GEM: Barbarians

[Thalassicus]

Once you have a chance to try Gem v1.7 (or later), how do you feel about the status of barbarians? The goal is more challenging and rewarding barbarian combat. They are stronger and more numerous, but killing them gives up to 3 levels (was 2), more gold from clearing camps, and more Honor culture.

Details are here: communitas.wikia.com/wiki/Gem#Barbarians

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

this sure brought back a lot of fun to the early game! really enjoyable, challenging but not overdone. me likey.

 

[Hawawaa]

Also loving the early game challenge. Honor tree looks a lot better too. Keep up the great work!

 

[jwerano]

I finally enjoy it when barbarians appear on the map before the bonus was so small that it just irritated me whenever a camp appeared near my territory.

 

[Skobrin]

I do think that the reward for capturing barbarian camps should be higher than the default, but 150 seems a bit much.

 

[jwerano]

Maybe it should depend on the era. I feel that whether or not 150 is too much depends on whether you are in classical or in renaissance. By renaissance barbarians are much more rare due to the world being more populated and also the value of that 150 gold diminishes greatly with with rising building and troop costs.

 

[Thalassicus]

The camp-clearing reward is 100 on normal speed. I suspect Skobrin plays on Epic speed.

 

[Hawawaa]

Actually I have an idea you could add, you know that military city states can give you unique units. Sometimes certain barb camps can pop out unique units too if they are left alone long enough. Wouldn't that be fun to deal with.

 

[Dunkah]

I also like the Barbarian strengths now. Last game I was unprepared and they really gave me a run for my money. Had three camps around me in a triangle formation. Finally got a couple of warriors out to slap them, but as soon as I destroyed one camp it respawned almost as close again.

I got the Promotion that allows you to attack twice as a Warrior. Didn't seem to work though. Not sure if that was movement related or not, seemed to only work intermttently. Places where I had two movement points and was on flat ground I still only attacked once. But other times I could attack twice. Strange.

Any chance of adding the Animals mod to this one?

 

[Gorhaax]

Actually I have an idea you could add, you know that military city states can give you unique units. Sometimes certain barb camps can pop out unique units too if they are left alone long enough. Wouldn't that be fun to deal with.

Thats sound like a great idea, tough not sure how the AI would fare with it.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Dunkah
Could you link to the Animals mod?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I guess he's thinking of this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=469676

 

[Dunkah]

Yes that was it. Thanks Gekko!

 

[Ahriman]

Can we please please please not have wild animals?

Even a single warrior unit is still representing a large warband. It feels really, really ridiculous for wild animals to pose any threat to that.

Animal were one of the weakest things in Civ4 IMO. Wild animals never posed any threat to civilization (except through, say, locust swarms).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well just as a unit of warriors is a warband, a unit of wolves is a pack. wouldn't a wolfpack give a bunch of guys with clubs a run for their money?

also you can make them unable to enter cultural boundaries, that way they are not really a threat to civilization but just a nuisance in the wilderness early on.

 

[Ahriman]

wouldn't a wolfpack give a bunch of guys with clubs a run for their money?

No. A pack of wolves would never attack a large group of adults. Wolves were annoying because they would kill livestock, not because they would attack people.

And most predators don't hunt in large packs.

Having animals as predators threatening military untis is unnecessary and is ahistoric nonsense.

Exploring Scouts are already threatened by barbarians, because barbarians are willing to leave their village tiles. There is just no need to further penalize very early exploration.
And as I think we've concluded before, making lone settlers/workers more vulnerable to barbarian-type units (including animals) is terrible for the AI. We deliberately tried to get barbarians to focus on pillaging improvements rather than attacking civilian units.

So either animals attack military units, which is absurd, or they attack civilian units, which is undesirable, or they move into cultural borders and pillage, which is also absurd.
If they do none of these, then what is the point of adding them?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

you could have them ignore civilians like barbs do. they'd just add some more variety to the early game as barbs without camps.

 

[mystikx21]

XP apparently.

I didn't like them either in Civ4. It would have been fine to have some relatively static camps of barbarians or a set date for barbarians to begin attacking and pillaging cities.

From reading the thread, there might be a funny scenario mod mod involving zombies. But that's about as much interest as I have either.

 

[Ahriman]

you could have them ignore civilians like barbs do. they'd just add some more variety to the early game as barbs without camps.

So they're just like barbarians, except that they can't pillage, and don't make historic sense?

That doesn't seem like valuable variety to me.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yeah it's just some added flavour. honestly the only real issue I have with it is that graphics look pretty bad right now