Barbarian trait very mini mod

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:



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!

Blakmane said:

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!

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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.

it-ogo said:

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.

Click to expand...

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.

Alsark said:

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.

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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?

Alsark said:

So a bard is a good definition of chaotic neutral.

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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.

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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

DREWid said:

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

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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.

it-ogo said:

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

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i have the same problem

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...

daladinn said:

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.

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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.

(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!

princecharles said:

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?

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