Picture this: you're happily tramping along as the Clan of embers, Charadon or Infernals, successfully razing your enemies cities and marching alongside your barbarian friends when WHAM, all of a sudden your barbarian friends declared war on you. 'Too civilized' they say, but in actual fact what they mean is 'having the highest score'.

I've always disliked this mechanic. It actually discourages war, and leads to many stupid situations like desperately gifting your units in order to remain below the score threshold. It's a tall poppy mechanic which is entirely out of place. As such, with a few minutes of spare time, i've created a tiny mod that changes the barbarian declare war mechanic.

Now, instead of being score based, the barbarian trait is alignment based: If, at any point, your alignment changes from evil, the barbarians will rightly consider you too civilized and declare war on you. This change is also flavourful, as it stops silly combinations like barbarian-peaceful order civs. Please note that, if you are playtesting this to see if it works, the barbs will *never* declare war on you in the first 20 turns of the game (a leftover of the score based mechanic).

In the latest version i've also added in some extra abilities to attempt to make the barb leaders a bit more competative. Eventually I also hope to suss out a way to stop the barb trait AI leaders from declaring war on the barbs. Please note that the -10% research is staying for the time being- it's a unique concept and it just needs to be balanced correctly.

Version notes:



Current version: 0.10

- New improved installer!
- Added expansive to charadon's traits.
- Reduced the upkeep cost of the Goblin UU
- Barbarians now declare war on change of alignment to good or neutral
- Barbarians no longer declare war due to points lead



http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/110796/Barbarian_trait_revised_0.10.zip

This is current for FFH 0.30 patch 'f'. I'll update it if necessary (if they change anything in that particular .py file). Installation instructions are included.

Happy Hunting!

Picture this: you're happily tramping along as the Clan of embers, Charadon or Infernals, successfully razing your enemies cities and marching alongside your barbarian friends when WHAM, all of a sudden your barbarian friends declared war on you. 'Too civilized' they say, but in actual fact what they mean is 'having the highest score'.

I've always disliked this mechanic. It actually discourages war, and leads to many stupid situations like desperately gifting your units in order to remain below the score threshold. It's a tall poppy mechanic which is entirely out of place. As such, with a few minutes of spare time, i've created a tiny mod that changes the barbarian declare war mechanic.

Now, instead of being score based, the barbarian trait is alignment based: If, at any point, your alignment changes from evil, the barbarians will rightly consider you too civilized and declare war on you. This change is also flavourful, as it stops silly combinations like barbarian-peaceful order civs. Please note that, if you are playtesting this to see if it works, the barbs will *never* declare war on you in the first 20 turns of the game (a leftover of the score based mechanic).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/110796/Barbarian_trait_revised.zip

*note*

This is current for FFH 0.30 patch 'd'. I'll update it if necessary (if they change anything in that particular .py file). Installation instructions are included.

Happy Hunting!

Sounds good! Though I'd install it, I never really use the barbarian clans, anyway.

What I like more is the alignment system from D&D. It is 2D: you are aligned not only s Good or Evil but also as Chaotic or Lawful. In my feeling orc barbs are not so evil as chaotic. And as they are chaotic they all can not sign a peace with anybody. So one can introduce a mesure of your reltionship with barbs: the better their attitude to you the less probability that they will attack you. Starting from 75% attitude they avoid your borders but can sometimes attack outside. Starting from 100% they again go free across your land but never attack you. In addition they may spawn on your land and in site of your units. Then there is a probability that barb unit on your land will join you grows from 0 at 100% attitude to 1 at 200%.

What influence attitude? Your alignment, relative size of your empire (in a strong degree), your traits (organized -, sprawling -, raider+, agressive+), civics, religion, choices in events, your battles (whom you attack and who attacks you) etc.

It was about orc barbs, they are chaotic neutral. Demon barbs are chaotic evil, Infernals are lawful or neutral evil.

What I like more is the alignment system from D&D. It is 2D: you are aligned not only s Good or Evil but also as Chaotic or Lawful. In my feeling orc barbs are not so evil as chaotic. And as they are chaotic they all can not sign a peace with anybody. So one can introduce a mesure of your reltionship with barbs: the better their attitude to you the less probability that they will attack you. Starting from 75% attitude they avoid your borders but can sometimes attack outside. Starting from 100% they again go free across your land but never attack you. In addition they may spawn on your land and in site of your units. Then there is a probability that barb unit on your land will join you grows from 0 at 100% attitude to 1 at 200%.

