How are bararian spawn times in Gathering Storm for you

[NukeAJS]

Having played a couple of MP games, it seems that certain continents/regions whatever are more likely to spawn barbs. In one game, I would clear a barb camp and it would immediately spawn another on the same continent. Meanwhile, my friend had zero barbs spawn around him. I must have cleared 8 barb camps so you expect at least some of those camps to spawn near him but nope ... always me.

I'm not complaining though, I never have problems with barbs with the rare exception of pre-archery hose barbs and getting a bad roll on a coastal barb camp that spawns 3-4 quadremes.

 

[RickSL]

I’m playing hot seat with my kids at the moment. On turn 110, I am having to constantly fight off barbarians. Pillaging is non-stop and workers need guards.

Meanwhile, my kids on other continents have not seen a single barbarian.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I definitely think it's the timing of the spawn of the camp rather than the rates of units from a specific camp. It's like the numbers generator decides there should be a camp somewhere, at beginning of turn doesn't see one there (because you killed it), and so immediately places a new one in the closest available fog of war spot. The system is hellbent on having a camp in a certain spot, with no kind of "cool down timer" or however they do it. When I hit the "bad lottery" I've almost found I'm sometimes better off not killing a camp because another one is just going to come anyhow and it might be in a less convenient place.

 

[Infixo]

I definitely think it's the timing of the spawn of the camp rather than the rates of units from a specific camp.

Duplicated Spawn Change node...

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Duplicated Spawn Change node...

Thank you, I totally missed that in all the posts. Still it seems totally inconsistent between games. It's not like I change my barb-hunting habits.

 

[lordhaw]

It is very inconsistent between games. My first couple of games were swarming with barbs, my past few games have been OK, pretty low barb activity. But my current one is swarming with them. Barb camps keep popping up all the time very close to my cities with lots of spawns. I don't change the way I play regarding barbs either, it's not like i'm leaving the scouts alone or killing them any more or less than usual. Heck I even had just destroyed a camp, started to move away and a new camp spawned in the same area, immediately producing a scout.

 

[Elric of Grans]

I have been finding that one of two things happens. Either I am so swamped with barbarians that I cannot manage them and give up, or one of the AIs gets so swamped with barbarians that they are hamstrung. When I find those AIs, I can usually pick up multiple free Settlers and Builders, find all their tiles a burning mess of pillaged ruins, and they are ranking last on everything. In my last game, Scythia was like this. I was on the verge of victory before they finally managed to clear the barbarians and start expanding. It seems like the barbarian spawns tend to largely focused on a single civilisation, rather than being evenly spread among them all. Combined with how city states now all seem to spawn in one small area, and resources often seem to cluster too, there seems to be something dodgy in the map generation script (my wholly unprofessional opinion).

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Because „no barbarians” is not related to that at all.

That's not what we are talking about though, with Barbarians on they do seem to clump the camps so that when you clear one a new one reappears very close.

 

[avguy2]

I have been finding that one of two things happens. Either I am so swamped with barbarians that I cannot manage them and give up, or one of the AIs gets so swamped with barbarians that they are hamstrung. When I find those AIs, I can usually pick up multiple free Settlers and Builders, find all their tiles a burning mess of pillaged ruins, and they are ranking last on everything. In my last game, Scythia was like this. I was on the verge of victory before they finally managed to clear the barbarians and start expanding. It seems like the barbarian spawns tend to largely focused on a single civilisation, rather than being evenly spread among them all. Combined with how city states now all seem to spawn in one small area, and resources often seem to cluster too, there seems to be something dodgy in the map generation script (my wholly unprofessional opinion).

You might be on to something there with your cluster theory! I'm making similar observations regarding resources and city states.

 

[Gregolution]

Well I bought Gathering Storm on the weekend so haven't exactly play tested to death but in my game the barbarian spawn rate has been silly. Looking back through my era score, I've cleared 20 camps by turn 99. I've been miles into golden age without trying for both of the first 2 eras which has to be wrong. I love the era system, it's a nice extra thing to chase but it's been made completely redundant by the Barb spawns.

 

[Ondolindë]

My experience so far has been decent amount of Barbs in three games until my first Phoenicia game last night where I saw none anywhere. I had the Ottomans next to me who attacked me immediately so that made up for it plenty, but still.

 

[ShunNakamura]

Yeah, my latest game as England got side railed hard. If even a single hex fogs between my cities I end up with a barb camp spawn on my trade road. Nuts. I am having to post ludricrous number of units around to keep them at bay and the city states are so busy clearing camps that they completely ignore Germany who is sweeping them up. And then I have to go in and sweep him up which is why I am posting cheap units to keep fog away. Else wise everything is needed at home to keep the hordes at bay. I am so far behind right now. I know it is abuse-able but in situations like this I wish barbs gave full xp. Then at least I might have something to show for it.

At least my area finally seems mostly under control. I still need to send some knights and swords and xbows to clear out a path so I can scout the rest of the continent though.

 

[shadowplay]

It seems to mostly be barbarian ships. They're spawning at an insane rate in my game.