Barbarians should be in various forms in game:

Animals:
Animals should stay throughout the game and not being deleted
-including Water animals

Pirates:
We should be able to define ships and fitting crews for each era

Standard Barbs:
-Ruffians, Thieves, Followers of Chaos, chaotic Tribes

Chaosspawn:
-Depending on the strength of chaosreligion and use of Warpstone in a civ we should have random events of chaosspawn appearing(even within cultural borders-not interested in pillaging only to kill!)

Undead:
-need coding, basically battlefields leave piles of bones which can occasionally lead to undead barbs rising(not pillaging)

Skaven:
-I'm not sure if it really makes sense to include SKaven as playable civ, it will at least be hard with a 2D game like civ but they should fit perfectly for Barbs able to appear anywhere on the map and fully capable of pillaging, killing and taking cities. At least until we get an idea how to implement them in an interesting an flavourfull way.

More barb cities is my only suggestion. I love finding them. :D

There is some code buried deep about number of player cities, undiscovered land and barb cities.

That'll be nice as well.

another request. I never worked on Barbs. Can someone give me a brief tutorial what can be one about them with xml?

Just found a lot of settings for Barbs in the handicapinfos including settings for Barbcities. Shouldn't be a problem to have more cities built;)

More barb cities is my only suggestion. I love finding them.

Heh, if it was up to me I think Tilea and those other backwater civs would be Barbarian states, but I don't think that suggestion will prove too popular!

:lol: backwater civs, thats Westerland, not Tilea, :lol:

:lol: backwater civs, thats Westerland, not Tilea, :lol:

Pff, Tilea are backwater too! Hell, Kislev are backwater in my opinion. Anything that doesn't have an army in Warhammer shouldn't be a Civ! :p

Kisvel does have its own army now!
You can field it as an independent army as a contingency for the empire.

the man has a point neener... ;)

so about those barbarians....

Updated the first post with new design propousal. Any comments?

Is it possible to have more than 1 civ as barbarian?
It just doesn't seem right to have all barbarians as skaven.

Is it possible to have more than 1 civ as barbarian?
It just doesn't seem right to have all barbarians as skaven.
:confused: I listed 5 different barbarian types. For Skaven, Chaosspawn, undead and even Pirates I think we would need special eventscripts. The barbarian civ is listed as standard barbs with variety already in itself.

I just wondered wether it was possible to have 2 different civs listed as barbarians. That way you could have infighting amongst different barbarian factions (like pirates attacking skavens)

No idea. I would like that. Can this lead to conflicts with player civs? I'm planning to have 24 civs in the Mod so far...but of those 24 civs Skaven have certainly a slot so maybe no problem with that at all:)

Would also be nice to make sure we spawn barbarians of the same type in areas. Maybe when a barbarian city is spawned it gets an automatic building that limits the production to one race type

Would also be nice to make sure we spawn barbarians of the same type in areas. Maybe when a barbarian city is spawned it gets an automatic building that limits the production to one race type
Of all those barbs only the standard barbs will be able to found cities. But to ensure diversity and flavor with standardbarbs this might be a good idea. So we can seperate ordinary ruffians from chaotic tribes.

Barbarians should be in various forms in game:

Animals:
Animals should stay throughout the game and not being deleted
-including Water animals
-and free roaming monsters/chaos spawn,
swarms of vermin(rats/frogs/butterflies/locusts/bats/etc), seadrakes!


Pirates:
We should be able to define ships and fitting crews for each era
Fimir (coastal swamp dwellers) and Norse are stated as coastal raiders, both should be able to found barbarian cities too.

Standard Barbs:
-Ruffians, Thieves, Followers of Chaos, chaotic Tribes
Ghouls, Evil warriors: followers of Khain god of murder
Hobgoblins, halforc bands, pigmys, unpaid mercenaries

Skaven:
Would certainly make great barbarians in the 'sudden mongol hordes mode'. Skaven society being one of internal strife (chaotic) and intrigue between rivalling warlords. A band of agressive skaven would even be normal is skaven are a playable civ. (Skaven may even recieve a higher possibility of cities rebelling and turning Barbarian)

Fimir as Barbarians:

fluff:
The Fimir haunt bogs, fens and desolate moorlands. They dwell in crude strongholds, little more than craggy heaps of boulders hidden by thick swirling mist. This weird mist is generated by the Fimir themselves in order to screen them from sunlight, which they loath. Any Fimir warband ranging far from its lair will be shrouded in just such an enchanted miasma.

The fearful Fimm raiders are the scourge of human settlements along fenland margins as small bands frequently come forth from the marches to take human captives. Fimir are obliged to raid and carry off captives in order to propagate themselves, for there are no fertile Fimir females. Indeed all Fimir are the result of a joining of Fimir with captive human females.

Larger Fimir warbands, which might join forces with other raiding races, result from the sundering of Fimir clans by the death of a matriarch.

The only female Fimir are the Meargh or 'Witch-hags'. They are revered as powerful spellcasters and rule the Fimir clans. A Fimir contigent will never have more than a single Meargh, and she will always be present if the Fimir are defending their stronghold. If an aged Meargh has brought up a Meargh 'daughter', this will cause the community tio split when the young Meargh leaves to found a new clan, taking a proportion of the clan with her.

If a Meargh should die without a successor, the clan will disperse, with the Fimm warriors setting out on 'death-quests' to either find a new Meargh or their death. Sometimes too a noble will be banished by the Meargh, he will then take his retinue with him. Such restless searching bands of Fimir are commonly seen as allies to Chaos champions or other Evil warlords.

Fimir associate with demons and may even worship them, their wizards are powerfull in the arts of deamonic magic and summoning. Capturing victims for blood sacrifices is frequently a motive for Fimir raids on human settlements.

