February 2021 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Does anyone know how to distinguish the different barbarian clans? All well and good that they now get white city state borders if they were a barb camp before, but since the clans have different behaviours, wouldn't it be handy to be able to see to which clan they belong? The names aren't really helpful unless there is a formula I haven't spotted yet. I saw a "bent tree" on the coast, so if that's a coastal clan then the name didn't help that much. Everything fishy (ghost fish, grey shark) would hint toward a coast clan, sure, but bent tree?

There's no immediate way to tell. The names should be evocative of the clan type (your Bent Tree is a hills clan - admittedly not entirely clear, but I'm imagining rocky, scrubby hill pine), and the icon is linked to the name. There's a little system - rocks, hills, stone = hills. Storms, sky = rover or chariot. Certainly all the sea clans are named something nautical. But the Fire Ants (jungle)? The Setting Suns (hills)? There are about five clan names per clan type, so after a few games you should be able to identify them. We toyed with using historical names (Moken, Bugis, Woku at sea; Jurchen, Hun, Xiongu on horseback; Wa, Picts, Tamang in the hills), but balked at identifying even historical peoples with the category of "barbarian." The geographic/animal feature seemed to fit more with the "Carlbarian" idea rather than actually creating thirty new "mini-civs" (there is a lot involved in researching/clearing civ choices). But we still wanted to have a bit of personality, so it's not just going to be "HILL DUDES"

 

[TreVor_ish]

But we still wanted to have a bit of personality, so it's not just going to be "HILL DUDES"

But I like HILL DUDES name I guess gonna mod that one myself

 

[Vandlys]

There's no immediate way to tell. The names should be evocative of the clan type (your Bent Tree is a hills clan - admittedly not entirely clear, but I'm imagining rocky, scrubby hill pine), and the icon is linked to the name. There's a little system - rocks, hills, stone = hills. Storms, sky = rover or chariot. Certainly all the sea clans are named something nautical. But the Fire Ants (jungle)? The Setting Suns (hills)? There are about five clan names per clan type, so after a few games you should be able to identify them. We toyed with using historical names (Moken, Bugis, Woku at sea; Jurchen, Hun, Xiongu on horseback; Wa, Picts, Tamang in the hills), but balked at identifying even historical peoples with the category of "barbarian." The geographic/animal feature seemed to fit more with the "Carlbarian" idea rather than actually creating thirty new "mini-civs" (there is a lot involved in researching/clearing civ choices). But we still wanted to have a bit of personality, so it's not just going to be "HILL DUDES"

Thanks for replying, and I whole-heartedly agree with your choices. I do hope the names will become more familiar, but as always a visual distinction would have been amazing as well. Simply clicking on the banner to reveal "The Fire Ants clan of the jungle" for example, but of course even cooler would have been specific art assets : D

There's supposed to be an icon. Maybe you're using a conflicting mod?

Is the icon representative? Are you sure? I think I encountered some of the same types with different icons. Granted, I haven't played much so I could be wrong. : )

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

There's no immediate way to tell. The names should be evocative of the clan type (your Bent Tree is a hills clan - admittedly not entirely clear, but I'm imagining rocky, scrubby hill pine), and the icon is linked to the name. There's a little system - rocks, hills, stone = hills. Storms, sky = rover or chariot. Certainly all the sea clans are named something nautical. But the Fire Ants (jungle)? The Setting Suns (hills)? There are about five clan names per clan type, so after a few games you should be able to identify them. We toyed with using historical names (Moken, Bugis, Woku at sea; Jurchen, Hun, Xiongu on horseback; Wa, Picts, Tamang in the hills), but balked at identifying even historical peoples with the category of "barbarian." The geographic/animal feature seemed to fit more with the "Carlbarian" idea rather than actually creating thirty new "mini-civs" (there is a lot involved in researching/clearing civ choices). But we still wanted to have a bit of personality, so it's not just going to be "HILL DUDES"

I like this. It leaves them available for future Civilziations.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

That's fun. I just bought some dude's boat before I discovered sailing.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

That's fun. I just bought some dude's boat before I discovered sailing.

