I've got a map I've been working on, and my civs are routinely being wiped out by high-level monsters.

One continent spawns half a dozen hill giants, a couple of Air Elementals and a Lightning elemental... and then aims straight for the Malakim. Curing playtesting, they typically die around turn 47, though lately haven't been breaking turn 30 due to twisters - the hill giants, having finally organized themselves can be seen en-route however.

Q: Where are all these hill giants coming from?
Q: Where are the elementals coming from?

Note: In an earlier version of the scenario, I did have some hill giants on various continents, and a single lightning elemental in the map. But these were removed after the first couple of test-runs.

Sounds like you really tweaked the settings of something. I've never had air or lightning elementals spawn from an event.

I suppose the pegasus constellation that says storms are raging across your lands could be made to spawn a few air/lightning elementals.

I don't know anything about coding, so I can't help ya, sorry.

Also, I've seen that Hill Giants mostly seem to spawn in desert (no idea why, maybe they just seem to gravitate towards deserts), so if that continent of yours has alot of desert in it, that's a possible factor.

What scenario are you playing?

I think it is his own user created scenario.

Also, I've seen that Hill Giants mostly seem to spawn in desert (no idea why, maybe they just seem to gravitate towards deserts), so if that continent of yours has alot of desert in it, that's a possible factor.


It does have a significant amount of desert tiles in it. Its primarily sands. If the Hill giants are partial to deserts, then this is why I am infested.
I'm wondering if it may be similar for the Tornado-like air elementals. They look at home on a massive desert, but are devastating as early-game opponents.


Q: What can I do to limit the appearance of hill giants?

I've found barbarian activity to vary massively based on the map layout. Some maps (lots of land, just enough ocean to prevent non-ocean travel) cause massive amounts of barbarians, particularly if you get a land mass with no-one else on it.

On a 70% water tectonics map the barbarian influence is minimal at the same difficulty.

A script like creation is highly unpredictable, and can either cause massive hordes to attack or almost nothing depending how the terrain ends up being designed.


If your scenario is having issues have a look at the map layout, see where you have large areas of land not being observed, and consider making changes or adding a script to cut down teh spawn rate (I'd assume a script could override the spawn values from the difficulty XML file)

If your scenario is having issues have a look at the map layout, see where you have large areas of land not being observed, and consider making changes or adding a script to cut down teh spawn rate (I'd assume a script could override the spawn values from the difficulty XML file)

I have considerable amounts of uninhabited lands where the dark things tend to grow. However, I had assumed that powerful units would not randomly spawn early in the game simply because there was nobody there watching.

In regular games (generated, not World-builder) even late in the game the dark scary places were generating only warriors and axemen. Same difficulty levels et al.

So why is my map throwing such terrible foes at my dawning civilizations?

PS: where is this difficulty xml?

Less you made this scenario, it's due to how the map was generated.

Sounds to me like something that would only happen if your game included Marnok's Explorable Lairs.

PS: where is this difficulty xml?

The only way I know of to change barbarian activity is in ...\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml
Change <iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit> under the diffuculty level of your choice.

Sounds to me like something that would only happen if your game included Marnok's Explorable Lairs.

Agreed. The high level monsters shouldn't be spawning on their own.

Hill giants attack cities? I only ever see them strolling around killing everything you send outside your borders, but they seem to actually avoid civilizations borders. In my games at least.

Hill giants attack cities? I only ever see them strolling around killing everything you send outside your borders, but they seem to actually avoid civilizations borders. In my games at least.

They cant enter civs borders, because they are considerd to be beast units.

Agreed. The high level monsters shouldn't be spawning on their own.

This is what has been vexing me the past several days.
And no, I don't have the explorable lairs or what have you mod. Its a clean, patched FfH 0.32i.

Yet these hill giants and elementals seem to come from the mists.

Hill giants attack cities? I only ever see them strolling around killing everything you send outside your borders, but they seem to actually avoid civilizations borders. In my games at least.

I'm only entering on Noble difficulty, so I wouldn't imagine that theyre coded to attack on such a low setting. And while I typically don't check on the Malakim immediatly upon their demise, when I do look, the hill giants are what's standing on or near the ruins.
However, the last three games its been air elementals who seem to have done the killing. And the last two games I checked immediately.


Suffice to say though, I still have a problem with these dirty old hill giants.

Less you made this scenario, it's due to how the map was generated.

