See my recent post in the bugs thread about a crash reported earlier today.
Part of the longer term fix for this (or at least substantial mitigation) is putting animals on a separate player than the regular barbarians, and I intend to do his in the next few days.
For now I can make them the same team as the regular barbs if people would prefer that (minimizes the change), but personally I think it would be better to leave them as independent teams (i.e. - mutually antagonistic). This will allow the barbarians to hunt, and to gain experience from fighting animals (i.e. - make for more dangerous and competitive barbarians).
We have been wanting something like this for awhile. It will reduce the number of civs available in game (total 50 meant 49 + barbarian, now it would be 48+animal+barbarian) I don't see a problem with this.
We would need to go through the code checking for any barbarian nation tests and seeing if they need to be changed to be both barbarian or animal nation tests. I know we have these in the Python all over the place.
Like DH says the main issue is going through all the code and replacing the test that test if it is the barbarian player by number (so it tests if some player is number BARBARIAN_PLAYER or similar).
At the same time those tests are best split into method calls on the player object that check for specific purposes, so we can have multiple barbarian like players of which some react to the great wall, some don't and some are neutral and similar stuff.
Ideally (not necessary at first but not that far a step when the above works) we would have an XML file that defines the special players and their relations and how they react to stuff in some categories.
Hunting barbarians will mean a lot fewer animals available to be hunted. I suggest if this path is taken that the number of barbarian cities being formed is reduced significantly.
Why would a Neanderthal be an animal? They were nearly identical to modern humans: if one were walking down the street dressed like everyone else you probably wouldn't notice the difference, although their average build and size of brow ridges and such are different, an average Neanderthal is not far from (and probably within) the range shown by modern humans (although not usually all characteristics at the same time). They had some of the prehistoric techs in C2C - for example they did not just live in caves, they built shelters. They used flint tools and some moderately advanced toolmaking techniques. They probably made some of the cave paintings. They used language, although it is not known how much but they had a hyoid bone that is the same as modern humans and could therefore probably produce a similar range of sounds. They cooked vegetables. Their brains were also apparently a bit larger than modern humans (although that is not a direct indication of intelligence). Most humans alive today apparently have some Neanderthal DNA - possibly everyone who doesn't have purely African origin.
What they did not do was develop technology at the rate modern humans did even back in the stone age. When modern humans arrived in the areas that had Neanderthals their level of technology was similar in terms of the tools used. The modern humans then gradually gained an advantage in that area.
Why would a Neanderthal be an animal? They were nearly identical to modern humans: if one were walking down the street dressed like everyone else you probably wouldn't notice the difference, although their average build and size of brow ridges and such are different, an average Neanderthal is not far from (and probably within) the range shown by modern humans (although not usually all characteristics at the same time). They had some of the prehistoric techs in C2C - for example they did not just live in caves, they built shelters. They used flint tools and some moderately advanced toolmaking techniques. They probably made some of the cave paintings. They used language, although it is not known how much but they had a hyoid bone that is the same as modern humans and could therefore probably produce a similar range of sounds. They cooked vegetables. Their brains were also apparently a bit larger than modern humans (although that is not a direct indication of intelligence). Most humans alive today apparently have some Neanderthal DNA - possibly everyone who doesn't have purely African origin.
What they did not do was develop technology at the rate modern humans did even back in the stone age. When modern humans arrived in the areas that had Neanderthals their level of technology was similar in terms of the tools used. The modern humans then gradually gained an advantage in that area.
Johny Smith had wanted to make them their own civilization in the game (and make them playable as well...) which I think is just really a cool idea.
@Koshling: You know I've been wanting this for a LONG time and given how much I'm doing I just never got around to it. But if its something you're going to work on, all I can say is... awesome!
Perhaps we'd like to consider splitting off the Neanders into their own civilization then? I'd think they'd be mutually antagonistic with human barbs too... if its easier to do this WHILE you're doing the animal conversion, then by all means it should be considered I think.
But if we simply divide off the animals for now, that's still a HUGE move forward!
