Advanced barbarians ruin my games (men at arms and crossbowmen 2000 BC)

Gonzo100100

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
18
Not long ago I was playing a game with bunch of mods, settling first few cities, having archers and warriors to defend myself suddenly a barbarian men at arms approaches!

I quit the game in rage and go on my life.

About a month later, yesterday a began a new game adding 2 additional mods:

“No Free Techs for Barbarians” that suppose to remove the starting barbarian techs so they don’t have any advantage and “Barbarian Tweaks” that reduces rate at which barbarians gain new technologies but increases their unit spawn rate.

I thought to myself, my annoying problem with advanced barbarians is solved but today being literally in the second turn of classical era (around 2000 B.C) I meet a crossbowman!

So, the mods clearly didn’t help.

I thought that maybe barbarian clans game mod is causing that but I doubt it because I used to play with that mode on and everything was alright.

Can someone help me understand what is causing those stupid barbarians to advance to medieval era so quickly? Any ideas?
 
The barbs keep up with the tech of the highest player in the game. You've got an AI beelining science. They tapped a single Medieval tech, so now the barbs globally are medieval. It supposed to be a mechanic meant to slow down runaways, I assume. In practice, it just promotes it because only the runaway can keep pace with the while the rest get slaughtered by next-era units.
 
None of these apply. I exclude Babylon from all my games and am generally leading or keeping up in Technologies in the Classical Era meet Barbarian Musketmen and am offered the opportunity to 'hire' Musketmen from a Barbarian Clan - a unit Two Eras in advance of any Civ in the game. I am certain it is some kind of broken interaction among the Mods, of which I use quite a few, but haven't been able to track it down yet. What does work is to delete the entire Barbarian Camp and all its units and place a new one in the same or near spot: the new Clan has units more in line with the general progress of the game.

Just another of the many, many reasons I haven't played more than 10 hours of Civ VI in the past three months . . .
 
I am also quite certain, that I am leading in the technology tree and I don’t have Babylon in my game, I have Gauls but I’m certain they don’t have men at arms because they are my direct neighbour and they are very weak compared to me and other AIs.

Now my question would be, because the talk is about barbarian clans. Do you think the issue will disappear if in my new game I turn off the barbarian clan mode?

To add my opinion about the game. The more I play, the more I dislike this game. I am an epic/marathon game speed player and I never had an opportunity to build and use GDRs before some sort of a bug ruins the game for me (I developed them in a quick game speed but that’s not the same). For example, maybe 6 months ago I was playing a really long campaign with a friend and suddenly realised that all my new districts have 999 turns to complete… Later when all the saves were overwritten with the bug present, I learned that “culture industry” policy is bugged and is causing the issue. So much time went to waste. This game has so many amazing mechanics but it all goes to waste if there is always little something that will ruin your experience.
 
I am also quite certain, that I am leading in the technology tree and I don’t have Babylon in my game, I have Gauls but I’m certain they don’t have men at arms because they are my direct neighbour and they are very weak compared to me and other AIs.
The thing is that Men-at-Arms are unlocked at Apprenticeship, which Gaul gets for free when they make their first Oppidum, so they tend to get them pretty early on.
 
So how do you get Barbarian DESTOYERS while the world is still learning to build rowboats?

(I always buy them, just for giggles)

Haven't seen tanks really early. Frigates, yes, Destroyes, oh yeah.
 
In fairness, historical "barbarians" often had better technology than the people they were invading. Historicity isn't enough to justify gameplay features, though. I, too, find it annoying when the barbarians too far ahead in technology. Even if I can handle them, the atmosphere is ruined by seeing advanced units too early.
 
In fairness, historical "barbarians" often had better technology than the people they were invading. Historicity isn't enough to justify gameplay features, though. I, too, find it annoying when the barbarians too far ahead in technology. Even if I can handle them, the atmosphere is ruined by seeing advanced units too early.
Among the early technologies that appeared first among 'Non-City-Builders' or Barbarians in Civ terms, were:
solid and spoked Wheels, carts, wagons and chariots.
Horseback riding
Composite bows used from horseback or chariots
Armored (heavy) cavalry with lances

So, in Civ terms, Horseback Riding, the Wheel, Horse Archers and Heavy Cavalry are all originally 'barbarian' Technologies or Units. The Man-at-Arms, Crossbowman, Frigate, Destroyer or Musketman - not so much.
 
Among the early technologies that appeared first among 'Non-City-Builders' or Barbarians in Civ terms, were:
solid and spoked Wheels, carts, wagons and chariots.
Horseback riding
Composite bows used from horseback or chariots
Armored (heavy) cavalry with lances

So, in Civ terms, Horseback Riding, the Wheel, Horse Archers and Heavy Cavalry are all originally 'barbarian' Technologies or Units. The Man-at-Arms, Crossbowman, Frigate, Destroyer or Musketman - not so much.
Well, OK, but at some point this is a game and not actual history.
 
