February 2021 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[Piranga]

How is it determined how many barbarian camps can potentially turn into city states? I would have guessed it was tied to map size, but it might be related to the amount of base city states in a game.

I started a game with 0 base city states on the map, and barbarian mode activated. I wanted all city states to come solely from barbarian camps. However in the game, no barbarian camp will gain any progress at all on it's growth bar. Even if it is funded with gold, and in a valid spot 3 tiles from another city.

Were they any details about this in the livestream?

 

[Disgustipated]

I started a game with 0 base city states on the map, and barbarian mode activated. I wanted all city states to come solely from barbarian camps. However in the game, no barbarian camp will gain any progress at all on it's growth bar. Even if it is funded with gold, and in a valid spot 3 tiles from another city.

Setting city states to 0 bugs the city state spawn out. You have to set it to at least 1. At least I assume this is a bug. My game I just finished I set it at 0 (because my first game had the city state bug where you are surrounded by CS's) and none of them turn into city states.

Even with this setting, I too noticed barb camps stop spawning, but it may be because every spot on the map was filled up by that point. I kept several camps going for a long time just to get the achievements. I couldn't get a UU until a Guarde Imperiale unit showed up on the recruit list.

The hard part is utilizing barbarian camps in the early game. I usually do not have enough gold to even think about using these features. Would be nice if they were cheaper in the earlier game.

 

[UWHabs]

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.

I mean, all of this is not any different in the mode vs the base game. In a normal game, you don't get a lot of barbarian camps spawning past the medieval era. And you'll probably have less now if only because once one camp turns into an arctic CS, suddenly they'll have units and vision in the area so other camps won't spawn. So I don't think it's necessarily intended to be a feature from "turn 1 to 500", but moreso just changes the current barbarian behaviour, which is really only something that matters for the first 100-150 turns of the game.

Now, there is obviously more they can do - Free Cities were a good balance between barbarians and minor civs, but they're more or less just placeholders right now. I certainly wouldn't mind a mode where free cities could develop into more CS, or into full civs if a few of them collect together. Or even if, like Barbarians, they could develop like a raiding party type of situation where they actually cause some damage. But all of that really probably matters more for Dramatic Ages, which has a ton more free cities, than matters in barbarian mode. If they merged free cities and barbarians together more, another change there would be so that when barbarians capture a city, it doesn't just burn it, maybe it captures it and converts it to a free city. So yeah, certainly there are more pieces that could merge it more into the rest of the game. But as far as the modes go, this one I think does a good enough job in its core area of focus that at least it's nice to debate "this is cool, but I want more!"

 

[Kibikus]

Yeah, You can get eureka from clearing barb camps. I guess we can tinker with it here:

<Replace Name="BARBARIAN_CLANS_TECH_STEAL_INTERVAL_STANDARD" Value="20" />
        <Replace Name="BARBARIAN_CLANS_TECH_STEAL_VARIANCE_STANDARD" Value="10" />

It's within GlobalParameters

In my game I cleared a camp towards the mid-game, and I'm pretty sure I got 3 Eurekas. Could it be related to that - the later you clear the camp, the more Eurekas you can trigger?

Edit: I just checked, it was actually around turn 75, and I did get 3 Eurekas. They were all for early game techs (Ancient and Classical era), and the eureka pop-up said: Among the camp wreckage you find secrets stolen from distant lands.

 

[TreVor_ish]

In my game I cleared a camp towards the mid-game, and I'm pretty sure I got 3 Eurekas. Could it be related to that - the later you clear the camp, the more Eurekas you can trigger?

Edit: I just checked, it was actually around turn 75, and I did get 3 Eurekas. They were all for early game techs (Ancient and Classical era), and the eureka pop-up said: Among the camp wreckage you find secrets stolen from distant lands.

The questions are:
- where You behind in tech and if yes, by how far
- did others have those techs that You get eurekas towards.
Still testing those parameters.

 

[Kibikus]

The questions are:
- where You behind in tech and if yes, by how far
- did others have those techs that You get eurekas towards.
Still testing those parameters.

Yes, I was lagging behind in tech. It was on Deity and I had a slow start, so I was still in the Classical era, while Korea (of course) was already in the Renaissance, and a few others were in the Medieval. I'm pretty sure most of them already had the techs, they were pretty basic - Masonry, Iron Working, Engineering.

Also, I used Sinbad to clear the camp, though I don't think that should have any effect on the Eurekas.

 

[Reckoner]

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?

Completely agree!
Free cities evolving into CS seems much more intuitive than barb camps. Setting a hard limit on the number of CS is probably the reason for both that decision and the fact that barbs stop spawning somwhere mid-game.