It was more about the fact that there are no Neanderthal cities in the game. Not about them being an animal or not. Strictly speaking we are all animals.
I guess the next question is should Neanderthals have cities? Or at the very least special caves or villages or camps on the map?
Yes, Neanderthals should have their spawnpoints in caves and should try to defend the caves somehow (although many scientists say in reality they fled their lands and retreated when they were aware of too many homo sapiens sapiens around their lands)
But this is civ and it's never really a 100% accurate (well maybe the Neanderthals could try to flee if there is a huge army approaching their cave).
The cave itself could be an improvement and terrain feature at the same time (the improvement would autobuild it if a unit is present and have the same graphics like the terrain feature except the +XX% under it).
Why terrain and improvbement you may ask? Because the improvement "populated cave" can have defense. You could use siege equipment to lower the defense, literally smoke the Neanderthals out.
5. Forts can be bombarded to reduce their defenses just like cities. Their defense will also be “repaired” over time like cities. [Edit: As of Version 1.00, whether an improvement is bombardable or not is controlled by an XML tag. Any improvement with a defense can be bombarded if this XML tag is set true, and not just forts.]
So, if the caves could have additinal defense once they are used (means a unit is on the tile) "populated caves" improvement would be autobuilt and gain 1% of defense for each turn until a max of 50% We could say the populated caves spawn new Neanderthals next to it but the caves can always only have 1 unit in it.
I say the neanderthals which are very strong early on should'nt be able to gain normal promotions by killing animals - they would be much too strong too soon.
But if we made them being able to kill animals they should have different promotion sets (maybe one gets an "evasion tactics" promotion, another gets the "berzerk" promotion and so on, which means their promotion don't really change their strengths (exept gaining some first strikes, some speed, increased healing or so on) but their behaviours (kind of Neanderthal docrtrines).
One other thing I thought of was that caves would be very nice to feature ambushes.
If units in caves could only be seen standing directly next to it.
Also it would be safe havens from animals (maybe only some animals could attack your scouts if they are on a cave tile. For instance cave lion and cave bear could attack you there (prior to fire making) but a mammoth or elefant couldn't.
Also caves could be inhabited by said cave bears or cave lions but once you find an empty cave you might just have found a nice spot to retreat to from time to time (kind of an early fort/outpost).
So, the "populated cave" mechanism which would give +1% defense for each turn to a max of 50% could also work for humans.
Hey thx! What would Caveman2Cosmos be without a Cave Mod anyway, right?
So what could "populated caves" (the suggested improvement of the same graphic as the cave terrain feature that gets activated (autobuilt) by a unit that enters the caves terrain feature tile) also provide aside of defense?
Better healing because of warmth of fire and shelter from rain and storm (+10%), unlocked by fire making
Better defense (+1% for each turn, max +50%) unlocked with cave dwelling
Some Culture -> +3 culture to the overall culture pool per turn (good with developing leaders) with Petroglyphs
Like the later forts the "populated cave" could get your civs culture on the tile by moving onto it once you unlocked fire making. (but not also the surrounding tiles like the fort gives)
The fire making gives you the tile with culture because it's only then when you can smoke out the animals inside and also have a watch fire hindering them to enter (which culture provides)
The reason is that in the early days, without good fires the animals could still attack you on in the cave, either during the night from outside
or while you move in to explore it - something like awakening a sleeping bear.
we could also have small events for units trying to enter caves, good and bad ones
(triggered by chance upon the autobuild of the "populated cave" improvement)
Spoiler:
for example a good one:
"secret exit - you discover that the cave has a secret exit. If your defender loses a fight it can escape to a spot 2 tiles away."
or
"holy site - your units discover a lot of bones. A long extinct species must have had their cementary in this cave what do you want to do?
-> populate the cave anyway and tell the people to use the bones for better defenses at the entrance of the cave (effect: instantly receive the max +50% defense of the cave)
-> secretly advice your shamans to think of a myth surrounding the cave and the bones and declare it a restricted holy site.
