Common misunderstanding of barbarians and another clearly ironical Sid's nonsence called The Barbarian State.
First a slight detour, featuring partially true and partially imagined events of distant past:
There were those legendary times when Alpha Centauri was created, by fellowship of greedy and cunning Sid, and wise and knowing Brian that was full of wisdom and of knowledge, imbued with classical philosophy and presenting models of enlightened societies ruled by harmony and reason - along with a more nasty ones.
Its sales had failed.
Then Sid and Brian sat and pondered and then Brian had decided that it wisdom, knowledge and realistic sophistication was not enough. Sid had cynically smiled, and together with many others they had created Alien Crossfire.
It had gone unnoticed.
And then with cynical smile Sid had revealed to Brian a sacramental truth - that the gaming world (especially within its us-english-speaking part) was populated largely by DUDES who in general tended to be not intelligent enough to find a cracked game least to perform a protection removal by themselves and not appreciative of classic philosophy left alone a futuristic one.
And then together with many others, and cynical smiles, and gleeful vengefulness they had created Civs that were full of nonsense, and stupid prejudices, and thus complementary with the DUDES conditioned mindsets.
Their sales had boomed.
(For some interesting acknowledgements by Sid and Brian themselves look into Firaxians faction text file in Alpha install directory)
In original FfH2 i had witnessed a scene that impressed me most deeply: my heavily escorted worker group had poked out of borders to connect another settlement and instantly in a 180 degrees arc all Bears (some of whom had been waiting next to my borders immovably for some 50 turns) were inexorably drawn towards my units from about 5 squares range. That was more spectacular than the Night of the Living Dead. Tyranid Hive mind. No less. Thankfully, in FF they act more individually.
So, i presume that detour jeopardised the conveying of my concepts not, and return to
Barbarians State tm and misunderstanding of barbarians, also widespread in-between those playing Majesty.
They all view animals, barbs and other monsters as threat that tries their patience (in dude dialect, "pisses them off") by menacing their settlements and workers and (if allowed) pillaging improvements. So they make their first priority to demolish any lairs they can find which is ultimately wrong. Because the large corps of ultra-elite units is an ultimate thing to have. And so in any of my FF and FfH games i do find myself in desperate lack of animals and monsters. My battle groups are patiently guarding any lair or city-barb in hope somebody spawns sometimes. My hunters venture around world to fill my empire needs of caged beasts.
So beasts and barbs are precious resource.
An obvious note should be added to counter a question which shall no-doubt arise: and what about wars? The monster hunt does incurs less losses as opponent can be singled and largely predicted by the hunters group. And keep ongoing war for sake of unit training is nonsence as warring towns are much more useful when conquered and integrated. War weariness. And diplomatic escalation like "my friend dislikes you because you war his friend, so i declare war on you!"
And thus the two most questionable parts are those:
First, why the brigands and marauders do have a towns?? Which they do place so inconveniently that most of them i sentence to destruction. Instead of ONLY handy lairs that can be kept within my borders for the hunt? And founding more LAIRS not settlements as game progresses AND improving level of existing ones like castles and cottages so it can be still one square (ah, i anticipate FfH on Civ 5 engine when there shall be hexes!) but spawn more stronger faster?
And second, why the animals afraid to cross the cultural boundary (as i did mentioned earlier in need of modifying into the ruler's domain, see Age of Wonders 2) when they are not aware what it is?
When they should be obviously unable to spawn and unwilling to prowl in an improved land?
Oh, yes, the scripting reasons...
And one technical detail in which FfH is actually better that FF: in FfH barbarians do spawn in waves.
Last thing to add: TD and DotA aspects in FfH, if properly embedded and improved, shall make those barbs a third of game and almost most exciting.
)
