Barbarian Activity

[MaxAstro]

Is there any chance of changing the barbarian AI back to the way it worked in the previous version? While I approve of skeletons and lizardmen actually attacking you early game, the barbarian state's new tactic of focusing everything on a single player is quite frustrating, especially since it seems to almost always be the human player. Having to fight off every lizardman and skeleton that spawns on the entire continent is quite annoying. And the barbarians having that level of organization seems unrealistic.
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[Sarisin]

Is there any chance of changing the barbarian AI back to the way it worked in the previous version? While I approve of skeletons and lizardmen actually attacking you early game, the barbarian state's new tactic of focusing everything on a single player is quite frustrating, especially since it seems to almost always be the human player. Having to fight off every lizardman and skeleton that spawns on the entire continent is quite annoying. And the barbarians having that level of organization seems unrealistic.
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Hear, hear!

I have given up playing FFH .34 games with the raging barb option on for this very reason. Once the barbs turn their attention to you, and they will, you will be targeted a long time...maybe for the rest of the game. While being targeted the AI civs are ignored and can expand at will leaving you with no place to go (unless you declare war) and you will fall far behind in research, wonder, GPs, etc. as you fend off barbs constantly.

 

[heisenberg]

lol its kinda ironic that, given the new introduction of passive XP gain buildings in FF, it is hardly of much use since you're fed so much XP through the Barb hordes rushing at you that you go over the passive cap easily

Then again, though I find the barbs annoying at times, they are after all a decent source of XP once you actually start funneling them down through your killing fields--which makes destroying your neighbours that much easier once you have a veteran barb killing army up and running.
It does slow you down slightly at the start in expansion-wise though, and quite micro intensive at times that it gets tedious.

 

[Sarisin]

lol its kinda ironic that, given the new introduction of passive XP gain buildings in FF, it is hardly of much use since you're fed so much XP through the Barb hordes rushing at you that you go over the passive cap easily

Then again, though I find the barbs annoying at times, they are after all a decent source of XP once you actually start funneling them down through your killing fields--which makes destroying your neighbours that much easier once you have a veteran barb killing army up and running.
It does slow you down slightly at the start in expansion-wise though, and quite micro intensive at times that it gets tedious.

I'm sorry, but IMO FFH .34 games with the raging barb option on become predictable, monotonous, and very tedious. Unless you have a Great Commander or two (you can play Pass the Great Commander) your units are quickly capped at the 100 XP limit. At least when the Raiders trait allowed you to exceed 100 XP you could make something out of the tedious exercise.

I've expressed this problem several times in the FFH so I feel badly bringing it up again here. Targeting one civ at a time is fine. Not knowing when to break off the targeted attack and move on to another civ is not fine. It really ruins the raging barb games IMO.

 

[heisenberg]

lol I was actually agreeing with you on how tedious it could actually get, just acknowledging that the barb attack itself though is a mixed bag as it actually gives pretty decent XP if farmed.
And actually in 043 you do go over the 100XP limit now on barbs, so I believe with the Commander you can actually hit pretty impressive levels just on barbs alone.

I usually do not play with Raging Barbs on because of the tediousness of it all.
However, even with the option off, the new Barb AI which causes almost all the Barb units in the world to attack instead of just wandering around causes the very same issue on large maps with large unsettled areas.
As pointed out by Kael in the other thread on the main FfH forum, the number of barbs is determined by the amount of unsettled areas in the world.
But with the current Barb AI, it causes a large amount of barbs to come streaming in at the targeted civ.

Though this is mainly an issue with the FfH Barb AI, it'll be nice if we could somehow limit the barbs from the other end of the continent from taking a long march over to the other corner of the world to attack--that would make at least those larger, more sparsely populated maps like tectonics from having overwhelming barbarian attacks.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, since you are in FF now, you can forget about the 100 XP cap. No such thing.

EDIT: So I post slow...

 

[heisenberg]

^^ thats what I noticed on my 101XP axeman, then I continued killing 100++ more barbarians to free brigit...

 

[xienwolf]

The ideal is that Barbarian XP gives (far) less XP than you would like to get for your trouble well before 100 though.

 

[deadliver]

You guys are kidding right?

Raging barbs is a joke, now whats not a joke is when a @#$! skeleton upgrades to a specter. That is a rude surprise.