Physique:
humanoid, cyclopic, slighty larger than humans with powerfull libs and a prehensile tail. The skin colouration ranges from a light green to buff.
Warriors have a mice-like tail, while nobles' are spiked or slashing, magic users have smooth tails and horns. The Meargh is singular in that her head is covered in lank hair.

Leaders: Meargh Wizard / Fimm warlord
Magic users: Meargh / Dirach wizard (deamonic magic specialists)
Elites: Fianna Fimm (melee combat only, FirstStrike, cause fear, may be upgraded up to heavy armour)
Troops:
Fimm warriors (melee only, may be upgraded to light armour)
Shearls (human slaves): only appear in Fimir strongholds and raiding parties.


[[Credits due to Nigel Stillman &Friends, GW]]

very interesting fluff, i have never heard of fimir before. i guess westerland would have hell with them then:D
I think we would need a swamp or marsh terrain type before we could implement them.

Some mods do have swamps and fens. maybe we can mimic theirs.

Why are orcs and gobbo's not in the barbarian list?
They being the most 'barbaric' of old-world races.

Can there be more than one instance of a civ?
I'd like to have the option of playing against several orc/goblin tribes.
So if each civ can be selected once for each leader, that would be great.

edit: that said,
can a standard civ set to maximum agression substitute for an additional barbarian civ?

I like the barbarians they came up with in the Civ 3 WH2.5 version./ theyre now changed to the nechrarch Vampires, who sit in thier towers summoning skeleton warriors, gouls and nechrarch ships. we could implement this too, with a whole nechrarch barbarian civ. we could also have a Greenskin Rebles Barbarian civ, with some orcs, gobbos and snotlings thrown in... and maybe a skaven barb civ.

i like the idea of multiple barb civs.

Orcs are every btw... by no means are they organized into a single entity... the Greenskins we represent are the best organzied of there poeple...

Here is a list of Warhammer barbarian cities andunits i see could suit very well (note that each city is linked as an enemy of every playable civs to fitt fluff and warhammer unique flavour well)

_Barbarians cities:


Sartosa: Pirates
Ungol Tribe: Mounted barbarians
Lahmia: Barbarians and Lahmian vampire
Skytitans Palace: Giants
Lost City of the Old ones: Beast (dinosaurs ?)
Strigoi: Barbarians and Strigany vampire
Amazons: Barbarians (female barbarians would be nice)
Marienburg (good idea ? I don't know): barbarians and ships
Vampire Coast (Undead, undead ship and a carstein vampire

_Dens: (not writting the classical animal den already in)

Tainted Wardstones: Demons
Hard stone: Beastmen
Forgotten battlefield: Undead
Greenskin camp: Orcs and gobs
Raider warcamp: barbarians, mounted barbarians and mutants (chaotic style)
Lost Temple: Dinosaurs

So for land barbarians we can have:
chaotic style early warriors and horsemen, mutants, brigands, chaos spawn, weak minor unafiliated demons, unpaid mercenary bands, trolls, orcs, gobs, beastmen, skelettons, zombies, ghouls, fimirs, pisceans (savage fishmen) and pygmans.

Beasts:
Giants spiders, scorpions and rats , cockatrices, harpy, wild cold ones and terradons and maybe even swarms (bat, snakes etc...) + the animals already in the mod.

For sea barbarians let's take manowar sea monsters:
Ptolemean crabs,black leviathans, sea dragons, sea snakes, giant turtles, megalodons, krakens and pirates.

For Barbarian boss i can see:
Strigany vampire and necrarch vampire, wild carnosaurs and stegadons, sea king (the manowar monster like poseidon), chimeras, griffins and...dragons !

The more the variety, the better the immersion and the replayability i think

We could even put events like orthus invasion in FF. These events could be:

_Great cataclysm (1st turn of game): Lots of minor weak unafiliated demons all around the map.
_Nagash great Curse :Undead invasion
_Tong tribe horde : Huge horde of barbarian horsemen: the tongs are a human tribe living near the northern pole, During an invasion they almost wipped kislev and the kurgans and where the cause of the chaos dwarves veneration of hashut (they falled in chaos to be saved from the tongs).
_Skavens invasion: Plague and rat swarms invade cities before a lot of barbarian skaven units spawn.

A lot more events can be found includind early greenskins waagh and such.


I Hope it helps

In accordance to the post about multiple Barb civs, wouldn't it make more sense to just simply have the barbarian faction as any straggler or wannabe warriors, or animals, that seem to randomly attack any civ, much like vanilla Civ 4, and then all these other factions mentioned, simply make them non-playable Civs with their personality changed so as it is impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to be nice to them?

That's actually what I'm going to do for the BTS build.

1- Units that disband due to lack of payroll, turn mercenary barbarian instead?

Which leads to:

2- How about a special unit for the less than lawfull civs, that can recruit barbarian units as mercenaries?
Obviously not all barbs would be equally ameniable to every civ, but Orks would probably accept any mercenary tough enough.
Mutants would be ostracised by Empire etc, but readilly accepted to the Raider or Beastman civs.
Tilea would certainly have mercenary recruiters.
Brettonia certainly not.

A seperate class of beastmaster would be required to capture and train monsters into a fighting unit.
(may be brought back to a city to 'breed' and thus enable, for instance pegasus riders?)

Is it possible to have a sort of barbarian civ that you can trade with?
I think Norsca would fit as one of those.

you can trade with all barbarian civs... (im assuming youre refering to the trait barbarian)

Is it possible to have the barb forts and piratecoves from FFH to spawn on the map. Wich each could spawn goblin/orcs/chaosmauraders and pirates barbs?

*hmm* it should be a simple merge, im unsure what kind of new tags there are in FfH improvements XML so cant say definately yet. ill take a look when i get explorable lairs to work.

