Barbarians

Separate barb factions makes sense, mostly because of peace conditions for barbarian trait.

But I don't see any gain for separating animals from the generic barbarian faction.
 
perhaps have Athel Loren and the Beasts of Chaos duke it out for influence over the Animal barbarian faction. A powerful Amber Magic Ritual could also enable peace with the Animal barb faction.

This could be potentially interesting. It'd make sense lorewise. I mean the Beastmen have a natural inclination to influence Beasts. While the WEs just love nature so freakin much. But I would definitely add in those gryphons and hippogryphs (maybe even a few more units) to make this faction less BLAH. :)
 
Doublepost
 
EDIT: not technically a doublepost, but just realized I'm basically repeating myself:rolleyes:

Yeah, I'd been questioning that too, but on further thought having an Animals (perhaps called Creatures or Wilderness?) barb group is probably necessary to prevent wandering creatures from banding together with barbarian Warbands, fortifying themselves in barb cities, Krakens docking at a coastal barb port, etc etc.

Lorewise, both Athel Loren and the Beasts of Chaos could potentially start at peace with the Animals, representing their competing influence over beasts and the wilderness. Access to a Ritual enabling peace with Animals could also add some usefulness to advanced Amber Magic and the end of the Monster Taming tech track, which for some factions is rather non-versatile atm.
 
I would like:

Rebel Greenskins (Orcs, Goblins and Hobgoblins start at peace with them, and like orlanth says a ritual to regain rebel trust for greenskin civs would be good.)

Chaos undivided (Norsca, Hung, Kurgan start at peace with them. other civs that have converted to the Chaos gods religion could cast a ritual to make them at peace with them as well, but have a chance of other civs declaring war on you.)

Animals (Woodelves, Beasts of Chaos, Amazonians and potentially Lizardmen start at peace with them. an expensive amber ritual like orlanth suggested could also cause you to become at peace with the animals.)

because i dont think we cant have more than 3 barbarian factions. however if we can have more id suggest one more:

Forces of Nagash (Sylvania and Lhamia are at peace with these hordes of undead. no way to break alliance or reforge alliance.)

But I don't see any gain for separating animals from the generic barbarian faction.

i do. i dont see any reason not to have an animal section. its an integral mechanic for some civs!
 
There's something we need to discuss here; is a form of peace with barbarians separate from the barbarian trait?

Atm, only beastmen, Hung and IIRC one of the greenskin leaders have the barbarian trait, and this trait gives -10% science and peace with barbarians.

If we're going to make some factions at peace with the barbs, is this going to be linked to the barbarian trait? Will the trait give peace with a single barb faction, or peace with all of them?
Barbarian trait giving peace with only 1/3 or 1/4 of the barbs is a pretty weak trait. But giving peace with all of them (ie including all our uprising events) is pretty strong.

There are balance considerations here too; Sylvania and Lamia for eg are designed to be pretty similar but of equal strength. If Lamia gets peace with undead as an extra freebie, that has consequences.

The thing about an animal faction is that there really aren't any *animals* as such in the mod beyond the initial expansion period.
What we do/could have are some beasts, but wood elves and amazonians shouldn't be automatically at peace with a dragon or troll.
Wood elf and amazonian animal affinity is implemented easily enough through their recon units (and beastmaster), and access to beast units that they can build.

I think we also probably need a generic "barbarian" faction, for things that just don't fit into any of the other categories. An event that creates a barbarian dragon isn't greenskins, chaos, animal or undead. Nor is a crusader knight, or an elven warband, or a ton of the other barbarian things we have in the mod.

So if we can only have three, I think they should be:
Greenskins, Chaos (or undead), Generic barbarian.
At the moment we have more wandering undead stuff than we do chaos stuff.

We could make the barbarian trait give peace with Generic barb and one of the others, as appropriate, and we might need to change which leaders are barbarian.
 
