Paying barbarians/pirates/mercenaries to attack another AI/player

[Delar]

The idea for barbarian/pirate/mercenary raiders came from playing Sins of a Solar Empire.

Pirates/Barbarians/Mercenaries are an independent faction present in every match unless specified otherwise in the map creator. Pirates can be used to attack an opposing player via a bounty system, though gold paid which cannot be reclaimed once added to the bounty. The other AI/players can do this as well. Placing bounties is completely anonymous.

Piracy is a constant problem in the world's history with raids taking place on a regular basis by the unscrupulous. Those who take part in piracy don‘t care who they attack as they have no political views on the subject. They go where the money is, which is determined in part by Bounty.

Bounty is essentially an anonymous way for civilizations to attack one another. By placing Bounty against another civilization, you‘re placing a reward for any unit, pillaged tile or city which is destroyed by the Pirates. Bounty is collected in this way until it is exhausted. This is a key method of getting others to do your dirty work for you, or to secretly wipe out allies.

Pirate missions allow a civilization to "hire" mercenaries with no diplomatic ties to worry about. Pirates will only work for those able to meet their price - and accept gold for payment. To hire Pirates, you would specify which civilization to target and how much gold you wish to place as a bounty. Pirates will always accept and carry out your mission if you can meet their price.

 

[Circlet the Zen]

I like the idea of more diplomatic options, and this seems like one that would fit in well. Perhaps through espionage, spies can uncover who is paying off barbarians to attack themselves or another player.

Furthermore, barbarians can enter enemy territory without necessity of an Open Borders allowance, giving you vision of your enemies if you pay them to raze something or the other. This could be a great way to keep your allies in check. I also imagine an enemy fleet sailing towards my lands and hiring pirates to soften them up. The barbarians could be payed off to capture enemy Settlers or Great Prophets infiltrating your territory without starting a war.

This could be used far too easily to make barbarians into weak allies rather than opponents, and they should be opponents. A barbarian enters your land and you have no military unit to stop it from razing that plantation? Just pay it off, problem solved. To prevent this, there should be major risks in paying off barbarians. For example: if another nation pays the barbarian more than you did, they will reveal that it was you who hired them. You need a certain technology (Guilds?) before you can hire barbarians.

All in all, I like this idea.

 

[Deggial]

The idea itself is not new (however modified in this post by my own ideas), but it migth fit with the OP proposal:

Let's have "barbarian city states"
- Barbarian CSs may exist from the beginning of the game like any other CS. Maybe, they might upgrade out of a babarian encampment, if it existed for a certain (long) time.
- Barbarian CSs will produce more units than usual camps. These troops will amass until a certain threshold is reached. Then they will launch an attack on a nearby mayor civ or maybe another CS. The "attacking distance" will be way bigger than that of a "normal" CS during war.
- Players on 'friendly' with barbarian CSs will not be targeted by these raids.
- If 'allied', he may choose a target civ for their raids. There will be no resources or other benefits due to the alliance.
- There will be no diplomatic penalty, if a babarian CS is conquered! There even might be a positive modifier, if the CS is razed, rather than kept.
- Barabrian CSs don't have the usual G&K quests. Cultur and great people are meaningless for them! They may be payed or pribed with resources they request (gain influence for a certain resource they demand - but loose this resource for 30 turns (based on game speed)).
- Barbarian CSs do not vote at UN elections.

 

[EgyptRaider]

The idea itself is not new (however modified in this post by my own ideas), but it migth fit with the OP proposal:

Let's have a new, "barbarian city state"
- Barbarian CSs may exist from the beginning of the game like any other CS. Maybe, they might upgrade out of a babarian encampment, if it existed for a certain (long) time.
- Barbarian CSs will produce more units than usual camps. These troops will amass until a certain threshold is reached. Then they will launch an attack on a nearby mayor civ or maybe another CS. The "attacking distance" will be way bigger than that of a "normal" CS during war.
- Players on 'friendly' with barbarian CSs will not be targeted by these raids.
- If 'allied', he may choose a targer civ for their raids. There will be no resources or other benefits due to the alliance.
- There will be no diplomatic penalty, if a babarian CS is conquered! There even might be a positive modifier, if the CS is razed, rather than kept.
- Barabrian CSs don't have the usual G&K quests. Cultur and great people are meaningless for them! They may be payed or pribed with resources they request (gain influence for a certain resource they demand - but loose this resource for 30 turns (based on game speed)).
- Barbarian CSs do not vote at UN elections.

Sounds amazingly fun!

 

[Callonia]

Actually Circlet the Zen, you can't just bribe the pirates that already launched their fleets to attack you away to hit someone else instead, they're coming to fight you and you have to fight them whether you're prepared or not. If you're not prepared, oh well , you take ur losses like a man and suck it up.

in Civ 5 terms, that means that brute is going to raze ur plantation whether you're prepared or not, if you have military handy to dispatch it, if you have nothing? well, enjoy watching that brute pillage alot of ur hexs xD


And for barbarians to function as weak allies, the combat bonuses against them will have to go away, the NPC recieve ridiculous bonuses against them. 80 90%? I could see a AI Scout kill lots of barbarians and receive nary a scratch in return. The numbers which would even lead to two of my warriors dead even when I opened honour tree.