The basic point of expanding barb-spawning lairs is probably relatively easy to add.
As it stands, there is an Ancient Ruin improvement that spawns in map scripts; in FFH it spawns lizardmen units, it doesn't do anything here yet (just sits there).

I could easily imagine one lair that spawned skeletons/undead (like as current), one that spawned orcs and goblins, and maybe one that spawned lizards or amazons.

Explorable Lairs has some really great features if you can get it working.. plenty of options for spawning lairs; and monsters can be given an AI affinity for certain improvements/resources, so barbs can guard a lair to make it difficult to conquer, and Wolves will start to home in on your Sheep and Cattle etc. :cool:

As it stands, there is an Ancient Ruin improvement that spawns in map scripts; in FFH it spawns lizardmen units, it doesn't do anything here yet (just sits there).

you know, i never noticed that. ill make it spawn barbarian pigmeys. i would also like beast man, skaven and greenskin lairs, possibly even chaos demon ones. maybe a herdstone improvement for spawning beastmen, Warren improvement (different to the building) for skaven, and Orc/Goblin encampment for greenskins. Different Warpgates could spawn differnt deamons (one could spawn pink horrors, anothe bloodletters, another nurglings etc etc. i could give them a limited duration where at the end they turn into warpdust. these warp gates could spawn via events. very easy to make actually.

I tried to add ratlairs to the previous version by copying the bear lair code, only they did not work.
dunno why not, must have missed something obviously. ;)
Or maybe I should have used the barrow code as a template, I'm sure that one worked fine. (too fine! :p)

Once we get one lair type working, it should be a snap to duplicate the code for different types of lair.

Once we get one lair type working, it should be a snap to duplicate the code for different types of lair.

ive already made other 'lair' improvements, but havent got then to spawn in game (pit of shades is only creatable via a shadow spell and spawns Shades)

I had the exact same problem.

they appeared ingame as directed (by mapscript or by spell)
but did not generate the units I had specified. (nor any other)

maybe there is something hidden in SDK again... :mad:
We need someone that understands what that SDK actually is, to me it is just a mysteriously optimised, encrypted and hidden file. :blush:

correction i made improvements that do spawn creatures but the improvement themselves cant be spawned unless its through a spell or placed in world builder (and probably events) i suspect there could be a file in the XML which defines lair types...

IIRC there is the entry in the improvementsInfo.xml where you can define which type of unit it spawns...yeah: <spawnUnitType>

Are you refering to the lion and bear dens?
If so, probably increasing the <iAppearanceProbabillity> to above 0 should do the trick.
...although I have seen the cursed pit, which also has an iAP of 0... unless it was on a premade map that I saw it. ?confusing. :P

IIRC there is the entry in the improvementsInfo.xml where you can define which type of unit it spawns...yeah: <spawnUnitType>

Are you refering to the lion and bear dens?
If so, probably increasing the <iAppearanceProbabillity> to above 0 should do the trick.

:lol: you misunderstood me :p the units defined by that tag DO spawn. i just cant get the IMPROVEMENTS to spawn ;)

the reason the cursed pit spawns is because its defined as unique.

Skeleton generators and the ancient ruins definitely spawn using random map scripts. No idea where this stuff is defined though.

I realised my misinterpretation PL. :)

I still think the appearanceProbability is the tag you need:
for barrows this is 40, while for the dens it is 0.

When I play Warhammer Online, most of the barbarians are from the opposite race of what you play, so if you want, you can make a system where the barbarians can use any units under a universal age, and certain units that are in your race would not pillage your lands... for example, I am Chaos, and all Chaos barbarians won't pillage my lands however they could pillage other people's land cause they are not chaos. The over all barbarians from the games are animals, cultists, spiders, sprites, skeletons, banshees, spirit hosts, wild sqaids... etc.

very hard to code i think. not a fan of that idea.

Well some of the Uprisings are alignment or religion specific, so the crusading knights will prefer to target Chaotic civs, etc. With the Civ4 system though it's not possible to actually subdivide the "Barbarian" forces to any great degree.

Hey party people.

I like the idea in OP of battles spawning something that could turn into an undead spawn. Warhammer people are not scared enough, they need more undead in their diet. How about if battles gave a small chance of spawning a Famous Battlefield (removable with proper spells?) similar to graveyards in FFH2 where you can gain extra undead summons if cast on the same tile.

How about faction specific/significant Battlefields? Would it be easy in python to add this? (along with minor bonuses to the faction who *owns* the battlefield?

i think a Famous Battlefields type mechanic would be a cool and flavourful event, but i wouldnt make it anything more than an event.

and id just make them generic. an elf skeleton is much the same as an orc skeleton when under the command of a necromancer.

I think there is already an event like this that Orlanth created that does something similar based on the city ruins feature (what gets left after you raze a city).

How would you tie an event to a battle though?

do a python call after combat resolution and cause it to place a new explorable improvement. easy.

Hey party people.
woop woop [party]:banana:

I think there is already an event like this that Orlanth created that does something similar based on the city ruins feature (what gets left after you raze a city).
Yes I'm glad that eventually triggered correctly! I can't exactly remember all my Events anymore :crazyeye: but I also coded one where an exploring unit could uncover an ancient battlefield (Plain of Bones) and search through it receiving an improved weapons promotion.

and id just make them generic. an elf skeleton is much the same as an orc skeleton when under the command of a necromancer.

That's a very cool mechanic deadliver; tho I agree with P_L that it would be better kept generic. I think it could be done via python ondeath check with a very small (1%?) chance to spawn the Plain of Bones feature. Greenskins could get a modest +yield from Plain of Bones from scavenging, and Necromancers could have an autocast spell/ability that removes nearby Plain of Bones and gains a free skeleton horde.

