Should Barbarians be required to be on?

[Orca]

Orca, for military strategies, barbarians actually help a lot by giving easy experience.

My experience is a different one. I think a good example is gauntlet 2 because this kind of setting should favour babarians with your argumentation - it didnt !

 

[Masquerouge]

Ah. Even if I would hate it because it just penalizes the peaceful builders like me, I think it should be turned always on. Makes no sense of being in the 1800's with just one soldier per city

 

[Masquerouge]

I kind of feel like I am cheating when I have to turn off the barbarians to compete in the Gauntlet.

You too ?

 

[LulThyme]

My experience is a different one. I think a good example is gauntlet 2 because this kind of setting should favour babarians with your argumentation - it didnt !

I meant to say can more than does I guess.

 

[BlueRenner]

I think Barbarians should be on. Yes, it makes it so the game is a titch more random, but it also takes away a MASSIVE advantage the player has over the AI.

Now -- one note. At the moment, I am of the opinion that barbarians at Epic and Marathon speeds are broken. Barbarian axemen seem to appear MUCH earlier than at Normal speed, to the point where I seem to always be few techs *behind* the barbarians.

Once that is addressed, I'm all for Barbs being on all the time.

- Bill

 

[Smirk]

...it makes it so the game is a titch more random, but it also takes away a MASSIVE advantage the player has over the AI.

Do you have any facts to back up this assertion, or are we to guess why this is so?

I've been attacked by barbarians while in AI territory and attacking their cities, but I've also had barbarians kill AI units in my cities (apparently they can select their target as the target in that case was considerably weaker than my city defender). I've played games where I saw hundreds of barbarians, but also none with raging barbarians set.

The normal setting does one thing to a game, requires you to build more military infrastructure (as well as the AI). If you are playing a peaceful game this is wasteful. There isn't anything thats dictating you build peaceful infrastructure when you are playing a warring game, so why try to force that on the peaceful builder?

I think the setting has value in specific cases, but I also feel that barbarians are an annoying enough feature that forcing people to use it all the time really detracts from the game and from HOF.

 

[Shillen]

The normal setting does one thing to a game, requires you to build more military infrastructure (as well as the AI). If you are playing a peaceful game this is wasteful. There isn't anything thats dictating you build peaceful infrastructure when you are playing a warring game, so why try to force that on the peaceful builder?

So why not just allow people to turn the "always peace" option on? I'm sorry but you shouldn't be able to just go through an entire game with no chance of ever fighting at all. It's part of the game, it's part of the challenge. That's why even if you have +15 relations with a civ that doesn't mean he won't declare on you. The game isn't supposed to be a chess match. You're not supposed to be able to predict every last detail of what is going to happen in a game. There are supposed to be random factors. They make it more fun.

 

[Dianthus]

So why not just allow people to turn the "always peace" option on?

That's an interesting question. I've been assuming that "always peace" would be unbalancing, but I guess given enough opponents to prevent unlimited expansion that might not be the case.

 

[Smirk]

So why not just allow people to turn the "always peace" option on? ...you shouldn't be able to just go through an entire game with no chance of ever fighting at all. It's part of the game, it's part of the challenge. That's why even if you have +15 relations with a civ that doesn't mean he won't declare on you.

Good question, because the Always War option seems to be allowed, which has the same detrimental effects on the AI as Always Peace would.
This is similar to one of the most amusing things about the gotm "predator" game, most times these disabilities simply weren't. While giving the AI more free units might deter a less skilled player the real effect is that the AI performs better, has more gold available for trade, techs better which can be easily gotten thru trade, etc. The net result is that the human performs better when compared to non-predator players.


Anyway, ignoring the main point for a moment, your statement about the +15 rep is misdirected. The reason the AI still declares at that is because the AI sucks, and they have no honor, or any other moral we would typically see in most humans.
Since there are no "real" treaties between nations the rep system should act as one to some degree, and +15 is well into alliance. Although, I've had no problem maintaining the peace with quite a bit less than that so its really a null point, thus Always Peace would just be a crutch, taking place of game skill. This applies to Always War as well, although it doesn't seem to affect the AI vs AI relations so is just a silly variant not an exploit.
In summation, there can be no trust, just as in Civ3. This is obviously a very bleak worldview, but I'm not really sure who is responsible.



But all this comes down to one point which you and others are not addressing. (Other than why you feel the need to impress your play style on others.) What factor are barbarians adding to the game that we want or need to have present?
As previously stated, "leveling the playing field" and such nonsense is invalid because you can play with or without them based on your own choice. If you have to disable them to compete with a given game or score, then do so. I fail to see any problem there. What I am asking is what makes forcing barbarians on such an attractive option? I'm quite bored by them, they are very predictable, psychotic and their only advantage is they don't require resources or production (and so "cheat").

