<Feature Idea> Insane Barbarians

[Medicine_Man_55]

With Fall from Heaven 2 cruising into the long-awaited polishing stages of its life cycle, I imagine that feature ideas, requests, or whatever you want to call them are about as welcome as a good case of the clap. I don't blame Kael and company if they mentally transfix me with a howitzer shell for even speaking up at this point, but I'm going to anyhow. Yay me.

One thing that occurred to me while playing FfH2 v.34, is how much I like defending my civilization against determined waves of barbarian attackers. In fact, I harbor a secret desire to play a game (or several) of FfH where this is the bulk of the challenge.

I should have my head examined. Really.

Is it possible to add another game option that gives a barbarian spawn setting *above* Raging Barbarians -- like Insane Barbarians or some-such? Well I'm sure it is possible, but what files (.C & .H) are involved?

Ideally it would be a new game option, to be used on special game maps (constructed using the map editor), that would not be mandatory if you just wanted to have a normal game. In a game with the Insane Barbarians ruleset, barbarian spawns would start like Raging Hordes and then ramp up to much more ludicrous extremes. Ideally an Insane Hordes game would also allow advanced demons and undead to spawn as barbarians in the late game as well -- all with orders to attack the cities and units of civilization.

Basically, I'm wondering how much work it would be to create a Player-vs-Environment version of FfH? I'd be happy to do the work myself (although I may need to buy programming tools), but I could use a point in the right direction.

Cheers.

 

[xienwolf]

There is a single place in the code where you could remove a number to make the Barbarians almost impossible to beat. Raging Barbarians doubles how many Barbarians are allowed to spawn in the game, but there is another place where it controls how many of the missing barbarians are allowed to spawn per turn. Kael changed this from 1/4 to 1/6 in 040, but if you remove that 6 then each turn all Barbarians which are missing will be spawned, so it will be completely impossible to reduce the amount of Barbarians on the map.

 

[EmptyWolf]

One thing that occurred to me while playing FfH2 v.34, is how much I like defending my civilization against determined waves of barbarian attackers. In fact, I harbor a secret desire to play a game (or several) of FfH where this is the bulk of the challenge.

I should have my head examined. Really.

Your head is fine, perhaps even gifted. I also have been waiting for a feature beyond raging barbs/barbarian world/wildlands, as simply having these three on still can't be a called a 'challenge'. The insane barbs setting you suggest sounds like it could be worthy as a [challenge]/trophy.

On a related note. - Why is winning a game with Barbarian World enabled a trophy, yet Raging Barbs grants no tropy? Barbarian world is by far the easier of the two (perhaps even advantageous giving free cities to take)

 

[snarko]

[selfplug]Tried my options mod? Set barbarians to EVERYWHERE and see how long you survive. Still for 0.34h, might want to wait for me to update it to 0.40.[/selfplug]

 

[Sarisin]

Or, choose a game with yourself and only civs with the Barbarian trait. You will likely be ahead in the score and should have all the barbs to your lonesome unless the bonehead AI declares war on the barbs.

I've had some intense games on raging barbs when there are two or more civs with the Barbarian trait. In FF there are more civs with that trait, so you might want to give that a try.

 

[Marnok]

[selfplugmoreshamelessthansnarko]MarnokMod http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=294785 adds lots of bards to the game - with a settings.py file so you can make it as mad as you want. Only for 0.34 at the moment.[/selfplugmoreshamelessthansnarko]

EDIT : for BARDS read BARBS

all the cool kids are calling them "bards!"

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

lots of bards? this doesn't feel very barbaric Marnok

 

[LiDDiS]

In a sort of related question: Would it be hard to make 1-3 archers with the 'held' promotion spawn in the 'barbarian world' cities at the game start? This would make them a little tougher to take so early on and feel less like free a free city.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Looks like some very interesting mods there guys. Thanks for the head's up.