Spawning plain of bones could get very frustrating when it happens in the BFC of your cities.
Why should my terrain get permanently messed with from barbarians throwing themselves uselessly against my city defenses?

Good point; without changing base Terrain type could be an explorable Improvement as P_L mentioned, removable after exploring with a small chance of finding some loot vs being attacked by undead (or raising them as minions with Necromancy). Greenskins could get some extra yield from it, making them happy to leave some bonefields lying around from their past smashin' to pick through. :p

Alternately, could be a terrain Feature clearable by Workers as well as the methods above.

Good stuff so far. What do you guys think about having it provide combat bonuses to nearby units Odio style?

Would be even cooler if we could get a name generator for the ruins going on this after we get the mod up and running.

Why should you get a bonus just by fighting near a battlefield?

I'm not convinced this would be a good feature, but I'd be willing to give it a go.

Why should you get a bonus just by fighting near a battlefield?
Pure inspiration Ahriman. Fighting on the same ground again and again, probably against the same foe.


I'm not convinced this would be a good feature, but I'd be willing to give it a go.
Lol I bet this particular list of yours is getting long :)

My job is to prevent feature creep.

Bonuses/mechanics like this could be really confusing for new players. What is this bonus coming from? What is causing this terrain change?

The flavor bonus to me seems small relative to the clutter cost.

My job is to prevent feature creep.

Bonuses/mechanics like this could be really confusing for new players. What is this bonus coming from? What is causing this terrain change?

The flavor bonus to me seems small relative to the clutter cost.

What about making it a morale bonus?

I don't think combat bonusses would be a good idea for battlefields.
negative city happiness and possible undead spawning (ghouls mostly) would be logical.
illegal scavengers could spawn as well as lowlevel (-1tier) barbarian foot meleetroops.

as for looting/scavenging by units,
XP- I think success % inversely related to unitlevel doing the search.
Equipment - small chance, but not likely. Equipment is best handled as seperate drops, (as it currently is IIRC).
money/loot- a good chance that there will be loot that can be sold for a small sum of gold like.
In short similar to the goodyhut, but a bit different. No exploration for example.
BUT how different would this be from the explore dungeon (etc) feature?

Several questions which would need to be answered before we can even really discuss this sensibly.

1. What is the design goal of this feature? To make monsters to fight, like the uprisings?

2. Is the battlefield a terrain type, improvement or feature? All of these are problematic. If its a terrain type, you've messed tile yields. If its an improvement, then you've wiped existing improvements (including cottages that took a long time to grow). If its a feature then you've wiped flood plains, forests and shifting sands.

3. Is the battlefield supposed to be something you want to have around, or something you don't want to have around?
Does it provide bonuses or penalties? Or both?

4. How would these bonuses/penalties be communicated to the player?

5. How would you get rid of the tile - by pillage, or exploration?
How would the AI manage it?

6. If you want to get rid of it immediately, then you can't easily make it spawn undead or other things since it isn't around for very long.

Probably the simplest implementation of somethnig here woudl be to have an event that can spawn some undead troops after a battle. No need for creating an actual battlefield.
But then, we basically already have undead spawning uprising events - how would this be different?

So, this may have been addressed before...(I didn't feel like reading 3 pages)...But I've noticed that while I, playing as the DEs and with the highest score, only have Ancient Cavalry, the Barbs have a unit or 2 of Knights of the Blazing Sun running around. No other civ has even researched Tournaments. Another unit that no else has the researched the tech for or has built is Halberdiers, in this case Skeleton Halberdiers via the Rogue Necromancer event. My point is that the Barbs might need to be scaled down to fit what ever other civ has researched.
Normally, Barbs are actually below the tech level of every other civ. I can understand if Chaos got some particularly nasty surprises. And I can live with the Skeleton Halberdiers attached to the Rogue Necromancer event. What I can't understand though is why there are Knights of the Blazing Sun running around. They're a freaking Estalian UU! Estalian Knights (or any Knights but Chaos Knights really) don't strike me as the type to be Barb.

Also, (you may already be in the process of doing this) I'm sure you guys have noticed, since you're using FF base code to get the mod up to 3.19, that the FF guys have continued the 3 Barb factions from the current version of FfH. I'd like to suggest you do pretty much the same. The factions would be: Chaos (who would come in late game), Regular Barbs (who would include a lot of Orcs & Goblins, some Undead, and a few bandits), and Animals. Chaos would, of course, be the most aggressive, most likely to attack your cities. Just a suggestion, which you may already be working on.

There is a random Uprisings event where elites of the knightly orders will band together in crusade against you, increasingly likely if you are Chaos and are becoming too powerful. They can have superior equipment that advances with increasing length of the game, they don't come from barb settlements and don't care if you aren't prepared against them, they are meant as a potentially serious threat once you're pulling ahead (it sounds like you were in 1st place and thought you had it made.. around the time I usually stop playing from lack of challenge.) So yes, Chaos got some particularly nasty surprises :p But then so does everyone else.. Since the Uprising events don't own any cities or produce any troops, they can't be weaker or the same strength as the fortified troops around them or they wouldn't pose any serious threat.

Re your second point yes on all counts - in moving the mod to the standard codebase of Fall Further we plan to take advantage of the capability for multiple "barbarian" civs. AFAIK the current planned barb factions are:

Feral Greenskins
Leaders with the Greenskin Trait start at peace with the Feral Greenskins; this truce will dissolve if the civilization grows too powerful/civilized but may be regained with a powerful WAAGH! Ritual.

Chaos Undivided
Demons, Chaos Spawns, Marauder Warbands, etc that owe no allegiance to a particular Chaotic faction. Become increasingly more prevalent when the Winds of Chaos counter (Armageddon Counter replacement) is high. Because of the bitter infighting among minions of Chaos these can be a real threat even to the Hung and the Kurgan. Being elected Everchosen of Chaos (head of the Undercouncil replacement) could enable peace with the Chaos Undivided barb faction.

