February 2021 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[Lord Lakely]

Yeah, has anyone actually got a barb camp to change into a city-state? I had one camp where I pumped gold into every 20 turns for the 10 points, and the bar never moved. I was in monopolies mode and forgot to turn of culture victory, so the game ended on turn 199 because I had 2 marble resources and a decent culture game, but no barb camps bar moved at all.

Also, I saw a lot of unique units. So that seems to be working.

Yes, I've seen a few of them morph into City States. I'm not playing with mods though and I'm playing on King. Also, the progress bar resets to zero permanently when the camp is too close to an existing city however.

I have noticed that the AI seems to be using the Camps to recruit units for themselves, so wars happen more quickly.

There's also this weird visual glitch where newly spawned city states appear as white cities on the minimap. Nice to distinguish them from the natural city states, I supposed but rather annoying if you're playing a white-coloured city yourself.

 

[Jdoug312]

Noticing better all around performance on the Ps4. I'm the first to aircraft, so I'm about to have my fun before (prayfully) the AI start putting out their own air forces and air defense

 

[aieeegrunt]

I am having the same experience, but I was hoping it was due to a mod. Are you using any mods?

Same here, I am playing continents and islands map, started the 2nd wave of exploration with frigates and my lone scout and before there would be lots of barb camps on the various isolated islands so I can play Anti-Piracy Patrol

Completely empty

I have had several barb camps become Antarctic Research Station City States

I wonder if once you hit the map limit for City States it stops spawning barb camps

Noticing better all around performance on the Ps4. I'm the first to aircraft, so I'm about to have my fun before (prayfully) the AI start putting out their own air forces and air defense

The xbox is performing better too, I can actually play on large sized maps now

 

[Disgustipated]

It does seem like my high number of crashes was due to abnormally high number of city states my game. I set it at 13, but far too many spawned regardless of the number I set. I've had this bug since the January update. My new game has 0 city states and no crashes so far. Knock on wood. Though I learned the hard way you need at least 1 city state for barb camps to turn into city states. Oh well.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ran an 'experimental' game this morning: pangaea map so I could keep an eye on nearly every part of the map.

Up until the first Barb Clan turned into a City State (Turn 62) there was an average of one new Clan/Camp spawned every 2 turns. After that first Barbarous City State appeared, and for the next 30 turns, not one new Camp.
Two other new City States appeared from Camps, but by Turn 90 (about mid-way through the Classical Era) there were only 3 Barb Camps left on a Large Map. That means, essentially, without effort on the part of a player to 'save' a Camp or two, the entire Barbarian/Barbarian Clan Mode and all of its effects virtually disappears from the game before you get out of the second Era.

Also confirmed, more or less: the Bireme seems to be a 'must have' UU for Barbarian Camps: 4 out of 4 games now have seen bright red Biremes lurking along the coast. In about 50% of the games (admittedly, from a very small sample of 4 games total) I've seen the Eagle Warrior and Cree scout replacement show up.

Barb camp can sell Normal Horseman as well, and they have different prices than Barb Horseman, so you can check the price tag for reference.

If the UI is saying the unit in sell is "Horseman" and the price tag is about 180-190 gold, then it will be a Normal Horseman. The cheaper one is always Barb Horseman for their combat strength is lower.

I have never seen an option for a higher priced Horseman from a Clan, but the times I looked were all pretty early in the Ancient Era of the game. I assumed that if I had waited, the 'regular' Horsemen would become available but haven't bothered to check - another thing to look for in save game files from the Classical and later Eras . . .

Scythia, as it happens, has been in every game I've played with the Clan Mode. Has anybody checked to see if there is any possibility of a horse-holding Camp giving you a Horse Archer? That would be the most common Unique 'Barbarian Mercenary' horseman through the end of the Classical Era, at least, but no one has said anything about it, so I assume they never give you the option to hire any. Modders, take note!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I have never seen an option for a higher priced Horseman from a Clan, but the times I looked were all pretty early in the Ancient Era of the game. I assumed that if I had waited, the 'regular' Horsemen would become available but haven't bothered to check - another thing to look for in save game files from the Classical and later Eras . . .

Scythia, as it happens, has been in every game I've played with the Clan Mode. Has anybody checked to see if there is any possibility of a horse-holding Camp giving you a Horse Archer? That would be the most common Unique 'Barbarian Mercenary' horseman through the end of the Classical Era, at least, but no one has said anything about it, so I assume they never give you the option to hire any. Modders, take note!

