Barbarian Spawn Rate Remains Insane

[steveg700]

Camps are still spawning one unit a turn, no exaggeration, basically derailing all other activity for a lengthy period. Much as I enjoy getting a Bronze Working boost, things need to be reined in a bit.

I know I'm not the first to cite this, but IMO it's not getting enough attention. Feels like this is one of those things where I feel like the devs think the best course of action is to listen and see if people are complaining en masse before they take action, so lets keep the ball rolling.

 

[Cobalt_Blue]

I think aggressive barbs are great. They keep the AIs busy too ya know.

 

[fotonut]

Isn't this only the case if you let the scout report back to camp? I don't think this behavior changed or was supposed to change. You're right that it gets annoying in some cases to have to battle barbarians for many turns, but think how much more experienced and battle ready your soldiers are after that! (if it doesn't kill you, will make you stronger...)

 

[steveg700]

Isn't this only the case if you let the scout report back to camp? I don't think this behavior changed or was supposed to change. You're right that it gets annoying in some cases to have to battle barbarians for many turns, but think how much more experienced and battle ready your soldiers are after that! (if it doesn't kill you, will make you stronger...)

There was no opportunity to intercept the scout due to the position. Check out the screenshot.

If it's intended, all the more reason to draw attention to it. Makes the game very repetitive, very tedious by virtue of killing production options, locks down tech options, and other bad stuff.

The benefit in terms of experience is capped, because after the first promotion, it's only 1 XP a kill.

 

[miaasma]

i kind of appreciate early barb warriors and slingers, as it makes it easy to pop eurekas for bronze working and archery

it got ridiculous when 3 horsemen and a horse archer were running at you stupidly early, but i actually haven't seen that happen since i started playing the expansion, and i thought i read something about them toning that down

 

[steveg700]

So, after the 10th unit spawned, they one-a-turn-spawning abruptly stopped and the spearman unit left the camp to be killed.

Interested to know if that aligns with current experiences.

 

[Sherlock]

The crazy high spawn rate randomly turns a game into a 'your early game is wiped out' experience.

It's the one thing I hate about CIVI more than anything else.

 

[JosephC]

I'm with @Cobalt_Blue, I very much enjoy the barbarians as is.

However I wouldn't be opposed to more game options, like in Civ V.
[ ] No Barbarians
[ ] Raging Barbarians

Where Raging Barbarians are how the game is now.

 

[Victoria]

and i thought i read something about them toning that down

Horsemen before someone discovers horseback riding are move 3 strength 20.
Early horsemen are easy, like earth men.
The trouble is, especially on deity when they suddenly change to 4 / 35 before you expect them to.

 

[steveg700]

Rejoice, contrarians and mascohists. Now it's swordsmen-a-go-go. Must be some iron up north somewhere.

What's the ranged of an encampment's magical tap-a-resource-with-no-improvement supposed to be?

 

[steveg700]

Well, similar thing happened. Insta-spammed an initial group of units, and then one a turn until about ten units total, then the spearman abandoned the camp.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

At first I was appalled at the Barbarian Spawning in Civ VI, but there are a number of things that alleviate the problem:
1. As others have said, stop the scout from getting back to the Camp, and they don't spawn. Also, the Barbarian Scouts don't always act with any intelligence - I've had them run away from my unit, then turn around and run back so I could kill him when a straight run away would have gotten him clear.
2. City States aggressively go after Barbarians. And early in the game when the Barbarians are most annoying, City States spawn units almost as fast as the Barbarians do: if there is a City State on one side of your start position, it will stop most of the Barbarians from ever getting to you.
3. Early Barbarians are aggressive, but no better at Tactics than the rest of the AI: once you have Archery, an Archer and a Warrior or two can wear down and destroy most Barbarian camps, even after they've started the 1-unit-every-turn-or-two spawning - as long as you don't let them build up an army before you start.

And finally, as in the screenshots the OP posted, if you have Tundra next to your Start position, you will 100% guaranteed have Barbarian Camps spawning and re spawning in the Tundra or the Snow. If you are playing Russia with an almost guaranteed Tundra or near-Tundra Start, plan to send you first units into the Tundra to take out the Camps as fast as they spawn, and later on either keep a 2 - 3 unit 'army' there to 'farm' Barbarian Camps (if you work it right, each of them not only gives you promoted units but also gives you Gold and Religion points) or place strategic Scouts to cover the territory and minimize the Barbarians.

 

[Archon_Wing]

My first r&f game had horse barbs continously spawning every turn for about 10 turns. That was just annoying. I actually built a hoplite!

Honestly I wouldn't miss horse barbs if they were removed. Regular barbs can always be dealt with.

