Professional Army and Black Market

Here is my idea that should be added to civ

Professional Army and Black Market

Some civics should be edited as some of them should allow Professional army and Black market.

For ex; pacifiscm doesnt allow two options while police state should allow only professional army. Only slavery allows non-military unit trade (workers, scouts and explorers).


Professional Army: civilizations are allowed to buy or sell military units via trade negotiations. A civ can want/offer units (with or w/o experience point) for some money.

for ex; a civ wants from you "two axeman with at least 2 ex points for 10 gold before 3 turns end". you can accept or negotiate if you want. "before 3 turn end" option allows you build/draft units if you dont have any in your hands at that time.

once you buy the units, you will be allowed to re-select unit upgrades (if units have enough ex points) as you desire. Units will be labeled as professional army and those units have higher maintaince cost than build/drafted units. As they level up their maintainance cost will become higher (slightly).



Black Market: a global market where civs can put units with selling option, so other civs can start negotiations. Since it is a black market none of the civs will be able to see who is vendor and who is customer. Diplomacy has no effect here.


if you change to a civic that doesnt allow professional army, your pro. army units will join to black market and other civs will be allowed to buy those units with 1/3 of your buy-price. if you stop using slavery, your non-military units will join to black market and other civs will be allowed to buy those units with 1/3 of your buy-price. once your pro army joined to black market, even if you re-arrange your civics you wont be allowed to buy those units 1/3 price but allowed to buy with your old/first buying price.

you can have units which you cannot build/draft because you didnt get the necessary science yet.

I very much like the professional army idea, but not the black market one. Only one is necessary, and professional army seems much more realistic.

Also, I think that civs should only be able to trade what they actually have already built. Signing contracts for future production would be too complicated for the AI to effectively deal with, and perhaps too hard to manage easily for human players. Also, this would only be a good idea so long as it comes with the guarantee that civs cannot demand military unts from another player- there would always have to be some sort of price paid. Otherwise, abuse of power would be rife and game balance would be thrown out the window.

thats a good point...civs demanding army would be unlogical for game balance.

about black market; it is something existed throughout history all time. even now, someone steals weapons and sell it to another country, and also slave trade still exists, although only in form of sex-workers trade. so i think something in form of a balck market should be added to game. if privateers exist, then why not black market

if black market doesnt exist than may be because of diplomacy penalty you can not trade units with other nations. since army is so important sometimes diplomacy must be broken i think

walkie said:

Professional Army: civilizations are allowed to buy or sell military units via trade negotiations. A civ can want/offer units (with or w/o experience point) for some money.

for ex; a civ wants from you "two axeman with at least 2 ex points for 10 gold before 3 turns end". you can accept or negotiate if you want. "before 3 turn end" option allows you build/draft units if you dont have any in your hands at that time.

once you buy the units, you will be allowed to re-select unit upgrades (if units have enough ex points) as you desire. Units will be labeled as professional army and those units have higher maintaince cost than build/drafted units. As they level up their maintainance cost will become higher (slightly).

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This sounds more like "mercenary army" (i.e., like Swiss Pikeman or Warag Guard) than professional army.

walkie said:

thats a good point...civs demanding army would be unlogical for game balance.

about black market; it is something existed throughout history all time. even now, someone steals weapons and sell it to another country, and also slave trade still exists, although only in form of sex-workers trade. so i think something in form of a balck market should be added to game. if privateers exist, then why not black market

if black market doesnt exist than may be because of diplomacy penalty you can not trade units with other nations. since army is so important sometimes diplomacy must be broken i think

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There has always been a black market, but it hasn't always been state sponsored. Making it as such wouldn't make any sense.

The barbarians would constitute the black market.

You could open diplomatic relations with them with the expenditure of a great spy in any of the barb cities. Your dealings would be secret from everyone. Other Civs could open relations with the barbs the same way, but you would not be aware of it. ( As always you don't know what those great spies are up to once they've been born ).

To my way of thinking, the barbs would not trade food. They would trade lump sums, gold per turn, techs and strategic resources for which they had the techs, and certain luxuries, such as gold, gems, ivory and wine. They would also sell captured workers. You could negotiate tribute for them to stay out of your borders and not attack you.

