Jeff Yu
Prince
If another expansion pack gets made, a new gameplay addition I would really like to see would be more advanced barbarians. I mean, in the beginning, they're pretty scary, with their horseman and warrior hordes, but by the time you get Knights and Pikemen, their threat is over. I think that barbarians should advance in tech over time, though at a rate slower than that of other players, so that they can eventually get Swordsman, Knights, Pikemen, Medieval Warriors, etc. but not more advanced than Guerilla. They should always be behind players, but able to produce large numbers. (Some people have discussed that maybe in modern times, barbarians could be terrorists beyond the control of any country, but that's a whole different debate)
This time, when people get attacked by Privateers, they won't know whether it's barbarian privateers, or privateers created by another player
Barbarians should be a real threat, not just a nuisance. The Roman, Byzantine, and Chinese empires certainly had enough trouble with barbarians all throughout their histories. Even in 18-19th century America, the US had trouble subjugating the native tribes.
I got the ideas for more advanced barbarians because I was playing Teturkhan's excellent Test of Time mod, which features indiginous tribes placed at their right locations on the world map, barbarian settlers, barbarian workers you could capture, and even barbarian pirate ships roaming the seas.
When playing that mod, the sea wasn't safe for hundreds of years because of those pirate ships, and some of those barbarian leaders, like the Sitting Bull clan chief (6,6,1, +23 hit points), were quite formidable, but being able to capture free workers was a great reward, and sometimes I spent huge amounts of military forces trying to disperse barbarians to capture a stack of 15 barbarian workers. It added a lot to the gameplay. Why not make it a regular feature in the game?
While we're at it, why not let the barbarians have their own cities, too? Barbarian cities that are left alone long enough, say, 500 years, could eventually turn into barbarian cities.
I am NOT advocating turning the barbarians into a new civilization. I'm saying barbarians should have cities. These cities could never gain any culture (and thus would always have only small borders and easily culture flip to players), because barbarians are "uncultured" and never grow beyond size 6 or build improvements, because they have primitive technology, but can produce workers, settlers, and military units. Instead of having a name, it should be called Apache settlement, or Goth village, or something like that, and you could rename it after you captured it.
They would still not be a civilization because:
-You can't negotiate or go into diplomacy with them.
-They have no culture or improvements.
-Anyone can attack them and capture the city, because anyone can attack barbarians.
-When you raze a barbarian city, you would have the choice of getting gold instead, and it would lower your reputation, because you're not razing another civ's city
In my opinion, being able to capture a size 1 to 6 city for dispersing a huge horde of barbarians is a much better reward than the stupid 25 gold you get from dispersing an encampment.
Of course, there's also the risk of having your city captured by barbarians and having improvements and population destroyed, but I say it's part of the fun, having to worry about barbarians.
This time, when people get attacked by Privateers, they won't know whether it's barbarian privateers, or privateers created by another player
Barbarians should be a real threat, not just a nuisance. The Roman, Byzantine, and Chinese empires certainly had enough trouble with barbarians all throughout their histories. Even in 18-19th century America, the US had trouble subjugating the native tribes.
I got the ideas for more advanced barbarians because I was playing Teturkhan's excellent Test of Time mod, which features indiginous tribes placed at their right locations on the world map, barbarian settlers, barbarian workers you could capture, and even barbarian pirate ships roaming the seas.
When playing that mod, the sea wasn't safe for hundreds of years because of those pirate ships, and some of those barbarian leaders, like the Sitting Bull clan chief (6,6,1, +23 hit points), were quite formidable, but being able to capture free workers was a great reward, and sometimes I spent huge amounts of military forces trying to disperse barbarians to capture a stack of 15 barbarian workers. It added a lot to the gameplay. Why not make it a regular feature in the game?
While we're at it, why not let the barbarians have their own cities, too? Barbarian cities that are left alone long enough, say, 500 years, could eventually turn into barbarian cities.
I am NOT advocating turning the barbarians into a new civilization. I'm saying barbarians should have cities. These cities could never gain any culture (and thus would always have only small borders and easily culture flip to players), because barbarians are "uncultured" and never grow beyond size 6 or build improvements, because they have primitive technology, but can produce workers, settlers, and military units. Instead of having a name, it should be called Apache settlement, or Goth village, or something like that, and you could rename it after you captured it.
They would still not be a civilization because:
-You can't negotiate or go into diplomacy with them.
-They have no culture or improvements.
-Anyone can attack them and capture the city, because anyone can attack barbarians.
-When you raze a barbarian city, you would have the choice of getting gold instead, and it would lower your reputation, because you're not razing another civ's city
In my opinion, being able to capture a size 1 to 6 city for dispersing a huge horde of barbarians is a much better reward than the stupid 25 gold you get from dispersing an encampment.
Of course, there's also the risk of having your city captured by barbarians and having improvements and population destroyed, but I say it's part of the fun, having to worry about barbarians.
The spot would be surrounded with defensive units: That would be useful cos you will get unlimited amount of elites.