The only thing I hated about raging barbs was when they cacked half the civs due to AI stupidity, now I sit back and lap up that xp.

 

[First]

The biggest problem I have with the current barb AI is that in most of my games they tend to wipe out 3-4 of the AI civs.

 

[deadliver]

U c I am not running into that problem anymore for some reason, perhaps I have too many civs so there are not as many barbarians cities. hmm.

 

[ShadowDrgn]

I have the same complaints: the barbarian hordes are pretty ridiculous now. They wipe out AI civs on a regular basis and require tediously moving a dozen warriors around every turn to protect your improvements. The XP is nice until you lose all the level 7-8 units on 0.4% attack odds.

 

[Sarisin]

I'm playing my second FF .43 game as Decius/Malakhim.

I tried raging barbs one more time. As expected the barbs started coming on Turn 48. I sent my two exploring units back to defend and a good thing too as my only city was soon under seige.

I withstood the attack, but 8 of the 11 AI civs did not and were wiped out before turn 250.

About the other three...

Jonas Endain - was at peace with the barbs, but something happened (not too cultured/high in pts) and the barbs turned on him and wiped him out.

Duracast (I think I got this right - the Spidey Guys) - were at peace with the barbs. Expanding quite nicely and low in pts.

An unknown Scions of Patria civ - does one of the leaders have the Barbarian trait? If so, fine. I just had bad luck the computer randomly selected 3 AI civs with the Barbarian trait. If not, then there is a problem. I have opened the World Builder a number of times and never saw a barb in their territory. They have expanded (Turn 600) to about 20 cities - all small pop. of course and with many defenders.

I even managed to circle the wagons and block off access to my three cities using mountain peaks, small bodies of water and captured elephants. The AI barbs continue to display bizarre behavior. When I block off all access they seem to disappear off the map - although there is a city near me with about 20 defenders. When I open an access route to my cities, they are back in high numbers. Occasionally a Wolf Rider will bounce off an Elephant defender and later die on the second try.

Again, if that Scions civ has the BAR trait, I guess I get it. If not, I'm wondering why those barbs don't go after that civ once in awhile, especially when blocked from mine.

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm playing my second FF .43 game as Decius/Malakhim.

I tried raging barbs one more time. As expected the barbs started coming on Turn 48. I sent my two exploring units back to defend and a good thing too as my only city was soon under seige.

I withstood the attack, but 8 of the 11 AI civs did not and were wiped out before turn 250.

About the other three...

Jonas Endain - was at peace with the barbs, but something happened (not too cultured/high in pts) and the barbs turned on him and wiped him out.

Duracast (I think I got this right - the Spidey Guys) - were at peace with the barbs. Expanding quite nicely and low in pts.

An unknown Scions of Patria civ - does one of the leaders have the Barbarian trait? If so, fine. I just had bad luck the computer randomly selected 3 AI civs with the Barbarian trait. If not, then there is a problem. I have opened the World Builder a number of times and never saw a barb in their territory. They have expanded (Turn 600) to about 20 cities - all small pop. of course and with many defenders.

I even managed to circle the wagons and block off access to my three cities using mountain peaks, small bodies of water and captured elephants. The AI barbs continue to display bizarre behavior. When I block off all access they seem to disappear off the map - although there is a city near me with about 20 defenders. When I open an access route to my cities, they are back in high numbers. Occasionally a Wolf Rider will bounce off an Elephant defender and later die on the second try.

Again, if that Scions civ has the BAR trait, I guess I get it. If not, I'm wondering why those barbs don't go after that civ once in awhile, especially when blocked from mine.

No Scion leader has the barb trait, so that's pretty odd... Must be something with the Barb AI

 

[Sarisin]

In the same game above, I noticed the following barb funny stuff:

I observed a barb city just outside my border. It had at least 20 barb units sitting in it, including 13 Lizardmen. However, they never budged. Had they came out at once, they would have been problematic.

However, I was really floored when I noticed one turn all of those Lizardmen had turned into Lizard Rangers!

