Barbarians gone (really!) wild

[BillSeurer]

Over the weekend I started a marathon, huge map game as the Calabim on Prince (I think) difficulty. Latest 0.34 patch. I usually play games on this setting but I haven't before seen what happened this time...

The barbarians started showing up as usual and killed me. Whoops, I had goofed around and not generated enough bloodpets. The map seemed cool so I reloaded from the initial save and concentrated more on generating bloodpets this time.

The barbarians showed up again and I (barely) fended them off and I wasn't even the real target of their wrath! That was the Khazad off to my west. Basically I was stuck. I'd get a few bloodpets ahead and then lose a few. I had two cities at this point.

I took out the Khazad with a vampire my lone surviving hunter had freed from a dungeon and an angel sidekick the vampire picked up on the way back home from another dungeon. This made me the target of the barbarians wrath.

And what a wrath it was. I was seeing up to 20 attacks a round on the town I took over plus the ongoing attacks back on my original two cities. Stacks of 6 to 10 barbarians were not at all unusual. My hunter actually got stuck at one point; there were so many barbarians funneling through this one pass that he sat for almost 100 turns waiting to move through himself (he was fortified on a wooded hill and they mostly just ran right past him on a road).

I eventually got Moroi (axemen) in survivable numbers into the hills around the former Khazad city to completely surround it and the barbarians turned their wrath onto my original two cities. Basically the only reason I was hanging on was because of the vampire and his regen spell (and his gifting too).

Meanwhile one of the other civs had been eliminated by the barbarians. I got enough units produced to surround my two cities and the barbarians turned on another neighbor to the east of me.

The hordes came marching past my cities occasionally for what seemed like forever. I counted over 100 barbarian units on the screen at one point in a solid line of stacks from left to right. I tried starting a new city but it was almost immediately wiped out.

The barbarian hordes wiped out 3 other civs and then just disappeared. I still see the odd unit or two from time to time but numbers have to be down almost 99%. There are only 3 other civs remaining at this point and none have expanded very much nor done much of anything.

I killed almost 2000 barbarian units, mostly goblins, lizardmen, and warriors.

 

[Marnok]

I killed almost 2000 barbarian units, mostly goblins, lizardmen, and warriors.

... and he didn't think it was too many.

 

[loffenx]

I've almost stopped playing since the introduction of the barbarian bore. The symphony of attack-sounds and the repetetiveness of the war to fend them off has more or less destroyed my favourite game Been pondering to play without them, but also seems boring.

 

[BillSeurer]

... and he didn't think it was too many.

The game's not done yet!

The game was really slow during the barbarian days. It's quite snappy right now which is another indication the barbarians truly are gone and not just off marching toward one of the other AIs.

Frankly, I am not sure why I am even finishing this particular game. I was so far ahead on tech (I had 10-12 more than the next best) than all the AIs that I just traded all the ones I knew to all the AIs to let them catch up a bit.

 

[Breez]

I thought I had it bad last night.

By turn 200 I have finally gotten archers, so I now have a Level 10 warrior and levels 9, 7, and 4 archers. I started moving my more experinced units to a forest directly next to the city to spread the XP around.

I have killed over 250 Barbs or various types. Up to 8 on my screen at a time.

At my peak, it sounds like I was experiencing your down time.

 

[Tyrs]

Personally, I like fighting off the hordes of barbarians. If you don't though an easy way to get around it is to overstock the map a bit with AI's, that reduces the amount of space the barbs have to spawn

 

[Kael]

Thats pretty interesting. Were you playing with Raging Barbarians on?

Keep in mind that 0.34 didn't adjust the strength or the number of the barbarians. It only made them smarter, so instead of sitting in the wilderness they will attack. We always want the AI to follow the most effective strategy possible (we don't handicap the AI). But it would be possible to modify the number of barbs. Fall from Heaven runs twice the number of barbs as normal Civ4 (and has since Fall from Heaven 1), and Raging Barbarians doubles that.

I tend to think that people who play with raging barbs are a little crazy, but to each his own. If we were to tune this it would probably be on the amount of barbs spawned. The way this is done is based on the amount of unowned tiles per barb unit (UPB). So if you have a 100 UPB you would need 100 unowned tiles per barb unit. Here are the current stats based on difficulty for FfH and BtS:

Settler: 150 FfH / 150 BtS
Chieftain: 100 FfH / 100 BtS
Warlord: 50 FfH / 80 BtS
Noble: 30 FfH / 60 BtS
Prince: 25 FfH / 50 BtS
Monarch: 20 FfH / 40 BtS
Emperor: 17 FfH / 35 BtS
Immortal: 15 FfH / 30 BtS
Deity: 13 FfH / 25 BtS

None of these numbers changed since the first release of 0.16.

Then of course you have to consider all the non-direct changes to the barbs power. In a game like FfH nearly everything effects everything else to some level. In general explorable lairs make the barbs stronger because human players adjust their strategy and spend more resources out exploring the world then on culture/settler activity that reduces the amount of unowned tiles on the map.

But it may be worth going back towards base BtS barb spawn numbers. Especially since they were put in place before lairs or explorable lairs were ever considered.