Couple of ways of dealing with that:
* Setting a lower default number of CS at the beginning of the game, as some have suggested here.
* Messing with the conversion rate parameters, like setting hard limits on the number of turns between conversions.
* Allowing barb camps to directly join major civs (maybe based on loyalty pressure like with free cities)
* Adding a bias towards the center of the landmass for barb camps. That way the first ones will have a higher chance of getting dispersed soon enough, later ones will spawn towards the edges of the landmass when the CS limit still hasn't been met.
* I would also love the possibilty for 2-4 clustered free cities / CS to immerge united as some kind of coalition or even as a new major civ from the unused pool.
* The final idea is stranger, about more fluid tiles count. I'm thinking about barb camps gaining a single tile when they achieve certain progress. Once they have 4-5 tiles, they become a free city and the loyalty race begins. If no major civ wins it by a landslide, they become a new CS. When a city breaks away from their parent civ, they should lose tiles and make progress to become a CS or join another civ. If no progress is made and no civs interested, they can regress down to 1 tile all over again...

 

[TreVor_ish]

Yes, I was lagging behind in tech. It was on Deity and I had a slow start, so I was still in the Classical era, while Korea (of course) was already in the Renaissance, and a few others were in the Medieval. I'm pretty sure most of them already had the techs, they were pretty basic - Masonry, Iron Working, Engineering.

Those parameters could be tied to Techs of other Players that met Tribe, and that Tribe got to know them that way. Which means You might get more eurekas, if You lag in discovering them. (upon dispersing Tribe)
That would be my assumption.

 

[Nerevatar]

Just cross-posting here to help out: There is a fix for available for the bug where camps gets no clan assigned to them: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412130013

Not getting a clan assigned means the camp will not spawn units, it will never turn into a CS and it is impossible to interact with it.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Barb camps could evolve into free cities, which evolve into CS

If they revolt due to loyalty/happiness problems, they “devolve” one level rather than blobbing into a civ

If they “devolve” all the way back to a barb camp, they immediatly spawn as many military units as their population, and the barbarian Great General Lord Humungus

 

[kaspergm]

Ok maybe a stupid question, and I bet it's been answered before, but where do I actually make those civilization pools where I can exclude certain civs? I want to try to play without Peter for once, and in my first game post-patch I forgot (and of course ended up on the same continent as Peter and didn't get a religion), and now I remembered to do it, except I couldn't find the place to create the pools.

 

[CoconutTank]

Ok maybe a stupid question, and I bet it's been answered before, but where do I actually make those civilization pools where I can exclude certain civs? I want to try to play without Peter for once, and in my first game post-patch I forgot (and of course ended up on the same continent as Peter and didn't get a religion), and now I remembered to do it, except I couldn't find the place to create the pools.

I think they're in the "Advanced" options when creating a game:

You'll also need to set the player or AIs to the desired pool as well

 

[kaspergm]

Thanx, I actually looked for it there, but apparently my eyesight is fading, lol.

 

[Pfeffersack]

• [Rise and Fall, Gathering Storm] Audience Chamber now provides +2 Amenities and +4 Housing.

I discovered something else about the AC - at least for German users the civilopedia claims another improvement...

According to the English entry, it still gives only 1 gov title...

Is that an error in German version? Or an undocumented change (not included in the patchlog and wrong in the English version)

And of course...how many gov titles the AC is worth in other localisations? Bids are taken...

 

[8housesofelixir]

Is that an error in German version? Or an undocumented change (not included in the patchlog and wrong in the English version)

IIRC you are playing the German version - then can you actually receive one more Governor title when build Audience Chamber?

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Is that an error in German version? Or an undocumented change (not included in the patchlog and wrong in the English version)

I checked all the text localizations and it looks like they just missed changing the German one. All the others correctly state +1.

 

[bonfireg]

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...

This has been my experience, the barbarian camps have mostly converted to City States before anybody has discovered them on the map. The opportunity to actually interact with barbarian clans doesn't seem to extend very far into the game, and once they've converted to City-States they lose all of the interesting new interactions you had with barbarian camps.

 

[Abaxial]

Instability: last couple of games I played, the game would freeze up. This one, it's repeated CTD. My suspicion is that this happens when a barbarian camp converts to a CS and the game has trouble deciding which one to convert to.

 

[aieeegrunt]

This has been my experience, the barbarian camps have mostly converted to City States before anybody has discovered them on the map. The opportunity to actually interact with barbarian clans doesn't seem to extend very far into the game, and once they've converted to City-States they lose all of the interesting new interactions you had with barbarian camps.

Sounds to me like they shouldn’t have any “passive” progression and should only upgrade when interacted with by the player or an AI

I guess if you want mid game barbs you have to turn the mode off

 

[Hans Castorp]

From what I've seen, AI doesn't seem to be clearing barb camps very often with the new mode. The ones I've seen survive into the mid-game are often right next to major civs or CS, so can't become CS themselves; but the AI is just ignoring them. Hard to tell if they are using them in other ways, but I haven't seen a flood of different unique units popping up in AI armies at least.