How would you upgrade barbarians?

[Takhisis]

The proposal for future civ games is simply to have some sort of ‘unit line’ arrangement.

It'd be interesting if some civs could just switch between nomadism and sedentarism and whether barbarians could just settle in from the cold.

 

[vorlon_mi]

The Civ3 barbs are simple; aggressive, destructive, an obstacle to the human player or AI on their way to victory. For other games in the franchise, the developers have added new traits. In Civ4, I've seen barbs take over cities, make lots of units, and become a more difficult obstacle for the human player. Both Civ5 and Civ6 introduced city-states: small, single-city sendentary minor entities who are not trying to win the game. They can be interacted with, traded with, enlisted to help in wars. In Civ6 (I've stopped playing Civ5, so I can't say for certain), the city-states do have a technology path and improve their units. In the Civ6 base game, both human-led and AI-led major civs can pay a city-state to command their troops as a supplement to one's own in a war; the in-game term is "levy" their army, for 30 turns.
An optional Civ6 game mode is called "Barbarian Clans", where the player has even more options than simply killing the barb units and clearing their camp. One can buy a unit from a clan, or bribe them to be less aggressive or to harrass a neighbor.

Some of the ideas we mentioned here are already being tested.

 

[Takhisis]

Ah, yes. As I said, I'm waiting for Steam to de-brick itself so that I can play Civ6 and see what ideas to pilfer from it.

Civ3 already has one-city challenges so one-city civs should be viable. I sometimes think there should be scenarios where the player only has one city to face a bigger, multi-city empire and/or strengthened barbarians.

 

[Civinator]

Takhisis, as posted, you can test the new Barbarian options for C3C in the Flintlock mod. It would be interesting to have here some more observations. I will do this myself, too, but at present, to finish the next version of CCM, for me has the priority.

You don´t need the bad (spoiled labels text) steam version of Civ 3 Complete. At present the Civ 3 Complete version of GOG is in the Chinese New Year Sale at GOG available for only € 1,29 - and to invest for Civ 6 (and its ... graphics) in my eyes is lost money, as in my eyes decisive is, what can be done with Civ 3.

 

[Takhisis]

I think you're misunderstanding me. Civ6 is a game I already have on Steam as a gift from a friend. It runs on Linux.

Civ3 I have on disc and, as posted, it doesn't run on Linux, at least not natively. I'm unable to even run Flintlock's mod as things currently stand.

 

[Fergei]

There are some excellent ideas sprinkled around the forum about barbarians, but it sounds like there are significant limitations with the editor (especially around when the advanced barbarian unit appears).

Barbarians have come to the top of my list of things I want to meddle with. With all my tinkering of settings (including auto-settlers, more early game units and around 66% more Civs on the same landmass) I've had the unintended and undesirable (for me) consequence of my beloved raging barbarians being regularly smothered in their infancy. The AI simply produces so many hunting parties the barbarians do not stand a chance even though land is settled much more slowly (which I thought would massively enhance barbarian power). Having viewed various threads (aren't forums great), I think the main issue was my complete ignorance that the AI, on all difficulties, gets a 200% combat bonus against barbarians (compared to say just 25% bonus for humans on Emperor) https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/does-the-ai-get-a-barbarian-combat-bonus.650911/.

I shall keep more of the creative examples others have tried in my back pocket to revisit if I have no success. But for now I'm going to start off simple. I view the very early game (first half of ancient era) as us all being barbaric and trying to rise out of the primordial soup to establish a secure empire of sorts. I think of turn 1 as the Civs and barbarian camps on a level playing field, but the Civs have the leaders with the ambition and ability to emerge from the dark ages (rather than steal cattle or act as mercenaries). So I would quite happily have a game where barbarians snuff out one or two Civs from existence or at the very least, destroy a few cities so there is more fog of war and therefore greater creation of barbarian camps. I also want anyone colonising an 'unoccupied' landmass to quickly learn the landmass was occupied all along and face devilish locals on camps created after a settlement is build on the landmass.

Also, my focus for barbs is up to mid-medieval era only. I also think a good way to test is to go waaaaaaaay further than you think you should and then dial it back a bit. And finally, I don't want the AI to have a major advantage compared to the player when it comes to barbarians (although I do want the AI to have some advantage as they struggle with being smothered by barbarians, e.g. hiding settlers and workers in cities for far longer than is required).