Another function would be proxy attacks, allowing you to keep your diplomatic nose clean. Maybe they would pillage a particular civ in exchange for horses.

You could negotiate with them to attack a particular city, blockade a country, or fight an all-out war against it. Of course you might have to gift them frigates and privateers to ensure that they succeed.

Since it's the black market, you would pay a premium price compared to dealing with a civ outright. The other problem is that they would likely be double-dealing backstabbers, and might turn on you if the price is right.

Who are you going to tell?

Rusty Edge said:

The barbarians would constitute the black market.

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Good idea, Rusty. This would be a feasible way of allowing both the black market and the professional mercenary market (trade between civs).

You could open diplomatic relations with them with the expenditure of a great spy in any of the barb cities. Your dealings would be secret from everyone. Other Civs could open relations with the barbs the same way, but you would not be aware of it. ( As always you don't know what those great spies are up to once they've been born ).

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Perhaps the cost of opening negotiations with them should not be so high. Maybe just a scout, or something (that could be made to be immune to attack for this reason). Or a new emissary unit, that could also act to open up ties with other civs, by moving to their capitals? Anyway, this could perhaps be balanced out by making the cost of trading with barbarians higher (perhaps make units bought on the black market inferior to units produced, or bought on the professional mercenary market?).

To my way of thinking, the barbs would not trade food. They would trade lump sums, gold per turn, techs and strategic resources for which they had the techs, and certain luxuries, such as gold, gems, ivory and wine. They would also sell captured workers. You could negotiate tribute for them to stay out of your borders and not attack you.

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Hmm. I think that it should only really extend to selling military units. They are, after all, barbarians, whose goal in life is invariably war oriented. Trading goods and services would make them just like another civ. Although I agree with the captured worker thing, although I think you should be able to do this as part of the normal game.

On this subject, I have an idea that I got most of from some World War Two mod I was playing. Captured workers become prisoners of war, which can be settled into cities for the duration of a war, providing a production bonus. You could either do this, or ransom them back, or kill them. At the conclusion of a war, any prisoners of war would be returned to heir original owner.

Another function would be proxy attacks, allowing you to keep your diplomatic nose clean. Maybe they would pillage a particular civ in exchange for horses.

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Yeah, this could work. Or, perhaps the units you buy would still appear to everyone else to be barbarian units, but you could control them.

You could negotiate with them to attack a particular city, blockade a country, or fight an all-out war against it. Of course you might have to gift them frigates and privateers to ensure that they succeed.

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You could also, on top of what I just outlined, based on your idea, convert any of your units to 'barbarian' units. Now, this would mean that they could be attacked by any civ that set sight on them, but it would give you a free reign of terror. If there is a smarter AI in the next game, perhaps there could be a small diplomatic bonus if it could determine where the barbarians were coming from, in order to balance it out.

Since it's the black market, you would pay a premium price compared to dealing with a civ outright. The other problem is that they would likely be double-dealing backstabbers, and might turn on you if the price is right.

Who are you going to tell?

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That's another excellent point and idea.

Camikaze said:

Good idea, Rusty. This would be a feasible way of allowing both the black market and the professional mercenary market (trade between civs).

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Thanks ! I'm glad you liked my outline, and took the time to respond. I intend to answer each of your responses, but I won't have the time to do it all at once. I don't play mathematically, so my ideas are about translating concepts and historical incidents into civ terms, and open to balanccing suggestions.

Camikaze said:

Perhaps the cost of opening negotiations with them should not be so high. Maybe just a scout, or something (that could be made to be immune to attack for this reason). Or a new emissary unit, that could also act to open up ties with other civs, by moving to their capitals? Anyway, this could perhaps be balanced out by making the cost of trading with barbarians higher (perhaps make units bought on the black market inferior to units produced, or bought on the professional mercenary market?).

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If a Great Spy is too great a threshold, then I'd do it with a regular spy ( as opposed to a new unit). That way the barbs won't see him and kill him as he approaches. Probably easier to establish relations for a cost in gold or gold/turn, rather than barb spy points. I would agree that trading secretly with barbs should normally cost more than trading openly with other nations. There are a number of ways of doing things. Buying vs. renting vs. hiring units to attack/blockade/pillage. Are they available from barbs, nations , a seperate merc marcket ? Does their XP drop to 10, like when a unit is upgraded?

