Barbarian spawn gamebreaking

[LordByron]

I am currently having barbarian spawning a new camp every single turn in a peninsula.
This is quite excessive..

(6 consequent turns for now)

Its clear barbarians are broken in any possible way but as soon as i kill a camp another spawns at distance 2-3......

Consider they get 2 units as soon a camp spawns

I am even plaing at the second easy setting.

 

[Xyriach]

It does seem disproportionately high. I cleared a camp which then reappeared just a few turns later.

I appreciate that any land in the fog can generate a camp, but surely there's a cooldown timer? At least have of my games end up with such a barbarian swarm that by the classical era you're contemplating rerolling because you've achieved nothing put a pointless war with Barbs. Does feel kinda bugged.

What the heck must it be like on Raging Barbarians? Do all grassland tiles get replaced with a barbarian?

Either there's a spawn rate issue, or the Barbarians simply need to found their own city and get some proper jobs.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to General Discussions, as this is not a "bug" within the meaning of this forum.

 

[Joch]

actually Barbarians in Civ6 spawn at about the same rate as in Civ5 as far as I can see.

 

[cephalo]

I love it. You just have to defend your stuff, that's all.

 

[whyidie]

My first game I was overwhelmed with barbarians. My 2nd game I said never again.

Produced units, parked them in appropriate places, smirk as AI is overrun by barbarians.

3rd game is the same. If you're willing to invest in military (5 units typically does it) you should be able to manage barbarians.

 

[dac050]

My first game was quite easy, I was surrounded by ocean, and by City States. The City States beat the stuffing out of the barbarians, whilst I built buildings and such.

 

[Zhahz]

If the frontiers are unsettled and unpatrolled you get barbarians. The mechanic is clear enough, as are ways to preventing and/or dealing with it. If you elect to not deal with them, you get them. I don't see the problem. The barb units also tend to be pretty weak if you're keeping up at all with your units.

 

[Ryika]

As far as I can tell Barbarians Military Units aside from the initial defender don't spawn at all, unless the scout has brought back information for a new target (or unless the guard has left the camp, then a replacement may spawn, even if the original unit is still alive). If you're sure no scout has seen your cities you can just leave the camp alone, because those spawns should not become your problem. They will target another Civ, and not just randomly walk around like they did in Civ V.

But once they have information about a target they will, after a short delay, start spawning a small army in only a few turns. It seems to me that, and that's just from what I've experienced during playing without deliberately testing the mechanics, if you kill Barbarians while they're in the process of spawning that army, they will just continue spawning new units until the camp itself has been destroyed (or until the army is filled up I'd guess).

My "strategy" when I find camps in the wilderness is usually to look whether thy're spawning units or not. If they are, I just leave them alone for a while so they can complete their army and start moving towards whoever is their target, before taking out the camp itself. Seems to work well for me.

 

[AriochIV]

I like that the barbarians are actually a threat. They could be almost totally ignored in Civ V.

 

[HoboCop]

The couple of games I have played, the spawn rate seems comparable to Civ V. I usually park units around to keep them from spawning in spots. I lose a lot of scouts to them over the course of the game though, that's not new either. I think the "auto-explore" feature is really a button for "go find some barbarians and die".

 

[AriochIV]

I just let them spawn; they're a good source of unit experience and gold. There doesn't appear to be a cap on experience from barbarians like there was in Civ V.

 

[MetaSkipper]

I just let them spawn; they're a good source of unit experience and gold. There doesn't appear to be a cap on experience from barbarians like there was in Civ V.

Not a hard cap, but Level 2 units and up (after first promotion) only get 1 XP from all Barbarian interactions. It's not exactly efficient to farm camps for XP. Gold, maybe.

 

[Esperr]

The real issue with barbs is they lock down the AI. Ive had games where in the "new world" ive found england still with just one city, capital surrounded by barbs with all of there tiles pillaged.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

The real issue with barbs is they lock down the AI. Ive had games where in the "new world" ive found england still with just one city, capital surrounded by barbs with all of there tiles pillaged.

I've seen other complaints that the AI isn't expanding enough in the early game. I wonder if this is the prime problem. I'm curious to know what a game without Barbarians would be like. It would be interesting to see what the AI would do.

 

[whyidie]

I'm currently on a map where the AIs are in their own zones. Its not crowded together. Seems like a continents map with large islands which some AI have spawned on.

No "safe" spaces where large concentration of AI prohibit barbarian spawns. Each AI is left to manage barbarians on their own. If they want to settle away from their capitol they have to account for barbarians. They're not doing it very well. There are a couple of landmasses that are full of barbarian captured settlers. Did see this on occasion in Civ5 so can't say if its more frequent this time round.

This is at Prince, maybe the AI manages it better at the higher levels.

 

[Ozisl]

The early barbarians make the early game more interesting (since you aren't interacting with other civs, much, usually)... what I dislike is

- How often the camps respawn the second you look away
- Barbarians getting horsemen and spearmen from turn 1.

 

[kampori]

Indeed regarding AI struggling with barbs.

I'm currently playing a game as England. By turn 100, Washington sent 10 warriors at me in a surprise DoW. The very next turn he turned his army around and marched back home. After I produced 10 archers and a few spearmen and marched them into America, I saw why. He only had his capital, every single tile and district were pillaged. Barb camps surrounded him, each one with a settler captured. After I swiftly wiped Teddy out of history, I took his settlers and founded myself a nice free empire.

 

[dtfauss]

Indeed regarding AI struggling with barbs.

I'm currently playing a game as England. By turn 100, Washington sent 10 warriors at me in a surprise DoW. The very next turn he turned his army around and marched back home. After I produced 10 archers and a few spearmen and marched them into America, I saw why. He only had his capital, every single tile and district were pillaged. Barb camps surrounded him, each one with a settler captured. After I swiftly wiped Teddy out of history, I took his settlers and founded myself a nice free empire.

So, this is the alternate dimension version of the American Revolution.
England won - but the native american's still lost

 

[Disgustipated]

I've seen other complaints that the AI isn't expanding enough in the early game. I wonder if this is the prime problem. I'm curious to know what a game without Barbarians would be like. It would be interesting to see what the AI would do.

I'm playing my current game with no barbarians. I was hesitant to do so because I feel like the game was intended to have them. But I shamefully admit I like the game better this way, at least on certain maps. The map that caused me to do this was inland sea. I dare anyone to do that map with barbs on. I'm sure it can be done, I just don't want the hassle. Dealing with barbs is a hassle, and I'm not sure why they went with this barbarian style. I think they did it because they knew the AI civilizations were weak, so they tried to put in something to force humans to build military units instead of infrastructure. Thing is a few archers can handle many barbarian problems except on the map type I described above.

The inland sea map has a LOT of land. More than I was expecting. But I want the achievement for it. I have no ability or desire to settle all the open land. No AI's started near me as well. Although Montezuma was the closes, and surprisingly he was friends because we had many of the same resources. Of course he did a joint war with China despite having a friendship agreement with me, and he won't make peace no matter how many units I kill. I may just have to take his capital just to get a peace deal.

As for the verdict. The AI does seem to do a little better with no barbs, but not much better. They still don't settle many cities early on. Which is good for me. I like to get 6 or 7 cities out rapidly, even before doing much infrastructure improvements. Yeah I fall behind in science, but I can catch back up.