GEM: Civilized Barbarians Proposal

[glider1]

Basically the idea is really simple. Modify barbarians in GEM to lesson any chance of the AI not being able to expand and peacefully improve:

1. Barbarians are "civilized" in the sense that they prefer not to hunt and kill settlers and workers
2. Instead, they like to pillage and kill combat units
3. However, they still cannot resist capturing civilians, if that civilian get's in their way or there is nothing else for the barbarian to do.

The benefits of this are many:

1. The AI expands as intended
2. The AI doesn't loose it's workers nearly as much considering it is almost incompetent at protecting them.
3. Humans can move their civilians without protecting them and thus reduce the tedium, but there is still a risk involved.
4. Barb camps still might contain a captured civilian, so the mechanism is still there.

The drawback is:

1. Because of 1UPT, people can park undefended settlers on their favourite spot as an insurance policy until they are ready to settle. It is a possible exploit.

My personal beefs with barbarians in general:

1. Their behavior is too repetitive but at vanilla quantities, they add a bit of "spice" to the game. However if their numbers are increased too much, it becomes a repetitive click fest and the AI civs are impeded when trying to march it's armies into battle or sail it's fleet for amphibious assault.

We must not spam the AI's short attention span!

Here is the link to the stupidly named prototype version of "civilized barbarians" which is called "Resolution Mod" which was actually intended to be a really cool intercity-4 concept (ICS-4) which I never finished but works well anyway (Civilized Barbarians are essential on ICS-4 because the AI has to move it's civilians over greater distances which makes them even more vulnerable)

Post:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11684223&postcount=44

Cheers

 

[Ahriman]

In other words they are "nicer" to civilians but still have basic barbarian instincts. This is probably more realistic! After all, do you really think that barbarians from ancient time were actually barbarian?

Take out this bit, and I'm sold.
"Barbarians" were much like everyone else; they raped, pillaged, murdered, and enslaved. I don't think there is a realism argument here at all. For thousands of years, "barbarian" raiders have looked for soft targets to enslave, have had hit and run attacks that try to avoid confronting the military of civilized (in the sense of urban-centered) foes. They aren't deliberately seeking out combat, and they don't have some kind of ahistoric-chivalric preference to not harm civilians.

But there are good gameplay reasons to do this.

I don't see that the mentioned drawback is significant. It is rare that you would want to leave a settler around for a while - almost always, the best strategy is to settle as quickly as possible, so that city can start building and growing.

The downside I see is a major reduction in CS-assistance quests, and thus a minor weakning in an Honor-led anti-barbarian early game. But I think this can be tolerated in order to get benefits 1 and 2. I don't think 3. and 4. are benefits.

 

[glider1]

Take out this bit, and I'm sold.

Done.
Cheers

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

4. the bonus you get from giving back workers to others could be increased, since it's going to happen less often.

 

[mitsho]

I guess I really have to try this out then, seems pointless to judge without. I'm especially curious how true point 3 on your first list is, i.e. how often it does still happen (and how often it does happen when applied together with Thal's other AI enhancements).

But yes, pillaging > capturing civilians sounds good.

 

[glider1]

What tends to happen is that I'll send a settler out un-escorted. If it's through forest or across a river, a settler will by accident move adjacent to a barb. Next turn, because of various probabilities like a terrain choke point, the barb captures the settler anyway. Doesn't happen that often but it still is a chance. So it's a judgement call as to whether to leave them un-escorted or not. It depends on how great the barb spawn rate is (which can be easily changed).

Cheers

EDIT: Germany is a great civ to test this on. What I found is that on ICS-4/Emperor, there are just enough barbs to create a tension to pick between between offense and defense in the ancient age using a recruited barbarian army.

 

[rhammer640]

Maybe it would be better to test this seperate from the ics 4 concept. That mod you posted changes both if i remember correctly and it would be nice to get people opinions of just the barbarian aspect.

Glider1, any way you could post it that way?

I will put my vote behind incorporating this as i have tested it and its a huge benefit to the ai as i have stated elsewhere.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

there you go, this includes only the barb tweak.

@glider1: I removed the 2 values that were identical to vanilla, is there some use for having those included? ( BARBARIAN_CAMP_ODDS_OF_NEW_CAMP_SPAWNING and MAX_BARBARIANS_FROM_CAMP_NEARBY )

 

[Zaldron]

First, let me point out that in G&K the AI already seems far far better. I've seen a total of 2 captured workers in all the G&K games I've played. Given this, I'm not sure there's a problem to be solved.

If however we decide there is such a problem then I'm game to give this approach a try. I'd have to see it in action, but the principle of preferring pillaging and attacking units (especially if it stops warriors from idling next to my archer but instead makes them attack).

All that said I am *strongly* against forcing ICS-4 into GEM along with this change. It already takes me a week to finish standard size games and if I have to move up to large/epic to support ICS-4 I could be playing a game for a month before I finish it.

 

[rhammer640]

First, let me point out that in G&K the AI already seems far far better. I've seen a total of 2 captured workers in all the G&K games I've played. Given this, I'm not sure there's a problem to be solved.