So if we can only have three

I'm just reading you guys' discussion here. And I noticed a couple of times that this limiter, three, has come up. Why can't you have more than three barbs factions? Not saying you should have more than 4, cuz that just wouldn't make sens. Too much clutter. (Although maybe the discussion is 4 is too much clutter; I can't tell.)
But see, as I understand it, when the FfH team originally decided to split the barb factions from 1 big faction to 3 factions, they basically created the other 2 factions, making their factions Savage Orcs, Demons, and Animals. They linked the barbarian trait to this as well. (And, of course, this was all carried over to the FF code, so it should be in what you guys are converting from.) So, if you guys wanted you could probably create a 4th barb faction.

If we're going to make some factions at peace with the barbs, is this going to be linked to the barbarian trait? Will the trait give peace with a single barb faction, or peace with all of them?

Here's how they do it in FfH (and FF):
Jonas Edain of the Orc civ has the barbarian trait. He is at peace with the Savage Orc Faction. Likewise, Daracaat of the Archos has the barbarian trait and is at peace with the Animal Faction. Then, the civ that founds the Ashen Veil religion is at peace with the Demon Faction. (All civs that don't have the Barbarian trait [or found AV] wishing peace with any of the barb faction have to do a ritual.) Now, while you may be at peace with the Animals as Daracaat, the Demons and Savage Orcs WILL still attack you. Same goes for Jonas with the Savage Orcs, Demons and Animals still attack you. So, while both Jonas and Daracaat have the Barbarian trait, they are only at peace with 1 of the 3 barb factions, not all.
The point isn't a big advantage. It's a small one. If you're smart, you can capitalize on it. But it's not gonna make or break your empire. And most of the time, you prolly won't notice a ton. (Though, if you play as the Orcs and build their hero, Rantine, there's a nice mechanic attached to him being able to convert barbs to your civ if he's the strongest unit in the tile. Nice lil mechanic. Very useful.)



Since you guys are using FF base code, I'd think it'd be relatively easy (though time consuming) to make the changes you'd wish, which is prolly the reason you're using it anyway. :lol: But my point is that most of what you're discussing here is already in place in the FF code. You just have to tweak it to make it fit WH.



You know, in all honesty, now that I've played the game a little more, I like what's been done with the barbs so far. I like what's being planned for it. I mean, the random events like necromancer and such took so getting used to. But if you're careful about it, you'll do fine. And I know basically how the separate barb factions would work from FfH. I can see some very nice, unique mechanics for some civs through the barb factions.
Although, for the sake of the AI, you may wanna make the amount of barbs spawned a little less in the early game. Maybe don't have as many non-Animal barbs until turn 150 and don't have any barbs from events until turn 200 or 250. Over the course of a few games, I've noticed that a few of the AI civs have succumbed to the barbs in the early game. I don't know about you, but I just find it a little dumb that barbs are defeating civs. Taking over a city here or there or raiding improvements a lot, that's fine. Forces you and the AI to be smarter about basic defense. But seeing the barbs defeat a civ? They're sposed to be to unorganized to do that. Lol.
 
So, if you guys wanted you could probably create a 4th barb faction.

the problem is that it require a LOT of hard coded work and python work to add another barbarian civ that we just cannot do at the moment.

If we're going to make some factions at peace with the barbs, is this going to be linked to the barbarian trait? Will the trait give peace with a single barb faction, or peace with all of them?
Barbarian trait giving peace with only 1/3 or 1/4 of the barbs is a pretty weak trait. But giving peace with all of them (ie including all our uprising events) is pretty strong.

you're over complicating it i think. each civ can only be at peace with one group of barbarians. being at peace with greenskins and chaos is just silly. im pretty sure there are python codes involved i ndeciding which civ is at peace with which barbarian civ. it dosnt really matter how because we have that covered. its just the what.
The thing about an animal faction is that there really aren't any *animals* as such in the mod beyond the initial expansion period.
What we do/could have are some beasts, but wood elves and amazonians shouldn't be automatically at peace with a dragon or troll.
Wood elf and amazonian animal affinity is implemented easily enough through their recon units (and beastmaster), and access to beast units that they can build.

So? woodelves (for example) being at peace with animals gives them a little edge in the early game, but later on in the game that advantage isnt as important. its supposed to be a minor benefit. the same can be said for chaos civs. their peace with chaos undivided in the early game is pretty useless but in the later game it could help them considerably.

i dont really see the drama behind having an animal civ. why fix somehting that is not broken? it works perfectly well in Fall From Heaven, why change it?

if you are adamant that animal civ is stupid rename it to a Wilderness Civ and include typical wildman barbarians and animals in that if you must. but im still a strong advocate for an animal barbarian civ.
 