Barbarian Horse Archers were a standard unit anyway in the regular game for camps that spawn near horses.
I wonder if that is different now with Clans mode, especially if you do have Scythia in the games.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Barbarian Horse Archers were a standard unit anyway in the regular game for camps that spawn near horses.
I wonder if that is different now with Clans mode, especially if you do have Scythia in the games.

I would assume that with Scythia in the game you won't see them, since they (supposedly!) only spawn UUs from Civs not in that game. I'll have to start a game tomorrow specifically excluding Scythia and see what turns up.

 

[Virdrago]

I am having the same experience, but I was hoping it was due to a mod. Are you using any mods?

The first time, yes, the next two games when I was testing things, no. My mods are more aesthetic anyway, like starting scout, better trade screen or map pins, so they shouldn't affect the game mode.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Ran an 'experimental' game this morning: pangaea map so I could keep an eye on nearly every part of the map.

Up until the first Barb Clan turned into a City State (Turn 62) there was an average of one new Clan/Camp spawned every 2 turns. After that first Barbarous City State appeared, and for the next 30 turns, not one new Camp.
Two other new City States appeared from Camps, but by Turn 90 (about mid-way through the Classical Era) there were only 3 Barb Camps left on a Large Map. That means, essentially, without effort on the part of a player to 'save' a Camp or two, the entire Barbarian/Barbarian Clan Mode and all of its effects virtually disappears from the game before you get out of the second Era.

Also confirmed, more or less: the Bireme seems to be a 'must have' UU for Barbarian Camps: 4 out of 4 games now have seen bright red Biremes lurking along the coast. In about 50% of the games (admittedly, from a very small sample of 4 games total) I've seen the Eagle Warrior and Cree scout replacement show up.



I have never seen an option for a higher priced Horseman from a Clan, but the times I looked were all pretty early in the Ancient Era of the game. I assumed that if I had waited, the 'regular' Horsemen would become available but haven't bothered to check - another thing to look for in save game files from the Classical and later Eras . . .

Scythia, as it happens, has been in every game I've played with the Clan Mode. Has anybody checked to see if there is any possibility of a horse-holding Camp giving you a Horse Archer? That would be the most common Unique 'Barbarian Mercenary' horseman through the end of the Classical Era, at least, but no one has said anything about it, so I assume they never give you the option to hire any. Modders, take note!

This seems to match my experiences so far and kind of makes the mode useless

 

[UWHabs]

I got a full horseman from a camp in my game - I think it was like 191 gold or so. In a previous game I only got the Barbarian Horseman. I never saw a bireme, but in one game and a couple earlier tests, didn't see a ton of naval barb clans, so my sample size was pretty small. Mostly I was just able to get quads from them.

I think how often they spawn will decrease as you move up the eras, and my guess is that once the map is full of normal civs and units, then barb camps simply don't have enough tiles they can spawn on. So yeah, a lot of the mode is basically active early in games, and then peters out the later you go. Although I haven't tested on a Terra map, or one with more islands, to see if those islands will end up with more camps.

One thing in my game I did notice is that I think if a camp is going to convert to a CS and you have a unit parked on there, the camp will simply go away. I had a camp that I was trying to nurture to get it to develop, but I knew that if I didn't park a unit on it, another civ would have gone and wiped it out. So I was counting down the turns, and then poof, it was gone, no notice or anything. Kind of sad, although I guess it makes sense. Gonna be expensive in the future to actually have to physically surround the camp instead if I want to make sure no AI kills it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I would assume that with Scythia in the game you won't see them, since they (supposedly!) only spawn UUs from Civs not in that game. I'll have to start a game tomorrow specifically excluding Scythia and see what turns up.

Looking in the files cavalry based ranged units should usually show up for the Rover Clans when they spawn ranged units. So that would include the Saka Horse Archer or the Keshig as possible uniques.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I have yet to actually interact with a barb camp because I instinctivly go Full Exterminatus when I find one

 

[Pietato]

If the barb camps stop spawning, that completely ruins the whole mode.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I have yet to actually interact with a barb camp because I instinctivly go Full Exterminatus when I find one

Yeah, I kill the ones that are near my capital, and by the time I'm exploring far away, they all seem to be gone...

 

[CaptainUnknown]

Yeah turn times are much longer. I used to have lightning fast turn times after building my new rig last year.

I'm not sure if I'll finish my game. It's crashing too much. I don't know what the problem is. I'm not running any mods. It might be related the bug I saw last January update with the ridiculous number of city states despite me limiting them to only 13. I know not that many barb camps became city states, because these I found at the beginning of the game. I'm going to restart a new game and see if it's better.

