Never worry about barbs in civ3 really.
Indeed they can take pop or destroy your current build (wich sucks if a settler is almost finished) but those are rather rare, usually they just take some gold. I have watched whole stacks (20+) of raging barbs enter my cities only to take gold.
If it kills a citizen, it does matter to me though, i truly hate it when they do. You know how important food is. However, fighting them costs more due to other things being delayed than losing a citizen.
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