' economy and should always be the first building to build in tier 2. The building is also quick to build, but its somewhat-high cost can negate any form of speed tiring / rushing that would have otherwise cropped up at this point. The Mill's small size and no produced units is another of its great assets, allowing for easy placement within your base. This does mean that it wont stop you from defeat, but that wont necessarily prevent your enemy from destroying it, for they too would know of its importance for the Barbarians, as well as the cost to replace one.

Corral
The Corral is a cheap and average sized building that allows for the production of the Barbarian cavalry units, as well as powering them up with a total of four researches. However, it's not just their cavalry units that are affected by the researches it offers, the Pegasus is also affected, largely improving its already decent traits to intimidating levels. The Corral may not actually produce any units, but by offering four researches that affect three different units, allowing for the production of two cavalry units, which includes one of the Barbarians strongest units, the Corral can do a lot for the Barbarian race and shouldn't be discarded based on its limited production value or the usual ineffectiveness of cavalry units in general - as upgraded Riders become faster than Lizard Riders, making their speed actually noticeably different to standard infantry, and Pegasi and Warlords become powerful threats.

Nest level 1
At such an early point in the game the Nest has limited use, being restricted to producing just Eagles. However, Eagles can be useful in two ways - a replacement for Thralls in regards to building, and offering additional aerial aid to the standard Barbarian infantry - who can be easily countered by flying units with psyche effects, especially when they show up early game (Daemons and Archons via Temples). If you're playing a game where such units wont be making an appearance, then you can probably just stick to building a single Nest at this point in the game, only to obtain an Eagle or two for building purposes.

Altar of Tempest
The Altar of Tempest serves a few important roles for the Barbarians. Firstly, the building is the Barbarians' main research building, offering a variety of differing researches. Secondly, it allows production for a second basic flier but, more importantly, it produces / summons the Barbarian Titan. Usually you would only build one of each research building, but considering that the building also produces units, it is entirely plausible to build multiple Altars of Tempest right at tier 3. This allows for rapid researching and then doubles as a production factory for Lightning Hawks. What makes this even more practical is that the Altar of Tempest is a rather small building and doesn't cost much, especially since it requires the almost-unused crystal resource. Further more, as the only units it produces are all fliers, including their Titan, little thought is needed as to where to place the building, as the produced units wont ever get stuck on the lack of ground space.

Chieftain's Hut
Although expensive, the Chieftain's Hut is weak and quick to build. It's not particularly big, neither. However, there is no need to build multiples of them, for their only two purposes are allowing for the production of Warlords when present, and researching army limit upgrades where only one can be researched at a time. Such is the importance of both of these two purposes, that you will have need of this building and never would want to pass up on it. But, with the cost of the building and then the cost of the Horde researches, it can be difficult to get those power-ups in play, and it is certain to be something that will remain ongoing throughout the final course of the game. So don't expect the building to immediately populate your army to a continent covering mass.

Nest level 2
Upgrading the Nest for Barbarians gives them access to a glorious unit - the Pegasus. Although pretty average for most races, the Barbarians can upgrade their Pegasi with amazing speed and combat that cements their position in the Barbarian army as true aerial counters. This means Eagles loose what ever use they had for aerial support, but still will be sticking around for their building capabilities. Regardless, their place in the Nest's production queue is all but over, allowing you to upgrade all Nests to level 2 and have them produce Pegasi. And as they require only gold and crystal for production, resources that the Barbarians can throw around with little care, they can be massed to a reasonable extent - only really being limited by the number of level 2 Nests present.

Nest level 3
The Barbarians have such a great economy that making Dragons is a breeze. Further more, with the Bloodlust research in play, they can produce their Dragons faster than any other race, too. This all makes the Nest level 3 a powerful asset to the Barbarian race. Up until this point, the Barbarians have had almost no need for their crystal and allowed for easy production of their Pegasi. But with the Dragons' expenses, the Pegasi production will take a hit. However, the Dragons still have a long build time, even with the Bloodlust skill in play, and the Barbarians will still need aerial support. This means you don't need to upgrade all of your nests, as some would still only produce Pegasi.