Specialized Barbarian Units

Mazdek said:

I'm having alot of fun with this mod playing as the Germans with the Rampaging Barbarians option set. One thing I find myself reluctant to do is to upgrade them because then they are no longer Barbarians. Would it be possible to set it up so that they upgrade within their internal hierarchy as you gain the appropriate technologies? With the exception of the special unit the Landsknecht, 'cause they're way cooler than regular Pikemen. Though I guess if I want them to be able to become Landsknechts, there's probably no way to remember that they were first Barbarians and upgrade back into that tree. Darn.

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That would be possible I reckon. You have the barbarian unit upgrade to another barbarian unit instead of a regular unit, and have the cost at -1 so you can't build them

As far as I'm aware, specific units upgrade only to unit classes, which means the generic unit (say, Pikeman) unless the civilization in question has a unique replacement for it. Once you capture an Ambusher, for instance, it becomes irreversibly German and therefore will upgrade to Landsknecht. Not Brigand, because the Barbarian civilization no longer applies to that particular unit.

Around what turn do ANY of these units begin to appear? I'm running into some issues where the barbarians do not advance.

Well, pretty early. As soon as you'd normally find barbarian Archers you'd find Bandits instead in this mod.

But what do you mean with "advancement", exactly? I think particular barbarian units are unlocked once the first (last?) player researches the technology required for their training. I can't quite recall.

i used this mod standalone and with quite a few other mods and a few observations -

special units are rare, im still seeing normal units but sometimes i do see one.

something about the way your mod works causes barbarian encampment guards to abandon encampments at an abnormal rate, i have a scout 2 tiles away. the barbs have 2 units and an AI warrior walks up in a flat grasslands. then, both units will attack. the encampment guardian will actually leave his encampment and kill the unit even though the encampment will obviously be sacked in consequence.

is there a way to make the camp guard stay on tile or not attack a weak unit just because it has favorable odds when it might lose the camp?

also to the question above, i think its the LAST player who recieves a tech. i haven't looked at any codes or anything but i always get archery very early and haven't seen a single bandit, likewise i research horseback riding when its the only tech im allowed to research. could this be why i don't see their adv units? because either im researching what the ai takes last or i research last what everyone else had 50 turns ago?

Edit - is this compatible with barbarians! mod or any other mod that uses barbarians/city state functions if only the unit tables are affected? after playing it standalone i would be pleased if i can add it to my eternally enabled mods.

That's all weird, but admittedly I haven't updated the mod in a long time. It seemed to work just fine back then, but there's been several patches since then, patches which shouldn't have messed anything up but may have.

Specialized barbarian units aren't supposed to be rare: they're supposed to be the only kind barbarians can build. For example, you aren't supposed to see any archers of theirs around. Only bandits.

As for unit behaviour, it's not something I've tweaked. I've kept this mod strictly focused on unit stats and their corresponding graphics. Might be some change inherent to a more current version of vanilla Civ V, or some weird conflict with another mod.

Compatibility with other modifications, especially those that also deal with the barbarian faction, can't be ascertained. If two different mods happen to change the same things, all sorts of bizarre stuff can happen.

well, i will try looking for answers by trying different playstyles and mod combos, this should have been in the civ5 vanilla in the first place.

I've finally been testing the mod again in the most recent version. I had drifted away from Civ5. Anyway, the specialized units are there, but as it was said they're rather rare. The most common ones are those the barbarians produce by default in the vanilla game, except renamed and slightly modified as per my changes. Besides that, I've seen a couple of Raiders, a Partisan and a Privateer (and a Caravel, which shouldn't have been there).

I'll look into ways of making the newer units more common. Maybe it's a matter of costs, since they are more expensive than the basic Brute and Bandit. Assuming barbarians maintain the same production capacity throughout the entire game, it'd be understandable if they were usually too poor to field the post-ancient units. Drastically reducing costs might help.

Or if I'm just unlucky, it might be a behavioural thing that tells the barbarians only to build the units set by the base game. But I'm not sure: if that were the case, I wouldn't have seen my non-standard stuff every now and then.

Any ideas and/or testers when I churn out a new version would be appreciated.

Alright, I've seen more Privateers sailing the seas, and I think maybe one more Partisan. Makes sense, since Barbarian camps can spawn on tiny islands and gradually produce units (mostly ships, of course) relatively undisturbed, unlike camps on larger landmasses, which get wiped out pretty quickly. Brutes have disappeared, and Bandits largely so, giving way to Brigands.

I might see more advanced units if I were playing on a higher difficulty level: I chose Chieftain since I hadn't played in a while, and that means I'm in the late Modern Era close to the 20th century, and the AI players are just going through late Rennaissance. And maybe the general AI backwardness is affecting Barbarian unit choices. It'll try not to get slaughtered on Prince soon.

Hey, is this great mod working with GaK?

I will try, but maybe someone already tried.

I will try it with Agressive City States mod...

which will be the ultimate thing, since barbs are also more agressive

I can't afford Gods & Kings at the moment, so unfortunately I can't do any testing with it.