Barbarian Unit naming brainstorm competition bonanza

[hokath]

The new civilopedia reveals the special Barbarian versions of units

The Hand-Axe is a reskinned Slinger. The Brute a reskinned warrior.
The Galley is not renamed, but does have a different icon,

Perhaps it would be cute to re-icon and re-name all these Barbarian units?
(They exist as a tuning knob, in principle we can give them different stats to the units they replace)

 

[redrum68]

IMO, unless they have different stats/abilities, I would keep the same name as its less confusing then.

 

[paul_soryu]

Why are there separate Archer, Horseman, Spearman and Swordsman at all? I mean, why does it extend to Swordsman for some reason and not all the way to Bazookas? I thought renamed units and Galley's unique icon were there because they were balanced slightly differenetly than normal units.

 

[hokath]

Yes that's right, they have slightly different balance in some cases. So the Barbarian Swordsman is 1 CS weaker iirc, perhaps also the Spearman and Archer?
This is why I think it would be helpful to have different names.

 

[paul_soryu]

Then I think it would be fun if they had unique names and icons, and less CS (like 2 less maybe), but also had some promotions relative to their type: Spear -> Anti-Cavalry promotion, Sword -> More HP and defence (or defence against city attacks), Archer -> Infiltrators, Horseman -> Anti-Wounded? Something to bring a little bit more variety to Barbarian gameplay without making them too powerful. Have no idea on names though.

As it is now the best way for me is to use a couple of Cavalry units to quickly go to a new camp and destroy it, even if it has Spear units.

 

[epicivfreak]

I definitely would like to see more unique barbarians, names and abilities. I made a post about this before, suggesting VP adopt it, but I'll get the gist out again here.

Back in the old Civ3 days, I customized my Rhye's of Civilization mod to fix issues I had with it. One of them was barbarians getting stuck in random places so that they'd just build up to where there were dozens of them on one tile. I did this by giving the barbarians the ability "treat all tiles as roads." But I had to make unique units for that, and I was limited to only 3 such units.

So, I made the Raider for the first level barbarian. This was basically a Warrior with the ability above, plus some other abilities that Civ 3 had. But I was limited by the engine. What I really wanted the raider to do was zoom in, pillage, and zoom out. It worked fairly well in Civ3, but I'm sure VP could do better.

The second level barbarian, I called the Marauder. This was basically a Horseman but it only moved one tile per turn. It was tough though. You'd have to send out the whole army to take one down, otherwise it would move in and sack your cities.

Then there was one unique barbarian sea unit. I called it the Sea Raider, and it was basically the Raider, but for the sea and had the ability to bombard the land as well. I wanted a second, tougher Sea Marauder, but Civ3 didn't allow that.

Overall, it worked out really well for Civ3 and I think it's worth experimenting along these lines in VP.

 

[hokath]

I'm going to make/steal some icons for the existing ones, just for my own satisfaction for the moment.
I've called them this atm
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_ARCHER', 'Bandit'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_HORSEMAN', 'Marauder'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_SPEARMAN', 'Poacher'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_SWORDSMAN', 'Reaver'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_GALLEY', 'Raider'),

 

[azum4roll]

I wouldn't really expect a bandit to shoot arrows...

 

[hokath]

How about "Thief"

Spoiler :

 

[Anarcomu]

I wouldn't really expect a bandit to shoot arrows...

Hum ? Bandit usually also poach to survive, and you definitely need either traps or a bow to be successful, so...
Btw people tend to not take risk whenever possible, and bows both lets you fight at an advantage (you can swap to a dagger or lance after a few shot) and require low tech compared to other weapons.

 

[Karlos_BR]

Is "pirate ship" too on the nose for the galley?

 

[Urzamax]

I'm going to make/steal some icons for the existing ones, just for my own satisfaction for the moment.
I've called them this atm
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_ARCHER', 'Bandit'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_HORSEMAN', 'Marauder'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_SPEARMAN', 'Poacher'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_SWORDSMAN', 'Reaver'),
('TXT_KEY_UNIT_BARBARIAN_GALLEY', 'Raider'),

‘Villain’ could work for a crossbow barb, historically speaking the term was a medieval invention referring to the rough, uncouth lower classes, which eventually mutated into being synonymous with evil.

I can definitely see bandits using bows, but I think switching the archer to poacher would be better (or moving the term to the barb compbow)—poachers were defined by their hunting ability and thus their markmanship.

 

[LemonSwirl]

Vandal would fit barb swordsman much more, they were the ones who sacked Rome after all.

If this goes into further eras, barb knight can be a Robber Baron/Raubritter.