Animals
BTW I've been questioning whether it's appropriate to have generic Animals in this mod, especially as a separate barb faction. I think it could be interesting though to leave them in, have a few wild beasts like Griffon and Hippogriff that could potentially be captured by those with the right skills or magic, and perhaps have Athel Loren and the Beasts of Chaos duke it out for influence over the Animal barbarian faction. A powerful Amber Magic Ritual could also enable peace with the Animal barb faction.

Barbarians
Generic barbarian faction representing all other units effectively under no central control: the basic tribal barbarians in their cities/settlements plus a variety of units occurring via Uprising events, map spawning, lair exploring, etc. I doubt the need for adding any more separate barb factions other than these. In one of my games a Necromancer from an uprising event effectively seized control of a nearby barbarian city, and tormented me with a combination of summoned Skeletons and human troops from his fiefdom. He was hard to defeat; cool gameplay I thought :king:

Separate barb factions makes sense, mostly because of peace conditions for barbarian trait.

But I don't see any gain for separating animals from the generic barbarian faction.

perhaps have Athel Loren and the Beasts of Chaos duke it out for influence over the Animal barbarian faction. A powerful Amber Magic Ritual could also enable peace with the Animal barb faction.

This could be potentially interesting. It'd make sense lorewise. I mean the Beastmen have a natural inclination to influence Beasts. While the WEs just love nature so freakin much. But I would definitely add in those gryphons and hippogryphs (maybe even a few more units) to make this faction less BLAH. :)

Doublepost

EDIT: not technically a doublepost, but just realized I'm basically repeating myself:rolleyes:

Yeah, I'd been questioning that too, but on further thought having an Animals (perhaps called Creatures or Wilderness?) barb group is probably necessary to prevent wandering creatures from banding together with barbarian Warbands, fortifying themselves in barb cities, Krakens docking at a coastal barb port, etc etc.

Lorewise, both Athel Loren and the Beasts of Chaos could potentially start at peace with the Animals, representing their competing influence over beasts and the wilderness. Access to a Ritual enabling peace with Animals could also add some usefulness to advanced Amber Magic and the end of the Monster Taming tech track, which for some factions is rather non-versatile atm.

I would like:

Rebel Greenskins (Orcs, Goblins and Hobgoblins start at peace with them, and like orlanth says a ritual to regain rebel trust for greenskin civs would be good.)

Chaos undivided (Norsca, Hung, Kurgan start at peace with them. other civs that have converted to the Chaos gods religion could cast a ritual to make them at peace with them as well, but have a chance of other civs declaring war on you.)

Animals (Woodelves, Beasts of Chaos, Amazonians and potentially Lizardmen start at peace with them. an expensive amber ritual like orlanth suggested could also cause you to become at peace with the animals.)

because i dont think we cant have more than 3 barbarian factions. however if we can have more id suggest one more:

Forces of Nagash (Sylvania and Lhamia are at peace with these hordes of undead. no way to break alliance or reforge alliance.)

But I don't see any gain for separating animals from the generic barbarian faction.

i do. i dont see any reason not to have an animal section. its an integral mechanic for some civs!

There's something we need to discuss here; is a form of peace with barbarians separate from the barbarian trait?

Atm, only beastmen, Hung and IIRC one of the greenskin leaders have the barbarian trait, and this trait gives -10% science and peace with barbarians.

If we're going to make some factions at peace with the barbs, is this going to be linked to the barbarian trait? Will the trait give peace with a single barb faction, or peace with all of them?
Barbarian trait giving peace with only 1/3 or 1/4 of the barbs is a pretty weak trait. But giving peace with all of them (ie including all our uprising events) is pretty strong.

There are balance considerations here too; Sylvania and Lamia for eg are designed to be pretty similar but of equal strength. If Lamia gets peace with undead as an extra freebie, that has consequences.

The thing about an animal faction is that there really aren't any *animals* as such in the mod beyond the initial expansion period.
What we do/could have are some beasts, but wood elves and amazonians shouldn't be automatically at peace with a dragon or troll.
Wood elf and amazonian animal affinity is implemented easily enough through their recon units (and beastmaster), and access to beast units that they can build.

I think we also probably need a generic "barbarian" faction, for things that just don't fit into any of the other categories. An event that creates a barbarian dragon isn't greenskins, chaos, animal or undead. Nor is a crusader knight, or an elven warband, or a ton of the other barbarian things we have in the mod.

So if we can only have three, I think they should be:
Greenskins, Chaos (or undead), Generic barbarian.
At the moment we have more wandering undead stuff than we do chaos stuff.

We could make the barbarian trait give peace with Generic barb and one of the others, as appropriate, and we might need to change which leaders are barbarian.

So if we can only have three

I'm just reading you guys' discussion here. And I noticed a couple of times that this limiter, three, has come up. Why can't you have more than three barbs factions? Not saying you should have more than 4, cuz that just wouldn't make sens. Too much clutter. (Although maybe the discussion is 4 is too much clutter; I can't tell.)
But see, as I understand it, when the FfH team originally decided to split the barb factions from 1 big faction to 3 factions, they basically created the other 2 factions, making their factions Savage Orcs, Demons, and Animals. They linked the barbarian trait to this as well. (And, of course, this was all carried over to the FF code, so it should be in what you guys are converting from.) So, if you guys wanted you could probably create a 4th barb faction.

If we're going to make some factions at peace with the barbs, is this going to be linked to the barbarian trait? Will the trait give peace with a single barb faction, or peace with all of them?