What influence attitude? Your alignment, relative size of your empire (in a strong degree), your traits (organized -, sprawling -, raider+, agressive+), civics, religion, choices in events, your battles (whom you attack and who attacks you) etc.

It was about orc barbs, they are chaotic neutral. Demon barbs are chaotic evil, Infernals are lawful or neutral evil.

Orc barbarians are chaotic neutral? No... I wouldn't think so. "Chaotic neutral" is sort of the natural "bard" alignment. Bards don't really like to adhere to laws, and can be really rather tricky at times. They're not evil people, and will play tales for all, but at the same time, you can't expect them to go out of their way to do favors for anybody. So a bard is a good definition of chaotic neutral.

What we have here is most definitely chaotic evil. An orc barbarian in Fall From Heaven will pillage villages, destroy cities (killing hundred and thousands of people in the process), destroy mines and roads just for the sake of creating havoc, and kill any workers or anybody else that they see in sight. If all they did was destroy improvements, then yes, they would perhaps be chaotic neutral, but with all of the killing they do, it's clear that they are chaotic evil.

sadly my issue playing as the clan has always been that they are WAY too overpowered. this just completely breaks them.

now that being said , if you could instead link it the the research amount in the point breakdown i would be game.

as things stand if you take CoE and go AV ,you win , easy , hands down.

Orc barbarians are chaotic neutral? No... I wouldn't think so. "Chaotic neutral" is sort of the natural "bard" alignment. Bards don't really like to adhere to laws, and can be really rather tricky at times. They're not evil people, and will play tales for all, but at the same time, you can't expect them to go out of their way to do favors for anybody. So a bard is a good definition of chaotic neutral.

What we have here is most definitely chaotic evil. An orc barbarian in Fall From Heaven will pillage villages, destroy cities (killing hundred and thousands of people in the process), destroy mines and roads just for the sake of creating havoc, and kill any workers or anybody else that they see in sight. If all they did was destroy improvements, then yes, they would perhaps be chaotic neutral, but with all of the killing they do, it's clear that they are chaotic evil.


Killing for the sake of havok? Whose to say they don't have other intentions? Its not like they have jobs, so raiding is the only money they can get, and they need that to support their own cities, which, no matter what, are always considered "babaric". Further, have YOU ever spared an orc's life? Have YOU refrained from sacking THEIR cities? They can use that as incentive to kill you. Also, they need places to live, so they have to take cities. Nothing personal against you, I'm just saying its hard to say barbarians don't have any incentive. Also, how many times have you used Orthus's Axe, and thus desecrate his memory. in the orcs' eyes?

So a bard is a good definition of chaotic neutral.
As I remember formal limitation for bard is chaotic, he can be good as well as evil or neutral.

What we have here is most definitely chaotic evil. An orc barbarian in Fall From Heaven will pillage villages, destroy cities (killing hundred and thousands of people in the process), destroy mines and roads just for the sake of creating havoc, and kill any workers or anybody else that they see in sight. If all they did was destroy improvements, then yes, they would perhaps be chaotic neutral, but with all of the killing they do, it's clear that they are chaotic evil.
Usually in roleplay to be evil you must do evil things for pleasure while to be neutral you must care only for your profit. Are you sure they do it for pleasure, not for loot? In real world barbarians attacked Rome for loot, they were not satanists. And BTW I do not remember when in FFH game barbs razed captured city with more then 1 pop but I remember when good Bannor razed a big barb city which was too far from their borders early in the game.

Edit: Slightly late in reply. ;)

I agree that the points-based trigger seems arbitrary. Going off alignment is a good start. But I feel the need for more. What do barbarians want? These 'poor' souls are the feral offspring of the twisted followers of a fallen god. They want death and destruction, ultimately of the fire kind.

So I think they would only tolerate a nation if that nation was equally destructive. So, if a Barb trait leader is at peace for a certain amount of time (say, 30 turns on Normal speed), then they get a warning from their barbarian allies that they are being too soft (too civilized). 10 turns later, if the civ is still not at war, they turn on them.