Well, OK, but at some point this is a game and not actual history.
Just agreeing with your point more specifically.

And if you are not going to use history to make a historically-based game that advertises itself as such, what are you going to use? Fox News?

Seriously, (and slightly Off-Topic), I would like to see Civ VII ('cause we all know it's too late for anything in Civ VI) have a wider set of sources for technologies and civic/social policy changes. Why can't a Civ get a technology from a City State or near-by Barbarian Clan/Tribe? Why can't social polices spread from one Civ to another? Even if (or maybe Especially) if you don't particularly want to adopt that particular Social Policy? Like Religion, social, civic, and even technological changes to some extent should be Game Events you have to react to more than you can control.
 
Barb quadriremes (triremes? w/e can't remember) are the worst. Such warships were hugely expensive in resources and in the expertise required to design, construct, and support them just as modern warships are. Sure there is a such thing as piracy and capturing state warships but the early ancient era camps pumping out barb warships both ranged and melee that can easily destroy units and cities is egregiously absurd and has induced many a rage quit.
 
Barb quadriremes (triremes? w/e can't remember) are the worst. Such warships were hugely expensive in resources and in the expertise required to design, construct, and support them just as modern warships are. Sure there is a such thing as piracy and capturing state warships but the early ancient era camps pumping out barb warships both ranged and melee that can easily destroy units and cities is egregiously absurd and has induced many a rage quit.
There were plenty of pirate ships and the like back then, though. Why is this a problem?

I guess quads came a bit later, but the game doesn't have a more basic ranged ship. Barbarian tech levels up quickly in the early game when the AI races through the early techs, so it's no surprise that barbarians are spawning quadriremes in the ancient era. Unfortunate.

How bad is it at lower levels, though? I haven't played there in long time. Do the barbarians still evolve too quickly at Prince level?
 
There were plenty of pirate ships and the like back then, though. Why is this a problem?

I guess quads came a bit later, but the game doesn't have a more basic ranged ship. Barbarian tech levels up quickly in the early game when the AI races through the early techs, so it's no surprise that barbarians are spawning quadriremes in the ancient era. Unfortunate.

How bad is it at lower levels, though? I haven't played there in long time. Do the barbarians still evolve too quickly at Prince level?
Pirates in the Classical and Medieval (and, presumably, the Ancient Era but we don't have a lot of accounts to go by) were mostly about coastal raiding: sacking seaside villages, hauling away people and goods to sell elsewhere. Pirate/Barbarian ships, then, should be Melee and all have the ability to 'pillage' coastal tiles and, potentially, attack cities.
On the other hand, piracy was always all about Not Fighting. It was a Profit and Loss calculation every time, to get as much as you could without losing people and ships doing it. That put a premium, in all the Eras, on pirate/barbarian ships that were fast and maneuverable to get in and get out, and small to pull up on isolated beaches, grab whatever was handy and take off again. Battleships like Quadriremes were never part of that picture, or, in the 'Golden Age of Piracy' in the 17th century, were ships even as large as Frigates used much by pirates. Barbarian Kingdoms like the Philippine states of the Renaissance Era might have much larger ships and engage in piratical activities, but these were a long way from isolated Barbarian Camps - more like City States in game terms.

So, for a 'quick fix' I suggest that early Barbarian ships should have been Galleys from the start, but ALL Barbarian Ships should be Melee types with +1 Speed, -1 Combat Factor (-2 in Industrial and later Eras) and Coastal Raid capabilities: very dangerous if allowed to run loose along your coast, but not much danger to 'regular' warships.
Ideally there should be a separate line of Naval Barbarian Units, like the Classical Lembus or Liburnian, Medieval Xebec, Renaissance Sloop or Barque, Modern Gunboat, etc. - all Melee type, all able raid coastal tiles as well as Trade Routes and to 'hide' with varying degrees of proficiency but less combat power than their regular Navy opponents.
 
1. The mod Barbarian Tweaks is not aggressive enough. I set 99% myself because usually AI who unlocks tech decades ahead others cannot afford to produce or buy those units.
2. Changing galley strength from 30 to 20 solves the ridiculous siege problem and inbalance between land and navy and between galley and quadrireme.

with 99%, I have seen only once a single clan with musketeers when I got knights, while all other clans were still running with warriors or swordsmen.
 
Armored (heavy) cavalry with lances
The earliest large warhorses were a special breed (N...) from Iran/Persia and early lance called kontos were either from Greek/Macedonian in Bactria or Dahae, who were settled barbarians ruling over civilized peasants.