Thanks rlaf I'm glad you like it! The Uprisings turned out to be one of my fave parts of the game for the added challenge/flavor; they originally came from an idea of Ahriman and PL.

Though I'm not totally sure about the technical details, it looks like the barb civs in FF are distinguished by having
<bPlayable>0</bPlayable>
<bAIPlayable>0</bAIPlayable>
<bGraphicalOnly>1</bGraphicalOnly>
If there isn't more to it, it should be eventually possible for us to mod one or two more groups if needed without adding visible clutter to the game. Looks like the peace is done separately by coding a python ongamestart check that sets peace with a given faction if you have a given trait, so probably possible for us to tweak as desired. But P_L is right this can all stay on the back burner for now till we get the core XML gameplay etc in working order.

Having a Wilderness barb group should be fine if we leave powerful Dragons etc out of it; also in agreement with the Minions of Nagash if space permits, particularly as he will be around in that cool looking tower :cool: and might even seize himself a little local empire. I think both Nagash and Chaos Undivided should eventually turn on their "allies" if they become too powerful a la the normal Barbarian trait mechanic; they definitely aren't above some good megalomania and infighting. And as Ahriman points out we definitely keep a generic Barbarian group, for the human barbarian cities and various misc units that pop up from Events.
 
But P_L is right this can all stay on the back burner for now till we get the core XML gameplay etc in working order.

the part that is the roadblock in adding new barbarian civs is the spawning mechanics, city allocation and all the stuff that happens behind the scenes. its not something we can do atm. so were stuck with three barbs unfortunately (at least unless someone can prove me wrong and Xienwolf coded in an easy way to add more barbarian civs.

So the general concensus is:

Rebel Greenskins - self explanetory.
Chaos Undivided - Including beastman barbarians, deamons of chaos and other chaoticaly inclined dudes. undead would have to fall in this category if we cant have another team.
Wilderness - including animals, monsters, and generic barbarian humans/elves etc.

Dragons we can give barbarian civs on an individual basis. for example the rogue black dragon even could be a chaos dragon. we could have a rogue Wyvern which would be greenskin, a rogue forest dragon under wilderness etc etc.

If we can have more than 3 barbs:

Rebel Greenskins - as above
Chaos Undivided - Including beastman barbarians, deamons of chaos and other chaoticaly inclined dudes.
Animals - including animals, and smaller monsters
Minions of Nagash - all undead barbarians
Barbarians - the left over generic barbarians that dont fit in other categories.
 
I'm excited to see what you guys do with this. But, as mentioned above, the core xml is most important. Keep on modding, guys. :D
 
i dont really see the drama behind having an animal civ. why fix somehting that is not broken? it works perfectly well in Fall From Heaven, why change it?

Because of the limit of three; I'd be fine with an animal civ that *only* had animals in it and WE could be at peace with them, but there are other higher priorities.

There still remains an unanswered question; how are we actually going to use these factions?
The only real point of dividing them into factions is to have the potential to be at peace with some barbarians but not all of them.

If we are tying this to the barbarian trait, then there are only a handful of leaders that get this. I forget the exact details, but atm we have Leung Kwok (Hung), one of the ork or goblin leaders, and maybe one of the hobgoblin leaders? Are there any others I am forgetting?

So there are two ways we could implement this:
a) Leung Kwok gets peace with chaos barbarians, the ork barbarian gets peace with greenskin barbarians. We remove the science penalty from barbarian trait. This would be a fairly weak trait.
b) All chaos civs get peace with chaos barbarians, Leung Kwok *also* gets peace with generic barbarians. All greenskins get peace with greenskins; the "barbarian" trait holder also gets peace with generic barbarians.
This would be a decent trait.

And I could see a Ritual with the Chaos Incursion tech that granted peace with chaos barbarians.

Chaos Undivided - Including beastman barbarians, deamons of chaos and other chaoticaly inclined dudes. undead would have to fall in this category if we cant have another team.

