In a game of Civilization, the barbarians are a stagnant enemy faction that’s only there for giving you rewards for whacking them. It’s rather one-note and does its job in the early game, but what if they too can embrace civilisation?
The new game coming as a free update to Civilization VI is centred around that idea. Barbarian Clans mode replaces the standard barbarians with new, specific tribes of barbarians each having a terrain and combat preference. And you can interact with them in other ways too- not just kill and plunder their base.
(The devs at Firaxis are really having fun with this monthly videos. This time we even have cosplay)
Barbarian clans can build unique units (derived from civs not in the game) to make them less of a pushover, and they can progress far enough to form their own city-state.
Your interactions with barbarian clans can either accelerate or reduce their progress towards forming a city-state. You can still wipe them out for good. But you can also just raid them for gold and reduce their progress. You can also pay gold for protection (they won’t attack you), hire units or even attack other civs (without triggering a war against them). These acts boost their progress towards a city-state.
Once the barbarians get enough progress, they will turn into any of the existing city-states. So being friendly with a nearby barbarian camp with the long-term goal of becoming their suzerain when they turn into a city-state is something you can do.
Oh, and the annoying times when you carelessly let a civilian unit like a Builder get captured by a barbarian? You can pay a ransom to get them back.
It’s a neat way to integrate the barbarians as part of the ebb and flow of the core gameplay, rather than just an early game hinderance that grows irrelevant until the late game.
Barbarian Clans mode is free to all players of Civ VI, and only requires the base game to play it.
The February 2021 free update, the last in this New Frontier Pass, will also add a leader pick/ban screen (similar to the wonder pick/ban list and city-state pick/ban list seen before) that’s going to be handy in multiplayer games, AI changes to air units and air combat, a bunch of balance changes (expect some policy slot count being adjusted for the different governments) and rebalances to Natural Wonders. The Cliffs Of Dover in particular is getting more love with more yield values.
The February 2021 free update to Civ VI drops on February 25 on PS4, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Xbox One and Switch.