change to barrow mechanics

In my last game, I experimented with building barrows on unoccupied tiles in my borders. However, I notice the AI with whom I have open border aggreements pillaging my barrows.

With the current mechanics, I would need to close my border to all other civs in order to "protect" all the barrows in my territory. Doing so would result in bad diplomacy relations with everyone else. I'm not sure it's worth it.

Considering how tedious (lots of micro-management) it is to build the barrows in the first place (and rebuilding them after my allies destroys them), perhaps a slight adjustment could be made: disable the pillaging option from all units in an allied civ territory.

After all, you're not allowed to pillage the other improvements of an ally, the same could be applied to barrows.

Also, with the current mechanics, it's highly unlikelly that an AI civ would build barrow in its own territory (unless it's somehow scripted to encourage them to do so), and even if they do, their allies removes them.

Another suggestion for a change to the barrow mechanics: currently, barrow spawns skeleton by default. if the barbarian civ has access to specific tech and/or death mana nodes (not sure what the exact requirements are), it will spawn higher level units. This is too restrictive and as such, I have never seen a higher tier unit spawn from a barrow. An easier system would be to link spawn unit type with how mature/old the barrow is, similar to the young/regular/old forest system for elves. A barrow that exist for only 20 turns or less would spawn skeletons, 21-50 turns would spawn nightmares, 50+ turns would spawns tier 3 unit. That would be a much simpler system. The turn figures are just as an example, they should be tested and ajusted.

Another usage for barrows: based on how many barrows exist in your territory, summoned death unit of tier 2 and 3 last longer. For example, you have 1-9 barrows, summoned death unit stays an extra turn; 10-19 barrow: summoned death unit stays for 2 extra turns; etc...

personally i tend to not open my borders and when i do , i just kill anything that enters with mercs.the trick to the barrows build is to give away all the tech you can to as many peopel as you can. according to keal , the more civs that have a given tech the more beakers the barbarians get per turn toward that tech. if you beeline down the summoning tree not only will you have nice conjurers , you will ahve the added benefit (after tradeing away the techs) of having teh barrows spawn better abd better mobs.

another evil and mean and ugly trick.... land lock an area that is outside your borders and not accessible to any other civ. then once the barbs have built up a suitable force in that area build a settlement. they will then pop outside your borders and start rampaging as a massed army. keep in mind for some reason the barbs will not enter your territory AND you cant get open borders with them.

another thing ... lol ... if you can get your T4 priests AND are ashen viel you can build hellfire tiles... and oooo hellfire tiles are nice.

yet one more thing... learn chaos(?) for the chaos mauraders. then have your conjurers summon them EVERY turn , they have a chance to turn nto a barbarian unit instead of de-popiing. yet adding more arsenal to the neverending flow of "hidden nationality" units ... mu ha ha.

DarthCycle said:

Another suggestion for a change to the barrow mechanics: currently, barrow spawns skeleton by default. if the barbarian civ has access to specific tech and/or death mana nodes (not sure what the exact requirements are), it will spawn higher level units. This is too restrictive and as such, I have never seen a higher tier unit spawn from a barrow. An easier system would be to link spawn unit type with how mature/old the barrow is, similar to the young/regular/old forest system for elves. A barrow that exist for only 20 turns or less would spawn skeletons, 21-50 turns would spawn nightmares, 50+ turns would spawns tier 3 unit. That would be a much simpler system. The turn figures are just as an example, they should be tested and ajusted.

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The only problem with this is you'd need the barrows to have an incredibly long period of time in each state. Otherwise, you'd be having tier 3 barbarians running around the map 50+ turns into the game from the barrows spawned with the map. Most of the time, I don't even have 2 cities 50 turns into the game. Having units with ~8 strength would be a HUGE hindrance.

I guess you can just prevent barrows from being spawned with the map, but I like the idea of something that will give a constant supply of units for me to kill.

Good point, so setup a trigger for tier 2 and 3 unit. For example, tier 2 unit will only start appearing from barrows when someone has researched necromancy. Tier 3, have it linked to soul debt.

darth , its already linked to when the BARBARIANS learn those techs.

interesting, I wasn't aware of that. How does the barbarians learn any tech?

They get beakers toward a tech if any player knows it, and the more players know a tech, the more beakers the barbarians get per turn. I think they also get normal comerce from their cities turned into beakers, but im not sure.

Indeed, so if you want to see bunches of diseased corpses or wraiths spawning instead of skeletons, start giving away the relevent techs to everyone you meet.

GeeJo said:

Indeed, so if you want to see bunches of diseased corpses or wraiths spawning instead of skeletons, start giving away the relevent techs to everyone you meet.

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the dark side of technology