Oh where art the barbarians, the raging barbarians?

[Kivin]

@tlaurila: I was on communitas. I had a sort of "L" shaped landmass with me near the joint. I had two camps spawn next to each other north of me, another with me in the joint of the L and a whole mess of them to the side of me... maybe as many as half a dozen camps between me and the other leader. More than that, they were vomiting out units so fast that an archer, warrior and scout couldn't even *kill* them faster than they spawned (edit: clarification, my three units could not keep up with the spawns from ONE camp. The others were in fog and not dumping a barbarian horde on me, just preventing travel), let alone gain ground. I have a screenshot here somewhere of 6 brutes and a spear surrounding my capital. I deforested my capital trying to chop out units to get a grip, but gave up on the game. I was getting too far behind and probably would have outright lost my capital to barbs.

edit: New game, more barbarian problems. Time will tell if I can get a grip on it or not. Got three camps in close proximity to my city dumping on me. It appears that the mod is unplayable for me at this point in time.

edit2: It took more than one military unit and some focus, but I did take care of the barb problem. Then again, I spawned sandwiched in between Nobunaga and Adolphus, and they're both spamming units so the barbs did not really have a chance.

 

[Ahriman]

In version 3.10 I certainly see a lot of barbarians. I can't tell yet whether it is too much or not. But honestly the vanilla BNW behavior didn't seem off to me; if we can take that while including the wider mix of barbarian units, then that I think would be sufficient.

 

[Kivin]

In version 3.10 I certainly see a lot of barbarians. I can't tell yet whether it is too much or not. But honestly the vanilla BNW behavior didn't seem off to me; if we can take that while including the wider mix of barbarian units, then that I think would be sufficient.

My gut feeling is: yes, there are far too many barb units - situationally.

In the event that there's a wide area of clear land (no nearby neighbors) next to you, it can and will dump three or four or more camps on you early on. I had 3 camps neighboring my capital at pretty close to the min. distance, if I can judge that, by turn 19.

What I would like to see is around the same number of camps, but spawning fewer units. Either that, or raise the gold bounty for clearing camps to 1000 G. It's frustrating having to gradually battle my way to a camp through unit after unit to get a tiny payout.

 

[Ahriman]

1,000 gold is far too much for a camp clearance bonus. It should be a small fraction of that at most. It would also be nice, if feasible, if the camp clearing bonus was modest except with Honor policies.

I think it's ok to have more barbarians in areas where there are no players: this provides some need to build military units even when you aren't threatened by another civ, so you can't just focus on expansion and economy. And I don't think that fighting barbarians needs to be very profitable without the Honor policy: you fight them to protect yourself, not for lucrative gains.

I wouldn't want to make unit spawning too low either; what I liked most about the shift from G&K to BNW was that in BNW the barbs would actually hang around wandering until there was a critical mass, and *then* they would come for you. This helped to provide incentives for you to patrol your hinterlands to thin the herd rather than just cowering in the cities, and had great flavor of feeling like there were actually barbarian horde invasions, rather than just playing whack-a-mole.

In 3.10 there also seems to be a generic combat bonus vs barbarians even without any Honor policies (at Emperor difficulty I was getting +20%). Arguably removing this might help to make barbarians scary without needing to give them too many units.

 

[Kivin]

1,000 gold is far too much for a camp clearance bonus. It should be a small fraction of that at most. It would also be nice, if feasible, if the camp clearing bonus was modest except with Honor policies.

I think it's ok to have more barbarians in areas where there are no players: this provides some need to build military units even when you aren't threatened by another civ, so you can't just focus on expansion and economy. And I don't think that fighting barbarians needs to be very profitable without the Honor policy: you fight them to protect yourself, not for lucrative gains.

I wouldn't want to make unit spawning too low either; what I liked most about the shift from G&K to BNW was that in BNW the barbs would actually hang around wandering until there was a critical mass, and *then* they would come for you. This helped to provide incentives for you to patrol your hinterlands to thin the herd rather than just cowering in the cities, and had great flavor of feeling like there were actually barbarian horde invasions, rather than just playing whack-a-mole.

In 3.10 there also seems to be a generic combat bonus vs barbarians even without any Honor policies (at Emperor difficulty I was getting +20%). Arguably removing this might help to make barbarians scary without needing to give them too many units.

I was being tongue-in-cheek about the camp bounty. And expressing my distaste for having to go all-out-war with them.

I'm not against having barbarians in uninhabited locations; in fact, that's expressly where they belong. I like knowing that some uncivilized plot of land very probably has some uncivilized folks hanging around on it. I only assert that it needs to be profitable if we're tolling it up as a first-class game mechanic, which it shouldn't be (but maybe currently is given the number of units on my recent maps.) If I'm spawning in to a map knowing that in every likely hood I'm going to have to buy Honor policies, chop out units, and focus fire to clear multiple barb camps quickly, then I want there to be a reason for it except "to survive." I fight off Alexander's armies to survive, not Barbarian Brute x9.

I haven't actually noticed them grouping up and then hitting me all-at-once, but I haven't been looking for that sequence either. Maybe that's what I'm experiencing with these blobs of units surrounding my capital, the critical mass of barbarian spawns unfolding.

When all has been said and done, I'm not fussy on any particular "solution" to said problem, if we even agree that it has become one. However I'm going to be back here complaining if I either:

(A) feel cornered in to buying Honor - There was a time in GEM where I considered Honor absolutely mandatory. As a generally weak player, I wasn't able to get in to mid game at all without a total focus on barb control.