Sooo, based on some extremely rough calculations based on the assessment that the AI gets a 200% combat bonus against barbarians I will:

1) give the human a minimum of 100% combat bonus against barbarians on all difficulty settings
2) massively level up the barbarian spawns to Legionary (standard), Crusaders (advanced).

I wanted something more powerful than a Crusader but if I have barbarians with guns appearing in the mid to late ancient era that would be beyond comical in terms of immersion. I can see myself having to create barbarian specific units with enhanced attack and defence stats to overcome the AI combat bonus.

I think this will be a very fun and possibly disasterous test game!

 

[WildWeazel]

I agree with that sentiment. I've always thought barbs should be your first rival and opposing force to the expansion phase. Years ago I tried meddling with the settings to counter expansion and I believe gave them Numidian mercs and ancient cavalry. There are plenty of appropriate unit graphics though. No reason to limit them to standard units.

 

[Fergei]

I was thinking of Numidean Mercs (almost unaffiliated 'barbarians' already) and Ancient Cavalry (although I'm worried about combining enhanced barbs with two movement points). They are likely my next combination if this combination proves just a little too tough. Once I have my settings to my liking I think pinching other people's custom unit graphics is next on my list.

I'm off to a great start *gulps*. Prioritisting barracks, walls, chariots & archers is a novel change. I wonder how quickly the barbs gain their promotions. I'm not convinced I'll be able to connect my cities by road before I lose although the barbs seem strangely reticent to attack and pillage.

The AI have all got the same number of cities as me (auto-settler every 20 turns), so at least they aren't just hiding in their capital and unable to expand. Current death total of barbarians that I've seen is... er, zero!

 

[WildWeazel]

Btw, Flintlock just confirmed he's going to look into allowing barbs to capture and enslave units. That would open up some new paths.

 

[Takhisis]

Years ago I tried meddling with the settings to counter expansion and I believe gave them Numidian mercs and ancient cavalry.

You monster, I could kiss you.

 

[WildWeazel]

Pucker up! https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/slower-expansion.8131/

 

[Fergei]

The AI handles defence of 3 barbs no problem, straight away. Harrumph!
Then it shall be defence of 4!

Also, the advanced barbarian unit appears very, very early. Answers on a postcard.

 

[Fergei]

So to keep things simple I made by barbarian bonus for the human 200% "as well" as the AI. However, having seen this in action I am pretty much certain the AI gets more than 200% or that their bonus somehow scales in response to the barbarians attack/defence scores. So I think the editor description is wrong in saying the figure applies to both human and AI. For example, do people notice the AI struggling more against barbarians on Deity or Sid compared to Monarchy? I suspect not.

I made barbarian units of 9/6/2 and 12/9/1, which taking away the AI and I's 200% bonus (equal to 3x my stats) translates as 3/2/2 (like Ancient Cavalry) and 4/3/1 (like a Knight with 1 movement). The AI was still smacking these about with archers, barely losing any units. The AI even survived the Barbarian Hordes at the start of the Medieval era. Whereas I was having an experience consistent with the strength of the units and losing my fair share of swordsmen and spearmen.

I shall test my paranoia by making the human player's barbarian combat bonus 900% (giving my stats 10x their original value if my online calculator is working and the bonus is added on top of my initial stats). Then I'll make the barbarians have stats of 30/20/2 and 40/30/1. Then we'll see what happens!

Overall I was very happy that myself and the AI were sending out doomstacks to tackle a barbarian hut and it was certainly slowing things down. So I'm on the right path for my personal preferences.

Two questions though,

1) do barbarians ever raze a city with the default settings? If not, is there a way I can give them that option?
2) do barbarians promote? I know I can adjust their health but I'd prefer if they just promoted like Civ units do. I could have sworn they promoted but that simply wasn't happening in my game just now.

 

[Fergei]

Okay, I've just seen AI Carthage have its Numidean mercs being slaughtered by my barbs and barb camps being impervious to assault for dozens of turns. So I was somehow being completely paranoid. I cannot explain the AI's success in the previous game. It was a sample size of many dozens of barbarian attacks on the AI and some very good AI success for all AI Civs, far more so than my human player experience.

So I will just remove the combat bonus and make barbarian units with 3/2/2 (with 3 health points) and a 4/3/1 (again with 3 health points).