Barbarian Invasions?

[Art Morte]

I think the barbs are fun enough, it's only those mad horsemen spawns that are over the top... Plus there's nothing more pleasing than seeing a barbarian settler that someone else has lost and you can get for yourself.

 

[LedStone]

Yeah and I'm not sure why they put the cap on xp from barbarians but not xp from City State units. You can declare war and make peace at will so getting the xp isn't too risky. I know in Civ V multiplayer I lost a game because another guy was getting his longbowmen roided on xp from city state units. Already annoying longbowmen had the +1 range promotion and damage bonuses, so spoiler alert I lost that game lol

 

[Art Morte]

Yeah and I'm not sure why they put the cap on xp from barbarians but not xp from City State units. You can declare war and make peace at will so getting the xp isn't too risky. I know in Civ V multiplayer I lost a game because another guy was getting his longbowmen roided on xp from city state units. Already annoying longbowmen had the +1 range promotion and damage bonuses, so spoiler alert I lost that game lol

This is off topic now, this just reminded me that it's stupid that you automatically make peace with a City State if you make peace with its suzerain. Wasn't like this in Civ5, you had to make peace with city states separately. Sometimes I'm thinking "well, I'll make peace with this AI civ, but I'll conquer that suzerain CS of his", but forget that you automatically make peace with them and then have to wait for 10 turns to be able to declare war on them again...

 

[King Rad]

I am the lone vote for "What are barbarians?" I never use them.

In previous versions of Civ, they will only give you so many promotions, and then you get no more unless you battle an AI city state or civ.

Do the barbs in Civ 6 give a unit more than two promotions after you have been hacking at them for a while?

There is a mod [don't remember specific name, and can't look it up as i'm at work right now, but it's something simple like barbs unlimited experience] that gives unlimited experience for barbs. this is usually the only mod I use, but I feel if barbs are progressing [which they do], then fighting them should continue to give you experience just like fighting any other unit with the ability to progress.

 

[Rosty K]

The worst barbarian invasion I had didn't involve a lot of units at all. I just founded my capital on the spot where I spawned to find a barbarian scout next to the border and an encampment next to the scout, so it started spitting out units next turn, and it ain't easy to deal with that with just one warrior and the next unit coming up in 20 turns (marathon). I don't normally restart, but in this case I did

 

[Rosty K]

Yeah and I'm not sure why they put the cap on xp from barbarians but not xp from City State units. You can declare war and make peace at will so getting the xp isn't too risky. I know in Civ V multiplayer I lost a game because another guy was getting his longbowmen roided on xp from city state units. Already annoying longbowmen had the +1 range promotion and damage bonuses, so spoiler alert I lost that game lol

For the CS you at least get the warmonger penalty (though if you fight all the time you probably don't care). And you don't fight City-States in the Ancient Era, cause they'll just swarm your unit and kill it instead of giving easy XP, CS are serious power in the Ancient Era

 

[Xoon]

Am I right that these full scale invasions only come about when a scout reports back with an exclamation mark? That seems to be the pattern for me. That scout makes it back and then they spawn one every round until you knock it out. If you have 3 nearby churning out, you can lose an entire era just rooting them out.

 

[Rosty K]

Am I right that these full scale invasions only come about when a scout reports back with an exclamation mark? That seems to be the pattern for me. That scout makes it back and then they spawn one every round until you knock it out. If you have 3 nearby churning out, you can lose an entire era just rooting them out.

Yes, if the scout with an exclamation mark comes back to the camp, otherwise they'll mostly spawn scouts (or those nasty coastal ones may do ships). They can occasionally spawn units if they don't find a city as well, as evident later in the game when you find barbarian infested remote areas, but I don't think anyone knows how that works.

 

[LedStone]

Am I right that these full scale invasions only come about when a scout reports back with an exclamation mark? That seems to be the pattern for me. That scout makes it back and then they spawn one every round until you knock it out. If you have 3 nearby churning out, you can lose an entire era just rooting them out.

Wow yeah I totally forgot about that. I just played another game and can confirm that when a scout sees either a unit of yours or the city (not sure) it can get an exclamation mark. If it gets back to a camp with the exclamation mark (its original camp probably) it spawns one new unit. It can then repeat this and spawn another unit each time. I ended up getting 12+ barbs attacking me and my 2 suzerain city states from 2 encampments because of the barb scouts. They kept getting the exclamation, reporting back and making new units.

So it seems like the answer to this is that you have to kill the scouts, but with their extra movement over melee units I found it tricky. Even trying to kill scouts with scouts is tricky because with the semi-clunky movement costs you can usually only catch up and attack them on 1 movement costing tiles (plains,grassland etc.) and rarely in forests/hills (2 movement cost). Also ya kind of have to have the +5 combat strength military policy card to kill scouts with scouts. Horsemen for sure can do the job but they require encampments, horses and stables which all take a while.

So in conclusion I found the best way to fend off barbs and their scouts was to be proactive about it and focus military units early and clear the barb camps before they start spawning tons of stuff. Kind of sucks when youre trying to rush for great prophets or wonders or whatever but it usually works.

 

[Zenstrive]

my latest maps usually have me surrounded by 2 or 3 city states, and further than those other civ capitals that act as buffers against barbarian invasions. The first 30 turns usually filled up with warriors that hunt barbas.

 

[Victoria]

but I don't think anyone knows how that works

There is a parameter for barbarian random spawning that is set at 2%. Whether that is for camps or barbs is a good question but it may even be both.
Barb camps also have a slowdown parameter based on you killing their units, not near a PC at the moment to check what it's set to.