Barbarian Revamp

[Solanus]

There are several reasons for the suggestions/ideas for a mod that I’m proposing below:

1. I don’t like the idea that all Barbarians are somehow the best of friends, sharing space, gold, technology, and units.
2. They’re mostly Orcs, Frostlings, some Lizardmen, and the odd Savage Human (although I think that may just be Hidden Nationality units), but that’s it. I haven’t really looked deeply into the Civilopedia text to see if there were particular reasons why Elves and Dwarves (or any other race) never went feral/native.
3. My view of the primary Civilizations in FF is that they were nearly as bad as the Barbarians until a great leader appeared to lead them out of the darkness, seeing as most start with only a couple of units plus a Settler, and a handful of known technologies.
4. Two of the strategy games I played in my 20’s, Warlords and Age of Wonders, had separate, unaffiliated, capable cities filling up some (if not most) of the available space on the map (IIRC, Warlords didn’t have Settlers and forced you to capture all of your other cities).

In my view, the use of Barbarian cities and Stacks of Death (not the badasses – they have their own reasons for existing) is to chip away at a player’s resources in between their efforts to defeat the other primary Civilizations.

From a purely game-play point of view, the Barbarians rarely have cities in the spots I want to use, either because of placement or distance. When I’m playing a solo game, I have little qualms against WB’ing my way to moving a freshly acquired city where I may, but that’s not an option all the time for all that play, and simply razing every captured city because it’s not well suited is a dangerous loss of resources and an increase to the AC count (unless you want that, then raze away).

Realistically, Barbarians exist because they didn’t coalesce into large enough, common enough groups to make progress towards anything beyond a subsistence existence. Other than the odd charismatic war chieftain coming through and assembling a horde of disparate tribesman under a common banner, the Barbarians would much more likely be a chaotic, distrustful lot, unless a group of them developed a forward-thinking, progressive culture, which would actually lead them down the road towards civilization, not continued anarchy.

Here is my take on the matter:

Standard Barbarians

Loose Barbarians should still fall under Bhall, but should include all primary races (including Elves, Dwarves, Cuali/Mazatl-style Lizard-folk, and possibly Giants) among the units. The current “old school” Lizardmen should not be the only Tier 2 recon units, for example, and neither should Goblins be the only Tier 1’s.

Loose Barbarians should not form cohesive Stacks of Death, but should instead move of their own accord, irrespective of the movement of other Barbarian units.

Loose Barbarians should not build cities, but can take them over. Unfortunately for them, anarchic Barbarians aren’t real good at keeping subjugated peoples productive, healthy, and happy (or all three at once, at least), so their captured cities would likely live in a constant state of Anarchy until another process takes over the city:

• Razed,
• Reclaimed by a primary Civilization, or
• Claimed by a Savage Leader (see below).

Savage Tribes

The Fog of War will sometimes generate a Savage Tribe, which functions in movement like a Barbarian Settler unit. Once created, the Savage Tribe will seek out an appropriate city location based on its racial flavor and nearby resources.

Savage Tribes that have not settled down are not listed as Bhall units, but instead as a non-affiliated unit that can’t be attacked normally. A Civilization unit can move over the Savage Tribe, and then be able to click on either of two actions, “Ask to Join” or “Take by Force”.

“Ask to Join” runs through a random chance of them joining as a Settler, one or more Workers, or a melee, ranged, or recon unit (based on Barbarian tech level), or refusing the offer (which then locks out “Ask to Join” for that Savage Tribe for X # of turns). (The same Civilization unit also wouldn’t be able to then select “Take by Force” in the same turn (can’t activate two abilities in a turn normally), but another unit could separately take that action.)

“Take by Force” initiates a combat on the tile between the Civilization unit and the Savage Tribe:

• If the Savage Tribe wins, the Savage Tribe is ejected to a random adjacent tile with “an extra movement for one turn” promotion, and “Ask to Join” is locked out for X*2 # turns.
  [*]If the Savage Tribe earns a withdrawal from the fight, they are ejected as above, but without the extra movement promotion.​
• If the Savage Tribe is defeated, the Savage Tribe is either replaced with a full strength Settler or Worker(s), or a damaged melee, ranged, or recon unit (again, based on tech level), similar to captured Animals/Beasts.