Camikaze said:

Hmm. I think that it should only really extend to selling military units. They are, after all, barbarians, whose goal in life is invariably war oriented. Trading goods and services would make them just like another civ.

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Certainly they would be war oriented. Also they would be interested in acquiring wine and wealth. I don't see dealing with them as just like dealing with any other civ. It would be inherently costly and risky. I need to clarify my thoughts and then do a better job of explaining it. Buying horses and elephants from them wouldn't be out of character for them, would it Camikaze ?

Camikaze said:

Although I agree with the captured worker thing, although I think you should be able to do this as part of the normal game.

On this subject, I have an idea that I got most of from some World War Two mod I was playing. Captured workers become prisoners of war, which can be settled into cities for the duration of a war, providing a production bonus. You could either do this, or ransom them back, or kill them. At the conclusion of a war, any prisoners of war would be returned to their original owner.

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I'm not exactly sure why the Civ III feature of settling workers and settlers in a city didn't make it to Civ IV- I assume it was to prevent an exploitative way of transferring food between cities and, with the introduction of the slavery civic, production. So I'm not so sure about the settling workers for a production bonus thing.

But now that you mention it, captured workers should be part of the regular diplomacy screen, to be bargained as part of a peace treaty, or traded or gifted back for profit and diplomatic advantages - much the same as captured cities. Killing them should give you diplomatic penalties with other civs, keeping them should cause some unhappiness in your own. The captured workers should automatically be returned at the conclusion of a war if the captor is running emancipation or nationalism.

Buying horses and elephants would be a reasonably 'barbaric' activity, I suppose, but probably not other things, like sheep and wheat. Also, what risk would there be in trading with barbarians? The possibility of being attacked if you can't agree on a deal, or if your price isn't high enough?

Camikaze said:

Buying horses and elephants would be a reasonably 'barbaric' activity, I suppose, but probably not other things, like sheep and wheat. Also, what risk would there be in trading with barbarians? The possibility of being attacked if you can't agree on a deal, or if your price isn't high enough?

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No, I wouldn't want barbs dealing in food. That's agreed.


The risk in dealing with barbs is that they will break the deal when they get a better offer and would actively seek a better price for their services from the other civs with whom they have relations.

So I as Carthage could negotiate a barb war against Rome ( during a cease-fire)for a sum of gold, a military tech, a couple of galleys and triremes... whatever we decide they will deal in. Rome completes a trade mission with a GM, uses a spy to open relations with the barbs, and suddenly they can stop the proxy war, even get the barbs to change sides and attack me instead because they have the gold to do it.

Or perhaps I hire the barbs to pillage Rome by land ( for horses ) and sea ( for wine ). Again, Rome misses a Wonder or completes a trade mission, and suddenly they deal with the barbs... but this time the Romans are sneaky. 1) They pay the barbs to stop the sea attacks for wine plus gold per turn. 2) They buy the Cartheginian horses from the barbs for copper and gold/turn, allowing Rome access to horses and preventing the barbs from building more mounted pillager re-enforcements.

Meanwhile, the barbs come to me and say "These sea attacks are no longer profitable for us. It's time for this deal to end." I know that they have already destroyed Auggie's seafood, I'm glad to stop paying them for that. As long as the barb horsearchers are chasing Roman workers I'm happy. Meanwhile ...Roman legions are steadily subduing the pillagers and building a sizeable force of horse archers to overwhelm my Numidians and take away my only edge. When the ceasesfire concludes and the trumpets sound .. Hey! where did these guys come from?

Basically, anything you trade with the barbs could come back to bite you, provided they can get a premium price.

I'd kind of like to see the black market circumvent things like "stop trading with the heathen", so that surplus luxuries and strategic resources might be secretly smuggled. It would make the barbs rich in the process, of course, but nations could get what they needed without diplo penalties. Vassals couldn't go to the barb/black market.

Does that help?

Camikaze said:

Yeah, this could work. Or, perhaps the units you buy would still appear to everyone else to be barbarian units, but you could control them.

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So they transfered to your army, but don't fight under your flag, and could fight an undeclared war? That seems like it would be easily abused; raging barbarians under human intelligence.

