Barbarians

[Angelscotboi]

Hi guys.

First time ive posted in the forums but I finally got around to downloading Fall From Heaven 2 - and I realise its still beta stage at the moment but im surprised no ones actually brought this up.

Ive found in my games so far that there appears to be far too many animals and barbarians wandering around; I mean literally hordes and hordes of them.

I only play on Noble/Prince levels, Normal Speed, and on a Large Map but ive found that by the time im ready to expand into my second or sometimes third city Barbarian Warriors and Goblins begin swarming my lands, killing my workers, and destroying my improvements.
They never manage to break the defense of my cities thankfully but they make playing the game exceedingly difficult and annoying.

Because they swarm I find it difficult to get my infrastructure up and running and thus my economy has real trouble staying healthy.

I mean im only playing on Noble/Prince and im getting my ass basically handed to my by the Barbarian AI within the first 100 or so years of game play; id expect this at higher difficulty levels but not as such a low level.

Is this WAD? Or just Bad?

 

[Perkin Warbeck]

It's just how it's meant to be- the endless barbarian hordes- that's why I only every play with raging barbs on- you just work up a good defence early & adapt your playstle to compensate. And don't worry because they do stop eventually

 

[Mailbox]

In FfH it's very important to develop a mobile military with the intent of protecting your lands from barbarians. Just sitting in your cities and letting them ravage the countryside is why they're so powerful, but only if you're passive about them.

 

[Ringtailed]

That's how it's supposed to be. If you're getting beat up by barbarians, build a bigger army and be proactive in your defense (go out and kill them before they blow up your improvements). If anything, I find barbarians to be too weak; once you get a few warriors with combat and shock promotions, slaughtering masses of barbarians becomes trivial as the barbarians will almost always be basic warriors and goblins. In BTS the barbarians will attack with archers and axemen; this in combined with the lower exp cap from fighting barbs and smaller effect of promotions actually makes barbs in FFH *easier* than in BTS.

 

[slowcar]

if you don't want barbarians fogbust.
i love barbarians as they are an easy way to get your army the first xp without any risk

 

[Lady Wandbender]

it's about playstyle, I'm a builder civ-maker, and I got taken by the same sort of nasty suprise my first couple of games after about turn 200, (and I was at long standing war with the Clan) (who were spread out all over a all-land huge map) but I learned their travel paths, stationed a fort on each then had a never ending supply of new-unit xp-food. It hadn't helped I had turned off conquest victory, only the Eloim were left (and one little bastard clan city in the middle of the jungle in a horseshoe Peak valley, I finnally got them, and kept doing turn after turn of in-between turn taking 10-30 seconds as the barbs would fight my defensive rings as I waited for my religous victory to ring in...I finnally got bored and just went for a tower victory, it was less satisfying but still a whole lot of fun. I think at the end I had over 40 bears in my capital, with no place to go/nothign to do, the place probably smelled aweful.

 

[WCH]

I'm a builder/perfectionist, and I love the outlandish numbers of barbarians in this mod, because they make building a military essential. Normally I'll get a good defensive unit and place them at strategic position, such as mountain passes at the edge of my empire, or, if no such chokepoints exist, I fortify them on my improvements. Another trick is to stack them with the workers -- get the worker and the defensive unit as the only two on a tile, "move all," right click to get out of move-mode, select "build improvements." Now your worker has a bodyguard.

What annoys me most of all about it is that the barbarians stop being a threat in the midgame; early game they're great, make it a constant struggle, very fun. Then strategic borders expand to the point that the barbarians aren't spawning anymore around the same time that my military units advance to the point that any barbarians that do spawn are no credible threat.

My proposed solution: naval barbs. That's how they worked it in Civ II, after all... barbarians don't spawn on land? Galleon shows up full of them and unloads near one of your cities. Insert ". .. .. .. .! . .. .. .. .! Deploy mounted troops!" and related excitement. Never happens in FFH... the barbarian navy is just about nonexistant.

 

[westamastaflash]

In my games, I give the barbarian leader Aggressive and Raiders. :-D

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I give the barbs Aggressive, Charismatic, Raider, Summoner, Arcane, expansive, etc, but make them loose these traits when their heroes die. Most are tied to Orthus, but summoner/arcane are for Barbatos. I may tie some traits to the 4 horsemen, or the avatar of wrath.

(I haven't actually added these changes in my current version, but I usually do and plan to do so soon)

 

[KingOfLands]

I give the barbs Aggressive, Charismatic, Raider, Summoner, Arcane, expansive, etc, but make them loose these traits when their heroes die. Most are tied to Orthus, but summoner/arcane are for Barbatos. I may tie some traits to the 4 horsemen, or the avatar of wrath.

(I haven't actually added these changes in my current version, but I usually do and plan to do so soon)

That'd actually be a fun set of options, though I'd probably want more barbarian heroes than Orthus / Barbatos (who I have quickly learned to dread!) / Acheron in that case.

 

[Caradoc]

BTW: FFH2 is now beyond the beta stage. Don't be misled by the release numbers.

 

[Lady Wandbender]

That'd actually be a fun set of options, though I'd probably want more barbarian heroes than Orthus / Barbatos (who I have quickly learned to dread!) / Acheron in that case.

YAY another person with a kill the barbarian fetish. I'm actually putting more of the barbatos type of barbs into my mod-mod Quest for the Crown, along with the 7 pieces of Fantasy-doodad which will drop from the new mobs, which can be used to build the end game super-fantasy-doodad-place (names to be changed later and use it as a new victory condition since they will be equiptment. All you'd need is each of the seven pieces within your empire, so if a rival picked it up and built the first building you could still take the city where it's built...assuming equipment survives after razing it should work (in worst case scenario).