 

[Ronald]

HOF is all about getting the highest scores and the earliest times. To achieve that, people go to a great lenghts to find the best maps (for civ3 a special program called mapfinder was created), find the best suited leader and the right kind of AI to suit the goal.
All in line with the possibilities the game provides. Turning on or off barbarians is just another possibility to optimize the game settings for your purpose. It does not matter that the game becomes "easier" (or more difficult). The "optimal" map and the "optimal" opponents do that as well.

This is why I vote players choice.

 

[Shillen]

HOF is all about getting the highest scores and the earliest times. To achieve that, people go to a great lenghts to find the best maps (for civ3 a special program called mapfinder was created), find the best suited leader and the right kind of AI to suit the goal.
All in line with the possibilities the game provides. Turning on or off barbarians is just another possibility to optimize the game settings for your purpose. It does not matter that the game becomes "easier" (or more difficult). The "optimal" map and the "optimal" opponents do that as well.

Which is along the same lines of my votes for requiring the default number of opponents and disallowing all the "weird" maps. When you can use these settings to make the game ridiculously easy and not fun to play, then it's detrimental to the hall of fame. I'll get bored of civ4 more quickly if I'm playing games with too few AI's and no barbarians all the time. But if I don't play my games with those settings then I can't compete in the HoF at all. Along your line of thinking, why don't we just not have a minimum number of opponents? Let's just play all our games against 1 opponent on a huge map with barbarians off. Or why do we not let people choose what team settings they want? All they're doing is optimizing the game for their victory condition, right? No, they're unbalancing the game to make it ridiculously easy and not conducive to fun gameplay, and in effect, forcing everyone else to play with those unbalanced settings.

 

[BlueRenner]

Regardless of whether this poll effects the HoF rules or not, the HoF site DEFINATELY needs a little checkbox so that you can search by "Barbarians On" games.

Right now games with barbarians on are just lost among the crush of the higher-scored, faster-timed games with barbarians off. Kinda depressing, given the increase in difficulty that the barbarians represent.

- Bill

 

[Ronald]

.. No, they're unbalancing the game to make it ridiculously easy and not conducive to fun gameplay, and in effect, forcing everyone else to play with those unbalanced settings.

This depends a lot on the difficulty you select. Playing settler difficulty with all the restrictions you ask for (default number of AIs, no weird maps, barbarians on, ...) will become very boring for an excellent player like yourself.
Going for domination on a huge map with the minimum allowed civs on immortal should be already a formidable challenge even without barbs.

 

[Shillen]

This depends a lot on the difficulty you select. Playing settler difficulty with all the restrictions you ask for (default number of AIs, no weird maps, barbarians on, ...) will become very boring for an excellent player like yourself.
Going for domination on a huge map with the minimum allowed civs on immortal should be already a formidable challenge even without barbs.

Good point. But in my humble opinion if I turn off barbarians then I'm not playing civ4 the way it was meant to be played anymore. It's like allowing us to turn specific victory conditions off. It's taking a whole aspect of the game away.

 

[Smirk]

...in my humble opinion if I turn off barbarians then I'm not playing civ4 the way it was meant to be played....

Even when using phrases like "meant to be" its still only your opinion.

The existance of the options kind of justifies a more varied approach to what was "meant".

The fact that the data is XML and much of the game logic is python should show that the game was "meant" to be modified.

Back in 1.09 before the No Cheating option the game seemed to be "meant" to be modified at will with the worldbuilder.

 

[Dianthus]

Even when using phrases like "meant to be" its still only your opinion.

I think he knows that. You even quoted the bit that said "in my humble opinion"!

Some of these options *do* seem to be pretty controversial. Playing with barbarians on definitely makes the game a lot different, especially when you suddenly get 3 barb axemen approaching your capital (happened to me last night).

The hard part for the HOF is that we don't want to limit players from trying out all aspects of the game, but at the same time we want games in a table to be comparable. One thing I'm wondering about is maybe allowing barbs to be player choice, but make a selection of the gauntlets require a particular setting for barbs. It doesn't really solve the problem for the HOF tables, but at least would encourage gauntlet players to try out a variety of settings...

 

[Big_Ben]

I am all for having barbs in a gauntlet. I would like to see two back to back gauntlets, everything the same except one with barbs and one without. Non-conquest victory would be the best. Just to see how the times compare.

 

[Orca]

One thing I'm wondering about is maybe allowing barbs to be player choice, but make a selection of the gauntlets require a particular setting for barbs

Decent idea imo, this would be better as playing always with or without them.