Camikaze said:

You could also, on top of what I just outlined, based on your idea, convert any of your units to 'barbarian' units. Now, this would mean that they could be attacked by any civ that set sight on them, but it would give you a free reign of terror. If there is a smarter AI in the next game, perhaps there could be a small diplomatic bonus if it could determine where the barbarians were coming from, in order to balance it out.

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Alright. This sounds like a covert operation. What if this were restricted to units with a commando promotion( to keep it from being the normal way to wage war )? It could be unmasked if one of the units were killed and there were sufficient spy points, and should lead to open war when that happens...or at least a diplomatic confrontation. You know, something like that should happen with privateers, too. With defeat and spy points, there should at least be a chance of unmasking, which would result in a diplomatic ultimatum.

Rusty Edge said:

No, I wouldn't want barbs dealing in food. That's agreed.


The risk in dealing with barbs is that they will break the deal when they get a better offer and would actively seek a better price for their services from the other civs with whom they have relations.

So I as Carthage could negotiate a barb war against Rome ( during a cease-fire)for a sum of gold, a military tech, a couple of galleys and triremes... whatever we decide they will deal in. Rome completes a trade mission with a GM, uses a spy to open relations with the barbs, and suddenly they can stop the proxy war, even get the barbs to change sides and attack me instead because they have the gold to do it.

Or perhaps I hire the barbs to pillage Rome by land ( for horses ) and sea ( for wine ). Again, Rome misses a Wonder or completes a trade mission, and suddenly they deal with the barbs... but this time the Romans are sneaky. 1) They pay the barbs to stop the sea attacks for wine plus gold per turn. 2) They buy the Cartheginian horses from the barbs for copper and gold/turn, allowing Rome access to horses and preventing the barbs from building more mounted pillager re-enforcements.

Meanwhile, the barbs come to me and say "These sea attacks are no longer profitable for us. It's time for this deal to end." I know that they have already destroyed Auggie's seafood, I'm glad to stop paying them for that. As long as the barb horsearchers are chasing Roman workers I'm happy. Meanwhile ...Roman legions are steadily subduing the pillagers and building a sizeable force of horse archers to overwhelm my Numidians and take away my only edge. When the ceasesfire concludes and the trumpets sound .. Hey! where did these guys come from?

Basically, anything you trade with the barbs could come back to bite you, provided they can get a premium price.

I'd kind of like to see the black market circumvent things like "stop trading with the heathen", so that surplus luxuries and strategic resources might be secretly smuggled. It would make the barbs rich in the process, of course, but nations could get what they needed without diplo penalties. Vassals couldn't go to the barb/black market.

Does that help?

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I think that as a start, that is good, but there would need to be more risk. What risk is there that you are taking, that you are not taking by not trading with barbarians? They would still be just a likely to be hired by an opposing civ to attack you. The only difference would be that higher demand would force prices up, actually meaning that it would be more expensive for your enemy to employ barbarians. This would mean that you would be at less risk if you did hire barbarians, due to a reduced ability of other civs to hire barbarians. (sorry if that wasn't very clear)

I was thinking, perhaps more something like the units that the barbarians sell you could return to being barbarian units randomly, or if you don't pay tribute to the barbs. This would also restrict the number of barbarian units that you could hire, as you would be putting your empire at a huge risk of barbarian attack, if you were solely defending it with barbarian units.

Rusty Edge said:

So they transfered to your army, but don't fight under your flag, and could fight an undeclared war? That seems like it would be easily abused; raging barbarians under human intelligence.

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Well, you are paying a higher price, and this distinguishes between the 'mercenary' professional market, and the 'hired thug' barbarian market. They are, after all, barbarians, and so would not give up all independence, but would instead just be under your command. Unless the aforementioned barbarian army revolt took place.

Alright. This sounds like a covert operation. What if this were restricted to units with a commando promotion( to keep it from being the normal way to wage war )? It could be unmasked if one of the units were killed and there were sufficient spy points, and should lead to open war when that happens...or at least a diplomatic confrontation. You know, something like that should happen with privateers, too. With defeat and spy points, there should at least be a chance of unmasking, which would result in a diplomatic ultimatum.

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Yeah, perhaps that part of my idea isn't so good. Although it would be okay if used in conjunction with what you have described, and limiting the number of units that could be converted to barbarian.


