How Are You Liking The Barbarians Game Mode?

[Deadly Dog]

I changed my vote to "I won't use it' until is patched. Barb camps stop spawning after city states pull is full (I assume)

I suspect you have the reason correct. My setup made it very easy for barb camps to go unmolested and hard for civs to expand. The Primordial map I got is very snaky, lots of islands and interminable cliffls, great for canals and chokepoints sort of thing. So late medieval lots of empty land but I can't find barbs only CS everywhere with white borders.

Someone suggested Terra Map which I suspect now would lead to this sort of thing as well. Basically to keep barbs in the late game you'd need a world where the Civ can fill up the land before all the camps mature yet still leave some space somehow where barbs can spawn and reguilarly get cleared out?

I think I'll still use this mode most of the time but make exceptions for water maps. Those are fun for finding nice settling spots late game and I'd rather clear a traditional camp than annex a CS. It will depend on who I'm playing of course. The meat of this mode is to make those early game struggles with the barbs more engaging without making them too easy.

 

[Josephias]

Do they actually stop spawning after the CS pool has been used up?

It actually does seem at some point, barbarians stop spawning. As it cannot be linked to an specific age (and also this would have not ben a logical feature), I've to say the consumption of the CS pool may seem a logical answer.

 

[Pfeffersack]

What is "Stamford Raffles"?

Who Stamford Raffles - Wikipedia Relation to civ is his recent addition as GP (with the main ability to absorb a CS into your empire)

 

[Babri]

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.

If you bring 2 warriors or warrior+archer to the barb camp, you can easily first sack the camp & then quickly clear it in the next turn or so.

This way you get the gold + era score + 10 XP.

You can also keep a barb camp in the backyard for sacking every 10 turns if your army has nothing better to do. An easy way to farm some XP on fresh recruits.

 

[JR Magallanes]

i felt that sinbad was nerfed because of this. no late game camps for the moolah.

 

[Linklite]

Who Stamford Raffles - Wikipedia Relation to civ is his recent addition as GP (with the main ability to absorb a CS into your empire)

Ah, right. I think I've had him once, tells you how much I pay attention to the Great Person names lol. From TedHerbet's post, it thought that it was a technique or a mod or something.

 

[Old Victoria]

I played one game on King difficulty with the barb tribes mode enabled. It left me underwhelmed. I was not attacked by barbs one single time, and I felt that, in early game, it's so ridiculously expensive to bribe them that I left that choice unused. And I had to wonder: if I can bribe them to attack other civilizations, how long until other civs make them attack me? Huh... I'll give it a few more gos, but I dunno.

 

[Virdrago]

It actually does seem at some point, barbarians stop spawning. As it cannot be linked to an specific age (and also this would have not ben a logical feature), I've to say the consumption of the CS pool may seem a logical answer.

From my playthroughs, I would say you're right. Especially on larger maps. Once the barb clans convert, unless someone starts razing some City States no more will show up. I think it's because of the finite number of slots for civs. Once the game hits 62 civs or the CS pool number, no more barbs. Which also means on the large/huge maps, suddenly 30-40 barbs clans can become CS within 20 turns of each other in the middle classic era.

Maybe slowing down the conversion rate, and not starting the new barb CS with city walls (so some can be taken/razed) could help, but the main issue seems to be related to be map sizes and the CS pool.

 

[Smity2k1]

I had way too many CS in my small sized map by industrial Era. I had no limit to the CS pool but no more barbs spawned that I noticed, so maybe there's a limit elsewhere.

But yeah the barbs turn into CS too fast IMO and there were just too many city states. I suzerined all of them I'm not sure if the Ai plays this mode well...

 

[The googles do nothing]

For those who think barbs converting to CS too fast what speed are you playing at? The games i've played are at online and quick speeds and it takes more then an era even with bribes.

 

[blackbutterfly]

For those who think barbs converting to CS too fast what speed are you playing at?

I think the problem is in the first 3 eras (until Renaissance) when you want to be expanding and founding a religion, in barbs mode you have to pay attention to barbs.

Disperse those that spawn near you.

Bribe, incite, convert those near your neighbors. Kinda too much to juggle.

