Barbarian Spawn Rate Remains Insane

[Archon_Wing]

Well, it's important to understand that the troops are spread out because of the sudden and unavoidable barbarian explosion. The warrior has to run south to survive, and the slinger up north is coming back from claiming a goody hut. Basically, a player can explore their environment, *or* they can plant units at every possible point where a camp could spawn. As you say, when others suggest the situation was avoidable, it's purely platitudinous.

Even a player can eventually deal with suddenly having all hell break loose, it's pretty just random, chaotic, and pointless nonsense that basically favors players who have nearby city-states to take up some of the slack and penalizes those who are on their own.

I did say that most of it was out of your control; right? It's not a good mechanic. But why are you making this into 2 extremes? Not every unit has to scout; you could just have the scout scout. And the thing here is I say this even if there were no barbs unit on the screen since you haven't met anything and there's been plenty of time for there to be barb camps.

Plus I do believe the warrior should do his best to go across the river. =p. I'm just trying to help for next time; certainly better than giving you a copy and paste response that is guaranteed to fail, no?

 

[Victoria]

Camps are still spawning one unit a turn, no exaggeration,

So the data from Barbarians.xml indicates it is just immortal and deity they spawn that fast, the number changes too. Not sure about the raid/attack diff
I guess this is one of the reasons I enjoy playing on Emp

 

[Archon_Wing]

The most resentful thing is they always have the most advanced technology. That means on 7-8 you'll see 35 str horse barbs in no time....

Honestly, who are the barbarians again?

 

[pgm123]

The most resentful thing is they always have the most advanced technology. That means on 7-8 you'll see 35 str horse barbs in no time....

Honestly, who are the barbarians again?

I believe it's the average-era tech. Horsemen are misleading because at the beginning of the game, they're at warrior strength, but move faster. It's not until the average tech is horsemen that they become real horse barbs

 

[Archon_Wing]

That's my point. Higher difficulty ais get that tech in no time.

 

[pgm123]

Gotcha. That seems like a good way of handling it.

 

[Victoria]

If you look at the spawn table above both immortal and deity have the same barb values ... but the speed the AI gets the horsemen tech gives that subtle difference that makes the levels different. A big jump Emp to deity a horsemen every 2 turns for 12 turns as opposed to immortal every 1 turn for 9 turns ... 3 camps = 27 horsemen, makes rather a difference on deity for the poor AI civ that has to cope with it.

 

[steveg700]

I did say that most of it was out of your control; right? It's not a good mechanic. But why are you making this into 2 extremes?

I thought I was pretty just agreeing/comiserating with you, and then expounding further on the topic with the second paragraph.

The most resentful thing is they always have the most advanced technology. That means on 7-8 you'll see 35 str horse barbs in no time....

Honestly, who are the barbarians again?

In some space 4X games, they sometimes justify this by saying the pirate/barb faction is the remnants of the former grand empire, essentially a Fall-of-Rom scenario where the player is picking up the pieces. Civ has no such luxury. Barbs are just good like that.

Note that I never found any iron near the camp that spawned those swordsmen. So, not only miraculous, but they ability to bypass strategic resource requirements.

 

[Stilgar08]

The most resentful thing is they always have the most advanced technology. That means on 7-8 you'll see 35 str horse barbs in no time....
Honestly, who are the barbarians again?

It's those guys who brought down Rome. One mans barbarians are another mans civ...

And let me say again: Immortal and above is supposed to be difficult to survive.

 

[Thormodr]

Glad to see Diety players getting punished. Nothing personal, of course, but it should be a near impossible challenge.

Until they get the AIs able to fight a war competently, the Barbs being raging is a step in the right direction.

 

[Disgustipated]

Barbarians haven't been bad, but now they spawn pike and shot and I'm still running around with crossbows, knights, and Keshigs, none of those units do a whole lot to pike and shot.

 

[steveg700]

While I accept that Immortal supposed to be difficult, I just don't agree the sudden geyser of units like that is great for gameplay.

In contrast, I would rather the camp itself become something tougher to remove, and then the units start coming out at a more reasonable rate. A progressive threat, rather than just some bomb that explodes.

It's like in city-builder games, I know *why* they include natural disasters. I just wish the people who design such games could come up with something more elegant than some sudden kicking-over your sandcastles where you basically just take it on the chin and pick up the pieces.

But it is good to know that this is *only* the norm at higher diffs.

 

[Dearmad]

OP:

No.

Thank you.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I thought I was pretty just agreeing/comiserating with you, and then expounding further on the topic with the second paragraph.

Oh, sorry. Sometimes I can't read.

Anyhow I made a video messing with barbs to elaborate on some points I made earlier.

Settings: Deity, large, fractal, normal speed, France. Large map for more barbs and a civ with no early advantages. I don't play higher difficulties and was playing fast so didn't do very well especially not understanding Rise and Fall but it should be good enough.

As you can see, at no point was killing the barb scout a good idea. Later on I was able to surround and kill a scout but by then it isn't a problem.

The first barb attack was averted despite being sighted because I chased the scout that came from the scout to the opposite direction so they didn't make it back. This wasn't always possible. Knowing thus the southern part was safer, I improved tiles in the south and exapanded there.

The other 2 scouts just came around too fast. I could have build more units by this point but it would delay my 2nd city too much.

And then Pericles decided to be a dick. Why are France and Greece almost the sane color? Was sorta annoying. Fortunately he ended up paying me a bit of gold.

 

[steveg700]

Sorry, I get "video not available".

 

[Archon_Wing]

How the heck did it get set to private? Fixed!

 

[Zike]

Barbarians seem absurd now. What's worse is that the Civ AI is so bad that they can't deal with them. I have seen multiple Diety AI getting train wrecked by barbs. France had like 6 cities and was spamming out wonders while almost every one of her tiles was pillaged. Ai didn't care. It would just send workers out to get stolen and completely ignore building any units to defend itself from them. She didn't even have a wonder pantheon or agenda...

 

[Softly]

Anyone else notice anything strange about the timing of the barbs as well? Could have been a total coincidence, but it seems the after the classical era barb camps only spawned near me while I was currently at war. Wouldn't mind normally but the camps kept spawning close to that natural wonder that gives +5 combat strength so they were quite devastating.

 

[Bad Wolf]

I actually like that the barbs in this game present a real challenge rather than just being an XP/culture farm like in Civ V. Gives me something to do in the early game other than just press "Next Turn".

 

[rschissler]

I believe it's the average-era tech. Horsemen are misleading because at the beginning of the game, they're at warrior strength, but move faster. It's not until the average tech is horsemen that they become real horse barbs

Barbarians should really be based on the era tech of the lowest AI's.