Barbarians

[Naokaukodem]

So last game, Deity, France (Black Queen), everything was smooth and all until I noticed a barbarian quadrireme hitting my scout. Thing is, the barbarian camp from where it spawned was too close from my lands and could trigger barbarians uprisings, as an army I had one scout, one warrior and one slinger. I said myself : "either I plant a coastal city to build galleys and kill the quadriremes, either I research Archery and build a horseman. As I had only two cities and America was close enough to steal locations, I opted for the Archer and the Horseman, so I could send my ongoing Settler South East. Meanwhile I will assure there is no barbarian scouts reaching my lands.

Now that's reacting ! This game is full of surprise.

But, because there's a but, ANOTHER barbarian camp was north of my second city which was East. A barbarian warrior pillaged my only source of horse, which put me at 17 horses. (I sold 20 previously to Georgia for a very good price, like 6 gold per turn + some flat gold)

OK, no problem, I will send my army towards them and deal with them, crossing fingers there will be no scouts from the other one. And then, this Eastern barbarian camp spawned like 3-4 units in the same turn, with ARCHERS. Game over. I rage quitted.

Heck, those barbs are so annoying, MORE than annoying. They should behave else than just spawning billions of units when a scout spotted you. I don't know. They should move their camps, grow like anyone else, become a menace only if you let them alone for too long. I don't even mind if there would be Red places on the map where it points out that this is full of aggressive barbarians and sending an army here is dangerous. Like Germania IRL with Rome. I still think they should be labelled as barbarians, because it's fun, but I think they should behave more like normal civs.

 

[Ordnael]

If I want to see AI civs struggling against barbs i should play king difficulty and below right? I always feel that i am the only one struggling against barbs! I still like them nonetheless.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Not sure but I think I saw somewhere here that barbarians spawn near the human player... that doesn't mean they can't annoy AIs occasionnally, but I don't know if AIs have barbarians uprisings. And in Deity, AI has its plenty bonus units to fight against them.
They can add some spice to the early game, but they can be very very very annoying some times. I hate barbarian quadriremes and when they spawn strong units though.

 

[Jimdigriz]

Not sure but I think I saw somewhere here that barbarians spawn near the human player... that doesn't mean they can't annoy AIs occasionnally, but I don't know if AIs have barbarians uprisings. And in Deity, AI has its plenty bonus units to fight against them.
They can add some spice to the early game, but they can be very very very annoying some times. I hate barbarian quadriremes and when they spawn strong units though.

Dunno about that. I have come across barbarians destroying A.I. players even into the midgame - so much so in fact, that its ruining the game. If only the AI players could fight like the barbarians and the barbarians weren't so strong sometimes!

 

[Naokaukodem]

Oh, really ? Man, the game experience seems to diverge so tremendously from a player to another... something I noticed is that always the same tend to happen to the same player. It's like if you picked a random number at the installation and stick with it. I wonder what it's due to. Barbarians destroying -yet being more than a nuisance- AIs never happened to me, or I didn't care enough. But yeah, no I don't think it happened to me.

 

[Abaxial]

Barbarians are useful, In a pacific game it gives you someone to fight against. I'm interested to note that when you look at the end-of-game graphs, you often see that a civ that never fought any wars nevertheless has the highest number of combats/units lost/units killed - showing that there was some heavy barbarian conflict tucked away behind the fog of war.

 

[Sclb]

Depends entirely on the difficulty, I see they are way more annoying for human players at higher difficulties and deity AI don’t have problems dealing with them. In this case would have to change usual build order to deal with them

 

[Naokaukodem]

deity AI

Yeah I should add that also, as all their bonus units coming after your only city on turn 4 after you discovered them... it's so SILLY, PERIOD !

I also don't like how Deity AI can quickly befriend CS near to you so you inevitably lose some units to them even after taking one AI city.

Those two sentences are from two recent lost or rage quit games obviously. To the point I don't want to try another game just yet, and oh god I'm so bored !

 

[AmyDonBaya]

Depends entirely on the difficulty, I see they are way more annoying for human players at higher difficulties and deity AI don’t have problems dealing with them. In this case would have to change usual build order to deal with them

Probably a lot depends on the degree of difficulty. Some people like them, others hate them. Which does not change the fact that they are appendages in the game. How many players so many opinions.

 

[Kotofei]

You're playing on Deity. There are starts that you're just not going to win. Nothin' wrong with hitting the restart button.

Good on you for even trying Black Queen on Deity.

 

[reddishrecue]

You're playing on Deity. There are starts that you're just not going to win. Nothin' wrong with hitting the restart button.

Good on you for even trying Black Queen on Deity.

Yeah, that's what I like about civilization.. the good ol' restart button.

 

[Jimdigriz]

Depends entirely on the difficulty, I see they are way more annoying for human players at higher difficulties and deity AI don’t have problems dealing with them. In this case would have to change usual build order to deal with them

King level AI definitely has a problem with barbs. I've seen them devastate whole continents and the AI players just don't recover from it.

 

[reddishrecue]

King level AI definitely has a problem with barbs. I've seen them devastate whole continents and the AI players just don't recover from it.