I had also thought that a tech-based trigger would make sense. However, the barbarians themselves are not disinclined to use the latest units, so that actually doesn't fit.

hmmm wouldn't this hurt the ai playing the clan WAY to much ... i mean they seem to always go rok and neutral in my games whilst still way down the points table

hmmm wouldn't this hurt the ai playing the clan WAY to much ... i mean they seem to always go rok and neutral in my games whilst still way down the points table

Keep in mind that this isn't a direct buff- RoK is a very fine religion with both CoE and Doviello, so now if you wish to use that synergy you'll have to give up your barbaric ways. If I was going to buff the trait I would've removed the 10% research penalty.

The AI tends to declare war on the barbs arbitrarily early on in the game anyway (thus why coe and charadon tend to do quite badly) so it's not much of an issue in the end. I could change the orc/charadon AI so they are less likely to adopt a religion that breaks their peace, but that would be definately moving towards a larger mod requiring more than one file. If I can teach myself the AI language, I might make this a larger mod that fixes a lot of barb issues in general that includes things like that.

Abbreviature conflict: CoE = Clan of Embers&Council of Esus. Some name needs change.

Abbreviature conflict: CoE = Clan of Embers&Council of Esus. Some name needs change.

i have the same problem:lol:

well it's pretty obvious which one in this context ;p

but I guess everyone should start refering to the clan of embers as 'the clan' or something similar =D

I would use this, but it seems in .30 that I hardly ever see barbs even with raging barbs on...

sadly my issue playing as the clan has always been that they are WAY too overpowered. this just completely breaks them.

now that being said , if you could instead link it the the research amount in the point breakdown i would be game.

as things stand if you take CoE and go AV ,you win , easy , hands down.

You always win with any civ and any religion. If you want to say a civ is overpowered you should talk in MP terms. And in MP terms the Clan is the worst civ after Sheaim, so I don't know what are you talking about.

I would ask the OP to also add the +X free military units to the barbarian trait or better to the Clan only if possible.

Updated and now in a proper installer/version number! You can find it in the first post of this thread.

In the latest version, i've beefed up charadon and the Clan to make them slightly better. Charadon now has the expansive trait, which will help reduce the amount of infrastructure he needs in his cities, and also give him a slight reduction in upkeep (no more compassion upkeep.) Expansive is probably the weakest trait I could give him, and this was intentional as I don't think he needs much buffing. Incidentally the aggressive/expansive trait combo is also not taken by any other leaders.

The Goblin UU for the clan is now considered a non-military unit in terms of support costs. This means that there will be a (hopefully) significant reduction in the cost of goblins in early game, allowing the clan to run a higher amount of warriors before hitting negative upkeep. Also it means all those useless goblins you get with For The Horde won't be destined for the rubbish bin quite so soon. I'm aware this may also slightly buff the barbs, but because cities do little direct production (most units are spawned) it really should make little difference.

If anyone knows how to *completely* remove upkeep costs please tell me how- there is no option in the unit XML files. I'd love to see swarms of early no-upkeep goblins as a new clan tactic. If this isn't possible, and people report that this buff is not strong enough, i'll consider allowing goblins to pillage, making them effective military units as well as scouts.

At the moment i'm trying to sort out how to get the AI to not declare war on the barbs, but it could be tricky. If anyone has a good idea throw me a PM.

Personally, I think Barbarian should just give Free Promotion (Melee Units) - Enraged. :p

(Mostly a joke, but it would be funny to see)

That might be interesting to see if the chance of wearing off is returned, but otherwise that would be completely insane.

I love your ideas and will try your mod as soon as I wrap up this game I'm playing. You're right, though. There needs to be some mechanism to prevent civ's with the BAR trait from declaring war on the barbs so early on.

Thanks for your effort!

Killing for the sake of havok? Whose to say they don't have other intentions? Its not like they have jobs, so raiding is the only money they can get, and they need that to support their own cities, which, no matter what, are always considered "babaric". Further, have YOU ever spared an orc's life? Have YOU refrained from sacking THEIR cities? They can use that as incentive to kill you. Also, they need places to live, so they have to take cities. Nothing personal against you, I'm just saying its hard to say barbarians don't have any incentive. Also, how many times have you used Orthus's Axe, and thus desecrate his memory. in the orcs' eyes?

There should be a diplo penalty for barbarians and the two barbarian allied civs against the civ that has Orthus's Axe.

There should be a diplo penalty for barbarians and the two barbarian allied civs against the civ that has Orthus's Axe.

there's no point changing the barbarian diplo penalty, as it is permanently set to -100 for all civs.