 

[Svar]

I have submitted 17 games in the current interval between updates and was bored so ran a quick test on barbarians. I turned them off back in version 1.09 when I had a great starting position that was very far away from any AI. This was on a huge map with 6 AI. With the strategy I was using of going for all the religions before researching anything else it was very late before I could build even archers. I played this start 3 or 4 times before I realized what was wrong with it. Since the start was well inland and there were no other civilizations to help control barbarians I would be overwhelmed as they came for me from all sides. I couldn't build warriors fast enough to defend myself from archers and axemen.

Now for the results of the test. I ran two different setups both at Noble difficulty. The first was on a small Pangaea world with myself as the Japanese and only Washington as the single AI. The second was on a huge Pangaea world with myself as Gandi. Washington, Victoria, Hatshepsut, Mansa Musa, Genghis Khan, and Cyrus were the AI as this was the setup I was playing when I turned off the barbarians. All I did was record the earliest date I saw the first animal, barbarian warrior, and either barbarian archer or axeman. I tested each game speed three times for these tests and noted when the very earliest I ever saw each of the different catagory of barbarian.

It became obvious that the appearance of the barbarians was set to turn and not date. The earliest turn I ever saw an animal was 7 turns after 4000 BC and I think this is the limit as I had 8 and 9 turn appearances in some tests as well as 11, 12, and 13 turn appearances. This isn't really an issue with me because for the most part I think animals are modelled correctly. They still need to be improved though. The barbarian animals attack the human player at almost every opportunity and I have yet to see them attack the AI. I think they do but given a choice they always attack me so I don't get to see it. My issue with this is it is very unrealistic. It would be very rare for an animal to attack an armed military unit even if it were only a warrior unit. Animals attacking a lone settler or worker makes much more since. The scouts are supposed to get a 100% advantage against animals but I think this is broken. I lose most of the fights with fortified scouts in forests against lions and panthers.

The main issue I have with barbarians is in the wild man catagory. In all the tests the dates for the first appearance of barbarian warriors was extremely variable due to them being popped from huts. The earliest I popped one was 3760 BC and there was no way for me to tell when I came accross one whether it came from a hut or out of the FOW. I don't have a problem with the warriors anyway, it is the archers and axemen that I have an issue with. In the small world tests I saw archers as early as 1600 BC on marathon, 1150 BC on epic and 400 BC on normal. In the huge world tests I saw archers as early as 1750 BC on marathon, 840 BC on epic, and 625 BC on normal.

The bottom line is the modelling of barbarians is currently broken and shouldn't even be considered to be forced upon HOF players until they are fixed.

Finally I have an issue with barbarians attacking at every opportunity with the latest technology. Are there people who have behaved this way in the past or even now? Absolutely, even today there is an island in the Andaman Islands called North Sentinel Island where if an outsider were to land the locals will attack. The official position of the Indian government is to leave these people alone. Anyone who behaves in this manner never advances because if it isn't invented there you can't trade for it. To my knowledge anytime civilization has ever met any culture that hehaves like the Civ 4 barbarians they are very primative and stay that way until they learn to be more hospital and can trade for more advanced technology.

Pizarro with a ragtag group of 168 Spanish soldiers managed to conquer the Incas (barbarians?) even though he was opposed by an army of 80,000. How?, better technology.

What I'm saying is if the Civ 4 barbarians are going to behave like savages they should be equiped like them and not have the latest technology when there is no way for them to aquire it without lots of trading and education. That means diplomacy, so if you want the Civ 4 behavior of barbarians we need the ability to interact with them diplomatically or have the option the turn them off.

 

[Moonsinger]

Finally I have an issue with barbarians attacking at every opportunity with the latest technology. Are there people who have behaved this way in the past or even now? Absolutely, even today there is an island in the Andaman Islands called North Sentinel Island where if an outsider were to land the locals will attack. The official position of the Indian government is to leave these people alone. Anyone who behaves in this manner never advances because if it isn't invented there you can't trade for it. To my knowledge anytime civilization has ever met any culture that hehaves like the Civ 4 barbarians they are very primative and stay that way until they learn to be more hospital and can trade for more advanced technology.

Pizarro with a ragtag group of 168 Spanish soldiers managed to conquer the Incas (barbarians?) even though he was opposed by an army of 80,000. How?, better technology.

What I'm saying is if the Civ 4 barbarians are going to behave like savages they should be equiped like them and not have the latest technology when there is no way for them to aquire it without lots of trading and education. That means diplomacy, so if you want the Civ 4 behavior of barbarians we need the ability to interact with them diplomatically or have the option the turn them off.

Good point! I totally agree. However, on my many journeys in Civ4, once in awhile, I have encountered a hut which the local villagers willing to teach me a secret of Iron Working or Writting. Have you wonder how these locals know the secret to such advance tech? This is probably where the barbs get their technology from.