Just for anyone who wasn't aware (including me until a few hours ago), some interesting discussion on this thread in PolyCast Episode 69: "Target Practice" after about 13 minutes. It was recorded in between Post #5 and Post #6.

Camikaze said:

I think that as a start, that is good, but there would need to be more risk. What risk is there that you are taking, that you are not taking by not trading with barbarians? They would still be just a likely to be hired by an opposing civ to attack you. The only difference would be that higher demand would force prices up, actually meaning that it would be more expensive for your enemy to employ barbarians. This would mean that you would be at less risk if you did hire barbarians, due to a reduced ability of other civs to hire barbarians. (sorry if that wasn't very clear)

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You're right, the bidding process would reduce the liklihood of being attacked as more civs opened up relations with the barbs. The risk of trading with barbs means that anything you paid them could fall into the hands of your enemies.

I often like to use Shaka as my "pitbull", he's certainly eager ( unlike some A.I.s which agree to go to war and actually do nothing but cease relations with the enemy). To make him effective, I sometimes need to gift him a fleet, offer him horses, Steel or Gunpowder tech, etc.



Maybe to raise the stakes, the barbs won't even act without a 100gold for the chief up front. Or make all deals front-loaded ( lump sum or tech or units, plus gold per turn or strategic resources or luxuries ) so that it's not the pay as you go trades we're used to.

I normally play no tech brokering to avoid the A.I. anti-human conspiracy, but I could see the Black Market as a (strictly military ) tech brokering mechanism ( mentioned on Polycast ), provided costs were high enough that techs weren't instantly shared among the A.I. the turn they were discovered. That would be a balancing act.

Of course, the by-product would be rich barbs, and someday some civs are going to go after all of those black cities for cash, if not to rid themselves of the menace.

Oh, and the barbs wouldn't just ransome workers. They would ransome cities,too. Well, if you were paying the equivalent of a trade route to keep the diplo avenue open , they could. If you didn't meet their price , they could offer the city to me.

Then of course there is the protection racket possibillities- payments to stay out of your lands , or not burn a particular city.

Sid's Pirates! has pirate havens and indian villages. They aren't too good for trading because the prices are poor and the quantites are small. They do have a "diplo screen "of sorts where the captain or chief offers you 4 options for a combined attack, and some intelligence as to which cities are lightly defended or wealthy. It was probably the origin of my thoughts on this subject.

I think you have a good idea there, Camikaze. If barbs fight under your control, there should be a decay of discipline that leads to them looting some turns instead of following orders, and of going back to being normal barbs, not unlike the way a city revolts a couple times before it flips.

Rusty Edge said:

You're right, the bidding process would reduce the liklihood of being attacked as more civs opened up relations with the barbs. The risk of trading with barbs means that anything you paid them could fall into the hands of your enemies.

I often like to use Shaka as my "pitbull", he's certainly eager ( unlike some A.I.s which agree to go to war and actually do nothing but cease relations with the enemy). To make him effective, I sometimes need to gift him a fleet, offer him horses, Steel or Gunpowder tech, etc.

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I see your point. So long as all trades that you carried out with barbs had a tangible carry through effect, that would be a balancing mechanism. So if you traded a tech to barbarians to get some units, they could then sell it on to the highest bidder or three.

Maybe to raise the stakes, the barbs won't even act without a 100gold for the chief up front. Or make all deals front-loaded ( lump sum or tech or units, plus gold per turn or strategic resources or luxuries ) so that it's not the pay as you go trades we're used to.

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I absolutely agree. However, I think that this should be possible in normal diplomacy and trade. Combining annual trade and immediate trade. But I digress.

Combined with this, however, should be some sort of pay as you go rent cost, just to maintain the loyalty of the units, and to further incorporate the possibility of a barbarian revolt, or withdrawal of barbarian deals, if you don't keep paying the right price.

I normally play no tech brokering to avoid the A.I. anti-human conspiracy, but I could see the Black Market as a (strictly military ) tech brokering mechanism ( mentioned on Polycast ), provided costs were high enough that techs weren't instantly shared among the A.I. the turn they were discovered. That would be a balancing act.