The clan of embers doesn't hail Orthus as a hero, but rather as a loose cannon who is impossible to control. I'm not sure they'd really care that much if he died, or where his axe went (except to get it back and use it for themselves of course!).

Some in the clan probably like Orthus, but their Hero Rantine and Orthus definitely don't get along.

Here's an idea I had for barbarians and the barbarian trait that, although perhaps a bit difficult to implement, would address several of the problems.

Namely, it would address the problems with not being able to declare war on the barbarians when you want to sometimes, add a useful mechanism for tracking whether the barbarians are upset with a Barbarian trait leader, and make the Barbarian trait leaders more powerful and better able to take advantage of barbarians.

Solution:
Add the barbarians to the civilization list (ie the scores) as a contactable civlization, although any civilization that is at war with the barbarians should not be able to conduct diplomacy (ie 'Refuses to talk to you!') Barbarian trait leaders should be able to conduct limited diplomacy with the barbarians, gifting gold, units, resources, and technology, but not receiving anything in return. The diplomacy modifier between the barbarians and the Barbarian trait leader is then used to determine when war is declared, and it is modified by gifts, mutual wars, alignment, destroying the world, and other appropriate modifiers. In addition, Barbarian trait leaders can recommend what cities the barbarians attack. You might also consider allowing trade routes with barbarian cities, which will be rare except when the cities are connected along coasts. Also, it might be too powerful, but I would also consider allowing barbarians to make use of techs that are gifted to them, if only in cities (but not in spawns until they have legitimate access to those units). Also, since the barbarians would be listed on the score list, you could easily declare war on them either through the diplomacy screens or by alt-clicking.

I like that idea, but then again I did propose it myself a few months ago.

I'm not really sure you need to limit the trades to being one way. The civs should be able to demand things of each other, hurting their diplomatic relations in the process. I don't see a need for any separate determining factor for war with the barbs, sine they would probably eventually get to the point where they don't like you very muhc anyway. For one thing, they would probably ask you to declare war on their enemies, i.e., all other civs, and your refusal would aggravate them (or likely lead to your destrction at the hads of the more civilized nations)

I also think that the barb leader should be Orthus (At least use his pic instead of Sid Mier's animation, if you don't actually change the name), and that the barbs should have some traits (Aggressive, Charismatic, Raiders) which they lose at his death. (I actually already added these traits and the loss mechanism, plus gave them Arcane/Magic Resistant/Summoner until Barbatos is defeated)

Although I'd like to be able to trade with the barbarian state, I see one problem with this: you can only trade with civs when you have a trade route to their capital city, and the barbs don't have a capital.

Barb trait leaders and the barbarian state should also be able to trade (or at least liberate) cities to one another, and to demand that their cities be liberated.

I've been playing around with the idea of making barbs contactable as you two have suggested. It's very easy to make barbs appear in the scores area- simply make them 'ai playable' and then assign an AI slot to them. This allows contact and diplomacy etc.

However unfortunately, the ease stops there. All of the barb spawn chances, events, auto-war and animals are tied into the barbarians as a 'non' civilisation, and I have no idea if that's even possible to change. In effect, if you make the barbs contactable, they become just the same as any other civ (do not spawn, start at peace etc. They also have a nifty sid mier face)

I think this has mainly got to do with the vanilla barbarian coding, which is hardcoded into the SDK. While i'm sure it's possible to change this with enough hard work, it's outside the scope of my abilities.

I've noticed the same kind of thing when playing as the barbarian state (requires minor xml changes. Also need to be sure that you assign them some staring units, or else you lose as soon as you start!). Also, there is another barbarian state in the game, which behaves exactly like it normally does, and is at war with you. This is particularly annoying, sine you cannot tell your units or cities apart from theirs (unless you try selecting them), and your cultural boarders al run together.

I'm thinking we may be limited to handling all diplomacy with the Barbarian State through random events.

Weren't the barbarians a playable civ in either Warlords or BtS?

In a Warlords Senario, yes. I think the probelms were there too, but a "no barbs" option was set so the hardcoded barbs didn't show up too.

Weren't the barbarians a playable civ in either Warlords or BtS?

In warlords, yes, but you weren't actually playing as the barbarians- just a unique race with the barbarian flags and colours, with locked war and no barbs. If you give yourself some free units at the start it's possible to play as the barbs in ffh- but as I mentioned you then act as a normal civ and do not gain access to spawns/events such as orthrus etc.