Also please stop talking about killing the barb scout. As OP stated and is clear from the screenshot, the camp spawned right near the capiral and there is no way to kill it earlier. There is also no way for 1 warrior to chase down a scout and that opens the chance you lose the warrior if it gets pulled out. You are just getting people killed by telling them that. Kill the scout if you have a few units that can surround it.

The correct move is to recognize that barb scouts do not try to move past your units. Thus when you are undermanned, you simply want to chase the scout away before it sights your town though given that spawn it wouldn't have worked. If you can cut them off from the camp and have them run off somewhere far that is good too. If you can't do either, you just have to dig in and force them to cross the river though you are already doing that.


The only real issue is the troops are too far stung out. Probably be better off with warriors as slingers are bad in this terrain. One at city center is good though.


The thing that really helped for me is just not to open scouts anymore. It makes you too slow and it doesn't help with defending much.

 

[Esperr]

I have said this a few times on these forums, and i have 600+ hours but...

I really do think the game rolls barbarian difficulty when you start the game. I have had games where they were relentless with constantly spawning camps and other games where i hardly even saw them.

 

[Jackanape]

I've never been able to kill a barbarian scout before it gets back to its encampment. My scouts are usually on the other side of my starting position, or my warrior just eats its dust...I don't see how that's even possible in the ancient era.

 

[steveg700]

My first r&f game had horse barbs continously spawning every turn for about 10 turns. That was just annoying. I actually built a hoplite!

Honestly I wouldn't miss horse barbs if they were removed. Regular barbs can always be dealt with.

Also please stop talking about killing the barb scout. As OP stated and is clear from the screenshot, the camp spawned right near the capiral and there is no way to kill it earlier. There is also no way for 1 warrior to chase down a scout and that opens the chance you lose the warrior if it gets pulled out. You are just getting people killed by telling them that. Kill the scout if you have a few units that can surround it.

The correct move is to recognize that barb scouts do not try to move past your units. Thus when you are undermanned, you simply want to chase the scout away before it sights your town though given that spawn it wouldn't have worked. If you can cut them off from the camp and have them run off somewhere far that is good too. If you can't do either, you just have to dig in and force them to cross the river though you are already doing that.


The only real issue is the troops are too far stung out. Probably be better off with warriors as slingers are bad in this terrain. One at city center is good though.

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.

 

[Sostratus]

I like that we have a mechanic to spawn a targeted barbarian horde, with the scouts running back, although I'd much prefer it produced 3-5 units once it got back and then returned to normal behavior.

I definitely had a very high rate of barbarian spawns in my first R&F game- poor Russia had 3 snowy camps flood his empire with angry Siberians until we finally got a handle on them in the Renaissance. (Mostly the efforts of valiant Dutch pioneers, seeking to settle the holy Volcano + a pair of sizable tundra locked lakes that became "Poldertopia." He was doomed on his own.)

I'm just not sure if a few camps in the inhospitable snow should be able to overrun an otherwise healthy 5 city empire (admittedly I was only on King, but still.) We get era score for settling in the snow because it's so unforgiving- perhaps barb camps there should have a reduced unit spawning rate.

 

[Japper007]

It makes me sad to hear this, over at RB we've had several good players completely barbed into irrelevance (mostly thinking of Singaboys start in PBEM2 here). I was hoping they'd tune it down. Some Barbs are nessesary to help push people away from pure Farmers Gambits, but some starts are just ridiculous. I think the issue is mostly poor spreading, sometimes you have 3 camps within 5 tile distance of your cap from turn 1 and sometimes you don't encounter a single camp in an entire game.

 

[Victoria]

I think the issue is mostly poor spreading, sometimes you have 3 camps within 5 tile distance of your cap from turn 1 and sometimes you don't encounter a single camp in an entire game.

I play rather a lot and happily say that with the correct approach you severely limit hordes, but when you go for more efficient openings ( which experienced players will try like builder - settler) you do increase the risk.
I would say I will get swamped 1 game in about 15 and when this happens you just have to hunker down and survive, at least now you get era points for close barbs.
If you play without barbs then you will find the game can be more challenging because the AI has more issues with barbs than you and you will miss the iron working eureka. However it does allow the player to take advantage of the no barb scenario.
Regardless the variety at the start can make a big difference, too many CS near you and you do not get barbs at all but you do get CS bonuses. I can understand people frustration but personally I like the variation and challenge.

 

[Stilgar08]

Your difficulty level is? You know playing on Immortal and above is supposed to be difficult, right?

From the patchnotes last recent patch:

• Barbarian difficulty has been updated to scale with each difficulty level. (Warlord, Prince, King etc...)