I would put undead into the generic barbarian box if we have only 3 categories.
It doesn't make sense that for a chaos tribe to somehow be at peace with wandernig undead.

Also; are we sure that we want chaos as a barb faction rather than undead.
In the old version, there are really no chaos barbarians, but we have some undead.
So peace with chaos is pretty useless, peace with undead would be more valuable.

Whatever we do, we need to keep the barbarian levels below where they were in FF. FF really fails because it tries to replicate a PvE setting in the early game, which fails because the AI opponents aren't tough enough to be able to deal with the barbs.
So a lot of the barbs should be from our uprising events. Basically, I'm thinking core FFH levels of barbs (a threat early game but not much after that) plus our uprisings.
Dragons we can give barbarian civs on an individual basis. for example the rogue black dragon even could be a chaos dragon. we could have a rogue Wyvern which would be greenskin

This sounds fine.
 
how are we actually going to use these factions?

but having several civs be at peace with different barbarians to give greater diversity to, and different advantages to, different groups of civs. plain and simple.

IMHO if we have chaos undivided Kurgan Norsca Hung and Beastmen should be at peace with them

Orcs, Goblins and hobgoblins should all be at peace with greenskin hordes.

Woodelves, Amazonians and Lizardmen should be at peace with Wilderness.

Undead fit in with chaos because undead do not fit in with animals and humanoid barbarians.
 
but having several civs be at peace with different barbarians

So what does the barbarian trait do then?

And what penalty will civs who get a free mini-barbarian trait have to balance them out?

If we do this, we will also need to go back through every uprising event and:
a) Assign the uprising barbs to a particular faction
b) Prevent the uprising event from happening to civs who are at peace with that faction (it would be bizarre to have say an ork horde

Woodelves, Amazonians and Lizardmen should be at peace with Wilderness.

I strongly disagree with this, in the setup where "Wilderness" also includes the default "barbarian" category.
I have no problem with these guys being at peace with early game animals, so that early game exploration is less risky, but I have a huge problem with these guys being immune to every other generic barbarian. Why should they be immune to crusader knights, or necromancers or vampires, or rampaging giants, or a dark elven slaver party, or any of the many other things that will be assigned to the generic barb category?

With three groups, I would much prefer:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos (demons and monsters) OR Undead.
c) Everything else (including whichever of chaos OR undead wasn't in b)

With 4 groups, I'd make it:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos
c) Undead
d) Everything else

With 5 groups, I'd make it:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos
c) Undead
d) Animals (and a few beasts)
e) Everything else

The other issue with multiple barb groups is; are they at peace with each other?
 
So what does the barbarian trait do then?

triggers python code that decides what faction to be at peace with...........

And what penalty will civs who get a free mini-barbarian trait have to balance them out?

it depends. a -10% research rate is probably sufficient.

If we do this, we will also need to go back through every uprising event and:

not a big deal.

I strongly disagree with this, in the setup where "Wilderness" also includes the default "barbarian" category.

fine. i give up. its useless arguing.
 
I'm confused now.
So you intend to give every Kurgan/Norsca/Hung/Beastman/Greenskin leader the barbarian trait?
Or do you intend for them to have peace without the trait?
And do you intend this to be one of their 3 traits, or an extra? If one of the three, what trait do you intend to take away?

If the barbarian trait say for Kurgan gives -10% science and only gives peace with chaos, which there aren't many of, then as a trait it is very very weak.

Do we have a list somewhere of the current leader traits? I know you posted one once somewhere.
Are there any barbarian trait leaders who *aren't* chaos or greenskin?
 
It doesn't matter about traits, there doesn't need to be a trait called Barbarian & we can have any kind of python checks we want trigger peace with any barb faction. P_L basically means doing something like

Greenskin trait that peace w Feral Greenskins barb group
Animist trait that gives peace w Wilderness barb group
Forsaken gives peace with Chaos Undivided
Dark Apprentice gives peace with Minions of Nagash
there could be whatever attached tweaks are appropriate like a slight nerf to science; and there's nothing that says everyone has to have exactly 3 traits.

