Barbarian Observations

[timerover51]

I recently switched from playing at mainly Chieftain to playing at Regent, on both Play the World and Conquests. I was interested in seeing if the Barbarians reacted differently at the different levels, and it appears that they do. It should be noted that my Barbarians are not the normal ones, as I use the Gallic Swordsman for the basic Barbarian, with 5 additional hit points, bringing him up to Veteran in level in my mods, with the Cossack, also boosted, for the Advanced Barbarian. The ship is a boosted Privateer, with both boosted combat statistics and boosted hit points. Quite simply, these will do serious damage when on the loose. I also have drastically reduced the combat bonus verses Barbarians at all levels, making the Great Wall a very good thing to have.

One difference between Play the World and Conquests is that when the Barbarians stage an Uprising, Play the World generates vastly more advanced Barbarians than Conquests, and when I say vastly more, I am not kidding. I have checked on Barbarian Camps from passing ships, and in Play the World, a stack of 30 or more Cossacks is not unusual, while Conquests seems to top out at about 10. Running in Debug mode, it would appear that the Barbarians actively hunt out settlers when escorted and kill them regularly. This does tend to keep the AI expansion down a tad. The Barbarian Privateer also will go to much greater range to hunt down and kill transport galleys with settlers. The result is that a Privateer verses a boosted Caravel is an even fight.

Have you ever heard of "being hoisted by your own Petard"?

 

[Synobun]

I couldn't imagine playing with barbarians that have those stats. I usually find the barbarians to be an infuriating obstacle to deal with as they are at default. This way would probably cause a keyboard replacement or two...

 

[Bluemofia]

I think in PTW, when each player advances an age, the camps do a wave of spawning, while in Conquests, it's one wave per age only. I'm not entirely certain, but that's my observation

 

[timerover51]

I couldn't imagine playing with barbarians that have those stats. I usually find the barbarians to be an infuriating obstacle to deal with as they are at default. This way would probably cause a keyboard replacement or two...

I have been playing with them for quite a while. I find that it makes the game much more interesting, and does tend to keep the AI under control. My mods also have settlers costing 4 population, so loosing one of them onboard a ship really hurts. I tend not to loose them on land. The AI, on the other hand, really gets hit.

I think in PTW, when each player advances an age, the camps do a wave of spawning, while in Conquests, it's one wave per age only. I'm not entirely certain, but that's my observation

I will try to keep closer track, but that does feel about right. The AI is not consistent with those massive stacks though, as sometimes I get hit with an avalanche of Cossacks, and sometimes they hit me in the threes and fours, but no massive assault.

 

[Nanuk]

Is the barbarian advanced unit unlocked at a certain, predefined point, or is it based on when a civ unlocks the tech to build that unit? Did the Cossack appear right away, or later in the game?

 

[timerover51]

Is the barbarian advanced unit unlocked at a certain, predefined point, or is it based on when a civ unlocks the tech to build that unit? Did the Cossack appear right away, or later in the game?

It looks like it appears in the Medieval Period, not so much the Ancient Period. Barbarian camps never spawn more than two basic Barbarians though. Goody huts will pop three basic Barbarians. I play with the Barbarians set to "Raging", and they will wander quite a ways from their camp, as Gallic Swordsman have a movement of two. I have been known to put Barbarian camps on one tile islands, which results in a steady stream of Privateers appearing, and hoards of Barbarians to eventually kill if I want to take the island. Note, attack with LOTS and LOTS of firepower.

 

[Theov]

I upped the Barbs too in my mod. They are not so strong as you do, but they are seriously a threat when you don't deal with them.
I actually like it better like that because often for much of the game you're just expanding and developing with little fighting going on. I wanted the barbarians to have a little more punch.

What I also did was give the Mongolians the option to actually HN barbarian units. This is fun and makes the Mongols a special - like no other kind of CIV.

I only play Monarch games now - I did not notice big differences in Barb behavior from Regent though.

 

[tom2050]

I found this.. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/fix-for-the-barbarians-sort-of.100704/

I forgot about that, but Barb AI seemed to have been changed from PTW to C3C. You can set it back to more random style and attacking cities by adding the noaipatrol=0 in the conquests.INI.

 

[timerover51]

Thanks for the reply, Tom, but I might not change them in Conquests. I am playing a PTW game as the Scandinavians on one of my modded maps, and I have been battling the spawning of four different Barbarian Camps. I thought that I had problems until I made contact with the Aztecs. They have all of 5 cities, and I am in the Industrial Age researching Electricity, while the Aztecs are not out of the Ancient Period as yet. This is the first time I have ever had pity for the Aztecs, as normally they are way ahead of me in cities, though not in population.

Another difference that I have noticed is that the Barbarians in Play the World Regent will line the shore line to keep you from landing any units. And isolated cities are almost like sugar syrup to bees when if comes to attracting their attention. They will hit cities, is some cases repeatedly.

 

[timerover51]

I think in PTW, when each player advances an age, the camps do a wave of spawning, while in Conquests, it's one wave per age only. I'm not entirely certain, but that's my observation

With respects to Conquests, I can confirm that the Barbarians spawn with one players age up. I was monitoring a camp specifically for that. However, in Play the World, it looks like Barbarian Sea Units appear as soon as a player hits Map Making. I got a big shock when one of my nice new galleys ran into a Barbarian Privateer, and was promptly sunk. Aside from the galley, that cost me a Settler and one Spearman. For this game, I did not reset the Barbarian Bonus on Regent from 200 to 50 like I normally do, otherwise, I do not want to think of the carnage that the Barbarians would be wreaking. Of course, they do hit the AI just as hard. I do really hate it when they sack one of my new cities before I can get all of the defenses in. Against that, I did set it up that way. Like good old Victor Frankenstein, my creations do bite me at times. At least I do not half to worry about chasing my creations into the Arctic.

