Getting rid of early barbarian horses

[Archon_Wing]

What's really weird is spears don't get a bonus vs horse archers.....

 

[Archon_Wing]

I sorta get that, but from a balance perspective that kinda sucks. Besides in this scenario we have already assumed the spears have met the horse archers in close combat if the spear initiates the attack.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Barbarian horses are completely unrealistic for their time period. Would be at least 600 BC before any nomadic culture would have warhorses suitable and trained for riding.

According to Wikipedia the first evidence of horses used in warfare is from 4000-3000 BC.

 

[Forster]

No player starts with horsemen (not sure about Tomyris), barbs should be the same. I once started between 4 barb camps, 2 were pumping out horsemen on east and west, the other 2 were regular barbs to the north and south. All were within 7 - 10 hexes of my capital. Needless to say, the game was over very quickly.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

But the barb horsemen are terrible, they're just fast warriors, at least to begin with.

 

[dunkleosteus]

According to Wikipedia the first evidence of horses used in warfare is from 4000-3000 BC.

I didn't say horses used in warfare, I said "riding". The earliest evidence of horses being RIDDEN into battle is around 600 BCE. Prior to that, horses were too small to support the weight of an adult human in gear. This is why chariots were such a big part of grand combat in prehistory. Fielding chariots is notoriously expensive, so it's also something I wouldn't expect barbarians to be capable of. Therefore, horses should not be part of the early barbarian arsenal.

I've just checked wikipedia and it does say ridden on the 4000 to 3000 BC line. This is very clearly incorrect, I wonder where that figure came from.

If you look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_warfare#Cavalry you can see in the same article that the earliest record of riding horses is from the last millenium BC, and the evidence we do have is that they rode horses in a way that made fast movement impossible. True mounted cavalry units are not known for a very long time after the introduction of horses and chariots into warfare. The oldest evidence for horses in warfare are all related to horses pulling carts. I expect the line that mentions riding in 4000 BC is a misunderstanding of this (these ancient references are the source of the Sumerian unique warcart unit). See also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry#History

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Fair enough, I'm sure you know more about it than me!

I seem to keep saying this at the moment but the game bears very little relation to actual real world history so I personally don't see the point in worrying about historical accuracy. The majority of the civs didn't exist in 4000BC, for example. Crappy barbs with horses seem perfectly fair enough, it's hardly immersion breaking in my opinion! Barbs with tanks would be a bit much though.

 

[dunkleosteus]

Fair enough, I'm sure you know more about it than me!

I seem to keep saying this at the moment but the game bears very little relation to actual real world history so I personally don't see the point in worrying about historical accuracy. The majority of the civs didn't exist in 4000BC, for example. Crappy barbs with horses seem perfectly fair enough, it's hardly immersion breaking in my opinion! Barbs with tanks would be a bit much though.

I agree, realism does not seem to be a driving force here. I think there has to be a limit, as you said. I've always imagined Civ to be a sort of re-imagining of history, as if you took some of the greatest leaders in history and put them at the dawn of civilization with their respective civilizations. For the most part, the techs, civics, buildings, etc. all follow this idea. All techs and civics have prerequisites and there is a general adherence through history, as far as that goes. All of the mechanics are also based on real life (we don't have any magic, for example). If firaxis tries to sell me a game where I can play a great historical leader from 4000 BC, I can accept that because I can see the value in fudging rules like "leaders die" and "England didn't exist yet" to get a better story. But something like this feels arbitrary or sloppy. I don't see any huge benefit to early game barbs on horses.

Also, on the point of tanks; having horseman at 3000 BC is as bad as tanks in 500 BC (since both wouldn't exist for another 2500 years!)

 

[UWHabs]

To me, barbs should get horsemen only after the global era has moved to the classical era (ie. at least half the civs are in the classic era). And at that, they should probably get horses that are strength ~28, roughly the same as a chariot. It's true that currently at least the early horses aren't any stronger than warriors, but they're damned annoying. I've definitely had more than one game where I've simply quit when a bunch of horses mess me up early. I don't need useless barbs, but I don't want to tell myself that I would rather an AI had spawned in that spot.

 

[Yokel]

I've seen Horse Barb camps respawn horses every other turn. It takes 2 turns to take out the horse on the camp with 2 slingers, then, between turns, yet another horse spawns on the camp, and it starts all over again. I guess I could just use it as an XP farm, swapping out slingers, warriors, and then archers and spearmen. But it's more obnoxious than anything.