Two points on this:

1. It was fairly early in the game. Only three civs were left. I was ahead on tech and had not researched Animal Handling yet. I had no Tier 3 units. I'm fairly certain the Duracast and Scion also had none. Yet, here was the AI throwing out Tier 3 Lizard Rangers that are damn hard to kill even with heavily promoted Swordsmen - even with Iron weapons. In addition to the bunch in that city, I was getting 2-3 each turn crossing into my borders (now opened up when I built another city. They were easily taking down my Elephant blockers. The only way I could kill them is to damage them with an Archer's bombard and then kill them with a Swordsman or one of the Stooges.

The main point I'm making is that the introduction of barb units is generally tied into the units of the player and other AI civs. I felt the Lizard Rangers arrived too soon. And, as the beneficiary of all barbs in this game, well...you get the idea.

2. I have never seen the AI upgrade barb units like this before in a FF or FFH game. I realize they can spawn/build at will, but what about upgrading?

Did they have the necessary Hunting Lodge to upgrade in the city? Probably not. How much Gold would it cost you to upgrade 13 Lizardmen to Lizard Rangers? Over 3,000 Gold, I believe. Do barbs accumulate Gold and use it for upgrading units?

I think it can be a balance issue if the barbs start upgrading their units en masse without the same requirements as the human player.

In sum, I realize some of the developers have been fiddling with barb AI. It is tough now with them arriving very early in slower speed games and being targeted for a long time. However, with these two 'new' developments (I had not seen them before anyway), it is a real bugger! I play only at Monarch, by the way.

Finally, I was afraid the AI would unleash all 13 of those Lizard Rangers on me at once...and they did. I stupidly killed a barb Worker with a captured Griffon (why doesn't the non-HN Griffon capture the Worker?) and got too close to the city with the Rangers in it. Out they all came, with several Wolf Riders besides. They killed the Griffon and I had to pull all my guys into my cities. Fortunately, they were killed when they attacked the cities and they could not pillage improvements. However, the Wolf Riders took out a lot of improvements.

Too many Rangers, too soon!!!

 

[Willgar]

@Sarisin - sounds like a fantastic game

Recently spent the first 150 tuns trapped in my capital due to a constant stream of barns. As the eloheim, i soak this up and ended up with 15 100xp+ warriors and scouts. I then broke out of the capital fast and captured the two closest barb cities (which had pretty decent population by this point) and have now set-up a pretty decent empire.

At around turn 200, the barbs stopped targeting me (well much less aggressively) and am now expanding. However, it seems that the elves were not targeted as heavily and have an empire almost twice the size.

Anyway, i agree with a few post that state the barbs are now quite challenging but to be honest, it is better now than the push over they have been in the past. Yet to see Barb rangers arriving before i have a counter

 

[heisenberg]

As Elohim, soak it up with monks to get them to affinity level fast~

 

[Sarisin]

One other barb strategy worth noting is their spamming of Workers and building of roads.

I find if there is a lot of open territory on the map (there usually is in raging barb games as many AI civs are wiped out) they will undergo a massive road-building operation, especially leading up to your civ. Mounted barb units then zip around the map on these roads going after targeted civs.

Of course, it is fun to send a couple of units out to pick off their Workers, but they spawn/build replacements like wildfire.

Also, I like to dead-end them by sticking a couple of strong units at the end of their road leading to my civ to welcome them.

 

[deadliver]

Yeah you see thats the type of thing you should do, instead of complaining about how tuff the barbarians are you figured out a way to screw them over. Personally I love the massive barbarian hordies, even if I am on the receiving end. BRING IT. Especially if I am playing a civ that has a terrain affinity such as elves or lizardmen, they are toast.

 

[ShadowDrgn]

While I approve of skeletons and lizardmen actually attacking you early game...​

I don't like this at all actually. A lizardman has something like a 30% chance to kill a warrior defending your city, and short of keeping your scout to defend too, there's nothing else you can do about it on turn 10 besides cross your fingers. If you get wiped out in single player, you laugh it off and start a new game, but if it happens in a multiplayer game with 3 other people, it's incredibly annoying. Hasn't happened to me yet, but only because I've gotten lucky on rolls...

I've always seen the barbarians as a way to equalize remote starts and crowded starts. If you get a remote start, the barbarians slow your early expansion and provide experience to keep up with the warmongering civs that started near each other. The barbarians shouldn't be killing people off or providing you with a dozen level 10 units. The raging barbs option should offer that, not the default setting.