Side Note: Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is the single most downloaded science fiction book on Project Gutenberg, the free download book site.

2nd Side Note: For modders wanting ideas for Tech Advances, search Technology or Inventions on Project Gutenberg for ideas for new Advances. One of the books has this great Solar-Powered irrigation pump for California dating from around 1900. There were some interesting solar-powered experiments going on then, just before petroleum made internal-combustion engines so ubiquitous. Coal is not the easiest thing to move in large quantities.

 

[timerover51]

Just to be comprehensive, I decided to check on how Vanilla Civ3 handles Barbarians, and to my shock, it is different from both Play the World and Conquests. I set up a test world and once I posted the Barbarian Camps, I put in some offshore observation points to monitor them. I assume that the observation posts did not change the behavior. What I found was in Vanilla, the camps generate a steady stream of both the Basic Barbarian Unit and the Advanced Unit, with no massive spawnings, as in Play the World and Conquests. The sea units appear as soon as someone, normally me, starts building Galleys. When playing Regent level, the Barbarians will go quite a ways to come calling, and again, they are not at all shy about attacking cities. This is the case even when the city is well defended. Pikemen are particularly useful against the Barbarian Cossacks that I normally use.

What surprises me is that each version of the game has the Barbarians working differently. I expected Vanilla and Play the World to work about the same way. I am trying to decide if I want to chance a test game with the Barbarians on Sid level. With my boosted Barbarians, I might not need any opponents.

On another test map, it looks like all of my opposition except for one is on one continent, leaving one continent totally empty for me to explore and colonize, while another continent appears to be totally overrun with Barbarians. In Play the World, they line up on the shore line whenever one of my ships approaches, making it impossible to land. I would love to be able to see the map completely, and see how many there are. At a guess, giving the shore line line-up, there might be a few hundred of them. I might have to wait until I get some air power for reconnaissance to find out.

 

[tom2050]

That is interesting! It's been so long since I've played Vanilla. Another benefit for C3C by setting AI patrol to Yes, is that rival civ's attack more in waves, than in stacks of death, since they patrol all over, and spread themselves out. Not perfect, but I think it is nice.
Look forward to hearing what you find out timerover!

 

[timerover51]

Another interesting experience with Barbarians. I finally figured out how to start a game in an Advanced Era, so I started up a modified game based on Test of Time with a different map in the Industrial Era. So far, the behavior of the Barbarians is vastly different from a start in the Ancient Era. I am close to hitting the Modern Era, and so far I have observed no Advanced Barbarian units at all, and I have been looking, no Barbarian ships, but the Basic Barbarian Unit, for the advanced era I am using the Guerilla unit, is still fairly aggressive. Just no large concentrations of unit. I had discovered with an Ancient start that the Barbarian ship unit appears when the first player reaches Map-Making. As a check, with the Advanced Start, I built the Great Lighthouse (it does not go obsolete, so could be built) with no result. I will continue to monitor the behavior, as I did not think that a change in start era would have such a drastic effect.

 

[Nanuk]

Has it been tried to give Barbarians several types of units, or are they hard-coded to only have a basic, advanced, and one sea unit? If they can't build any more, then is it possible to have Barbarian units upgrade outside of basic and advanced?

 

[Civinator]

In the general settings of the editor only 2 landunits and one seaunit are allowed for the Barbarians. These three unit types can be choosen freely, but it´s not possible, to add more barbarian unit types for games with random maps. Of course in fixed maps many other preplaced units can be set to be Barbarians.
All these units cannot upgrade and they cannot enslave.

 

[Theov]

My mod has special barbarian units and the rider can enslave.
I also made it that the Mongols can build them with hidden nationality, turning the mongols into a barbarian civ so to speak.

 

[Civinator]

My mod has special barbarian units and the rider can enslave.
I also made it that the Mongols can build them with hidden nationality, turning the mongols into a barbarian civ so to speak.

The enslave flag can be set in the editor, but this doesn´t mean that this flag is working for barbarians. Have you ever seen a barbarian unit enslaving another unit?

 

[Theov]

The enslave flag can be set in the editor, but this doesn´t mean that this flag is working for barbarians. Have you ever seen a barbarian unit enslaving another unit?

Hm, never paid attention to it. And if this is different for the barbs and the Mongols.
If I see it I will let you know.

 

[Bluemofia]

I have tried testing in the past to see if a Barbarian owned unit can enslave, and the results seem to indicate no.

I added a unit with 1000 defense, and enslaves to itself. Then I threw a few dozen low attack units at it, and no Barbarian unit, no matter if it is one they get by one of the 3 units available or one they are given in debug mode can enslave.

 

[Civinator]

I have tried testing in the past to see if a Barbarian owned unit can enslave, and the results seem to indicate no.

I had the same results - what is a pitty, as by enslaving we could have gained a cornucopia of Barbarian units in a game (and that´s why I did these tests).

Hm, never paid attention to it. And if this is different for the barbs and the Mongols.
If I see it I will let you know.

Yes, this is different. CCM1 and CCM2 have a lot of HN units with the enslave option, and these units do enslave, because they are no Barbarians, but HN-units of a civ... and there is another difference with HN-units between human and AI players. HN-Landunits of an AI civ can attack and capture cities without declaring war. Human player HN-landunits can only attack and capture cities after declaring war to that civ.