 

[pgm123]

I didn't say horses used in warfare, I said "riding". The earliest evidence of horses being RIDDEN into battle is around 600 BCE. Prior to that, horses were too small to support the weight of an adult human in gear. This is why chariots were such a big part of grand combat in prehistory. Fielding chariots is notoriously expensive, so it's also something I wouldn't expect barbarians to be capable of. Therefore, horses should not be part of the early barbarian arsenal.

I've just checked wikipedia and it does say ridden on the 4000 to 3000 BC line. This is very clearly incorrect, I wonder where that figure came from.

The evidence is disputed, but there is evidence of tribal raiding on horseback that may predate 4000 BCE. (See: Riding, Chariots and Warfare) This would be on the Western Steppe and the evidence is archaeological, not written. Javelins and archers were more effective from chariots before the recurve bow. If this evidence is true, it's not unrealistic to have weak, barbarian horsemen.

 

[Karpius]

"The game is too easy! The game is so easy its broken!"

Hasn't that been the standard lament from most people? Now we hear just how annoying those nasty barbarians can be when one is just an infant civilization looking to peacefully explore one's surroundings....and destroy the first civ they come across with some sort of slinger-slinger-archer-archer rush. Those pesky barbarians, however, just might ruin that master plan!

 

[dunkleosteus]

The evidence is disputed, but there is evidence of tribal raiding on horseback that may predate 4000 BCE. (See: Riding, Chariots and Warfare) This would be on the Western Steppe and the evidence is archaeological, not written. Javelins and archers were more effective from chariots before the recurve bow. If this evidence is true, it's not unrealistic to have weak, barbarian horsemen.

The article you link makes a clear distinction between tribal riding and cavalry. There is scant evidence that horses were ridden before the introduction of cavalry into combat, especially to transport messengers. These horses would probably have been saddleless, small, and unsuited for combat (most animals will not run headfirst into pointy sticks). If archaeologists could form a consensus that horseback riding did indeed exist ~3000 BC for this single culture, it would be reasonable to very rarely, allow early barbarian camps to spawn a sort of proto-horseman unit. As I mentioned, these horses are not suited for combat, so the best you'd get out of them was mobility: you could ride quickly around the landscape but you'd probably have to dismount to engage in combat.

It might be kind of cool if this existed. Maybe if you clear one of these special barb camps that could produce proto-horseman, you'd get the eureka for horseback riding (if you hadn't yet received it) in addition to the normal camp reward. Speaking of the horseback riding eureka, I'd prefer to see it changed. I'd rather have the current Eureka (build a pasture) changed to the Eureka for the wheel (currently: build a mine) and change the horseback riding eureka to something like "build 3 chariots". Chariots really get shafted in Civ 6, even though they were really dang important, historically. They were the tank of their day, and inspired fear in their enemies. Getting pretty off-topic now, but to make chariots better and to reflect their battlefield-charisma, I would suggest that chariots get a promotion like "thundering hooves": non-cavalry units of an equal or lower rank take -5 on defense when attacked. History depicts chariots as a thing to be feared: they through up great clouds of dust and moved faster than any man could ever hope to run. They created a great noise when they tore across the dusty plains and meeker men broke ranks when born down by chariots (I've paraphrased prose for dramatic effect). To represent this, I suggested defending units might take -5 against chariots. Perhaps it increases to -10 if there is another adjacent chariot. If your defending unit is a cavalry unit or a higher level than your chariots (ie more disciplined), this scare-tactic goes away.

I don't think Civ has to shy away from realism to be fun. History has a vast wealth of information to use and by paying homage to history, it gives your mechanics a weight that they wouldn't have otherwise. History and nature are sources of inspiration that make for better teachers than anything we [individual] humans could come up with on our own, and when you have a game like Civilization that is set in history, I think it is better to work with any existing ideas people have about history than against them. Horseman make sense because we've [mostly] all grown up hearing about knights in armour on horseback and popular culture depicts the ancient world with tv shows and movies. We all recognize the soldier in a bronze muscle-cuirass with a horse-hair plume, a round shield and long speer when we see the Greek Hoplites. The civilization series romanticizes history and presents it as beautiful, but in my opinion, it falls short of representing history's true beauty.

