How Are You Liking The Barbarians Game Mode?

[kryat]

I’m seeing at least 2 other unforeseen downstream effects as well that lead to a more difficult early game.

1) Not clearing the barb camp means fewer era score points. That can be 3-9 points making even a normal classical that much more difficult to get.

2) If you bribe them and don’t clear them (as @Eagle Pursuit mentioned, you are quite poor.

Is it worth not clearing them early on? Too soon to tell.

 

[Smity2k1]

It seems that if you have discovered a barb encampment and then it later becomes a city state you automatically get the bonus envoy for the first person to visit that city state. I think that's because the human player takes their turn first. I'm not sure I like this, and I think maybe there should be no bonus envoy for barb encampments that become city states.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I like it, but the barbs are much stronger. I feel like the spawn rate for barb units has gone up. I had a sea clan set up next to a lake and fill it with Quads. It was a pain in the butt to clear that camp.

I think that's fine though, because there are different ways for dealing with them now.

 

[tedhebert]

It's definitely making me rethink my early game strategy.

Exactly. Still playing my first game, and a camp 3tiles away from me, protected from me by river hills and mountains, and of course an immediate first turn scout on my border, made my life miserable for at least 50 turns, as I couldn't do more than defend against them while they bombarded (archers) and pillaged
without stop. In the end, finding Himiko and getting her allowed me to suze a CS then levy it's troops to get rid of it from the other side. Honestly, while being quite annoying, I like the fact that my game was made harder by this, and hope that it happens regularly in my games, slows down early game and make
everything harder and longer in my games. Can't wait to see if my mid-end game suffers as much as I expect in this one ;-)

 

[UWHabs]

I actually found the barbarians easier in the couple games I have tried.

Definitely having some early gold is awesome - my game I'm playing through as Mali, and it was really awesome to buy a horseman for 191 gold. Part of me wanted to keep that camp around so that I could keep buying those horsemen. Got a Toa from another camp before someone sacked it.

One thing I did notice is that since city-states are very aggressive towards the camps, you have to be really careful if you want to keep a camp around. I almost feel I need to park a unit permanently in the camp otherwise the AI will take them out. Although in my current game, it looks like Anshan grew into a CS in a polar region. I'm watching 2 other camps which have their counters rising now near Ethiopia - I'm just trying to figure out if it's worth it to buy some swords from them to speed them along. Or whether I need to send some troops out to it to make sure nobody else clears it out.

But yeah, I think it will take a few games to figure out the right way to deal with them. I had another camp which I didn't want to raid, since my troop would have been kicked behind some CS units and so the camp was a goner. But I didn't want to clear it (yet), since I wanted to wait until the next era. So literally just fortified a warrior on top of it for like 15 turns until the era flipped over.

 

[aieeegrunt]

It seems that if you have discovered a barb encampment and then it later becomes a city state you automatically get the bonus envoy for the first person to visit that city state. I think that's because the human player takes their turn first. I'm not sure I like this, and I think maybe there should be no bonus envoy for barb encampments that become city states.

Given the opportunity cost for not clearing them; gold, era score and needing to fight them I think this bonus should stand

 

[tedhebert]

It seems that if you have discovered a barb encampment and then it later becomes a city state you automatically get the bonus envoy for the first person to visit that city state. I think that's because the human player takes their turn first. I'm not sure I like this, and I think maybe there should be no bonus envoy for barb encampments that become city states.

Given the opportunity cost for not clearing them; gold, era score and needing to fight them I think this bonus should stand

I wonder about this. Is there any way to tell if it ever happens that an AI civ gets the bonus envoy instead of the player ? Has anyone noticed that from noticing a new CS appearing and seeing an AI civ having the 1 envoy ?

It's sad that it's so hard to tell what the AI is actually doing and not doing without going into the game files.

One example: In my current game I was swamped by a very close camp I wasn't able to clear fast enough. I assumed that the dozens of units it spawned and it's constant attacking me was business as usual but... What if an AI CIV actually kept on bribing them to attack me ? Would I even have a way of knowing about it ? Is there a new gossip item letting me know ? A part of me wishes I could know, another part of me wonders: WHY should I know ? anyways...