It occurs to me that, in order to be a challenge, barbarians would not only have to start spawning with more advanced unit types later on, but they would also need some starting experience and weapon promotions. I guess this idea is not quite as small a job as I hoped.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I still think that Snarko needs to join up with Vehem and Xienwolf and get his options mod included in Fall Further. I liked the old version and have been meaning to try the new, but in my modmod I'll definitely need to use a lot of the abilities Xienwolf added and I don't feel up to merging SDKs together.

 

[Sarisin]

In a sort of related question: Would it be hard to make 1-3 archers with the 'held' promotion spawn in the 'barbarian world' cities at the game start? This would make them a little tougher to take so early on and feel less like free a free city.

I'm finding that the barb cities DO get archer of the Scorpion Clan variety very early in my games. As you mention, it makes them almost impossible to capture/raze. Same when they are fortified on a Goblin fort, lair, etc.

 

[EmptyWolf]

[selfplug]Tried my options mod? Set barbarians to EVERYWHERE and see how long you survive. Still for 0.34h, might want to wait for me to update it to 0.40.[/selfplug]

When I used it for FFH .34h I was very impressed by the level of customization. I still think certain options should be patched into main FFH.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I still think that Snarko needs to join up with Vehem and Xienwolf and get his options mod included in Fall Further. I liked the old version and have been meaning to try the new, but in my modmod I'll definitely need to use a lot of the abilities Xienwolf added and I don't feel up to merging SDKs together.

that would be sweet. I'd probably want a poster of the FF team to decorate my room then

@Sarisin: IIRC those scorpion clan archers actually come from the goblin forts. I've seen the barb AI move them to the cities as soon as it gets a couple normal goblins to guard the lair. which makes the goblin forts easier to get rid of and barb cities harder to raze/capture. I tend to agree that having each barbarian city start guarded a goblin archer would be good. right now they're basically just a free city.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Hm, perhaps a Raging Animals option that gives all animal barbarians the 'enraged' promotion, and removes the 'AI_ANIMAL' from them (So they'd attack cities and stuff).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'd like that. animals not entering cultural borders feels cheap.

 

[icarussc]

I still think that Snarko needs to join up with Vehem and Xienwolf and get his options mod included in Fall Further. I liked the old version and have been meaning to try the new, but in my modmod I'll definitely need to use a lot of the abilities Xienwolf added and I don't feel up to merging SDKs together.

I totally second this suggestion. I like FF, and I'd rather not have to choose which mods I want to play -- just play them all!

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Hey Marnok,

I've been reading the thread with the information regarding your mod. It appears to me that your mod does a lot of different things and has been evolving as FfH has.

Some questions:

1) Does Marnok's mod contain its features as options that may be switched on and off at the start of any scenario? (ie. you could play an unmodified game of FfH2 if you wished)

2) What does your mod allow the player to configure for barbarian spawns? Increase the rate, unit quality, experience, and promotions?

3) More lairs is mentioned too... do you get control of how the game spawns them or just the option to place them in a scenario?

I'm just curious and the thread you linked to doesn't have a comprehensive feature summary.

Cheers.

 

[Marnok]

1) Does Marnok's mod contain its features as options that may be switched on and off at the start of any scenario? (ie. you could play an unmodified game of FfH2 if you wished)

The mod is currently for 0.34, no work has been done on scenario-related matters as yet. Probably best not to use my modmod with scenarios for balance/scripting issues, just use it for general play.

2) What does your mod allow the player to configure for barbarian spawns? Increase the rate, unit quality, experience, and promotions?

• Quantity of lairs
• Chance for each plot to contain a lair
• Minimum distance between lairs
• Spawn Rate of lairs
• List of which units will spawn in a given lair type
• List of which plot improvements will be treated as explorable lairs
• Option to replace goody huts with "tribal villages"
• Controllable improvements allows "culture" around tribal villages, forts, etc

Also, a number of extra exploration results, events which place lairs or place treasure in lairs, and more.
I am working on a 0.40 update and will then expand more events/results/features.

 

[slowcar]

play a survival challenge:
3 allied AI, at least one barbaric, deity, raging barbarians, one city challenge, always war.
sidar is for starters, if you win with another civ you can start to feel you have achieved something