I'd bet it's probably fairly achievable to make a few extra dummy barb civs with
<bPlayable>0</bPlayable>
<bAIPlayable>0</bAIPlayable>
<bGraphicalOnly>1</bGraphicalOnly>
that start with no cities; then simply make any appropriate improvement spawns or Uprisings assign ownership of resulting units to their civ tag.

Dragons we can give barbarian civs on an individual basis. for example the rogue black dragon even could be a chaos dragon. we could have a rogue Wyvern which would be greenskin
I like this too. Trolls could easily be Greenskin, Chaos Trolls = Chaos Undivided; Giants = Wilderness, etc etc
 
Ok, so you create some new traits, like Greenskin and Forsaken above.

How does that interplay with the existing leader trait design?

Do all Ork/Goblin/Hobgoblin leaders get the Greenskin trait, and all Kurgan/Norsca/Hung/Beastmen/Chaos dwarves get the Forsaken trait?
Is this in addition to or instead of one of their other traits?

I think the best solution would probably be:
i) Have the trait be one of the standard three traits.
So maybe Crom is Aggressive, Arcane, Forsaken
And Leung Kwok is Horselord, Raider, Forsaken
And Ragnar is Raider, Seafarer (or whatever its called), Forsaken

ii) Beef up the Forsaken/Greenskin traits so that they give more than just peace with one barbarian subfaction. Not sure what this bonus would be, but otherwise as a trait it will be pretty weak.
Maybe a free +1 happy from a particular building?
Or doublespeed production of particular buildings?

If we can have extra slots, and go with:
With 5 groups, I'd make it:
a) Greenskins
b) Chaos
c) Undead
d) Animals (and a few beasts)
e) Everything else

Then animal faction peace could be a bonus trait, since its pretty minor, and we could make some of the others more powerful and be a full trait.

Its been so long since I played the mod that I really forget the current state of all the traits.

If someone can pull them out of the old files, along with a list of the leaders and what traits they had, I can do a proposed redesign with the Greenskin/Forsaken etc. traits above.

* * *

We will also need to somehow get the chaos and undead factions to spawn some tribesmen/demons and undead, and get the greenskin faction to spawn higher level orks over time.
 
It doesn't matter about traits, there doesn't need to be a trait called Barbarian & we can have any kind of python checks we want trigger peace with any barb faction. P_L basically means doing something like

thank you! (sorry this whole discussion is testing my nerves a lot so youll have to take what i say with a pinch of salt. im quite stressed out atm lol)

Do all Ork/Goblin/Hobgoblin leaders get the Greenskin trait, and all Kurgan/Norsca/Hung/Beastmen/Chaos dwarves get the Forsaken trait?
Is this in addition to or instead of one of their other traits?

in addition to.

i) Have the trait be one of the standard three traits.
no. i dont like this.

ii) Beef up the Forsaken/Greenskin traits so that they give more than just peace with one barbarian subfaction. Not sure what this bonus would be, but otherwise as a trait it will be pretty weak.
no need, not all traits have to be uber strong. just supplement it with other traits.

If someone can pull them out of the old files, along with a list of the leaders and what traits they had, I can do a proposed redesign with the Greenskin/Forsaken etc. traits above.

ive got a massive design overview word document im working on. its only got traits and leaders atm including civ flags, portraits and such. i was going to wait to upload it till i had something worth while.
 
i) Have the trait be one of the standard three traits.
no. i dont like this.

I don't either.

no need, not all traits have to be uber strong. just supplement it with other traits.
As an outside source, I'd have to agree with this. I mean think about it. Take for example the proposed "Greenskins" trait. K, let's break down the civs that get this. Now, we already got the animosity mechanic. It does make it interesting, of course. We all know what it does. And I ain't gonna say take it out. My point is disadvantage there. So, you got one mechanic that just might drive some people up the wall. BUT if you can balance it out with the mechanic from "Greenskins" trait, then if nothing else, when people complain, you can say,"Well, Greenskins balances that out". I'm just making an example here.
But see the point of all this is to make people go, "Hey, this civ has some cool stuff". If it's a generic civ or a civ that doesn't have some real interesting mechanics/shinies, it ain't something people gonna play. That's what these proposed Barb-peace traits do. Make it interesting!
 
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