Hey all,

Had an idea for implementing partisans and wanted to run the game theory by you.

Right now, the partisan unit I use is just a cheap invisible infantry guy you can sneak into an enemies terriroy and pillage vital infrustructure like a resource tile. Annoying little bugger to say the least.

In my current WWII scenario, I have a similar unit called resistance that works the same way and represents a power sponsoring resistance cells by landing the unit in enemy territory. I wanted to do something different for the Partisan in this scenario. Partisans were not really allied to any power, they were usually Right or Left wing revolutionaries like the ELAS in Greece who fought both the Germans and the British. So I wanted an enitity that was random, controled by no one and hostile to everyone, and then it hit me....

BARBARIANS!!!

In my scenario there is no culture flipping, and I have done my best to stop culture growth completely, unless you build a rather expensive "Occupation Government" improvement to increase your control in the region (culture =control in my world). This means there will be lots of open territory between conquered areas, especially in places like Russia, Scandinavia, and the Balkans where settlements are few and far between. In the early stages of any civ game these unmonitored areas produce barbarian camps that in turn produce barbarian raiders. I want to change this to Partisan camps and Partisan raiders. I will change the tribe names to WWII partisan and revoutionary groups, and make the partisan units pretty strong, maybe even invisible (the German Gestapo, Soviet NKVD and Italian Facists will see them, the Democracies will have a harder time)

What do you think?

I think it sounds very inventive. Put them -- the barbarian/partisan camps -- where they were historcally found (I mean this figuratively not literally: put them in rough terrain like swamps, mountains, etc.) to make attacking them difficult, and it sounds promising. -- Please let everyone know how it works out!

-Oz

Anyone have any experiance modding the Barbs, such as designating when advanced barbs appear?

Whoa, talk about a hard thing to test. You can play as them and can never really "see" what they are doing. I think I might just put this on the back burner for awhile. Alot more basic stuff needs to be done to the scenario before I can spare the time for this.

That bieng said, if any of you have already spared the time on a similar or related project, fill me in ;)

Originally posted by Patroklos
You can play as them and can never really "see" what they are doing.

Recommendation: ALWAYS do initial scenario testing in "DEBUG" mode ;)

-Oz

Advanced barbs appear in hordes when the first civ enters the second age.

So if you divided each era up into a specalty era, so technically all the civs are researching in every era at one time, would Barbs show up at all?

Another issue is when Barbarians disappear. At some point there stop being barbarians and barbarian encampments generated in normal games.

Originally posted by Patroklos
So if you divided each era up into a specalty era, so technically all the civs are researching in every era at one time, would Barbs show up at all?

How are you planning to structure "specialty eras"?

-Oz

Was going to divide each era into the tech specialties of Naval Warfare, Land Warfare, Air Warfare and Gernal so that you can choose which branch you want to work on most, or just all at the same time. I will just sever links between the ending and starting techs of the eras, and then start every civ with the fisrt tech in each era.

Originally posted by Patroklos
Was going to divide each era into the tech specialties of Naval Warfare, Land Warfare, Air Warfare and Gernal so that you can choose which branch you want to work on most, or just all at the same time. I will just sever links between the ending and starting techs of the eras, and then start every civ with the fisrt tech in each era.

I don't know if that will work or not -- first of all, there are no links to sever between the ending and starting techs of the eras; completion of one era is required to move on to the next, and assignment of an "advanced" tech to a Civ (i.e., one further down the tech tree path than the Civ has researched) should result in that Civ simply receiving that tech automatically at the appropriate time -- but, heck, I'm just going by the documentation on this last one :crazyeye: .

-Oz

Didn't know that.

If I find that to be the case, I can just make four "parallel lines of research traveling through each era.

Question:
I have done no work on tech trees and know nothing about them. Can I put all the techs of a scenario into one era so that I don't have to worry about eras changing and thus hardcoded aspects of the game such as barbarian rules changing with them?
Graphically, I don't think it can be done in the Tech tree, but maybe I could just put a holding graphic in and have the tech list represented in civilopedia entry of some kind so it can be checked in game (you would have too remember where you were).

Also, the barbarians as partisans thing is tricky, as barbarian activity does cease as the eras progress. This means that the chances of partisans would be great in the beginning of the game and nonexistant at the end. This is of course the opposite of reality. Also, there is no open terrain for barbs to apear on at the beginning of the scenario, only after the culture overlaps disappear due to conquest will this happen. I might just have to think of something else, but this had so much potential.

AFAIK there's no reason an era can't either (i) consist of a single, very cheap and/or optional tech (if you want to blast through, say the first two eras) or (ii) end with a single, amazingly expensive tech (if you want to, e.g., limit yourself to the first 2 eras).

Also don't forget that you can give each Civ up to four free techs!

-Oz

If I wanted to say, only use the first two eras, as barbarian activity only takes place in those eras, can I just not put any techs in the last two to keep civilizations from advancing?

Originally posted by Patroklos
If I wanted to say, only use the first two eras, as barbarian activity only takes place in those eras, can I just not put any techs in the last two to keep civilizations from advancing?

That is my understanding, although I THINK a "dummy" tech will be required for the third and fourth eras (just think of them as placeholders).

-Oz