About barbarians

[ViterboKnight]

It seems that it hasn't been changed with patch, so it's not about the patch, but about the game itself.

Several things that are quite evident about barbarians:

1. Barbarian units and camps span since turn 0, and sometimes camps are guarded by advanced units (like horsemen).
2. Barbarian units span extremely quickly.
3. Barbarian units tend to be quite advanced, in comparison with the actual civs's units.
4. Barbarian units and camps tend to span even in single tiles covered with fog of war.
5. Barbarian camps are alerted by scouts, that are extremely fast units.

All these points make barbarians to be a great trouble, probably the greatest issue of early game and possibly of the entire game.
This is not necessarily bad. Actually, it poses an interesting challenge for quite a long time in a game.
However, I think some little adjustments are needed in order to avoid barbarians to constantly be the strongest power in the game.

1. Wait a little before starting spawning them. Wait at least 5 turns (so the AI has time to found first city, and every civ has time to move a couple of tiles before being attacked)
2. Make barbarians spawning depend on difficulty level. Chieftain players risk to be overwhelmed by barbarians in just a few dozen of turns. Beginners should have easier time in this game.
3. Advanced barbarian units should appear after a certain number of turns. Wait at least 30-40 turns.
4. The scout mechanism is nice, but it is quite unmanageable as it is now. A scout just appears, sees you and flees back, without any way to stop him. At least, make him wait at least one turn in place, before fleeing.
5. Single fog-covered tiles are very common, expecially inbetween your own land, and in such places a barbarian camp eventually appears for sure, making fog-busting necessary and (in these terms) annoying. Chance to barbarian camp to appear should be reduced in single fogged tiles.

What do you think of these points?
Sorry for bad english!!

 

[Kelmort83]

Hum, this make me thinkof Game of the Month 2 with Gorgo. If you didnot scout your island early to clear the camp, by turn 40 I would get stormed by massive barbarian army. Instead, when I made a team to care of them, I would be able to expand and own the whole island b4 turn 100.

My suggestion is to change your build order for now.

Warrior / Scout / Scout could fix this.

 

[KmDubya]

My suggested build order would be slinger/slinger/slinger then either builder or settler. Tech path is Animal Husbandry and Archery. Use starting warrior to find a barbarian camp and kill with slinger to boost archery then upgrade the 3 slingers to archers. That gives you some decent firepower which can focus fire a warcart in one turn.

When you can make some cheap scouts to set to fog busting between your cities and extending your LoS such that any barbarian camps that spawn are 5+ tiles from your borders which will give you enough time to divert some troops to handle them.

If you get a horde coming at you just hunker down with your archers around your city on defensive terrain and shoot. Take the military card with the +5 vs barbarians to start with.

The barbarians in ciVI are my favorite of all the civ games. They keep it exciting, you just need to prepare yourself.

 

[gimper42]

I was rolling new maps and exploring them with the starting units last night. One thing I noticed was that the barbarian units never tried to attack my starting units. This might not be a 100% thing, but after a while of noticing this ( I rolled 30 maps ) I began trying to get my settler taken by a barbarian. They would not do it. I would move the settler directly next to a barbarian scout and it would move away every single time. Same with the camps. The spearman inside the camp would not attack my warrior or try to capture my settler if I placed them directly next to the camp.

I agree that barbarians are the clear and present danger to the player on just about any map. They just don't seem interested in your starting units. At least not until you have founded your first city.

Edit: this was on Immortal difficulty.

 

[c4c6]

I began trying to get my settler taken by a barbarian. They would not do it. I would move the settler directly next to a barbarian scout and it would move away every single time.

Methinks that is not really new. I did such tests with civ1 or civ2. IIRC you could loose the game only after you built at least a city (and a few units?!).

Also AI didn't attack you the first 20(?) or so turns.

 

[gimper42]

Methinks that is not really new. I did such tests with civ1 or civ2. IIRC you could loose the game only after you built at least a city (and a few units?!).

Also AI didn't attack you the first 20(?) or so turns.

I didn't get into Civ that early. I started with 5 and in that game the barbarians are merciless regardless of when or where they find your opening settler. Sometimes you could get away with walking by an encampment if you stayed 2 tiles away. But more than half the time that unit would run out and capture you straight away.

It is definitely different in 6. I did some more tests and it seems that turn 20 might be the safety cutoff from barbarians in 6. After rolling 37 maps on Immortal difficulty I finally got my settler captured by a barbarian warrior on turn 22. I had been milling about around his encampment for a while before that. The warrior spawned on 21 and took my settler on 22 and that sent my game to the defeat screen. In 5 you were not defeated if your settler was taken. Not technically, anyway.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Barbarian camps do not spawn horsemen first thing, in a game immortal or below, but they can come earlier than you can build horsemen, if you've made such tech choices, king or above. Camps don't spawn horsemen at all until a scout with an alert (exclamation point) returns from some border, and this doesn't need to be "your" border". Once the camp has spawned a couple horsemen, or horse archer or whatever, it runs out of production unless another scout brings another alert back. Therefore, if you kill the scouts before they return, you will get no extra bad barbarian spawn, if you position your military so the scout cannot see a border there will be no bad barbarian spawn, if you kill what bad barbarian spawn comes, it won't make more, unless you leave it go to make more scouts and keep allowing them to return with alerts.

They're speed bumps. They require you to put military in your early build order and use them appropriately. If you have 4ish military units patrolling effectively, you will suffer very little bad barbarian attacks. If you have one military and you build builders, settlers, districts early, you're asking to get wrecked. This is going to also be true for boat barbarians.

 

[c4c6]

In 5 you were not defeated if your settler was taken. Not technically, anyway.

I wouldn't be astonished, if without any city AND without any settler your remaining warrior got always a settler when he managed to enter a goody hut.

If you have 4ish military units patrolling effectively, you will suffer very little bad barbarian attacks. If you have one military and you build builders, settlers, districts early, you're asking to get wrecked.

I'd say: "Works as designed."

[Nevertheless right now other parts may "Work as implemented". ]

 

[gimper42]

I wouldn't be astonished, if without any city AND without any settler your remaining warrior got always a settler when he managed to enter a goody hut.

That could never happen on Deity - you cannot receive free units from goody huts in 5 on the higher settings. However, I did once or twice manage to recapture my settler from barbarians with the starting warrior. Those games were just me trying to explore the map and were never intended to be played out to any sort of conclusion.