Here's how they do it in FfH (and FF):
Jonas Edain of the Orc civ has the barbarian trait. He is at peace with the Savage Orc Faction. Likewise, Daracaat of the Archos has the barbarian trait and is at peace with the Animal Faction. Then, the civ that founds the Ashen Veil religion is at peace with the Demon Faction. (All civs that don't have the Barbarian trait [or found AV] wishing peace with any of the barb faction have to do a ritual.) Now, while you may be at peace with the Animals as Daracaat, the Demons and Savage Orcs WILL still attack you. Same goes for Jonas with the Savage Orcs, Demons and Animals still attack you. So, while both Jonas and Daracaat have the Barbarian trait, they are only at peace with 1 of the 3 barb factions, not all.
The point isn't a big advantage. It's a small one. If you're smart, you can capitalize on it. But it's not gonna make or break your empire. And most of the time, you prolly won't notice a ton. (Though, if you play as the Orcs and build their hero, Rantine, there's a nice mechanic attached to him being able to convert barbs to your civ if he's the strongest unit in the tile. Nice lil mechanic. Very useful.)



Since you guys are using FF base code, I'd think it'd be relatively easy (though time consuming) to make the changes you'd wish, which is prolly the reason you're using it anyway. :lol: But my point is that most of what you're discussing here is already in place in the FF code. You just have to tweak it to make it fit WH.



You know, in all honesty, now that I've played the game a little more, I like what's been done with the barbs so far. I like what's being planned for it. I mean, the random events like necromancer and such took so getting used to. But if you're careful about it, you'll do fine. And I know basically how the separate barb factions would work from FfH. I can see some very nice, unique mechanics for some civs through the barb factions.
Although, for the sake of the AI, you may wanna make the amount of barbs spawned a little less in the early game. Maybe don't have as many non-Animal barbs until turn 150 and don't have any barbs from events until turn 200 or 250. Over the course of a few games, I've noticed that a few of the AI civs have succumbed to the barbs in the early game. I don't know about you, but I just find it a little dumb that barbs are defeating civs. Taking over a city here or there or raiding improvements a lot, that's fine. Forces you and the AI to be smarter about basic defense. But seeing the barbs defeat a civ? They're sposed to be to unorganized to do that. Lol.

So, if you guys wanted you could probably create a 4th barb faction.

the problem is that it require a LOT of hard coded work and python work to add another barbarian civ that we just cannot do at the moment.

If we're going to make some factions at peace with the barbs, is this going to be linked to the barbarian trait? Will the trait give peace with a single barb faction, or peace with all of them?
Barbarian trait giving peace with only 1/3 or 1/4 of the barbs is a pretty weak trait. But giving peace with all of them (ie including all our uprising events) is pretty strong.

you're over complicating it i think. each civ can only be at peace with one group of barbarians. being at peace with greenskins and chaos is just silly. im pretty sure there are python codes involved i ndeciding which civ is at peace with which barbarian civ. it dosnt really matter how because we have that covered. its just the what.

The thing about an animal faction is that there really aren't any *animals* as such in the mod beyond the initial expansion period.
What we do/could have are some beasts, but wood elves and amazonians shouldn't be automatically at peace with a dragon or troll.
Wood elf and amazonian animal affinity is implemented easily enough through their recon units (and beastmaster), and access to beast units that they can build.

So? woodelves (for example) being at peace with animals gives them a little edge in the early game, but later on in the game that advantage isnt as important. its supposed to be a minor benefit. the same can be said for chaos civs. their peace with chaos undivided in the early game is pretty useless but in the later game it could help them considerably.

i dont really see the drama behind having an animal civ. why fix somehting that is not broken? it works perfectly well in Fall From Heaven, why change it?

if you are adamant that animal civ is stupid rename it to a Wilderness Civ and include typical wildman barbarians and animals in that if you must. but im still a strong advocate for an animal barbarian civ.

Thanks rlaf I'm glad you like it! The Uprisings turned out to be one of my fave parts of the game for the added challenge/flavor; they originally came from an idea of Ahriman and PL.

Though I'm not totally sure about the technical details, it looks like the barb civs in FF are distinguished by having
<bPlayable>0</bPlayable>
<bAIPlayable>0</bAIPlayable>
<bGraphicalOnly>1</bGraphicalOnly>
If there isn't more to it, it should be eventually possible for us to mod one or two more groups if needed without adding visible clutter to the game. Looks like the peace is done separately by coding a python ongamestart check that sets peace with a given faction if you have a given trait, so probably possible for us to tweak as desired. But P_L is right this can all stay on the back burner for now till we get the core XML gameplay etc in working order.

Having a Wilderness barb group should be fine if we leave powerful Dragons etc out of it; also in agreement with the Minions of Nagash if space permits, particularly as he will be around in that cool looking tower :cool: and might even seize himself a little local empire. I think both Nagash and Chaos Undivided should eventually turn on their "allies" if they become too powerful a la the normal Barbarian trait mechanic; they definitely aren't above some good megalomania and infighting. And as Ahriman points out we definitely keep a generic Barbarian group, for the human barbarian cities and various misc units that pop up from Events.

But P_L is right this can all stay on the back burner for now till we get the core XML gameplay etc in working order.

the part that is the roadblock in adding new barbarian civs is the spawning mechanics, city allocation and all the stuff that happens behind the scenes. its not something we can do atm. so were stuck with three barbs unfortunately (at least unless someone can prove me wrong and Xienwolf coded in an easy way to add more barbarian civs.

So the general concensus is:

Rebel Greenskins - self explanetory.
Chaos Undivided - Including beastman barbarians, deamons of chaos and other chaoticaly inclined dudes. undead would have to fall in this category if we cant have another team.
Wilderness - including animals, monsters, and generic barbarian humans/elves etc.

Dragons we can give barbarian civs on an individual basis. for example the rogue black dragon even could be a chaos dragon. we could have a rogue Wyvern which would be greenskin, a rogue forest dragon under wilderness etc etc.