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Yeah, I liked the trade route idea mentioned on Polycast, which could work in this situation. However, I don't think that the barbarians would have enough of a chance to capture techs in this way, 'cause it's pretty easy to just group a unit or two with any unit that would be otherwise undefended. This is perhaps where the barbarian autonomy could come in, whereby they may decide that nabbing a tech in the adjacent tile is more profitable than continuing to be in your employ. They could either continue working for you, unchanged, or simply break away from your army and take the tech, or demand that you pay them more to stop them from breaking away, to more truly realise the opportunity cost of them staying loyal.

Of course, the by-product would be rich barbs, and someday some civs are going to go after all of those black cities for cash, if not to rid themselves of the menace.

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I just had a thought; are we talking as if all barbs are belonging to the one leader, or if every city is a separate barbarian entity, or a combination of the two, whereby a few cities in close proximity make up a barbarian entity. Having multiple independent barbarian entities could help weaken barbarians in this regard (and could even, I suppose, lead to them attacking each other). It may also limit the extent to which you can use this barbarian black market, having to establish trade ties with each of the barb entities to have trade with all of them, and placing a limit on the number of units that they could physically provide.

Oh, and the barbs wouldn't just ransome workers. They would ransome cities,too. Well, if you were paying the equivalent of a trade route to keep the diplo avenue open , they could. If you didn't meet their price , they could offer the city to me.

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Absolutely. Like in the Warlords Viking scenario.

Then of course there is the protection racket possibillities- payments to stay out of your lands , or not burn a particular city.

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Another very good idea. The only thing I worry about is that barbarians would become too powerful through this. So, now I think even more that separate barbarian entities are required.

Sid's Pirates! has pirate havens and indian villages. They aren't too good for trading because the prices are poor and the quantites are small. They do have a "diplo screen "of sorts where the captain or chief offers you 4 options for a combined attack, and some intelligence as to which cities are lightly defended or wealthy. It was probably the origin of my thoughts on this subject.

I think you have a good idea there, Camikaze. If barbs fight under your control, there should be a decay of discipline that leads to them looting some turns instead of following orders, and of going back to being normal barbs, not unlike the way a city revolts a couple times before it flips.

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Yeah, that comparison is pretty much what I was thinking. Perhaps in Civ5 the battle mechanics will be slightly altered so as to include parameters such as morale, discipline, etc. This could then have an effect not only on the possibility of barbs flipping, but could also limit your ability to wage a war with these units. Also, if you didn't use them, they would perhaps suffer from low morale (because barbarians love war), both effecting their ability to fight when you actually did want to use them (until their morale has been built up), and increasing the possibility of a barbarian revolt.

Camikaze said:

I just had a thought; are we talking as if all barbs are belonging to the one leader, or if every city is a separate barbarian entity, or a combination of the two, whereby a few cities in close proximity make up a barbarian entity. Having multiple independent barbarian entities could help weaken barbarians in this regard (and could even, I suppose, lead to them attacking each other). It may also limit the extent to which you can use this barbarian black market, having to establish trade ties with each of the barb entities to have trade with all of them, and placing a limit on the number of units that they could physically provide.

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My understanding is that the barbs currently act as a single civilization, so that's how I think of them. Their power is not only in their numbers early on, but their intelligence network... With caravels they could probably get the circumnavigation bonus.. Anyway, be they confederated tribes, racketeers,smugglers, the anarchist underground, they're organized ... The League of Just Us Barbarians.

Camikaze said:

Another very good idea. The only thing I worry about is that barbarians would become too powerful through this. So, now I think even more that separate barbarian entities are required.

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That could be a problem, but remember how you correctly pointed out that over time , the escalating scale would actually reduce your risk of barb trouble? Over time barbs are crowded out of the best city locations and left in the tundra , deserts, scattered isands . I'm thinking that as barbs grow both rich and reach a tech parity, they will become more trouble than they are worth to most civs, and barb cities ( remember, no cultural defense ) will be razed by the civilized empires for the gold stockpiles. They will grow in wealth more than power . Their intelligence network will decline, too.
Still, there may be a place for a black market in petroleum, aluminum, and uranium.
Barbs may be able to safely pillage aluminum without diplomaic consequences in a space race, or oil during a war. They may have a niche in the modern era.
Since barbs can't join the UN..could they become the only nuclear power?