[Note: I don't mean to say that bloodshed, war, and disease are beautiful, but I believe that the greatest dramas, tragedies, comedies and stories will be found in history, not in fiction]

 

[pgm123]

The article you link makes a clear distinction between tribal riding and cavalry. There is scant evidence that horses were ridden before the introduction of cavalry into combat, especially to transport messengers. These horses would probably have been saddleless, small, and unsuited for combat (most animals will not run headfirst into pointy sticks). If archaeologists could form a consensus that horseback riding did indeed exist ~3000 BC for this single culture, it would be reasonable to very rarely, allow early barbarian camps to spawn a sort of proto-horseman unit. As I mentioned, these horses are not suited for combat, so the best you'd get out of them was mobility: you could ride quickly around the landscape but you'd probably have to dismount to engage in combat.

My reading of the article is that cavalry are military units--i.e. a part of an army and trained for combat. The discussion of javelins seems to imply to me that some javelin-throwing was done from horseback prior to 1000 BCE, particularly since elsewhere it talks about horseback riding used in hunting. Large horses appear about 3500 BCE. Even (barbarian) raiders simply used horses to get into combat and dismounted, that wouldn't eliminate their use for barbarians in the Ancient Era in the game. The donkey carts of Sumer were used to get troops into combat where they likely dismounted. The barbarian horsemen are weaker than Classical era horsemen, which reflects them being proto-horsemen before the era of the recurve bow, good saddles, trained military horses, etc. I think it make sense how the game uses the units.

 

[Disgustipated]

I still like the extra challenge when I do play with barbs on, but it could be pushed back to turn 30 or so before you see horses. They are too early. Does it really make sense the barbarians are more technologically advanced than actual civilizations?

But I also think barbs fall behind on tech, and aren't much of a challenge after the early game. I'd actually rather see them improve to the next level of tech when only 1 or 2 civs reach the next era instead of half.

 

[Archon_Wing]

"The game is too easy! The game is so easy its broken!"

Hasn't that been the standard lament from most people? Now we hear just how annoying those nasty barbarians can be when one is just an infant civilization looking to peacefully explore one's surroundings....and destroy the first civ they come across with some sort of slinger-slinger-archer-archer rush. Those pesky barbarians, however, just might ruin that master plan!

Actually not everyone thinks the game is easy. They may think the ai is stupid, but these are not the same thing. For example, you could have the ai start with 6 settlers and get the same complaints even though it is harder.

The problem is the suggestion that people who complain about barbarians aren't able to handle them. That has little to do with people finding it fun or not.

The presence of horse barbs does not dissuade anyone from a archer rush. It in fact mandates it since it just means you have more troops anyways and are now behind, thus merely further incentizing a rush.

Not to mention that the player isn't the only one affected, and makes neighbors potentially easier to rush.

 

[Heinage]

I enjoy the challenge that barbarians pose to the early game in Civ VI

It keeps you on your toes and gives some much needed push back right from the start of the game.
Fighting off a barbarian invasion or recovering from damage they've done fills me with a sense of achievement that I otherwise wouldn't get in the early game if they were too meek.

 

[Depravo]

The other side of the coin is if you are unlucky enough to spawn near a horse camp, and you do manage to defeat them, and AI were nearby you can often claim those sweet free settlers. My record was four from a single camp.

It sounds good, and it was a huge relief, but in that game the civ went from being a besieged, backwards citadel with a runaway military and nothing else, to the master of six backwards cities within 10 turns. Of course by that time the AI civs had three to five thriving cities of their own, all but two religions had been founded, I was a mile off getting my first district and could forget about anything but domination victory. That's not balance.

 

[Sherlock]

The 'eight turns into the game and you have four barb camps and six barb units' is just flat out stupid.

 

[ronehjr]

To those who are missing my point, I didn't say the horse barbs are to difficult to deal with, I said it wasn't fun too early in the game. Once I get archers, I have no problems. I would even like too have more barbs, but of course raging barbs is screwed up with the horses. Since I play on epic, getting to archery can seem an eternity, and the strategy of turtling can suck the fun out of the game for the several turns it takes. The issue doesn't ruin the game for me as a whole, but it can ruin a game periodically.

While I am here *****ing, one more complaint I have is the scarcity of iron. My favorite civ is Rome, so of course iron is often scarce. I know I could use the setting for standard resources, but that takes some of the flavor out of the game. Donquiche had a great little in game editor for civ 5, I wish he would reprise his work for 6.