If we can have more than 3 barbs:

Rebel Greenskins - as above
Chaos Undivided - Including beastman barbarians, deamons of chaos and other chaoticaly inclined dudes.
Animals - including animals, and smaller monsters
Minions of Nagash - all undead barbarians
Barbarians - the left over generic barbarians that dont fit in other categories.

I'm excited to see what you guys do with this. But, as mentioned above, the core xml is most important. Keep on modding, guys. :D

i dont really see the drama behind having an animal civ. why fix somehting that is not broken? it works perfectly well in Fall From Heaven, why change it?

Because of the limit of three; I'd be fine with an animal civ that *only* had animals in it and WE could be at peace with them, but there are other higher priorities.

There still remains an unanswered question; how are we actually going to use these factions?
The only real point of dividing them into factions is to have the potential to be at peace with some barbarians but not all of them.

If we are tying this to the barbarian trait, then there are only a handful of leaders that get this. I forget the exact details, but atm we have Leung Kwok (Hung), one of the ork or goblin leaders, and maybe one of the hobgoblin leaders? Are there any others I am forgetting?

So there are two ways we could implement this:
a) Leung Kwok gets peace with chaos barbarians, the ork barbarian gets peace with greenskin barbarians. We remove the science penalty from barbarian trait. This would be a fairly weak trait.
b) All chaos civs get peace with chaos barbarians, Leung Kwok *also* gets peace with generic barbarians. All greenskins get peace with greenskins; the "barbarian" trait holder also gets peace with generic barbarians.
This would be a decent trait.

And I could see a Ritual with the Chaos Incursion tech that granted peace with chaos barbarians.

Chaos Undivided - Including beastman barbarians, deamons of chaos and other chaoticaly inclined dudes. undead would have to fall in this category if we cant have another team.

I would put undead into the generic barbarian box if we have only 3 categories.
It doesn't make sense that for a chaos tribe to somehow be at peace with wandernig undead.

Also; are we sure that we want chaos as a barb faction rather than undead.
In the old version, there are really no chaos barbarians, but we have some undead.
So peace with chaos is pretty useless, peace with undead would be more valuable.

Whatever we do, we need to keep the barbarian levels below where they were in FF. FF really fails because it tries to replicate a PvE setting in the early game, which fails because the AI opponents aren't tough enough to be able to deal with the barbs.
So a lot of the barbs should be from our uprising events. Basically, I'm thinking core FFH levels of barbs (a threat early game but not much after that) plus our uprisings.

Dragons we can give barbarian civs on an individual basis. for example the rogue black dragon even could be a chaos dragon. we could have a rogue Wyvern which would be greenskin

This sounds fine.

how are we actually going to use these factions?

but having several civs be at peace with different barbarians to give greater diversity to, and different advantages to, different groups of civs. plain and simple.

IMHO if we have chaos undivided Kurgan Norsca Hung and Beastmen should be at peace with them

Orcs, Goblins and hobgoblins should all be at peace with greenskin hordes.

Woodelves, Amazonians and Lizardmen should be at peace with Wilderness.

Undead fit in with chaos because undead do not fit in with animals and humanoid barbarians.

but having several civs be at peace with different barbarians

So what does the barbarian trait do then?

And what penalty will civs who get a free mini-barbarian trait have to balance them out?

If we do this, we will also need to go back through every uprising event and:
a) Assign the uprising barbs to a particular faction
b) Prevent the uprising event from happening to civs who are at peace with that faction (it would be bizarre to have say an ork horde

Woodelves, Amazonians and Lizardmen should be at peace with Wilderness.

I strongly disagree with this, in the setup where "Wilderness" also includes the default "barbarian" category.
I have no problem with these guys being at peace with early game animals, so that early game exploration is less risky, but I have a huge problem with these guys being immune to every other generic barbarian. Why should they be immune to crusader knights, or necromancers or vampires, or rampaging giants, or a dark elven slaver party, or any of the many other things that will be assigned to the generic barb category?

With three groups, I would much prefer:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos (demons and monsters) OR Undead.
c) Everything else (including whichever of chaos OR undead wasn't in b)

With 4 groups, I'd make it:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos
c) Undead
d) Everything else

With 5 groups, I'd make it:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos
c) Undead
d) Animals (and a few beasts)
e) Everything else

The other issue with multiple barb groups is; are they at peace with each other?

So what does the barbarian trait do then?

triggers python code that decides what faction to be at peace with...........

And what penalty will civs who get a free mini-barbarian trait have to balance them out?

it depends. a -10% research rate is probably sufficient.

If we do this, we will also need to go back through every uprising event and:

not a big deal.

I strongly disagree with this, in the setup where "Wilderness" also includes the default "barbarian" category.

fine. i give up. its useless arguing.

I'm confused now.
So you intend to give every Kurgan/Norsca/Hung/Beastman/Greenskin leader the barbarian trait?
Or do you intend for them to have peace without the trait?
And do you intend this to be one of their 3 traits, or an extra? If one of the three, what trait do you intend to take away?

If the barbarian trait say for Kurgan gives -10% science and only gives peace with chaos, which there aren't many of, then as a trait it is very very weak.

Do we have a list somewhere of the current leader traits? I know you posted one once somewhere.
Are there any barbarian trait leaders who *aren't* chaos or greenskin?

It doesn't matter about traits, there doesn't need to be a trait called Barbarian & we can have any kind of python checks we want trigger peace with any barb faction. P_L basically means doing something like

Greenskin trait that peace w Feral Greenskins barb group
Animist trait that gives peace w Wilderness barb group
Forsaken gives peace with Chaos Undivided
Dark Apprentice gives peace with Minions of Nagash
there could be whatever attached tweaks are appropriate like a slight nerf to science; and there's nothing that says everyone has to have exactly 3 traits.