If however we decide there is such a problem then I'm game to give this approach a try. I'd have to see it in action, but the principle of preferring pillaging and attacking units (especially if it stops warriors from idling next to my archer but instead makes them attack).

All that said I am *strongly* against forcing ICS-4 into GEM along with this change. It already takes me a week to finish standard size games and if I have to move up to large/epic to support ICS-4 I could be playing a game for a month before I finish it.

The AI may not be as much of an issue but I have tested the mod and the AI settles significantly earlier which has a snowballing effect on their ability to compete. It is especially noticeable for civs with a lot of open area around them (near tundra/snow, etc) as there are more barbarians. In this situation there is a huge change from what i have seen.

As far as ICS-4 i agree it could easily be a modmod and doesn't need to be in the main game, although i personally play with it and enjoy it.

 

[glider1]

Thanks Gekko for posting the default intercity spacing version. If the other values are identical then they can be removed. Yes ICS-4 is basically about long "epic" expansive, immersive games trying to help the AI at the same time and also to reduce the city count on larger maps. So ICS-4 is not necessary at all.
Cheers

 

[Lazaroth]

In one game the AI continuously moved settlers right next to a barb camp, so they got captured. It probably lost 7-8 settlers overall.

The weird thing was that it sent them alone in this particular game. Usually in G&K, they send them with defence.

 

[glider1]

Wow. What you have found there Lazaroth, is the bug at it's absolute worst and I think it is the answer to why sometimes civs don't expand. I think I remember Thal saying that what he used to do for GOTVEM was put the barb camps in places where the AI would never send settlers.

One thing for sure, this little test mod won't have caused that. The AI is unaware of these little changes to barbarian behavior.

Cheers

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

since VEM - Armies includes the Barbarians! mod ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10147501 )
which also tweaks barb behaviour, here's a small mod that merges Barbarians! tweaks with glider1's. should be a nice preview of future GEM barb behaviour.

 

[rhammer640]

nice work gekko! I will def be using that with my next game onces betav4 comes out. I cant wait until all of vem is ported over, there are so many awesome things not yet in GEM, cant wait!

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

let me know how it works for you, I'm going to test it now with beta3

edit: for clarity, this includes Barbarians are tough! and most of Barbarians are strong! from the thread I've linked, not ALL of the mod's content.

 

[glider1]

Gekko just a couple of points from the perspective of bugs that are in the base game. I like how you've increased the distance between the camp and city to try and minimise settlers walking into camps like drunken fools. However you've decreased the inter-camp spacing which means that settlers will *possibly* get trapped between camps.

The other thing to keep an eye out is that in VEM, pikemen barbs stopped pillaging. I don't know why and it was not good. Since I doubt anything has changed in the base game, I'd watch out for any particular setting that might interfere with the barbarian's pillaging priorities. Not sure yet which extra settings in your upload might do that.

Another thing, can anyone find a way to stop the annoying pain regarding naval barbarians that become obsessed and will sit off the shore line and hammer the same unit that is fortified on the coast, over and over and over again, achieving nothing but improving the experience of said land unit? In theory, barbs should be trying to kill these units, and if not, then they should move on to pillage fishing fleets or block trade routes or sink naval vessels etc.

Cheers

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

well, camp interspacing 4 is what barbarians! and therefore VEM uses, it doesn't seem to cause any issues

not sure if barb pikemen are from vanilla or barbarians!, but this small mod does not include the part of barbarians! that adds more barb units anyway.

it does increase barbarians pillaging, you put it at 13 while barbarians! puts it at 16 ( it doubles that and two values relative to attacking cities compared to vanilla ) so I don't see how it would cause a specific unit to stop pillaging ...

 

[glider1]

Oh right. Sounds great will try it next game. There is probably a bug in the code where the AI doesn't check for barb camps when settlers move, on the assumption that the settler is being escorted but it isn't. Can't wait to see the code and fix it!

Cheers

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

glider1 could you help improve this small mod?

there's a couple changes from barbarians! I wasn't sure how to mod in but I'm pretty sure you could do that

it should be easy to check that mod and add these to the one I uploaded earlier:

"Barbarian/City State priority to build Naval and Ranged units reduced"

this would go in the leaders file I guess but I don't know how

UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 2 WHERE LeaderType = "LEADER_BARBARIAN" AND FlavorType = "FLAVOR_RANGED"; -- 5
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 2 WHERE LeaderType = "LEADER_BARBARIAN" AND FlavorType = "FLAVOR_NAVAL"; -- 5
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 2 WHERE LeaderType = "LEADER_BARBARIAN" AND FlavorType = "FLAVOR_NAVAL_RECON"; -- 5

"Barbarian Encampment: +25% Defense"

I actually added this to my own copy of GEM v3 beta but it'd be better to have it in the mod:

UPDATE Improvements SET DefenseModifier = 25 WHERE Type = "IMPROVEMENT_BARBARIAN_CAMP";

it's also possible that you would know how to easily add:

- Default Combat Bonus vs Barbarians removed on every difficulty grade (75-0%, AI: 45-60%)
- Barbarian units received "Berserker": Restores 5 Hit Points if defeats a unit. Restores 1 Less Hit Point per turn
- Availability of Barbarian units delayed to one technology tier later