Maybe they'll teach you how to sail?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Maybe they'll teach you how to sail?

"I'll bring it back without a scratch. Promise!"

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

"I'll bring it back without a scratch. Promise!"

*Get's sunk by another Barbarian Archer*

 

[MrRadar]

That's fun. I just bought some dude's boat before I discovered sailing.

It comes complete with the able crew, courtesy of the clan's chief. When you hire a land unit from them, you don't get just the clubs after all

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

It comes complete with the able crew, courtesy of the clan's chief. When you hire a land unit from them, you don't get just the clubs after all

Mhm. Wait... If you get a Unique Unit from a Barbarian Clan that can only be accessed through a Tech you haven't discovered, could we get it so that we get the Eureka for that Tech?

 

[Nerevatar]

An interesting observation from sniffing around the XML:

Their attack forces seems to scale with difficulty:

• LowDifficultyStandardRaid (up to Chieftain)
  
• StandardRaid (Warlord - Emperor)
  
• HighDifficultyStandardRaid (Immortal - Diety)
  
• LowDifficultyStandardAttack (up to Chieftain)
  
• StandardAttack (Warlord - Emperor)
  
• HighDifficultyStandardAttack (Immortal - Diety)

There is also Naval and Cavalry versions of all of these attack forces. It seems to control the number and types of units to spawn for a "Raid" and an "Attack". It seems "Attack" are made for attacking cities, since they include siege units and a generally more powerful. HighDifficultyNavalAttack contain 4 melee ships and 5 range ships.. Ouch!

I don't know how that actually plays out in a game, but it sounds good on paper.

Other stuff of note from the XML:
This mode is very moddable, with lots of parameters exposed. Including:

How each actions affects progress to city states:

• RAID_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• HIRE_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• BRIBE_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• RANSOM_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• INCITE_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_CIV_CONVERSION_POINTS_STANDARD
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_CIV_CONVERSION_INCREMENT_CHANCE

Cost of actions:

• BRIBE_BASE_COST
• INCITE_BASE_COST
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_BRIBE_COST_PER_CITY
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_HIRE_COST_SCALAR
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_RANSOM_COST_SCALAR

The cooldown between actions:

• RAID_INTERVAL_STANDARD
• HIRE_INTERVAL_STANDARD
• BRIBE_INTERVAL_STANDARD
  
• INCITE_INTERVAL_STANDARD

Other stuff (no idea what the last two does):

• BARBARIAN_CLANS_UNIQUE_UNIT_CLAIM_INTERVAL_STANDARD
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_UNIQUE_UNIT_STRENGTH_RANGE
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_TECH_STEAL_INTERVAL_STANDARD
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_TECH_STEAL_VARIANCE_STANDARD

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

An interesting observation from sniffing around the XML:

Their attack forces seems to scale with difficulty:

• LowDifficultyStandardRaid (up to Chieftain)
  
• StandardRaid (Warlord - Emperor)
  
• HighDifficultyStandardRaid (Immortal - Diety)
  
• LowDifficultyStandardAttack (up to Chieftain)
  
• StandardAttack (Warlord - Emperor)
  
• HighDifficultyStandardAttack (Immortal - Diety)

There is also Naval and Cavalry versions of all of these attack forces. It seems to control the number and types of units to spawn for a "Raid" and an "Attack". It seems "Attack" are made for attacking cities, since they include siege units and a generally more powerful. HighDifficultyNavalAttack contain 4 melee ships and 5 range ships.. Ouch!

I don't know how that actually plays out in a game, but it sounds good on paper.

