a no barb nobling world is unpopular because there are a few scenarios that are totally out of your hands. regardless of your precautions and abilities, you can totally get screwed.
here are a few examples...
you start a world, go for a crazy sprint and farm non stop. being one of the 1st with a full nuke and train you go in for the kill
to someone beside you... at the sight of your train they restart because they have no troops. your loyalty is missed by 1 and you can't send another noble after cuz its barb. now you search even farther for a target... but you cleared your 15x15, whats next???
same situation as the 1st, you go crazy and sprint hard. instead of risking loosing the nobles, you decide to clear a village 1st.
once again at the sight of your nuke he either restarts, and you get stuck clear a big D barb to gain nothing but lost troops
or..
your nuke lands, kills all his troops, then he restarts.
either way you are dead in the water in this situation too. no troops, 4 nobles and no target. have fun.
this type of world makes almost no sense. barb nobling is bad in many players eyes, but is something noobs do
to grow villages for the bigger players. its also something bigger players do to cluster up in areas where barb noblers clustered up
tight to them. removing this, like moral and other settings seriously throws off a balance that tw needs.