They can't really be considered barbarians in civ as the development required considerable state power and industry - cataphracts (prior to knights) had to be trained in rigid military formation (nothing like hunting), required combined arms, special horses and special armours (prior to mail). Scythians and later Sarmatians also controlled cities which can produce whatever not available on steppe.

Compare that to Xiongnu, who were really poor and denied access to even basic armor. The gap between settled and barbarians only grew wider since then. One missing piece in civ is the critical need for barbarians to trade with settled civilizations, without which their society could hardly function.
 
The earliest large warhorses were a special breed (N...) from Iran/Persia and early lance called kontos were either from Greek/Macedonian in Bactria or Dahae, who were settled barbarians ruling over civilized peasants.

They can't really be considered barbarians in civ as the development required considerable state power and industry - cataphracts (prior to knights) had to be trained in rigid military formation (nothing like hunting), required combined arms, special horses and special armours (prior to mail). Scythians and later Sarmatians also controlled cities which can produce whatever not available on steppe.

Compare that to Xiongnu, who were really poor and denied access to even basic armor. The gap between settled and barbarians only grew wider since then. One missing piece in civ is the critical need for barbarians to trade with settled civilizations, without which their society could hardly function.
The Nisean horses were not particularly large in the sense of taller, but they were huskier and able to carry more weight, which is why they were desirable. The former belief that 'large' horses able to carry armored men only developed late in the game is no longer tenable, however. The earliest horses encountered by humans and hunted for food, later domesticated and ridden, included horses up to 14 hands tall from skeletal evidence, or in the range of modern riding horses or medieval Coursers. And the Scythian Massagetae are reported by eye-witnesses at Gaugamela (Ptolemy Lagus later of Egypt, in fact) as 'armored men riding armored horses' - cataphracts, in fact, although they appear to have been armed with lighter lances rather than Hetairoi-style Kontos ('barge pole'). Nevertheless, Scythian graves dated to the 7th century BCE have both native iron swords and daggers and 'spears' up to 3 meters long with heavy points not suited for throwing, which therefore must have been used in close combat from horseback. Since these are virtually identical in length and weight to a medieval European knight's Lance, it's hard to assume they weren't used similarly. The slightly later Sarmatians, also from the steppe, were armored men with long, heavy lances that were hired by the thousands by the Imperial Romans after they had to adopt special formations and include 'lanciarii' - pikemen - in the Legions to counter the charge of the Sarmatians when they weren't in Roman pay. Lanciarii Sarmatii (Sarmatian lancers) appears several times in the Notitia Dignitorum, the list of the units and auxiliaries in the Imperial Roman army, to describe auxilary cavalry of Sarmatian origin.

Be careful about assuming that the steppe warriors, from the earliest times, couldn't produce high quality metalwork. From 3000 - 2500 BCE pastoral metal-workers in the Yamnaya and similar pastoralists from the modern Kuban to the area of western Ukraine were producing high-quality tools and weapons in bronze, copper and early iron and decorative metal objects in copper, lead, silver and gold. Among other things, they produced bronze saws that allowed them to cut cleanly across the grain of wood and produce the first solid and spoked wheels and the light chariot, which was then spread from Central Asia to China, India, the Middle East and Europe (2100 - 1800 BCE, first spoked wheel chariots found in graves of the Sintashta culture, a pastoral group living north of the Caspian, by 1700 BCE the chariot had spread to Shang Dynasty China, by 1650 BCE to Egypt via the Hyksos from the Levant, by 1600 BCE the chariot appears in Mycenean Greece, by 1500 BCE spread to the Middle East via the Mitanni, whose aristocracy appears to have been Indo-European speakers off the steppes themselves, by 1300 BCE spoked wheel chariots appear in Iberia and Sweden, Poland, Germany and central Europe)

And the Xiongnu might have been poor, but the Chinese traded with them and the Yuezhi to get good cavalry horses and the Xiongnu Confederation beat the stuffing out of the Han Chinese armies in 200 BCE.

Absolutely agree about trade, though. The pastoral societies spread over wide areas of territory, which made them the consumate 'middle men' between settled cultures and the principle agents for moving goods long distances for profit. That dynamic appears not only on the central Asian steppes, but also in groups such as the Comanche of North America, who managed a 'trade empire' between the Mississippi valley and New Mexico that gave them access to industrial manufactured goods and also markets for their horses, because, like the Yuezhi and Xiongnu to the Chinese, the Comanches were providing horses for a nice profit to everyone from the native Americans on the plains to the north to the American settlers in (modern) Arkansas and Texas.

IF Civ is ever going to get pastoral cultures right - or at all - the trading dynamic has to be part of the model.
 
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