Immersion Breaking Barbarians.

[Sakura Matou]

Hello I am playing in the late renaissance period and I'm running into incredibly advanced barbarians that are running around with ww2 and ww1 industrial era units. Earilier when I was in medieval era barbs sent a stack of 20 musket men at my neighbor. Is there a setting in BUG that causes this? I am playing Noble with Barb civs on.

I would like the barbs to be one tech level on average below players and other AI Civs instead of at least a tech Higher. Thank you.

 

[Toffer90]

Some time ago, a bad decision was made to make barb units spawn based on the date instead of the barb tech level.
The barbs in your game is probably one era behind and can not train those advanced units in their cities, but the date makes advanced barb units spawn on the map.
It is something we intend to change one way or another so that it makes sense again.

You can tune down barbarian spawn to 0 in an XML file. I think barb cities will still spawn.
BARBARIAN_SPAWN_MODIFIER in Mods\Caveman2Cosmos\Assets\XML=A_New_Dawn_GlobalDefines.xml

It won\t affect Neanderthal or animal map spawn.

 

[Sakura Matou]

Ouch ok..

So if the Game got into the 2000s ((game date)) for example they will spawn tanks and such just can not build them? Kinda scary given the current time progression in game haha. So would my current save be ok if I was to change the XML?

Either way thank you Toffer for the reply.

 

[Toffer90]

So would my current save be ok if I was to change the XML?

Completely safe to change mid game.

 

[Rmi]

Happens to me all the time too.
First a stack of heavy swordsman power 13 when i have power 8 horses at best.
Then a stack of 20 musketmen spawn at my neighbours doorstep, never my own though. I had to deal with them with knights and heroes.
They are absolutely devastating to the AI, I've seen them whipe out big civs, but i've also seen them just take a fort and make it a cozy home.
To me it seemed tech based or score based or something. They spawned at about 4500bc and 3000bc i believe.

As for OP barbarians, some ships pop up way ahead of tech level too. East indiaman when i just got sloops. When grabbing late goodie islands this can also spawn a whole fleet of way above tech lvl ships.

In all these cases i am always tech leader and at least an era or most of one ahead of the next civ. These barbs annihilate AI civs and would prove a big threat (though eventually manageble) to the player.
The mechanic seems exciting as it keeps you on your toes, but against the AI if you are ahead it is devastating. I have no idea when they would spawn and on whoms doorstep for the deity/nightmare players.

As for changing the code and settings. In game it's faster to just go to the world editor and delete the stack of musketmen if they warp the game too much. If i'm investing weeks (if not months) into 1 game, i don't mind playing god sometimes to help out and keep things fair. Some sulphur or copper for your neighbour keeps you honest

 

[Thunderbrd]

I wouldn't say it was a BAD decision, so much as a temporary one which worked at the time because we were REALLY on target with dates (although various game options will always throw it off somehow.) It's on the shortlist of things to address to change it to base it on leading tech player rather than date. Just been a matter of time to address the project.

 

[Rmi]

Leading tech player seems perfect to me. Might give some deserved risk to bee-lining too.

 

[stoferb]

I don't quite understand what dates they are based on. Because in my current game Heavy Swordsmen spawned, now it's not a particular problem for me because I can actually handle them quite easily because I'm quite ahead in tech and troops myself, but it's 500 BC and heavy swordsmen is a mideval unit. Well, I'm in the middle ages myself so as I said it's not a problem for me but if you go by date you do know that the middle ages started around 500 AD? They seem to be a 1000 years too early if you go by date.

 

[Rmi]

Stoferb, Are you playing with the SVN version, and if so is it updated?
The general timeline problems have been reduced a lot by the 'cost adjustment' project.

 

[stoferb]

No, I play the latest official version. Maybe I should try the latest SVN is it very different?

 

[Toffer90]

Heavy swordsman spawns between 1000-1500 AD.
If barbs have the tech needed before the year 1000 AD they will be able to train Heavy Swordsman before 1000 AD.

 

[Thunderbrd]

There are also numerous events that create barbarians that may be another source of getting them into the game entirely.