I like that idea, but then again I did propose it myself a few months ago.

Yes. I'm promoting this idea, too.

I'm not really sure you need to limit the trades to being one way.

The idea is that the barbarians are not sufficiently organized to trade their own technology/resources, but they could be given as much.

I don't see a need for any separate determining factor for war with the barbs, sine they would probably eventually get to the point where they don't like you very muhc anyway. For one thing, they would probably ask you to declare war on their enemies, i.e., all other civs, and your refusal would aggravate them (or likely lead to your destrction at the hads of the more civilized nations)

The barbarians should ask you to declare war on their enemies, and your refusal should upset them. Either you join them in war (and gain diplomatic bonuses for doing so), placate them with other gifts (effectively funding their war against the other civilizations), or eventually are at war with the barbarians.

There is a tradeoff here: if you keep the barbarians happy, you have an enormous and widespread ally that you can direct via diplomacy to focus on your enemies (i.e. 'You should attack Cevedes.', etc.), but if you prove yourself to be as civilized as the rest of them, you'll have a new enemy.

I had in mind a net -5 to -10 as the breaking point for the barbarians declaring war on you, perhaps scaling according to map size, game speed, difficulty, and/or various game option (raging barbarians, etc.), and perhaps being probabilistic each turn, thus allowing you an opportunity to placate them after a refusal.

Although I'd like to be able to trade with the barbarian state, I see one problem with this: you can only trade with civs when you have a trade route to their capital city, and the barbs don't have a capital.

That would need a new mechanic, but I think that trade routes would be one of the less significant aspects of the new barbarians, and it is probably the hardest aspect to justify. (Are barbarians sufficiently civil to engage in bilateral trade? Demanding and receiving gifts is one thing.)

Barb trait leaders and the barbarian state should also be able to trade (or at least liberate) cities to one another, and to demand that their cities be liberated.

Agreed. I forgot to mention that.

I'm thinking we may be limited to handling all diplomacy with the Barbarian State through random events.

That would greatly reduce our options. Perhaps Kael and co. will be sufficiently interested in this idea to implement. I certainly hope they are looking for ways to improve the barbarian civs performace.

unfortunately it's being a right pain just trying to stop the AI declaring war on the barbs at the moment- diplomacy options are in the distant future. They simply won't listen to NO_WARPLAN and continue to declare war regardless :(.


I'll keep trying, but it looks like it won't be as easy as telling them not to. Problem is I don't really understand HOW you declare war against the barbs- it's just not as simple as it is with a normal civ.

On the plus side, in all my games both charadon and the CoE have been doing exceptionally well. Charadon especially is managing to do what he's designed to do: be an utter terror in early game. Playing as balseraphs I pretty much only managed to survive by currying his favour ;). As it should be however, later on he began to lose out in the tech race and I managed to rush a tower victory via slaves while holding off his IMMENSE force of champions/catapults/chariots using hemah and summoners. Sadly the AI isn't intelligent enough to attack from several fronts, or I would've had a much harder time. Instead it just rushes straight into twincasted maelstrom followed by spellstaff --> twincasted meteors =)

OK, Blakmane, I'm 400 turns into my Epic game with your modmod and I have had some rather surprising things happen...most not expected.

First, for a change, I tried to play Cassiel, but all the other game settings were the same as for the 5 previous games of .30 I played (except one was Marathon instead of Epic): Monarch, Huge Fantasy Realm map with 9 ai civs, Raging Barbs, AggAI, Wildlands, Barbarian Lands.

1. I ended up with Jonas AND Charadon in the game and this has really created problems for me that I did not expect! I know you said you were still looking for a way to have ai civs with the Barbarian trait not declare war early. Well, incredibly in this game I am up to turn 400 and BOTH Jonas and Charadon are still at peace with the barbs!

2. This peace has created some difficulty for me. Two ai civs went down, leaving 5 civs that the barbs can pick on. This leads me to another thing I never saw before. I have Jonas on my NW border and Charadon on my SW border. The barbs are sending beaucoup units through the territory of these two civs. I never saw them go through the territory of civs at peace with them before. My Eastern borders are wide open too and I am getting plenty of barbs from that direction too. Basically, I am getting my 5 cities hit from 360 degrees. Still early in the game, and I have at least a dozen units with over 150 xp (I selected the Raider trait as Adaptive for Cassiel). I am fending them off my improvements, but the game is getting rather tedious as I cannot muster an army to take out barbs, Charadon and Jonas.