I made the scenario.
I placed the land, I placed the lairs, I placed the candy bits and fun pieces.
I didn't place a party of Hill giants looking for a rude time in the Malakim wilderness.
So these things must be generated on their own after I begin the game.

srmacpherson: I've got a suggestion
- hill giants could be from Pact of the Nilhorn. We're you playing on quick speed and high difficulties? Turn 47 could do it.
- I never had air elementals attack me before, but I wouldn't call it impossible yet. Would anyone please do a quick check in the code for promotions that Barbatoes could get?
- Are you sure they were air elementals and not fire elementals?
- Check your map carefully to make sure you didn't add anything unusual with a mis-click or something that looks similar in small sizes.

No clue where Air Elementals came from; Barbatos only has Death/Earth spheres. Fire Elementals could come from the Pyre being razed, but not much else that early can create them.

Hill giants are 'animal' spawns that appear in deserts, but I've never had them enter civ borders on their own either. Once or twice I've had one smack some workers due to borders expanding and trapping them inside, but never had them actually go rampaging.

Pact of the Nilhorn creates the Stooges, they're named so you can easily tell if that's the case.

srmacpherson: I've got a suggestion
- hill giants could be from Pact of the Nilhorn. We're you playing on quick speed and high difficulties? Turn 47 could do it.
- I never had air elementals attack me before, but I wouldn't call it impossible yet. Would anyone please do a quick check in the code for promotions that Barbatoes could get?
- Are you sure they were air elementals and not fire elementals?
- Check your map carefully to make sure you didn't add anything unusual with a mis-click or something that looks similar in small sizes.

They aren't pact of nilhorn giants, they're entirely barbarian spawns.

And yeah, they're air elementals that are spawning. As well as a lightning elemental.
When I get back from holidays I'll go through the text file of the scenario tile by tile to ensure that there isn't anything hiding.

They aren't pact of nilhorn giants, they're entirely barbarian spawns.

And yeah, they're air elementals that are spawning. As well as a lightning elemental.
When I get back from holidays I'll go through the text file of the scenario tile by tile to ensure that there isn't anything hiding.

How many hill giants are there? If there's more than three, they're nilhorn spawns. As to the air elementals and lightning elementals, those are either from Barbatoes' magic or are bugs.
And, yes, check the text of your files.

Technically there is no reason why Barbatos shouldn't be able to Summon Air Elementals, if the Barbarians have at least once Air Node.

Do Barbarians build Nodes? I've never seen that.

On a second thought, perhaps when they build a city on a Raw Node they get the bonus. As a Node can give a number of bonuses, the first one from a list is chosen. If the list is ordered alphabetically, it happens to be Air Mana.
Does it make any sense or am I talking bilge?

No one is allowed to build a city on a mana resource. Even though it is blocked, the code also deletes the resource if this happenes.

I know I've seen barbarians with nodes before, but now that I think of it they can't build adepts (I may change this). So, these were either captured cities, or the AI can still build nodes with workers instead of adepts.

It appears that the barbs can build nodes with Workers. In my current game, there are a few barb cities on isolated islands next to Body nodes, and since only one AI civ got to Optics (and that only recently), I'm pretty sure the barbs built them. These are well developed cities too, well worth conquering, but I'm building the Tower of Mastery, and my forces are committed elsewhere at the moment.

Can they[Barbariens] use any Mana anyone has in the game, or just get affinity for them? (Or was this remove and I never noticed?)
Edit: Answered to full saticfaction, thank you, Magister.

It was removed when FfH moved to BtS. Kael thought the code was too complex or required too much upkeep or processor power or something.

There are Staeddings on the map these days, like dens or ruins, but they generate Hill Giants instaed? Perhaps got unlucky and got a few of those?

Staeddings? I think you mean the lairs or barrows.

Never mind, didn't read above posts before writing

Staeddings? I think you mean the lairs or barrows.

No, there are citadel-like buildings that says 'giant staedding'? Similar to lairs and barrows but generates hill-giants? Am I totally lost here?

oh, you're talking about the stuff from your giant civ modmod.

Even if he used those, it still doesn't explain the air elementals.

There are Staeddings on the map these days, like dens or ruins, but they generate Hill Giants instaed? Perhaps got unlucky and got a few of those?

Giant Staeddings are from Marnok's mod. And, yes, they generate Hill Giants.

Ye, and they can be found in Fall Further.

If we could get a look at a map we could tell.

I believe that hillg giants tend to spawn in deserts, so it would make sense that there are many if there's a large desert, espescially with Raging Barbarians.

I would think that air elementals came from Barbatos. If you made the sceanario there is a chance you misclicked and created a few air elementals.

Barbatos wouldn't have Air mana that early. 99% of games, he's only got Earth and Death spheres.

Don't you guys think it's a little strange that Hill Giants spawn in deserts rather than hills? Why not call them desert giants instead.

Just a thought, heh.

That is wierd. Hmm...never occurred to me before. But yeah...anyone know where the code for that is? I wanna change it to havin them spawn in hills, as they should.