(effect: you receive a special "ancient species" myth (+1 science, +1 culture in your capital, cave tile unpassable for military units until myth is obsolete with writing)
or a bad one aside the awakening of a sleeping bear
"getting lost - your units are getting the feeling to be lost exploring this huge and tricky cave"
-> (if you have rope in your trade network) stay calm and roll off the thread!
(effect: your unit is trapped for 2 turns trying to get out of the labyrinth)
-> (if you haven't rope in your trade network) your unit never sees daylight again
(effect: the relatives of the trapped declare the cave as being cursed and rumors swirling around describe you as a hard nosed ruler that the gods are angry about. -1 happyness for 150 turns in nearest city)
I see that I actually can't disable barbarians (the option is not there). Is there any more progress on this? I only skimmed this thread after a bit, so I may have missed it if this was mentioned, but you could try to prevent barbarians from hunting animals by making them hard allies. Anyway, is there nothing I can change anywhere to eliminate barbarian units (i.e. anything you can't hunt as an animal is hunted in C2C) from the game (while leaving animals; of course it seems that there's no way to eliminate both anymore, meaning that both are now forced)? The cities are particularly annoying if you don't want to deal with barbarians. CTRL-z and CTRL-w aren't the best solutions.
Could this split be used to affect "show defensive combat"?
The reason I ask is: With viewports combat out side the viewport wasn´t shown. With paging you center on the combat, resulting in significant delays at the end of a turn when there is much animal agression going on.
While I want to see that early on,when every unit is precious, and hunting important, it is somewhat frustrating once you can scout the wide oceans of the world, teeming with live that wants to end that of your sailors. And failing miserably most of the time. I don´t need my turn time to gain the time of multiple repaging calculations and combat animations of battles that are won anyway.
But I don´t want to turn the showing of it off, since it is great for alerting me about babarian pirates or later on, AI privateers, not to mention a better knowledge of whats going on on the frontlines if there is a real war.
Of course the event log shows it, but that can get somewhat crowded during a war.
Could this split be used to affect "show defensive combat"?
The reason I ask is: With viewports combat out side the viewport wasn´t shown. With paging you center on the combat, resulting in significant delays at the end of a turn when there is much animal agression going on.
While I want to see that early on,when every unit is precious, and hunting important, it is somewhat frustrating once you can scout the wide oceans of the world, teeming with live that wants to end that of your sailors. And failing miserably most of the time. I don´t need my turn time to gain the time of multiple repaging calculations and combat animations of battles that are won anyway.
But I don´t want to turn the showing of it off, since it is great for alerting me about babarian pirates or later on, AI privateers, not to mention a better knowledge of whats going on on the frontlines if there is a real war.
Of course the event log shows it, but that can get somewhat crowded during a war.
Shouldn't matter greatly now we have the graphics paging rather than using viewports, but if it is felt to still be a major issue once that has gained widespread use it won; be hard to add a don't focus option for animal combats. It doesn't require this separation to achieve that.
Shouldn't matter greatly now we have the graphics paging rather than using viewports, but if it is felt to still be a major issue once that has gained widespread use it won; be hard to add a don't focus option for animal combats. It doesn't require this separation to achieve that.
It´s not a "major issue", more of an inconvinience. And it is mostly related to the era when you first map out the oceans with ..was it the caravel?. Whatever is the first water scout unit capable of traveling the oceans.
Because by that time the game had plenty of time to spawn sea creatures all over the place because no civ got there. As a result the oceans are teeming with life, and so, battles.
With multiple ships on auto-explore I get up to 15 or so attacks sometimes. That´s a lot of battle animation time + repaging delay between ships.
I'm begging you, please separate them... I tried editing XML, and barbarian cities don't seem to spawn, but barbarians (neanderthals and "bandits") still spawn, even including barbarian heroes! Regarding barbarians hunting animals, I believe I have mentioned the idea of making the barbarian and animal players hard allies, which should make one hunting the other impossible, I would hope. Please separate them, PLEASE.
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