3. Part of the problem goes back to something I have been seeing in every game since .25 - the Bear Explosion. Bears, at least 150, have surrounded the other 5 ai civs. The other barbs don't seem to like wading through all the Bears so they go straight through Jonas' and Charadon's territory where there are no Bears straight for me. I opened the World Builder and there are virtually no barb units in the territory of the other civs. They are all pouring into my lands for the last 200 turns!

4. Without a doubt this has been the best raging barb challenge I have had in .30. I haven't yet seen any of the squatting problems I noted in another thread although there are plenty of barb cities, particularly on my Eastern borders. Again, I just can't break out to get these cities as it seems I need every defender. If Jonas or Charadon declares war on me, and I suspect they will, I will have lots of action.

Anyway, again, I'm not sure if it was your modmod, or just a good game (I'd like to think the former), but definitely my best .30 game to date!

Thanks a lot!!!:)

OK, Blakmane, I'm 400 turns into my Epic game with your modmod and I have had some rather surprising things happen...most not expected.

First, for a change, I tried to play Cassiel, but all the other game settings were the same as for the 5 previous games of .30 I played (except one was Marathon instead of Epic): Monarch, Huge Fantasy Realm map with 9 ai civs, Raging Barbs, AggAI, Wildlands, Barbarian Lands.

1. I ended up with Jonas AND Charadon in the game and this has really created problems for me that I did not expect! I know you said you were still looking for a way to have ai civs with the Barbarian trait not declare war early. Well, incredibly in this game I am up to turn 400 and BOTH Jonas and Charadon are still at peace with the barbs!

2. This peace has created some difficulty for me. Two ai civs went down, leaving 5 civs that the barbs can pick on. This leads me to another thing I never saw before. I have Jonas on my NW border and Charadon on my SW border. The barbs are sending beaucoup units through the territory of these two civs. I never saw them go through the territory of civs at peace with them before. My Eastern borders are wide open too and I am getting plenty of barbs from that direction too. Basically, I am getting my 5 cities hit from 360 degrees. Still early in the game, and I have at least a dozen units with over 150 xp (I selected the Raider trait as Adaptive for Cassiel). I am fending them off my improvements, but the game is getting rather tedious as I cannot muster an army to take out barbs, Charadon and Jonas.

3. Part of the problem goes back to something I have been seeing in every game since .25 - the Bear Explosion. Bears, at least 150, have surrounded the other 5 ai civs. The other barbs don't seem to like wading through all the Bears so they go straight through Jonas' and Charadon's territory where there are no Bears straight for me. I opened the World Builder and there are virtually no barb units in the territory of the other civs. They are all pouring into my lands for the last 200 turns!

4. Without a doubt this has been the best raging barb challenge I have had in .30. I haven't yet seen any of the squatting problems I noted in another thread although there are plenty of barb cities, particularly on my Eastern borders. Again, I just can't break out to get these cities as it seems I need every defender. If Jonas or Charadon declares war on me, and I suspect they will, I will have lots of action.

Anyway, again, I'm not sure if it was your modmod, or just a good game (I'd like to think the former), but definitely my best .30 game to date!

Thanks a lot!!!:)

Thanks for you input, i'm glad to see that the clan and charadon are doing well in the kinds of games they should do well in now (raging barbs, agressive AI etc.). Also i'm glad you had such a fun game :)

Yeah, the barbs actually run a warscript similar to other civs. They target individual civs (usually those doing well) and bring full force against them. I've often seen barbs walking right past undefended cities in order to get to me :lol:. I'm not sure if that's something kael put into the game, or just part of the vanilla AI.

Ah, upon further review...

It's funny how 100 turns can make such a difference.

Now I am past turn 500 and the barbs have stopped passing through Clan and Doviello territory. Still no war with the barbs for those two, but I wonder why the barbs stopped passing through their territory?

And, sadly, I am seeing more squatting behavior as I spotted two barb cities with more defenders than can show on the screen. Why don't they move out and RAGE?

Plenty of Bears again. Same-same.

I've decided to switch to Basium and after he gains strength, I will send him out with a supporting cast to take out the three remaining Evil civs (Clan, Doviello, and Sheaim). That should move the counter up (only at 42 now) and open up some space for the barbs.

A report in another 200 turns....

Thanks again!