Raging Barbs in Fire

[Sarisin]

In the two games above I was surprised by something else:

In my starting position I noticed at least 2 other civs start with 2 Scouts. Morgoth, and I think it was Valledia/Amurites started (Prince difficulty) with 2 Scouts and a Warrior. Obviously, this really helps them exploring as they can send out the 2 Scouts and keep the Warrior home to defend.

Is there a place that shows the starting units for each civ? Is it dependant on game difficulty?

Thanks.

 

[wig]

The extra scout you saw was based on your difficulty setting. This page shows the extra units the AI gets at each difficulty level. At Prince they get an extra Scout, at Monarch they get an extra defender and a worker, etc.

I'm not sure if it's stated anywhere what starting units individual civs gets.

In the two games above I was surprised by something else:

In my starting position I noticed at least 2 other civs start with 2 Scouts. Morgoth, and I think it was Valledia/Amurites started (Prince difficulty) with 2 Scouts and a Warrior. Obviously, this really helps them exploring as they can send out the 2 Scouts and keep the Warrior home to defend.

Is there a place that shows the starting units for each civ? Is it dependant on game difficulty?

Thanks.

 

[vorshlumpf]

I still had 4 turns to go before my next defender was built.

Was it possible for you to emphasize production in your city to get that warrior out sooner? I sometimes have to do that just to make sure I'm 'safe'.

NOT A SINGLE GOBLIN OR ORC SPEARMAN ON THE MAP!!

This is definitely annoying. My last FfH game had raging barbs on a terra map. I've already said what happened in that game.

Perhaps skeletons and lizardmen should have a limit below the limit of barbs (half? one quarter?). Or perhaps a ruin/barrow can only 'support' 2-3 units. I doubt either would be easy to implement...

- Niilo

 

[cvlowe]

Game 2: From the get-go I was swarmed by Skeletons and Lizardmen were buzzing around. I successfully defended against the Skeletons, but was unable to build improvements or think about settling a second city. In Epic the goblins and orc spearmen usually show up around turn 72. It went past yr 100, then yr. 125 and yr. 150. I still saw only Skeletons and Lizardmen. Curiosity got the best of me and I opened up the World Builder. NOT A SINGLE GOBLIN OR ORC SPEARMAN ON THE MAP!! No animals either. Only Skeletons, Lizardmen, Orthus, and the Dragon! I never saw a game like this before. Every ruin and barrow had a defender on it. Each remaining goodie hut had a Skeleton defender. Around turn 200 I started to see an occasional goblin or spearman, but still plenty of Skeletons and Lizardmen which were now more aggressive.

I think if there are a lot of barrows and ruins they spawn the max limit of barb units early and no more can be created.

I had that happen in a raging barb game where I thought it would be fun to add a huge plot of land with a bunch of ruins- after about turn 100 there were no more barbs. I didn't see any at all until I mounted an expedition to kill the lizardmen. It was strange that they never left the jungle plot I gave them too.

 

[onedreamer]

Sarisin, if I understand the code well, currently the skeletons and lizardmen (btw -I think- I saw that liz. assassins and undead corpse can spawn from ruins and barrows !) have a chance of appearing on a barrow or ruin every turn. So this doesn't scale to game speed, the code would need a patch to take that into consideration, maybe with a penalty to the random number which grows with speed...

 

[Mahatmajon]

Sorry to be a bit offtopic, but doesn't it take months to play a FFH game on Marathon speed or even Epic?

I only play Quick speed when playing FFH and even then I feel bogged down. I know it's intended as more of an epic game than civilization with an emphasis on the early exploration/development (one of the things I love) but the AI is too poor and the game too easy for me to commit to a Normal or slower speed game.

I usually play Quick/Standard/+1-4 Civs/Emperor+. I love the mod, but my main frustration is with the slowness of research - especially in the early game. I can't imagine Huge/Marathon...

 

[Sarisin]

Sorry to be a bit offtopic, but doesn't it take months to play a FFH game on Marathon speed or even Epic?

It really depends on how many hours a day you play, I suppose.

At the conclusion of each game you can discover how many hours you played. I think Epic/Marathon games usually take me about 40 hours or so. However, it does depend too on the type of victory. Obviously, time victories (I don't see those often in raging barb marathon games) will take longer.