I'd bet it's probably fairly achievable to make a few extra dummy barb civs with
<bPlayable>0</bPlayable>
<bAIPlayable>0</bAIPlayable>
<bGraphicalOnly>1</bGraphicalOnly>
that start with no cities; then simply make any appropriate improvement spawns or Uprisings assign ownership of resulting units to their civ tag.


Dragons we can give barbarian civs on an individual basis. for example the rogue black dragon even could be a chaos dragon. we could have a rogue Wyvern which would be greenskin
I like this too. Trolls could easily be Greenskin, Chaos Trolls = Chaos Undivided; Giants = Wilderness, etc etc

Ok, so you create some new traits, like Greenskin and Forsaken above.

How does that interplay with the existing leader trait design?

Do all Ork/Goblin/Hobgoblin leaders get the Greenskin trait, and all Kurgan/Norsca/Hung/Beastmen/Chaos dwarves get the Forsaken trait?
Is this in addition to or instead of one of their other traits?

I think the best solution would probably be:
i) Have the trait be one of the standard three traits.
So maybe Crom is Aggressive, Arcane, Forsaken
And Leung Kwok is Horselord, Raider, Forsaken
And Ragnar is Raider, Seafarer (or whatever its called), Forsaken

ii) Beef up the Forsaken/Greenskin traits so that they give more than just peace with one barbarian subfaction. Not sure what this bonus would be, but otherwise as a trait it will be pretty weak.
Maybe a free +1 happy from a particular building?
Or doublespeed production of particular buildings?

If we can have extra slots, and go with:
With 5 groups, I'd make it:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos
c) Undead
d) Animals (and a few beasts)
e) Everything else

Then animal faction peace could be a bonus trait, since its pretty minor, and we could make some of the others more powerful and be a full trait.

Its been so long since I played the mod that I really forget the current state of all the traits.

If someone can pull them out of the old files, along with a list of the leaders and what traits they had, I can do a proposed redesign with the Greenskin/Forsaken etc. traits above.

* * *

We will also need to somehow get the chaos and undead factions to spawn some tribesmen/demons and undead, and get the greenskin faction to spawn higher level orks over time.

It doesn't matter about traits, there doesn't need to be a trait called Barbarian & we can have any kind of python checks we want trigger peace with any barb faction. P_L basically means doing something like

thank you! (sorry this whole discussion is testing my nerves a lot so youll have to take what i say with a pinch of salt. im quite stressed out atm lol)

Do all Ork/Goblin/Hobgoblin leaders get the Greenskin trait, and all Kurgan/Norsca/Hung/Beastmen/Chaos dwarves get the Forsaken trait?
Is this in addition to or instead of one of their other traits?

in addition to.

i) Have the trait be one of the standard three traits.
no. i dont like this.

ii) Beef up the Forsaken/Greenskin traits so that they give more than just peace with one barbarian subfaction. Not sure what this bonus would be, but otherwise as a trait it will be pretty weak.
no need, not all traits have to be uber strong. just supplement it with other traits.

If someone can pull them out of the old files, along with a list of the leaders and what traits they had, I can do a proposed redesign with the Greenskin/Forsaken etc. traits above.

ive got a massive design overview word document im working on. its only got traits and leaders atm including civ flags, portraits and such. i was going to wait to upload it till i had something worth while.

i) Have the trait be one of the standard three traits.
no. i dont like this.

I don't either.

no need, not all traits have to be uber strong. just supplement it with other traits.
As an outside source, I'd have to agree with this. I mean think about it. Take for example the proposed "Greenskins" trait. K, let's break down the civs that get this. Now, we already got the animosity mechanic. It does make it interesting, of course. We all know what it does. And I ain't gonna say take it out. My point is disadvantage there. So, you got one mechanic that just might drive some people up the wall. BUT if you can balance it out with the mechanic from "Greenskins" trait, then if nothing else, when people complain, you can say,"Well, Greenskins balances that out". I'm just making an example here.
But see the point of all this is to make people go, "Hey, this civ has some cool stuff". If it's a generic civ or a civ that doesn't have some real interesting mechanics/shinies, it ain't something people gonna play. That's what these proposed Barb-peace traits do. Make it interesting!

That's what these proposed Barb-peace traits do. Make it interesting!

exactly :) mix it up a little :)

this whole discussion is testing my nerves a lot

Partly my complaints were because it was really unclear what peoples' design intentions were, and how they wanted them to interplay with the existing design and Barbarian trait.
Ideas need to be clarified in order to evaluate them.

in addition to.

I'm happy to go this way if we can have the 5 barb factions. That way its a pretty weak bonus, mostly there for flavor. So we can just add the Greenskin/Forsaken etc trait on to the existing traits for those factions.

I'm guessing the intention would then be to remove the barbarian trait, and give the current barbarian trait leaders a new trait.

its only got traits and leaders

If you upload just this I will work on this part.

I agree that balance needs to be done at a faction level, rather than a specific mechanic level.

I'm happy to go this way if we can have the 5 barb factions. That way its a pretty weak bonus, mostly there for flavor. So we can just add the Greenskin/Forsaken etc trait on to the existing traits for those factions.

I'm guessing the intention would then be to remove the barbarian trait, and give the current barbarian trait leaders a new trait.

phew. im glad we agree on something ;)

If you upload just this I will work on this part.

ok, ill make a new thread for it :)

PS Sorry for my less then hospitable mood before, i had a killer headache and was procrastinating doing an assignment. im feeling a bit better now so ill try be nice haha ;)

phew. im glad we agree on something

See, I can be flexible :-)

PS Sorry for my less then hospitable mood before
No worries, I think we were talking across purposes a little.