Try using Direct X 11 if you aren't already. I had 2 crashes with Dirext X 12, switched to 11, played the rest of the game no issues.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Yeah, I kill the ones that are near my capital, and by the time I'm exploring far away, they all seem to be gone...

They convert to CS. Apparently when enough convert no new ones spawn.

So you are left with an empty map and a bunch of Polar Research Station CS.

Man, if ever there was an epitaph for Civ6 it would be “Greatest Ideas and the worst implementation”

 

[Abaxial]

It seems logical that camps can't keep spawning indefinitely because in theory they could all develop into city states. So I think the implementation is correct, or put it another way, if camp-to-CS is gpoing to be a thing then it follows that there must be an end to camp spawning. I don't mind - I'm quite happy with it as is. I think it will probably help AI civs, as I have often seen them swamped with barbarians much worse than a player civ - because a player has the wit to eliminate the camp as soon as possible.

Incidentally, you can see something of this in the end of game graphs, where you see that a civ that was never at war nevertheless had a very large number of combats.

 

[Smity2k1]

I think each time a barbarian clan turns into a CS it should cost more points for the next one to do it, that would slow the rollout of new CS to a more reasonable pace

 

[iammaxhailme]

I know food has something to do with the barb converting to CS rate, but they should ramp that up. I'm seeing way too many "top of map/bottom of map ice CS" that never grow past pop 2 or 3

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It seems logical that camps can't keep spawning indefinitely because in theory they could all develop into city states. So I think the implementation is correct, or put it another way, if camp-to-CS is gpoing to be a thing then it follows that there must be an end to camp spawning. I don't mind - I'm quite happy with it as is. I think it will probably help AI civs, as I have often seen them swamped with barbarians much worse than a player civ - because a player has the wit to eliminate the camp as soon as possible.

Incidentally, you can see something of this in the end of game graphs, where you see that a civ that was never at war nevertheless had a very large number of combats.

I agree that in-game conditions change and therefore Camp - CS rates and spawning rates have to change. I do not agree that they have to cease altogether. 'Barbarians' in the game are a mechanic to compensate for combatively abysmal AI Civs: if it weren't for Barbarians, there would be little real competition from the AI Civs or anything but Natural Disasters for most of the game. Removing Barbarians from the equation by the beginning of the 3rd Era (which has been my experience so far with the new Mode) begs the question of what is supposed to replace them for the last 3/4 of the game?

So, IF the current implementation is as intended, what is supposed to come next?

More Free Cities? That already happens to some extent, as Civs expand closer to each other, there is more pressure to 'flip' cities. But, so far at least, Free Cities never progress to anything - they don't become City States, they don't form new Civs, they simply become part of another Civ, or flip back to their original Civ (the most common occurence in the early game, in my experience). And their military units act mostly like City State units - they don't go invading or messing with their neighbors much, just stay close to home and counterattack anybody coming near. That makes them a very passive replacement for the 'true' Barbarians.

And note that logically, IMHO, Free Cities should have received some attention in the Barbarian Mode. Why don't they ever become City States? Why wouldn't they become aggressive with their military units - especially against the Evil Tyranny that (presumably) was their parent Civ?

And, in a potential solution to the Disappearing Barbarian problem noted above, why couldn't Free Cities become Urban Barbarian Camps? A particularly poorly placed city, with several factions from various Civs all (presumably) vying for power within the city, could/should I would think, devolve politically into such internal dissention that the city collapses into anarchy. That phenomena is not limited to a particular historical era, since there are several 'states' today that have, effectively, become pockets of political and military anarchy, presenting problems for their neighbors that mimic the in-game problems presented by nearby Barbarian Camps early in the game.

More Rebels? This would be a sort of historical solution, in that some of the largest and most expensive wars for 'Real' Civs from the Renaissance on have been internal Civil Wars and Rebellions: look at the Tai Ping in China in the 19th century, or the American or Russian Civil Wars for horrific examples. I have not played a game with Barbarian Clans long enough to get to 'rebel' territory, so cannot comment on whether an increase in rebel activity takes place with the new Mode. Further, I have seen so little rebel activity in any game so far that unless there is a major change, such activity is insignificant: I have seen Civs disappear from Loyalty pressure flipping every one of their cities, but never accompanied by conquest of any of their cities by the new Free Cities, which would be a closer approximation of the Civ-Rending Civil Wars like the ones I mentioned above.

So, if the Barbarian Mode is working the way it was intended, I submit that it is Unfinished, and needs some more work to be fully integrated with the entire game from turn 1 to turn 500 and to incorporate and modify some of the other mechanics in the game already, like Free Cities and Loyalty Flipping as it relates to Civs and Free Cities.