Wake me up when they fix the barbarians

[Magil]

I've seen a lot of posts complaining about barbarians, but I rarely have trouble with them. Very odd. At most they're an annoyance.

There are a few things to consider:

• If you start with city-states nearby, they will actively hunt down and take out barbarian camps for you, and barbarians are as likely to raid them as you. In this situation, barbarians are rarely much of a problem.
  
• A barbarian scout will retreat if confronted or attacked by a military unit. In this way, even if you can't kill a barbarian scout, you can often prevent it from returning to its camp. Position your unit between the camp and the scout and your city should be safe.
  
• Once you have the +5 strength against barbarians policy, even an early scout can contend with barbarians well.

I mean, I hear a lot of "open with 3 slingers", but I rarely do this. In 4/5 games I will open with a scout, get a slinger, then a builder, then another slinger, then a settler, THEN get my third slinger. And it's fine. I'd say the only real problem with barbarians is when you are on a higher difficulty level and the full 30 strength horsemen are spawning in the first 20 turns (horsemen spawned before any major Civ has Horseback Riding are only 20 strength, not very threatening).

With that said--I think it was better in the older Civ games where you had a grace period before barbarians would start spawning. It was nice to have a good 15-20 turns or so before facing off against real barbarians (remember barbarian animals from IV?).

 

[Rosty K]

• A barbarian scout will retreat if confronted or attacked by a military unit. In this way, even if you can't kill a barbarian scout, you can often prevent it from returning to its camp. Position your unit between the camp and the scout and your city should be safe.

I've also noticed that the scout won't run straight to the camp once it has discovered a city, it'll keep wandering around for some time. Well, if the camp is 2 tiles away, that's irrelevant.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

With that said--I think it was better in the older Civ games where you had a grace period before barbarians would start spawning. It was nice to have a good 15-20 turns or so before facing off against real barbarians (remember barbarian animals from IV?).

IIRC barb animals could not enter any civ borders either

 

[gunnergoz]

Barbs don't bother me. Well, they're a bother, but hardly a threat if you expect them and counter them. I just wish the other AI nations were equally aggressive, economically & militarily.

 

[c4c6]

IIRC barb animals could not enter any civ borders either

Correct. Animals could not enter tiles with special resources, too.
(In my nomad mod there was a chance to tame "wild" animals instead of destroying them and using them then as own units)

 

[Magil]

IIRC barb animals could not enter any civ borders either

Yeah, and the first wave of true barbarians was a lot more passive in IV. It wasn't until a good couple of dozen turns in that they started marching on cities.

 

[Rosty K]

Yeah, and the first wave of true barbarians was a lot more passive in IV. It wasn't until a good couple of dozen turns in that they started marching on cities.

Technically, the 'first wave' of barbarians in Civ VI is also kind of softened - they'll only have warriors and those reduced strength horsemen. Later on they'll start having real units. May be not weakened enough, however.

 

[Magil]

Technically, the 'first wave' of barbarians in Civ VI is also kind of softened - they'll only have warriors and those reduced strength horsemen. Later on they'll start having real units. May be not weakened enough, however.

I more meant in behavior rather than in power--early in in Civ IV the barbarians would not always attack your units, and they rarely entered your borders. They'd just kind of wander around the map for a while until suddenly the "kill" order goes out and they all start marching towards the nearest player city to attack.

 

[Esperr]

I can't prove it, but after playing a bajillion games Im pretty sure the barbs get a random roll during map generation that determines how stupid they are going to be. There are some games where they cause very little issues for the A.I and others where they brick an A.I into there starting settlers. You end up finding England on some other continent with just London and one other city and multiple captured settlers wandering around.

 

[stinkubus]

In my last game I was finishing of Ghandi's final city and there were two builders and a settler, which had been captured by barbs, just hanging out two tiles away.

 

[ViterboKnight]

I know that those massive barbarians are by design and an explicit intention of the game developers, and I know that a lot of people are now perfectly able to handle them with proper build order, expecially in early game.
However, I think that this should be a selectable game option. A player should be able to decide whether he wants this kind of game, or something without that big pressure from barbarians, if he wants a softer pace!! Early game is basically focused 90% on defending about barbarians and countering them.
About myself, recently I'm forced (by lots of everyday life's businesses) to play at short segments, half an hour each time, or maximum an entire hour. I'd like to have a game experience not entirely focused on barbarians stress!!!
I think it could be a very easy and basic point. A simple extra game option, maybe checked on default ("Raging barbarians"). After all, a "No barbarians" option still exists, so why not to add another one just to soft them?

 

[Victoria]

A Barby barbarians option?

 

[SlySlySly]

Although they are challenging, aren't they kind of realistic in a way? And honestly as long as you keep enough military to clear and defend, you can grow until they aren't a problem

 

[Temppu]

In my opinion, the major difficulty in dealing wirth barbs is the immediateness of their spawning; with bad luck they spawn right next to your border and one turn after that they will be spamming horsemen each turn, and this can happen within first 5 turns of a game when it is not possible to build units to counter them.


Most difficulties with barbs would be reduced if the barb camp did not start with a scout but have to build one instead: this would add 5-10 turns in the early game to build your first slinger, and in the later game you can attack the camp before they start spamming units.

 

[Forster]

I don't know if it would take 5-10 turns the way I have seen the camps spam out units. I've seen them pop a horse and two turns later another pops.

 

[Victoria]

Sure but they are only donkeys early

 

[cazaderonus]

In my opinion, the major difficulty in dealing wirth barbs is the immediateness of their spawning; with bad luck they spawn right next to your border and one turn after that they will be spamming horsemen each turn, and this can happen within first 5 turns of a game when it is not possible to build units to counter them.


Most difficulties with barbs would be reduced if the barb camp did not start with a scout but have to build one instead: this would add 5-10 turns in the early game to build your first slinger, and in the later game you can attack the camp before they start spamming units.

Agreed this would fix the rare cases where you can t manage barbs. But it will also make them irrelevant in most games. Imo, they should simply add a minimal distance from player starting locations where barb camps cannot spawn.

 

[ViterboKnight]

Also, I've seen that barbarians spawn even in tiles you are actually seeing.
Such tiles should be excluded, so that barbarians can only spawn in unseen tiles. (so that you can fogbust to prevent them to appear. Fine and realistic.).

 

[Forster]

Were the tiles around the barb visible also? From what I have seen, barbs usually pop up next to the camp, unless there is no unit in the camp. I've never seen a barb camp appear in a visible tile, but I have often see a barb pop in visible tiles next to the camp in a fog hex.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Also, I've seen that barbarians spawn even in tiles you are actually seeing.
Such tiles should be excluded, so that barbarians can only spawn in unseen tiles. (so that you can fogbust to prevent them to appear. Fine and realistic.).

I suspect you are seeing rebels from amenity issues