 

[tedhebert]

Who Stamford Raffles - Wikipedia Relation to civ is his recent addition as GP (with the main ability to absorb a CS into your empire)

Ah, right. I think I've had him once, tells you how much I pay attention to the Great Person names lol. From TedHerbet's post, it thought that it was a technique or a mod or something.

yeah I had to go search for it in civpedia to understand what it meant too ;-) Thanks for noting that it's a relatively recent addition, it makes me worries a lot less about any memory loss ;-) And same thing here, I really do not pay attention to great people's names

 

[blackbutterfly]

Why do you say huge maps are barely supported?

"Super large". Like YnAMP. Modded map sizes.

They don't work in Civ VI.
Not for awhile now.

 

[Carl5872]

Do achievements still trigger if this game mode is on?

 

[blackbutterfly]

Do achievements still trigger if this game mode is on?

Yes.

 

[Disgustipated]

I played one game on King difficulty with the barb tribes mode enabled. It left me underwhelmed. I was not attacked by barbs one single time, and I felt that, in early game, it's so ridiculously expensive to bribe them that I left that choice unused. And I had to wonder: if I can bribe them to attack other civilizations, how long until other civs make them attack me? Huh... I'll give it a few more gos, but I dunno.

My King game they were aggressive towards me. Though my map settings were weird since I had city states set to 0 (which also bugged the camp conversion to city state, but maybe that's a design feature), which gave plenty of room for camps.

Crossbowman barbs were such a problem (everyone else only had archers) I was unable to conquer the city of Washington. I gave up on conquering America, and just peacefully settled. Turns out, I had plenty of room to settle anyways. The barbs kept the AI civs hemmed in. The upside is I did get some use out of all those units I built to attack America, I used them to protect my expansion from the barbs.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

I had just started a game with no city states hoping they would all emerge from barbarians. I thought it would be cool to see the early game feel wild with only the major civs as urban cultures with more eventually springing up.

But from what I've seen here no CS spawn if you start the game with zero? So that plan is sunk then...

 

[MrRadar]

I've now completed one standard size and speed continents and islands deity game with this mode (+corporations), no mods. And, as often is in Civ VI case, it's a cool idea, but the implementation is not so successful.

The start was interesting, some dilemmas between razing or raising and just raiding for now, but as game goes on... I used the slider to start with 6 CS instead of default 12, and at the end of the game there were 16 survivors on the map. Just one was captured by the AI. There was still a small patch unexplored, so there could be another one or two hiding in the fog. Anyway, that's way too many city states

City states, arisen from barb camps, seemed to stagnate technologically. In the Modern era they still were moving warriors and archers and quadriremes, showing city defense strength of 22 or even 6.

Spoiler :

Besides, at some point midgame the world became barb-free. No new camps, vast swathes of land and all the seas completely safe to traverse. Are all the barbs so eager to civilize themselves?
So my vote is meh.

Everything is one way - all the camps are like: lets acquire those teacups asap and learn to stick the pinky finger out while drinking.
But what about the balance in the Force? If some camps strive to the light of civilization, others probably are very happy with the status quo and sees interminable raiding and pillaging as their fulfillment in life?
And if some city states remain without contact, envoys or general attention from leading civilizations of the world, couldn't they just decay into a pitiful barb settlement? Especially, after they've been hit by some natural disaster? It's good for the big boys, they can ask for an international help, but what's in there for the small fry?
There could be done so much more. For now, it feels very shallow.

 

[nauberry]

City states, arisen from barb camps, seemed to stagnate technologically. In the Modern era they still were moving warriors and archers and quadriremes, showing city defense strength of 22 or even 6.

I have also noticed the lack of technology. All civs are well to future era in my score-only game, and the barbarian city states still only have slingers.

 

[MrRadar]

I have also noticed the lack of technology. All civs are well to future era in my score-only game, and the barbarian city states still only have slingers.

By the way, I've just realized: on Deity, the world era clock announces the new era very regularly and strictly every 40 turns. This time I was very surprised when in the second half of the game it started to allow more than 40 turns for an era. Could all those new and backward city states slow the pace of the world's progress?