Also, the hours may be inaccurate as I often walk away from my PC to do other things with the game still going.

 

[Sarisin]

Sarisin, if I understand the code well, currently the skeletons and lizardmen (btw -I think- I saw that liz. assassins and undead corpse can spawn from ruins and barrows !) have a chance of appearing on a barrow or ruin every turn. So this doesn't scale to game speed, the code would need a patch to take that into consideration, maybe with a penalty to the random number which grows with speed...

Yes, you are right. I never saw lizardman assassins, but I remember one game where I started to see lots of diseased corpses paying me a visit. I wondered where they came from, and, sure enough, there was a barrow that had somehow survived in a neighboring ai civ's territory. I could not go in and take it out (no open borders agreement) and the damn corpses kept stumbling into to my territory rather than going after the ai civ!

 

[Sarisin]

Was it possible for you to emphasize production in your city to get that warrior out sooner? I sometimes have to do that just to make sure I'm 'safe'.

This is definitely annoying. My last FfH game had raging barbs on a terra map. I've already said what happened in that game.

Perhaps skeletons and lizardmen should have a limit below the limit of barbs (half? one quarter?). Or perhaps a ruin/barrow can only 'support' 2-3 units. I doubt either would be easy to implement...

- Niilo

I will try that strategy in my next game, but remember in Epic/Marathon settings cities grow a lot slower too and I'm not sure if fiddling with the production would help if you have a small pop.

I like your suggestions on the barbs and barrows.

Honestly, I don't think there will be many adjustments on the time variable of FFH or with raging barbs. FFH is a great mod, but I think most players use the faster game speeds without the raging barb option and aren't concerned with these things. I suppose it is impossible to please all the players by working on all the variables. I would love to play Fire with the variables I like (mentioned in this thread previously), but I just don't think I can. So, I enjoy playing Light with these variables and adjusting the variables to play Fire.

 

[vorshlumpf]

I will try that strategy in my next game, but remember in Epic/Marathon settings cities grow a lot slower too and I'm not sure if fiddling with the production would help if you have a small pop.

It won't help every time, but it can make a huge difference. The program will optimize your city's growth to have at least 2 surplus food (in my experience), so your first city, at population 1, will usually have one or two hammers of production (since the 1 citizen will typically grab a grassland tile, hopefully with forest on it). Switching that citizen to work a plains hill will increase your production to 3 hammers (in the typical situation), which can be a 200% increase. Of course, you won't be increasing your population while this is so, but I find such tactics necessary for survival in the harder games (all we humans need is to get a toe-hold and then we spread like cancer ).

- Niilo

 

[cvlowe]

I will try that strategy in my next game, but remember in Epic/Marathon settings cities grow a lot slower too and I'm not sure if fiddling with the production would help if you have a small pop.

I like your suggestions on the barbs and barrows.

Honestly, I don't think there will be many adjustments on the time variable of FFH or with raging barbs. FFH is a great mod, but I think most players use the faster game speeds without the raging barb option and aren't concerned with these things. I suppose it is impossible to please all the players by working on all the variables. I would love to play Fire with the variables I like (mentioned in this thread previously), but I just don't think I can. So, I enjoy playing Light with these variables and adjusting the variables to play Fire.

I like Marathon, huge.

But the game really bogs down and I tend to quit when I control half the world. So I am trying normal, large game now. I'll see if I have the stamina to actually finish a game now

 

[vorshlumpf]

Ditto on that. It gets to the point where there's no more point except to try to get to the end for the sake of ending it. Since I enjoy the conflict and mystery of the opening game so much, I just start another game (says the person who's played a total of two Fire games).

- Niilo

 

[Shadowsong0]

Agreed.
Once you lead the pack scorewise, motivation tends to fade quickly.
AI is simply too incompetent to do anything other than outproduce you.
And that only happens with lotsa cheating due to difficulty settings.

More on topic.. i always play epic with raging barbs.
The key is to let the starting warrior do some pet-hunting in the first 50 turns,
so you have hill defense and some combat promotions when the skellies arrive.
Don't let the scout have all the fun.