Yeah, I do suppose it is feasible that, if left untamed, the barbs could become the world's only nuclear power. This would, of course, make them exponentially more powerful and expensive to hire. So, I think that there would have to be something to make sure, or at least give a greater chance of, the barbarians being eliminated by that stage.

For instance, their could be a situation when the barbs make up almost an entire continent (like perhaps in the original Earth 9 Civs Scenario), and would therefore be very hard to completely eliminate. To add to this, civilizations would be trying to keep them alive, or at least untouched, as a powerful source of units, techs, resources, etc. This wouldn't be very realistic, and would make the barbarian black market dominate the game, again, unrealistically.

So, what could balance this out, and ensure it doesn't become rampant? I think separate barbarian entities would, whereby if barbarians are left alone for a long time, they do find opposition- from themselves. This would also diminish the power of each individual barbarian entity over time, particularly relative to remaining civs.

Camikaze said:

Yeah, I do suppose it is feasible that, if left untamed, the barbs could become the world's only nuclear power. This would, of course, make them exponentially more powerful and expensive to hire. So, I think that there would have to be something to make sure, or at least give a greater chance of, the barbarians being eliminated by that stage.

For instance, their could be a situation when the barbs make up almost an entire continent (like perhaps in the original Earth 9 Civs Scenario), and would therefore be very hard to completely eliminate. To add to this, civilizations would be trying to keep them alive, or at least untouched, as a powerful source of units, techs, resources, etc. This wouldn't be very realistic, and would make the barbarian black market dominate the game, again, unrealistically.

So, what could balance this out, and ensure it doesn't become rampant? I think separate barbarian entities would, whereby if barbarians are left alone for a long time, they do find opposition- from themselves. This would also diminish the power of each individual barbarian entity over time, particularly relative to remaining civs.

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Well, that sounds like a play testing/ balance problem. I don't know how that would actually work, but you very well may be right.

Possible solutions * Have the barbs become civs according to continent. Then they would face diplo penalties and whatever else. * Send their armies to the other side of the earth, then attack their cities. * AP vote- "It's time to end this Godless barbarian scourge- Purge them from the planet! " UN vote- " These state-sponsored unscroupulous scoundrels are a menace to peaceful civilization - War on Terror!" These votes , if successful would sever the members diplomatic access to the barbs, as well as initiate a dog-pile. The votes might also indicate who was sponsoring them.

It coud be surpising to have the barbs build a nuke and ask for ransom. Those space races and cultural victories are looking a little dicier.

Yeah, that sounds good.

I'm thinking that perhaps individual barbarian entities could be determined by where barbarian settlers come from. Barbs would start off with random cities unconnected, but new cities nearby, I presume, are created with settlers. Whichever barb city settles that new city, controls it.

I like the idea of the AP and UN votes, but I don't know how they would suddenly invoke a massive dogpile on the barbs. Technically, every civ is always at war with barbs, they just have agreements not to attack each other, and to trade with each other, so that the civ and barbs are mutually beneficial. An AP or UN vote would make them of no use to the AI, but they wouldn't be any more willing to dogpile them, given the current IQ of the AI. So, for that to work, the AI would need to be better. Which shouldn't be a problem, seeing as I hope the AI does get better, but it is perceivably a barrier to it, at the current time.

Camikaze said:

Yeah, that sounds good.

I'm thinking that perhaps individual barbarian entities could be determined by where barbarian settlers come from. Barbs would start off with random cities unconnected, but new cities nearby, I presume, are created with settlers. Whichever barb city settles that new city, controls it.

I like the idea of the AP and UN votes, but I don't know how they would suddenly invoke a massive dogpile on the barbs. Technically, every civ is always at war with barbs, they just have agreements not to attack each other, and to trade with each other, so that the civ and barbs are mutually beneficial. An AP or UN vote would make them of no use to the AI, but they wouldn't be any more willing to dogpile them, given the current IQ of the AI. So, for that to work, the AI would need to be better. Which shouldn't be a problem, seeing as I hope the AI does get better, but it is perceivably a barrier to it, at the current time.

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I figured barb cities just spawned in Blue circles that were in the black fog for too long. I've never once seen a barb settler.

As for the rest, true. Maybe I'll take the time this week to organize these ideas into a single post with spoiler tags. It's pretty well outlined now.