Other stuff of note from the XML:
This mode is very moddable, with lots of parameters exposed. Including:

How each actions affects progress to city states:

• RAID_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• HIRE_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• BRIBE_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• RANSOM_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• INCITE_CONVERSION_POINTS_CHANGE
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_CIV_CONVERSION_POINTS_STANDARD
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_CIV_CONVERSION_INCREMENT_CHANCE

Cost of actions:

• BRIBE_BASE_COST
• INCITE_BASE_COST
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_BRIBE_COST_PER_CITY
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_HIRE_COST_SCALAR
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_RANSOM_COST_SCALAR

The cooldown between actions:

• RAID_INTERVAL_STANDARD
• HIRE_INTERVAL_STANDARD
• BRIBE_INTERVAL_STANDARD
  
• INCITE_INTERVAL_STANDARD

Other stuff (no idea what the last two does):

• BARBARIAN_CLANS_UNIQUE_UNIT_CLAIM_INTERVAL_STANDARD
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_UNIQUE_UNIT_STRENGTH_RANGE
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_TECH_STEAL_INTERVAL_STANDARD
  
• BARBARIAN_CLANS_TECH_STEAL_VARIANCE_STANDARD

I don't understand any of this. @Zegangani, could you please translate this into English? Thanks. /s

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Is the icon representative? Are you sure? I think I encountered some of the same types with different icons. Granted, I haven't played much so I could be wrong. : )

Representative of the name, not the clan type!

 

[Nerevatar]

I don't understand any of this. @Zegangani, could you please translate this into English? Thanks.

Just skip all the stuff in CAPS The summary:

• What kind and number of units a clan uses is different, and scales with difficulty.
• Mode is very moddable (for those so inclined). This also mean we got some good tools to balance stuff *cough* tourism modifier from last mode *cough*
• We will know exactly how "everything" works - no guessing like with the tourism modifier from last mode.

 

[MrRadar]

Mhm. Wait... If you get a Unique Unit from a Barbarian Clan that can only be accessed through a Tech you haven't discovered, could we get it so that we get the Eureka for that Tech?

Eureka for that tech should come from some earlier prerequisite, but I imagine you could get some other eureka down the line. Like if you buy two barb galleys, you should get eureka for Shipbuilding while you still haven't got the first idea about Sailing. But unless you're Babylon, that won't help too much.

 

[TreVor_ish]

An interesting observation from sniffing around the XML:
This mode is very moddable, with lots of parameters exposed.

Judging from this:
MinTargetDifficulty="DIFFICULTY_IMMORTAL"
There is no MaxTargetDifficulty
We can make them even more aggressive...oh goodie

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Eureka for that tech should come from some earlier prerequisite, but I imagine you could get some other eureka down the line. Like if you buy two barb galleys, you should get eureka for Shipbuilding while you still haven't got the first idea about Sailing. But unless you're Babylon, that won't help too much.

But it would make the game more interesting without it being too gimmicky. That's what I would like to see.

Judging from this:
MinTargetDifficulty="DIFFICULTY_IMMORTAL"
There is no MaxTargetDifficulty
We can make them even more aggressive...oh goodie

You become Attila! You become Attila! Everyone becomes Attila!

 

[Nerevatar]

Judging from this:
MinTargetDifficulty="DIFFICULTY_IMMORTAL"
There is no MaxTargetDifficulty
We can make them even more aggressive...oh goodie

We could add different barbarian difficulties for each difficulties if we wanted using MinTargetDifficulty and MaxTargetDifficulty. But I am more excited for making them as strong as we want since we can define what type of units should spawn and how many of them Lets get Raging Barbarians back! To do this the following parameters should be used:

• NumMeleeUnits
• NumRangeUnits
• NumSiegeUnits
• and defining which types these should be such as CLASS_HEAVY_CAVALRY

Want a 10 Knight rush from the Barbarians? Sure, add that

 

[TreVor_ish]

Raging Barbarians from CIV V is gonna look like a walk in a park.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

What am I missing - how do you create the Leader Pools???

EDIT: I missed the two drop downs on the right hand side!