No, barbarians really are that overpowered, I agree with you that I couldn't take barbarians on prince! But civilizations I could..

 

[incroc]

I'm pretty sure barbs never spawn more than one unit per turn, but on deity they get one unit per turn for quite a while if the scout spots you and return.

With the clans mode on you can bribe them to not attack you, if you want to avoid blocking the scouts and clearing camps early.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Oh, really ? Man, the game experience seems to diverge so tremendously from a player to another... something I noticed is that always the same tend to happen to the same player. It's like if you picked a random number at the installation and stick with it. I wonder what it's due to. Barbarians destroying -yet being more than a nuisance- AIs never happened to me, or I didn't care enough. But yeah, no I don't think it happened to me.

It's about game skill, not about being repeatedly unlucky.
I had issues with barbs before too, but these days they are a non-issue.
There are several reasons for that, here are the most important ones on the top of my head:

1. I go slinger first on Deity, as the scout has diminishing returns of usefulness on that difficulty level. This gives me extra defensive power, and I usually hunt barbs with it for the Archery eureka in the meantime.
2. I don't use my warrior as a full-time scout. This is a noob trap, he can scout some tiles around the capital, but should not be used as an actual scout because this leaves you wide open for more barb scouts or the AI.
3. I often actively hunt barb camps for the era score, because it can secure monumentality. If playing with barbarian clans as well, you can farm the barb camp for gold too.
4. Worst case scenario, a barb camp spawns an invasion. Who cares, it's usually against your capital and your capital can't be razed, so let them kill themselves as you continue doing your thing. Very early in the game is really the only time this can happen where you cannot prevent it, but I usually don't have districts or builder improvements anyway at that point because I'm working on my settler. If one gets an invasion anywhere after settling one's second or third city, the player needs to prioritize clearing out camps more than he does now.

 

[Naokaukodem]

It's about game skill, not about being repeatedly unlucky.

I'm not about skill, but things that happen and you can't do crap against them. (I saw it happening on very good players on YT, but only once)

If one gets an invasion anywhere after settling one's second or third city, the player needs to prioritize clearing out camps more than he does now.

Why should I think to clear barbarian camps where there is none ? They can spawn anytime, including when you nearly completed your settler, and by that time I switch to military production.
Heck, it's not even about prioritize cleaning camps more, because at any rate barbs can spawn and the defense would require a 10 cities civ defense at that point...

 

[reddishrecue]

I'm pretty sure barbs never spawn more than one unit per turn, but on deity they get one unit per turn for quite a while if the scout spots you and return.

With the clans mode on you can bribe them to not attack you, if you want to avoid blocking the scouts and clearing camps early.

Yeah, maybe that's why they're so overpowered... thank you for that, you actually can bribe them to attack others even though I haven't tried it tbh but it's possible. Also, you can use early heroes to clear the barbarians like King Arthur which might not be available in higher levels but has way more strength than the early man at arms that primitive barbarian clans have.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I'm not about skill, but things that happen and you can't do crap against them. (I saw it happening on very good players on YT, but only once)



Why should I think to clear barbarian camps where there is none ? They can spawn anytime, including when you nearly completed your settler, and by that time I switch to military production.
Heck, it's not even about prioritize cleaning camps more, because at any rate barbs can spawn and the defense would require a 10 cities civ defense at that point...

Of course it's about skill.
As I got better at the game, barbarians have stopped being a problem.
Or are you saying that I have just been lucky during the last couple thousands of hours I put into civ 6?
Whereas the friends I play with struggle against barbs, because they are generally not capable of playing Deity without me allied with them, mostly due to not handling them appropriately..
Sure you can get a random barb invasion that makes you struggle even as a strong player, but they are very rare and mostly due to (in my case) willingly neglecting proper countermeasures.

For very early barb camps (within the first 10 turns or so), you have to assume that they are close to your capital, everything from 4-10 hexes away and they are a potential threat.
So take that warrior and do a lap around your city, expanding the radius of vision around your capital until you get a sufficient vision buffer.
Barbs can only spawn in the fog of war, so as long as you already spotted the map area around your city, you will see when the barb camps spawned close by.
At which point you can use your Slinger/scout/warrior to screen for scouts to keep them away, and eventually clearing out the camp.

It's not hard once you just make a habit out of it.

 

[Naokaukodem]

In the example that made me write the OP, and that's not the only one, I just couldn't handle 2-3 archers, 2-3 warriors and a spearman with a scout, a warrior and a slinger, popping like 3 hex away my second city. Period...

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

In the example that made me write the OP, and that's not the only one, I just couldn't handle 2-3 archers, 2-3 warriors and a spearman with a scout, a warrior and a slinger, popping like 3 hex away my second city. Period...

Of course some extreme cases like that can happen, but generally they happen less and less to the point of not really mattering, as long as you take the proper precautions.
Sometimes bad games just happen and there's not much to do about them.
Heck I remember the time I spawned next to Chandragupta where he DOWed me around turn 10 and sent 5 warriors for my capital that had barely produced a slinger, not much you can do in that case either but to suck it up and go for the next game.