barbarians a bit overkill.

[Name]

played for like 8 hours yesterday. standard difficulty. with the barbarian clans gamemode on to see what that was about. my experience throughout the entire session was getting harassed non stop by barb clans left and right. i had this sea ghost clan on my top right kinda dormant not really doing much, that clan had amassed like 30 ships. it took me and my 3 ships a few hours to whittle them all away.

i destroy a camp, shortly there after another camp appears. ultimately stalling my progression in the game and being able to compete with the ai players. the worst part is one of the camps somehow got men of arms and i'm still stuck with basic swordsmen. i'm ultimately stuck hiring other barb camps soldiers to try to deal with them.

the barbs seem to have a bias against me and not the other players or other city states. all and all it was very fatiguing to play. i don't want to turn barbarians off as they can make the game interesting by stalling progress of ai players, providing rewards, and adding some character, but in the years prior that i played this barbarians weren't as bad as they are now.

so my question is what am i doing wrong. i learned that if a barb scout comes near your base, you must kill it right away. ok, got that down, but what am i supposed to do about the seemingly endless barb camps that keep spawning every 15-20 minutes or so near me? did i just get an unlucky start? was it related to playing on large earth with 12 city states? I mean I actually prefer large earth, many city states, and as many ai players as possible without congesting the map.


edit: also i was only playing on domination victory. i turned all the other victory conditions off.

[Sstavix]

The barbarians in the game are kind of nuts with how quickly they spawn, and always have been. But there are a few ways that you can deal with them.

One way I've found is to take a unit - like an archer, but a scout will do as well, especially if you have it promoted so it can see through forests - and plant it on the edge of your empire. The barbarian camps won't appear in spaces you can actively see - they only appear in areas that are covered in the "fog of war." (And, sadly, city-states don't help in this regard.)

Also, be sure to get city walls built in all of your cities - especially on the outer edges of your civilization. You'll get a bonus shot at barbarians from that city, as well as any encampments that you build in that city. Have a ranged unit fortified within both, and you should be able to quickly kill off any scouts that come by, or hold off a barbarian wave until you an mobilize an army to take out the camp.

[Ghiron]

Barb camps can only spawn where you don't have vision, and 4 tiles away from a city. To prevent camps from spawning, position units to give you vision outside your cities.

As for dealing with higher tech barbarians, barbs will spawn based on what techs that civilizations have unlocked. If you are doing all random civs, chances are you have Hammurabi in your game. Instead of doing random, do random leader pool and remove Hammurabi from the pool. His ability is stupid and breaks the game, and causes exactly what you are seeing (Barbarian units spawning with tech way past what you can handle). If you're wondering why he always wants to do an alliance with you, it's so he can instantly unlock AT crew in the medieval age and kill everyone.

[Evrach]

Turn off barbarian clan mode ^^; It would be a start.

[Name]

Both answers were solid, I will try out limiting the vision around my base and see how that works. Also removing Hammurabi leader, like suggested I never knew that was even a problem. Thank you. As far as building walls goes, it takes too many turns for something that's been irrelevant in my early game but I do like the suggestion and will keep it in mind for in the event i'm getting barb raided too hard and need to go that route.

[Albinosaurus]

Honestly, I don't begrudge anyone who turns off barbarians in their games. I rarely do it, but sometimes I just want a stress-free start to my game. Now if only we could disable World Congress...

[Name]

I actually had turn off barbarians. That was not the solution I wanted to do but this is just ridiculous. New start, have 2 barb scouts near me within 3 turns. I kill each scout before he can make it back to base, I build a scout. Next, 2 more scouts appear then a damn warrior appears, my warrior is low HP from all the attacks and hasn't had a chance to rest.

Haven't played civ in years but I do not recall barbs being this bad. I lowered difficulty to warrior even. They must have released a patch that has changed the way barbs work in this game. I really wanted the RNG with barbs where its going to stall the progress of players but it seems to be stalling me the most consistently with every game.

[Stormwinds]

The Hammurabi thing is a myth. With Clans mode on, only 1 player needs to have hit the eureka for a tech for barbarians to unlock more advanced units.

[Albinosaurus]

Originally posted by Catharsis:

I actually had turn off barbarians. That was not the solution I wanted to do but this is just ridiculous. New start, have 2 barb scouts near me within 3 turns. I kill each scout before he can make it back to base, I build a scout. Next, 2 more scouts appear then a damn warrior appears, my warrior is low HP from all the attacks and hasn't had a chance to rest.

Haven't played civ in years but I do not recall barbs being this bad. I lowered difficulty to warrior even. They must have released a patch that has changed the way barbs work in this game. I really wanted the RNG with barbs where its going to stall the progress of players but it seems to be stalling me the most consistently with every game.

Prince should be pretty doable for you. A lot of people recommend 1-2 scouts as your first build, but depending on how much pressure I get from barbs, I'll go scout->slinger, scout-warrior, 2 slinger, or 2 warrior (this being somewhat extreme). Don't be afraid to build 2-3 military units early on if you're being pressured a lot. Also, keep your units near--but not in--in your base to provide vision beyond your borders. Barbarians only spawn in fog of war and have to be at least 4 tiles from your city.