 

[skallben]

Big maps with raging barbs and few civs is fun stuff! I'm currently trying out the FiRe mod (Revolutions adaption for FFH) to play with the BarbarianCiv option, meaning that once barb-cities reach a certain size/culture they become a full-blown civ! Also, there is a "start as minor civs" option that means all civs are at default in war since first contact, diplomacy is impossible until writing...

Kael, now that you are in the thread...I have a question! Does the Wildlife setting reduce the amount of "normal" barbarians to make way for the animals? I want as many barbarians and barb cities as possible in my games

 

[Kael]

Big maps with raging barbs and few civs is fun stuff! I'm currently trying out the FiRe mod (Revolutions adaption for FFH) to play with the BarbarianCiv option, meaning that once barb-cities reach a certain size/culture they become a full-blown civ! Also, there is a "start as minor civs" option that means all civs are at default in war since first contact, diplomacy is impossible until writing...

Kael, now that you are in the thread...I have a question! Does the Wildlife setting reduce the amount of "normal" barbarians to make way for the animals? I want as many barbarians and barb cities as possible in my games

Yes. There is a certain point when the game stops spawning animals and starts spawning barbarians instead. That point is when there is 1.5 cities per player. So in a game with 6 players. Animals will stop spawning and barbs will start when there are 9 cities in the game.

Following that logic things like Advanced Start (where players buy cities) can jump them immediatly into the barb phase and never allow any animals to spawn (and cause some really early barb crushes). Also note that Barb cities count so if you start with the Barbarian World option you will normally jump right through to the barb phase.

With the Wildreness option on the game uses a different formula and requires 3 cities per player before the game stops spawning animals and starts spawning barbs. So in a game with 6 players the barbs would start to appear when there are 18 cities in the game.

 

[tharg]

But it may be worth going back towards base BtS barb spawn numbers. Especially since they were put in place before lairs or explorable lairs were ever considered.

I think the Barbarians are fine the way they are. If you don’t like them you can turn them off. Possibly could add more levels of Barbarians.

Although it has occurred to me that the greater barbarian levels at higher levels actually make the game easier for the player, as the AI can’t handle the barbarians as well.

 

[Kael]

I think the Barbarians are fine the way they are. If you don’t like them you can turn them off. Possibly could add more levels of Barbarians.

Although it has occurred to me that the greater barbarian levels at higher levels actually make the game easier for the player, as the AI can’t handle the barbarians as well.

Yeah, thats my concern too. Its possible for me to give the AI higher bonuses against the barbs at those levels. But Id like the barbs to be a more consistent threat throughout the levels,maybe a little more at the easy levels and a little less at the high difficulty. Then make the AI more formidable at those higher levels.

That way the play experience stays the same through the levels, its doesnt change from a vs player to vs barb game as it gets harder.

 

[Kael]

Another important thing to remember is that in BtS the Barbs eventually stop. In FfH they never do.

 

[Kael]

Another important thing to remember is that in BtS the Barbs eventually stop. In FfH they never do.

Im thinking about going with these numbers:

Settler: 120 FfH / 150 BtS
Chieftain: 80 FfH / 100 BtS
Warlord: 60 FfH / 80 BtS
Noble: 50 FfH / 60 BtS
Prince: 40 FfH / 50 BtS
Monarch: 35 FfH / 40 BtS
Emperor: 30 FfH / 35 BtS
Immortal: 25 FfH / 30 BtS
Deity: 20 FfH / 25 BtS

 

[rocklikeafool]

Now that seems more reasonable to me. Still a lot of barbs, but not an overwhelmin horde. By the way, couldn't we return the BtS barb event ("The Philistines have vowed to conquer the world" or "The Huns have declared war on all civilization"). Ya know, make that event fit in flavourwise by changin it to say this or that Barb Orc tribe wants to plunder all the world and make it orc units. Cuz that'd add more to the barbs than jus an endless nonsensical horde.

 

[BillSeurer]

But the barbarians DO eventually stop. They did in my game and they were winning!

Could it be that barbarian cities are shutting off the flow? That's kind of whaky if so.

BTW, I do like the barbarians and I do like the new AI it's just that in this game it was like a traffic jam during rush hour on the freeways in California on their way toward my cities.

What do those numbers mean in your chart?

 

[BillSeurer]

Oh, and I agree the AI can't handle the barbarians very well. I was really struggling even when I wasn't the target of their ire. But I struck a balance between development and defense and it totally surprised me when I got to where I could trade techs and the AI civs were so far behind me. Obviously they had expended all their resources fighting the barbarians.

 

[loffenx]

Alot of interesting stuff here. Have I understood it correctly that Wildlife should work then as some middle-road between turning the barbs off and the current situation? Sounds good.

 

[rocklikeafool]

But the barbarians DO eventually stop. They did in my game and they were winning!

It was prolly cuz the world was "civilized", a. k. a. settled. And the Barbs were winnin? Wow, try a strategy next time.

 

[BillSeurer]

Read the whole thread.

Probably not even 5% of the land was civilized. The largest civ had 8 cities and that was on one narrow peninsula which is probably why they even managed to get that large.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Sounds like a bug to me then.