I'm also putting in attached to random events mini-dragons as wandering baddies, with thier "parent" created when populations/gold reaches certain levels, repeated, so you could conceivably be having mini-dragons coming out your ears by endgame.

Plus the undead branch of the barbs with a 70% capture rate to make more undead barbs out of your lost units (hopefully including workers) (the werewolf mechanic)

Hopefully I'll be able to figure out the scoring by thta point so your kill count will count for more, since every turn is going to look like a Peckipah movie.

 

[Ecofarm]

Don't fear orthos.

1) Have 1 warrior and a couple scouts in your city.
2) After orthos hits the warrior (after pillaging a tile or two on the approach - let him), he might die or be low hps. Kill him with a scout if he is low enough, if not wait for him to hit another. Eventually, you get the kill defending or he is low enough to kill. The last two times, my adept got 46xp and my scout got 70xp (8%). The axe turns a strong unit into a super-hero; Orthos is a blessing.

The lich can be problematic and limits the improvement of a city if very near. He is also a +1 death weapon though, so plan to kill him. If he has no more than combat ~2, 4-7 move3 units should suffice. I hit with the move 3s and brought the move 2s up as last ditch effort next turn. Turns out I needed them. That's how the adept got 46 (only 1 centaur even made a retreat :/ Hunters with mobility will also work. Or use 2 move units and just lose one the turn you move into range.

Has anyone captured the lich?

 

[DharmaMcLaren]

Interesting idea: Capture all the barbarian heroes! I like capturing Govannon when the Amurites are in the game, Priests of Leaves/Kilmorph/Druids with Fireballs and Wraiths ftw.

And on the subject of barbarians, I've never been overrun by them. Hassled, yes, but never overrun. They are sometimes a little excessive, I feel. It would be nice if there was a way to turn them off without stopping lairs from spawning defenders, Acheron and Orthus from being created, etc.; or maybe a way to half their spawn rate.

 

[KingOfLands]

Interesting idea: Capture all the barbarian heroes! I like capturing Govannon when the Amurites are in the game, Priests of Leaves/Kilmorph/Druids with Fireballs and Wraiths ftw.

And on the subject of barbarians, I've never been overrun by them. Hassled, yes, but never overrun. They are sometimes a little excessive, I feel. It would be nice if there was a way to turn them off without stopping lairs from spawning defenders, Acheron and Orthus from being created, etc.; or maybe a way to half their spawn rate.

Though I rarely play above Monarch because I am lazy and enjoy shorter games, I only find myself in real trouble when I missed / never sent out scouts to bust up barrows and idols. I had a rough time with them playing the Amurites this week because I managed to let three or four barrows run for about 90 turns and got hit with about 10 skeletons in close succession just as I was getting ready to drop a third town.

Map type can have a lot to do with how much trouble barbs give, too. Some of the newer ones which I rather like (Hemispheres, Big & Small) for overall layout do a lot to segregate players (making fogbusting more time-consuming) and have a bunch of forest/jungle. Makes it harder by far to get rid of all the nearby lairs. Great Plains and Lakes are, by contrast, a lot less trouble, and even regular continents seems more prone to give you neighbors.

And yes, Lady Wandbender, I'd get a definite kick out of having more barbarians to fight.

 

[Caradoc]

Let me put in yet another plug for Sto's great map scripts. You can have oodles of Barbarians at the start as well as all the Barb cities you could possibly desire.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Only problem I encounter with Barbarians, is when Barbatos whipes out a nearby civk on a large continent. It often means a dozen or so units attacking right at the turn when barbs attack cities, and it can be... a bit demanding, especially if you are still defending with warriors.

Keep an eye on the turn counter, and have a few extra warriors or so ready to fortify your cities, if barbarians might start attacking soon.

 

[AljayBoy]

I like the barbs, and although they can be a pest, you just have to pump out a couple of warrior units and place them in defencible places like hills and forests. Then watch the barbs bounce off them and give you a significant amount of XP

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Barbatos is Undead, so it's not possible to capture him. The only ways to capture are Mind III (Domination), Subdue Animals, Subdue Beasts, and Command promotions. Domination and the command promotions only work on Living units, and Subdue Animals/Beasts obviously only work on their respective targets.

The important thing with Orthus and Barbatos is to take them out early before they get too many promotions, or end up having to wait until you have a large stack of spare units or a few elites to deal with them. Barbatos tends to be very nasty with his twincasted empower V earth elementals, while Orthus just usually has Combat I-V and Shock I-II.

Orthus isn't much of a threat, so long as you make him the attacker against a fortified position. In other words, stick a handful of warriors and scouts on a forest hill nearby and wait for him to attack, then counterattack when he's weakened, preferably with a scout so you can get a good animal-capturer.

Barbatos... Barbatos is a pain. Especially when a barb city gets built on/near him, because then chances are Acheron gets built there too. The Staff of Souls isn't that useful at first anyway, since it's +1 death affinity, and most likely you'll have no death mana (or 1 if you have it as palace mana) until later.

Barb units really aren't too hard to deal with, unless you get hit by a large stack of skeletons. Warriors you can pick off with a few shock-scouts or defend against with warriors of your own in cities or on hills/forests, while goblins are mostly free xp.

I can usually capture Acheron, though he's of dubious usefulness because he's too slow. Barbatos as mentioned is immune to capture. Orthus usually has been killed by the time you get a Command/Domination unit, unless he decided to hang out with Barbatos or Acheron. Margalard/Gurid, if they show up, are easy to capture since they're just big chunks of strength. A decently promoted beastmaster and some fodder can handle them. Leviathan... I don't think you can create a waterwalking beastmaster, but you could potentially capture it with OO priests I guess. Horsemen and Avatar of Wrath are non-living.

 

[CMHistory]

Orthus has the Loyalty promotion, anyway....he can't be captured, only killed, now.