 

[Raven Destroyer]

for me Tech Leader would still mean the AI would suffer Pre-Writing, but probably would still be a better thing then by Date, also It kinda sucks that it takes so long for barbs to Develop their cities,
I've been eyeing a Neanderthal city for quite a while now, still only has it's initial tile, and 1 pop,

 

[Thunderbrd]

I've been eyeing a Neanderthal city for quite a while now, still only has it's initial tile, and 1 pop,

There are a number of ways we could address this, from autobuildings to trait tags.

 

[JosEPh_II]

for me Tech Leader would still mean the AI would suffer Pre-Writing, but probably would still be a better thing then by Date, also It kinda sucks that it takes so long for barbs to Develop their cities,
I've been eyeing a Neanderthal city for quite a while now, still only has it's initial tile, and 1 pop,

Neanderthal cities were never meant to progress in tech or past Ancient era. The 1 tile city is because we've discussed but never given the Neanderthal NPC the building Community Discussions Or a Culture that slowly builds Culture points so that next ring of tiles would pop. Even with a Culture boost the neander city will still grow slowly as it's an off shoot of the Barb AI.

 

[Rmi]

Speaking off neandertal cities...

Last week i decided to finally clear a small island for my new settlement and i had to get rid of about 150 neanderthal warriors in 1 small city.
I absolutely loved my near infinite supply of slaves, but i am kinda worried about CPU performance and stuff like that.
That wasn't the only neanderthal city i didn't bother for millennia...

If the cpu is all fine with 600 units that are basically idle it's all fine with me, otherwise we might have a look and curb their enthusiastic breeding at a certain point.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Speaking off neandertal cities...

Last week i decided to finally clear a small island for my new settlement and i had to get rid of about 150 neanderthal warriors in 1 small city.
I absolutely loved my near infinite supply of slaves, but i am kinda worried about CPU performance and stuff like that.
That wasn't the only neanderthal city i didn't bother for millennia...

If the cpu is all fine with 600 units that are basically idle it's all fine with me, otherwise we might have a look and curb their enthusiastic breeding at a certain point.

They're still doing that huh? Yeah that's problematic and has been an issue in games I've looked at before. Was hoping a few things had changed there but apparently it's going to have to be addressed in the AI as much as anywhere else. Grr...

 

[Raven Destroyer]

Well, funnily enough I do own a Captured Neanderthal City that Had 2 pop and it's initial ring around the city, I've noticed that the Neanderthal focusses on a few of it's cities, while practically leaving others, example, the city I captured had like 10 units in it, but the two next door (Including the one I want to capture saves me a settler), had combined less, so I'd guess Somewhere what you did to change it worked, in a quirky way that wasn't intended, I'll go boot up the game and check in world edit the various Neanderthal cities and report back

Okay, just checked, and It's interesting, the Reason the Neanderthal and Barbarian cities don't grow beyond 1 pop, and some Do is all to do with how much Food it can produce before it switches to building Units, so Probably the best way to fix the overbuilding of units would be to program the AI to build Culture or something else then units, because Food is getting used to build units, so Some cities grow while others are stagnant, in the end it's just Location that defines things, and the amount of soldiers is just tied to how much turns it takes for 1 unit
but bottom line, Neanderthals Can't grow above max 2 because all their food goes to units,

I am unsure about Barbarians, because my game isn't that far, all AI don't possess Writing and I'm about to get to the Third age, Sorry forgot to note the exact date, but it's around 5000 BC towards AD

 

[Legionary119]

I remember a game I was playing on v37 before I moved onto SVN, I was on snail speed but it was already 1000AD or so by the time I even got close to the medieval age. One Barb city I had decided to clear out not only had marines in it but it also had infantry. I had to swarm the city, sacrificing at least nine units before I killed both and destroyed the more primitive barbs in the city.

Also I had Revolutions on and by the time I had explored the rest of the world it was slowly grinding away to nothing due to rebels spawning with musketeers while the AI only had composite bowman.

 

[Sakura Matou]

Not to nit pick but are these Barb high tech doom stacks ever going to be removed? Toffer's fix sadly no longer works as I killed 20 musket men in a stack and 14 more spawn around the same area 20 turns later to destroy my AI neighbor.