How Are You Liking The Barbarians Game Mode?

[mrwho]

It's the most well-balanced of all the game modes and we got it for free. There's little reason to ever not use it in my opinion. It doesn't make the game too easy like other modes can risk doing, and just adds extra features and options. Really great addition.

I guess it does neuter barbs a bit, but I think they're too overtuned in the base game so that's fine with me. Really the only minor downside is new city-states in awful locations that get stuck at 1 population for the entire game. But that's pretty minor IMO.

 

[DanQuayle]

People complain about "silly"modes in civ 6, but imo the civ 4 lion attacking and eating a large roving band of workers armed with shovels and pickaxes trumps them all. At least if you don't like zombies you can turn them off.

This could be balanced by tweaking the following three settings:

1. Aggressiveness: the probability of the wildlife animal attacking nearby units in its field of vision for a single turn
2. Combat strength: the strength at which the wild life animal would attack a military unit
3. Probability of killing civilian units/escape probability of civilian unit: if an animal decides to attack a civilian unit what is the chance the animal kills the civilian unit?

For example, at what would you estimate the survival chance of your "large roving band of workers armed with shovels and pickaxes" when facing an herd of trampling elephants?

Anyway, you are probably right. I think it would work best as a separate mod than as an inclusion in the base ruleset.
I just find that the game currently lacks "pressure from external forces". Wildlife animals would be a way to address that.
Currently, you can easily circumvent the world before the start of the classical era with 2 scouts on a lake/highlands map or you can have a bunch of builders moving around between your cities with no or little military protection without any consequences.

 

[Abaxial]

Barb mode allows the following stratagem:

Around the start of the Renaissance era, probe the polar regions for as many new city states as possible. Since you get one envoy in each for discovering them, it generally takes just another two for suzerainship. Result: easy era score, and a lot of diplomatic influence for not much effort, not to mention all the special abilities.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Barb mode allows the following stratagem:

Around the start of the Renaissance era, probe the polar regions for as many new city states as possible. Since you get one envoy in each for discovering them, it generally takes just another two for suzerainship. Result: easy era score, and a lot of diplomatic influence for not much effort, not to mention all the special abilities.

This mode is just fail, I mean Middle Ages Polar Research Stations

 

[konokoni]

I find the mode pretty inconsequential and boring. At first it looks good with the tribe names and stronger camps, but then camps get wiped out and no more appear, or they convert to CS fast and (as other have pointed out) sometimes in locations that make no sense. It looked like it had a lot of potential but the balance just isn't there yet. I'll be turning it off for now.

Same here, I've turned it off too. The interesting things this mode had to offer doesn't really come into play because it costs too much gold and/or is too inconsequential, and the downsides are just too big.

Barb mode allows the following stratagem:

Around the start of the Renaissance era, probe the polar regions for as many new city states as possible. Since you get one envoy in each for discovering them, it generally takes just another two for suzerainship. Result: easy era score, and a lot of diplomatic influence for not much effort, not to mention all the special abilities.

I revised my vote from "good" to "may use." I really liked it at first, and the idea is really solid. But I agree that it's too expensive to leverage most of the time, and the plethora of polar City States is just dumb. I hope they at least address the polar CS issue in the April patch.

 

[tedhebert]

I've downgraded my vote from Love it to Meh...

Honestly, I feel it's the mode that eases my game the most so far. If a camp is too close at beginning, get rid of it, Otherwise, leave it there and pluck an inexpensive military unit with Gold every time you can from all camps. Then, you're just flooded with CSes and no more barbs.

For me, that has meant:

1) not having to hard build any units after the 2-3 scouts/warrior in the very first few turns. All my prod if left available for other things and I spent my G on buying units (warriors at 90G)
2) Having a lot less competition for suzerainty of the CSes I want

The only down side is you REALLY have to go get rid of the camps close to you, or you'll be swamped.

I've never used any other option than buy unit. No interest.

So... Idea was nice, but unless you remember when creating your game to set the max CSes WAY lower, then the mode actually makes your game way too easy, espceially in the first 100 turns... In my mind, more than SS or heroes.

 

[Jeppetto]

I've not been here for some time, so maybe this was discussed, as it was issue discovered on-launch, but I'll ask anyway - how does the no CS at start, generate them over game work? It didn't work at launch, it doesn't work now.

From how they explained it, I got the impression I am to set City-States to 0 and pick in Select City-States the pool from which it'll draw, but once again, it causes City-State Progression to be Disabled.

 

[m_mus]

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned, but since the last patch, I see new barb-camps being generated even after the first conversions of barb-camps into city-states! Seems like this bug has been fixed.

 

[Deadly Dog]

I've not been here for some time, so maybe this was discussed, as it was issue discovered on-launch, but I'll ask anyway - how does the no CS at start, generate them over game work? It didn't work at launch, it doesn't work now.

From how they explained it, I got the impression I am to set City-States to 0 and pick in Select City-States the pool from which it'll draw, but once again, it causes City-State Progression to be Disabled.

I recall it being specified that for this to work you have to set CS to 1 not zero. So you will have to allow for one initial CS for some lucky civ to find, but then the limit can be set by taking some CS out of the pool.

I think the most important thing to get working properly in this mode is getting new CS up to speed with the era in terms of defense strength and enforcing borders. That and a snow/ice modifier to slow conversion of barb camps in the poles.

 

[kaspergm]

I've downgraded my vote from Love it to Meh...

Honestly, I feel it's the mode that eases my game the most so far. If a camp is too close at beginning, get rid of it, Otherwise, leave it there and pluck an inexpensive military unit with Gold every time you can from all camps. Then, you're just flooded with CSes and no more barbs.

For me, that has meant:

1) not having to hard build any units after the 2-3 scouts/warrior in the very first few turns. All my prod if left available for other things and I spent my G on buying units (warriors at 90G)
2) Having a lot less competition for suzerainty of the CSes I want

The only down side is you REALLY have to go get rid of the camps close to you, or you'll be swamped.

I've never used any other option than buy unit. No interest.

So... Idea was nice, but unless you remember when creating your game to set the max CSes WAY lower, then the mode actually makes your game way too easy, espceially in the first 100 turns... In my mind, more than SS or heroes.

I don’t know if this has been discussed, but settling within 3 hexes from a camp (I.e. closer than minimum city distance) will lock this camp to zero progress towards turning into a city state. This way, potentially you can farm cheap units from the for a much longer time as long as no-one else eradicates the camp. This particularly seems to work well with coastal camps where access for others civs can easily be blocked.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I very much like that by the Medieval era it's no longer important to escort your settlers, as they are not going to be ambushed by hidden barbarians.

I agree, I love this aspect of the mode!

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

I find that I am choosing now to start a game with fewer city-states (sometimes down to even one) and have them generate on their own with this mode turned on. In this, I am able to better pick and choose which Barb camps (and future city-states) I want and where. A very nice fluid placement setup option to have while in-game versus the random start. I highly suggest you give it a try!

 

[Tuvok694]

A barbarian bireme destroyed my second city in only three turns. Barbarians are insanely aggressive, but switch them off and you have no chance against the AI.