(B) cannot peacefully expand - Some games, I want to be that Wonder hoarder, or just Sim City it up. I play on difficulty levels where wonders are obtainable if you focus on them. But you run the risk of being militarily weak and getting bullied by your neighbors. I'm okay with this same risk with barbarians, but in my second-to-last game, peaceful anything was impossible due to the number of barbs. I had to focus on nothing but military units, and I still gave up the game.

 

[Ahriman]

Can't argue with any of that. You should have to get a few military units, but if you're forced into building almost nothing but military, then something is wrong.

 

[mitsho]

I'd love if camp clearance rewards were the exact same of goody huts (maybe exclude free techs) to make it less easy to calculate. Ideally those camps really would be like 'barbarian' cities: hard to take, but good reward.

Can't debate much since I don't get to play much right now (=read not at all) but barb spawn rate is something that is easily adjusted, but takes some experience of feedback. It might be one thing where a poll might help, or options, but I think one can quite easily adapt the spawn rate already on your own.

 

[tlaurila]

Seems the issue is the potential for "runaway barbarians". If you keep actively hunting them they will keep in check, but if left to their own devices on large enough land mass, they can reach a critical mass where you can't kill them fast enough.

It does seem odd, though, that I had no significant problems with barbs even though I had Raging Barbarians checked. But I did keep clearing camps at a decent rate. But one warrior, one scout, one archer and one bireme seemed to be good enough in keeping barbs well in check. Then again, I did take Honor and could go after camps as they spawned.

Kivin, what was the size of the map? How wide were the two arms of the "L"? (That should be compared with the supposed camp spawn distance, 6)

 

[Dunkah]

I like having the uptick in Barbs.

I definately feel there is an uptick. At least from Vanilla. Yes I was forced to buy several extra units to fend them off.

Worst part is that just at the time where Poland Backstabs me and DOWs I have an influx of Barbs in both ends of the kingdom. No way to keep them all out.

Is there a way to make Barbs run for the hills when a player becomes actively involved in a war?

 

[Ahriman]

Is there a way to make Barbs run for the hills when a player becomes actively involved in a war?

There probably shouldn't be - else you could exploit it by starting a war to rid yourself of barbs.

 

[jwerano]

I'd love if camp clearance rewards were the exact same of goody huts (maybe exclude free techs) to make it less easy to calculate. Ideally those camps really would be like 'barbarian' cities: hard to take, but good reward.

I really like this idea. The latest change to barb camp spawns has made a dramatic difference in my games and it makes it much harder to go peaceful and build. I feel its a bit too much but I suppose its better than the too few camps that we had before. It would be more fun to match the extra barbarian difficulty with extra reward. I wouldnt mind them being a bit harder even for the chance at a greater reward.

I have not noticed barbarian hordes coordinating an attack like Ahriman states. Was this removed from CEP? I vaguely recall something like this in the handful of unmodded BNW games I played when it was first released. It sounds fun if you go honor and like an absolute nightmare if you dont.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Is there a way to make Barbs run for the hills when a player becomes actively involved in a war?

I actually see the benefit of having Barbarians around at this time.
Most often the invading armies, if they stumble upon a camp of barbarians or just a few units, will stop and handle them first before continuing their march on my cities.
Sometimes this gives me the advantage back, as they have to heal themselves if damaged or even lose a few units of their own or just gives me time to rally my troops.

 

[Kivin]

After having played through a few times since the change, I think I can say that the barbarians are very close to where they need to be. No drastic changes, please. If anything, they could be tuned down in spawn slightly.

 

[tlaurila]

Barbarian camp spawns do seem higher now in 3.10.1 (compared to vanilla) Personally I like it as I like barbarians - they're something to do and train your units even in peacetime.

An issue could be that too much power is then given to the Honor opener and Spoils of War. Making them a must-have. In my current game I am social policy leader, and I think I would be at least couple policies behind (and possibly as much as 4) were it not for the barbs. On the other hand, I have a few units dedicated to barb hunting, so there is that investment cost.

Perhaps we could make the Culture and Gold gain from the honor policies scale more weakly as units become stronger. So e.g. instead of =2x we might have =c5strength:+8). These early policies are supposedly designed for the early game, and I think that could be enforced.

 

[Dunkah]

Ok so is it possible to make the Raging Barbs Option actually work?

Is it possible to make another Mid Barbarian Level?

So easy would be... small amount of barbs. They effect early exploration and then fade out.

Medium Would be Medium amounts of Barb camps that take longer to fade out.

Raging Barbs would be you need to protect your lands and build an army to overcome them.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I'm pretty sure that type of mechanic is already in place as it is.
Now, the number of barbarian camps should diminish as the game progresses because you, the player, and the AI are expanding boundaries and thus limiting the areas in which barbarians appear.

 

[tlaurila]

I think the raging works well enough. Even more camps wouldn't be good, it's better to have more units per camp. Or then camp clearout gold reward needs to go down.

Rate of camps appearing seems to be much less affected by Civ boundaries expanding than one might think. Because camps spawn globally once every N turn, if even one uncivilized plot of land exists that doesn't already have a camp near. A rate that is proportional to the number of total "uncivilized hexes" would make much more sense (and would be achieved by an independent camp spawn rate for each hex). But alas.