Indeed, early game is hard because barbarians spawn repeatedly and out tech you. They only spawn from camps, so once you expand your area of influence it's less

Indeed, early game is hard because barbarians spawn repeatedly and out tech you. They only spawn from camps, so once you expand your area of influence it's less a problem but you need some way of dealing with spearmen early to really clear them out. The way it the barbarians work though is somewhat clever: they send out scouts, and it seems like until their scout spots your city they won't spawn attackers. So you're incentivized to harass their scouts early on at least, but it's not really explained in any fashion beyond perhaps a visual ding. After that the AI is so bad that you've basically won once the barbs are no longer threatening. I got back into civ 6 last month after a two year break and had forgotten this dynamic and kept starting over when the barbs felt overwhelming and killed a slinger or captured a cheeky unprotected settler.