Savage Villages

After settling down, the Savage Village (working name) acts like a cross between the Tribal Villages (“goody huts”) and World Improvements in FF, and the Indian Villages in Civ4:Col – basically:

• Savage Villages look like variants on the Tribal Villages or even the very primitive Population 1 cities of the civilized races.
• They do not have a border at this point, and do not interfere in the ability of another civilization from placing a city close to their location (but a Civilization can’t place a city on a Savage Village).
• They do not themselves generate any regular Barbarian units, although any Barbarian unit could spawn there per regular such rules. Barbarian units may view Savage Villages as something to defend, similar to Tribal Villages, but aren’t more likely to do so. Defeating a Barbarian unit on top of a Savage Village does not destroy the Village.
• Any civilization unit can enter and “explore” a Savage Village, like a Dungeon or Lair. Results would be similar to a “goody hut”, but would not by itself remove the Savage Village. Instead, it would go into a reset like the World Improvements that act like Lairs, probably with a smaller number of turns involved. Civilizations with the Barbarian trait are more likely to get positive results from a Savage Village.
• Among the possible outcomes of “exploring” the Savage Village are:
  [*]The Village converts into a Settler,
  [*]The Village pulls up roots and moves elsewhere (as a Savage Tribe),
  [*]The Village offers to join your Civilization where they sit (player can opt out, with random chance for retraction of offer, convert to Settler, or move elsewhere), or
  [*]The Village spawns a Savage Leader, set under a separate Barbarian classification.​

Savage Leaders

Savage Leaders act like a cross between a Great Commander and a wandering Civilization Leader. They can be spawned randomly from Tribal Villages, lairs, and Fog of War. Savage Leaders can:

• Move onto a Savage Village (or Barbarian “controlled” city) and attempt to convert them to a Fringe Civilization (consuming the Savage Leader), or
• Move across the map and “enlist” Bhall units to their cause, forming a Barbarian Horde, which is either more organized/effective than a standard Barbarian Stack of Death, or the only way for Barbarians to organize a SOD.

(Some Barbarian Heroes (Acheron, Orthus, etc.) would have the ability to create Fringe Civilizations, without being consumed in the act. Unlike other Savage Leaders, they may not necessarily have the Great Commander abilities as part of this proposal, and they would need special rules for their unit’s defeat separate from their civilization’s defeat.)

Fringe Civilizations

Fringe Civilizations are organized separately under the primary Civilizations, acting as AI Civilizations (even in normally multi-player games with only Player-controlled Civs). The Savage Leaders that converted them become civilization leaders with random traits (or, if someone wants to put together a long list of these Savage Civ leaders, with traits from the list). Similar to Decius, any Savage Leader can lead any race of Fringe people (an Orc leader could lead Elven people), and can be of any alignment (either by list or randomly, perhaps skewed toward evening up the number of Civs of each alignment). The Savage Village that was converted becomes the capital city.

Fringe Civilizations can either:

• Use a single tech/building list for all Fringe Civs, with perhaps some racial variation, or
• Use a small number of tech/building lists, based around racial or environmental variation (e.g., one could be a desert-adapted Civ, similar but not identical to the Malakim).

Fringe Civilizations cannot:

• Gain Great People,
• Build World Wonders (and probably many National Wonders), or
• Found Religions, or build religious Heroes (but do gain the Religion in their city and the ability to spread it).
  [*]Either the first primary Civilization that learns the Religion technology earns the Holy City as normal, or the first primary Civ that has the Religion arrive in one of their cities ends up with the Holy City.​

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That’s all I have for now. Again, I haven’t started doing any modding yet (both in general and for this idea), and this might be too ambitious a start for a first-timer. Let me know which elements you like, disagree with, know exist elsewhere, are certain can’t work unless…, etc. I could definitely use some help.

 

[Swinkscalibur]

I personally liked the mod for vanilla civ that allowed barbarian cities to spawn into civs. I like this idea even better. I never thought barbarians should form full fledges civs. But I like the idea of them forming semi-intelligent city states at least. Unfortunately I don't know much about the exact mechanisms you laid out and how difficult it would be to implement them.

 

[Valkrionn]

I agree on the principle point: Barbarians need more diversity. Keep planning on working on that in FFPlus.... Thank you for reminding me. Need to look at the Diverse trait from the Tweak mod....

As for barbs developing civilizations, I believe Jean Elcard was working on that... Haven't heard from him in a while however.

 

[Opera]

Interesting idea but seems way too hard to implement, especially that you would NEED to teach the AI how to work them.

My own idea would be to change each barbarian city original owner to make them like if they were elves or dwarves and such. Of course, it would certainly require the use of dummy civilizations (because I don't want them to be Khazad and Ljosalfar but Dwarves and Elves).

The idea is to make each at peace with civilizations of the corresponding race; and to, eventually, allow them to organize themselves into full-fledged civilizations.