 

[blackbutterfly]

You can use naval raider units to steadily plunder barbarian camps with coastal raid option.

Oh? I'm definitely going to play Norway next with Barb mode.

But for now I'm playing Mali. Another mode Mali is super at, as it is with Dramatic Ages and Monopolies & Corps.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm currently playing Eleanor (still Ancient era). I want the barb camps to turn to cities that I can eventually flip. But my god, the barbs are a nuisance. I'm broke from not raiding their camps. I can't afford to expand and buy them off. It irks me, but I like having the options, even if I can't afford to do anything with them yet.

 

[Virdrago]

I wonder about this. Is there any way to tell if it ever happens that an AI civ gets the bonus envoy instead of the player ? Has anyone noticed that from noticing a new CS appearing and seeing an AI civ having the 1 envoy ?

I have and they do. The first barb camp-to-CS gave me the envoy, but my current game so far has ten new CS from barb camps (huge map). Persia and Scythia were obviously exploring in this game: they have first envoys in seven of them.

 

[CoconutTank]

I'm curious if it's worthwhile to keep a barb clan around as a sort of mercenary company that one can keep hiring units from. Hire unit -> raid camp for gold to cover expenses and bring their civility down, over and over.

I'm assuming barb clans will continue having access to units that any civ has access to, which could be somewhat out of the way of one's current tech path. Potentially side-stepping strategic resource costs may be of interest as well.

 

[Leucarum]

Yup. The barbarians are definitely more challenging, I think maybe the conversion is a little slow... But that could be just me

 

[rlw33]

Anybody else had trouble getting Sanguine Pact with the barbarian mode switched on?

 

[blackbutterfly]

So barbs on TSL Earth don't convert to city states cos the number of city states is fixed...not unless a city state is razed. (Edit: OK not even if a CS is razed. Not sure why that is).

Mod

(Edit: so I tried to mod this allowing more CSs on TSL Earth but it had no effect. Barbs still won't convert on TSL maps. IDK )

 

[blackcatatonic]

Too soon to say, but so far I like it a lot. My only complaint is that it seems to be possible to disperse a barbarian encampment even when another Civ (in this case, me) has a unit in it. Is this a bug, or working as intended?

 

[Piranga]

I would have liked it more if I felt it was better implemented with the overall game. It would have been more interesting to see a completely reworked city state mechanic with them spawning from barbarians (possibly other methods like from a long time Free City). As it is now, just having the standard amount of city states spawn at turn 1 and further ones from barbarians feels excessive.

Hopefully for 7, they can balance this game mode into the core game so City States can progressively spawn into the game.

Overall its one of the only 2 game modes I would ever consider using again.

 

[Bitterman]

I pillaged a camp twice in the ancient era and the third time it spawned crossbowmen instead of archers. It basically exterminated my neighbour Greece and made my life impossible for 15 turns at least. I hope that's a bug.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I absolutely love it already.....it brings back some of the best parts of Barbarians from Civilization IV.....only with extra functionality. Having more options in how to deal with barbarians can only be a good thing, IMHO.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

Just rage quit my first game with the new mode.

So apparently there is this tribe called "One Eye" which spawns a unit every turn regardless of whether a scout spotted one of your cities or not. This is not my idea of of fun. I'm turning this mode off and won't be using it again. Someone fix this now.

edit: seems like other people have noticed increased barbarian spawn rate. apparently it's not one tribe. I can confirm. it is way, way up and frankly it's ridiculous. I guess you're supposed to leave them alone or something so they can convert to city states but what's the point of barbarians then...

 

[Tigranes]

Later days Rome heavily relied on hiring barbarians, so many parts of this mode feel historical, cool and useful. Hiring a Barbarian is cheaper than buying a similar unit in your city. You can use them during the turn you hired them. They wont go home like levied troops. Not to mention you can hire Congo's unique unit as China! What's not to like? Even in Civ1 you could interact with Barbarians -- they asked for ransom and you could reply to them. Before this mode all we could do is kill them. But the history was always about interaction of more sophisticated civilizations with those they called barbarians, who became civilized or disappeared.