Barbarian Identity and Hidden nationality.

[Randomness]

I don't think raiders should start with HN (or at least all of them. Prehaps to show the mistrust there would be x% chance for raiders to start with HN promo on spawn, so even if you are at peace with them, you still must keep an eye out for the odd rouge rouge ...

 

[xienwolf]

I'll chime in as the poor bastard who will quite likely code it all


I like the idea of HN having their own flag, and spawning units which look like what might be HN naturally in the current game. There are numerous ways to approach this: Spawn units which hold randomly selected racial promotions. Spawn units and then choose a random city and run the "I just built a unit" routine based on that city (so assign that Civ's Race and that city's free promotions, also use that city's Unique Unit replacement if there is one). Spawn duplicates of units already in the game with HN on them.


Having some HN units appear as one Barbarian faction while others appear as a different one can lead to serious complications. Primarily in deciding how to handle it when your HN bear wants to attack a Doviello worker, while the Doviello are at peace with Cernnunos... Do you get to surprise him, or should you not be allowed to be hostile, or should he see through your clever rouse?

I also love the idea of them doing economical damage more than military damage. To avoid making up new mechanics, I would lean toward adding a CityBonus effect to HN which causes it to leech cash, culture and other tidbits from nearby cities. In fact, I would say to make it allow these units to spawn absolutely anywhere (even owned territory), but they don't pillage and only attack units if they have better than 98% chances to win. Then their primary goal will just be to fill tiles with hostile units who camp out and make them unworkable, while picking off unguarded workers/settlers and being annoying with their CityBonus. Maybe once they have built up a stack of a certain size THEN allow them to attack (would also look more like a human that way, picking off easy targets and waiting to build up a solid strike force)


Hippus at peace with them sounds like a good idea. Possibly make it so that the trait/status which allows this also makes you capable of seeing the true owner of any player controlled HN units, or maybe just making it so that HN units are not hostile with you, even if the REAL owner is at war with you.

Hiding the HN promotion is cakewalk. Just set it to be an EffectPromotion and then add HN to the list of exceptions (currently only equipment I think) in CvMainInterface which will still display for the owner, just not for everyone else.

 

[WarKirby]

Hiding the HN promotion is cakewalk. Just set it to be an EffectPromotion and then add HN to the list of exceptions (currently only equipment I think) in CvMainInterface which will still display for the owner, just not for everyone else.

Would it be possible to move this list of exceptions out of there, and into some xml file?

It seems like something that you might want to change quite regularly, and shouldn't be 'hardcoded' in the .dll

I don't literally mean hardcoded, but with the compiling and such, making a dll change takes more time and effort than making an xml change.

 

[Valkrionn]

I believe he means CvMainInterface.py? Wish I could check that.

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, it is a python file for making it visible in the HUD. Same area that hides Combat I when you have Combat II.

 

[xxHammerxx]

I dunno, I think that every non-seige land unit with Hidden Nationality should look like a strength 1 cloaked figure with ZERO exp or levels! With the orcish racial promo just to mantain a consistency.

If you want a gui to have the player "pick" the race, thats fine, but I think rand race promo or orcish race promo would be alot easier to code.

From a Mechanics prospective, its a lot more powerful, and adds to the gameplay strategy if you have NO IDEA how strong the opponent REALLY is. and In addition to that its possible you have questions as to whose team they are on.

 

[Honor]

I thought of the above suggestion as well, but didn't suggest it because it would most probably raise the difficulty of the game to a whole new level for everyone, and transform the game into a furry ball of random insanity.

I still think my random strength - random xp level - random appearance spawns + hidden nationality hiding racial and "special" promotions while at the same time giving the unit a random appearance suggestion is a good one.

(Yup, long-winded, stubborn goat here )

 

[PPQ_Purple]

This has goten way out of track and away from it's original purpose.

If you want to make another faction for HN units than it should definitively not count as a civilisation in the official sense.
It should have no central leader and no one should be at peace with them.

This is becouse it is not a civilisation.
It is just a comon name we use to call all the outcasts, theives and rebels that exist in this world.

 

[WarKirby]

If you want to make another faction for HN units than it should definitively not count as a civilisation in the official sense.
It should have no central leader and no one should be at peace with them.

None of the barbarian factions actually have a central leader. Their leader is just a god which best represents them. Bhall isn't giving personal commands to the legions of orcs that run around breaking stuff, nor is cernunnos telling that griffon to eat your scouts. It's just a semantic distinction, really. Hence, Esus would be perfect as the leader of Raiders

 

[PPQ_Purple]

But esus being the angel of deception, would also thematicly be imposible to make a deal with.
Prehaps make it so that nations runing COE are at peace with the faction?

 

[xienwolf]

I could actually see the argument for the Hippus being at peace with them, since their society would willingly support such individuals, and encourages such a lifestyle. Come into a Bannor town and loot/pillage/steal/carouse, and you are a deviant, the police will have to deal with you. Do all of that in a Hippus town (or Lanun come to think of it) and you are just another local, and hopefully you didn't overstep the tolerance of the other individual or they'll cut you down where you stand.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Does not the power to be at peace with the said group defeat its original purpose?

If they are suposed to act as a cover for HN units and you are at peace with them you are back to square 1.

 

[Valkrionn]

Honestly, I have to agree with PPQ here... Which is a rather odd feeling.

I can understand the reasoning for peace, but think the mechanics should come first here.

 

[Tasunke]

well, I personally don't see how changing the mechanics of hidden nationality to hide almost everything about the unit to increase the difficulty to near unmanagable levels by any standard. Firstly, their is always the Empyrean counter, and Svartalfar are the only ones capable of consistently having a large supply of HN units from game to game.

I dont see how its any worse than the Tsunamis of the OO. and I'm not saying we have to make a faction out of it, but this alone would give another dimension of strategy.

As it stands now, HN is most useful in the role it was originally designed for ... naval blockade of "friendly" nations.

 

[Honor]

It wouldn't really require any strategy at all, it would just mean players wouldn't attack HN units with anything other than summons or units with a high withdrawal rate.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The strategy behind it is that as you said no race other than the Swats can have a consistant army of HN units.
And thus once you start geting hit by HN units you instantly know it is them.

By adding a barbarian civ that has the same units, you are adding at least a little chance that players won't declare war on the nearest Swat as soon as they see a HN hunter march into their lands.

 

[Honor]

I'm not debating against the addition of a new Raiders faction PPQ.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Actualy I was just making an atempt to return the thread to it's original course.
It has wered off far to much.

 

[Honor]

I'd call it "evolved" rather than "veered off", because the debate has shifted from "do we add a new raiders faction?" to "how do we implement the new faction and how will HN work with it?". I don't see any problem here to be honest.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

People were starting to forget the point and sugjest things like having peace with the said faction.