VP 1.18 (and 1.19?) any way to prevent barbarians from spawning on visible tiles?

[usadefcon1]

Having not played for a while, having barbs spawn in plain sight is just wierd.

I understand why it was done in that the AI has increased sight at higher difficulties thus making barbs not spawn but this feels more like a crutch than a solution.

I had a situation last night where I went after a barb camp and by the time I was able to take it out...it spawned very rough terrain so was only able to attack with one unit at a time...my units were actually surrounded by 3 barb camps.

Barbs used to feel like something to fear in the wilds, now they just seem like a game mechanic designed to randomly annoy you.

The balance felt right before this change where they disappeared as the world became 'civillised' by still appeared in the wilderness areas such as polar regions and unexplored Islands.

UPDATE CustomModOptions
SET Value = 0
WHERE Name = 'BALANCE_ENCAMPMENTS_SPAWN_ON_VISIBLE_TILES';

 

[Tekamthi]

while the quantity doesn't bother me, the barb rng functionality is so glaring, its a little wild to me that this specific aspect isn't drawing more criticism from the community. but we're lacking on the solutions side in this thread.

Could we push the rng spawn out into the oceans somehow? theres lots of plots in the ocean that spend most of their time out-of-sight. it'd still be a little weird to have units randomly emerging from areas of empty ocean but at least then we're not seeing them spawn out of thin air -- imo these visible spawns should be reserved for more prominent uprising-type situations

alternatively maybe we could have some improvement that represents a pre-spawn barbarian, that turns into a camp eventually, but at first is just an improvement that can be pro-actively pillaged to prevent the spawn -- if player has some indicator to react to, then the rng will feel much more appropriate imo -- AI is very diligent about pillaging neutral improvements so it should work fine for them too

edit: on reflection i prefer this 2nd idea to the oceans -- refining further to something that might work: when barb spawn is triggered, if in sight of player, barb only gets to spawn a worker variant flagged with invisibility. barb AI is adjusted to use workers to build camps -- this worker variant can then create camp in suitable location

 

[azum4roll]

Camps spawning in sight is not a big problem. It's the extra barbarian that spawns immediately that ignores adjacency rules, and the lack of ways to protect a caravan from running into barbarians.

 

[Tekamthi]

Agreed, that's a good first step to look at, may be sufficient -- the trade-off we should keep in mind however is that encampment with fewer units makes it easier to claim the yields from encampment

 

[azum4roll]

the trade-off we should keep in mind however is that encampment with fewer units makes it easier to claim the yields from encampment

Just a bit. The first unit can still spawn 1-2 turns later.

 

[Tekamthi]

maybe the extra unit can only spawn if encampment defender is full hp -- ie as long as player engages the camp immediately the extra unit is neutralized

 

[Solic]

Maybe camp spawning could be altered to not be possible within a tile of an existing trade route?

 

[andersw]

Yes.

MODS\(2) Vox Populi\Database Changes\CustomModOptionChanges.sql

Set BALANCE_ENCAMPMENTS_SPAWN_ON_VISIBLE_TILES to 0 (at the start of the file) and save your changes.

Thanks, I tried this and it was much better.
Feels silly when barbs spawn in the most minute corners over and over.