stopping the conga line

[Inkling]

If the developers of this mod, emphasis on IF, are planning on modifying the barbarian AI, i have some suggestions to correct some behavior i find incredibly frustrating and obnoxious. if you aren't planning on modding it, i wouldn't bother just for this. Ignore me.

I can't say the number of games i've lost or atleast been crippled by hordes of barbarians travelling from all over the map to attack my city, walking right past other cities, litterally skirting the city tile of rivals to attack me instead. as one player once put it, when observed through the editor, it looks like a giant conga line. it's quite ridiculous.
I enjoy barbarians, i enjoy raging barbarians, i just wish they would spread the love a little instead of ganging up on me solely.

i only glanced at the code rather breifly, and did a handful of tests, but i think all my observations are correct. Also, this is less a problem in the latest FFH2 version(where promos and increased strength reduce the impact of barbarians), then it is in previous versions, or vanilla BtS. So like i said, if you weren't going to anyway, i wouldn't touch it.

1) the logic which decides which city a barbarian will attack in non swarm mode doesn't take distance into account(the targetcity function does, but not the cityattack function, near as i can tell). It has a range, but the "juiciest" target within that range, no matter that a closer almost as juicy target exists, seems to be completely ignored from what i can tell. The iPathturns variable is already there, you just need to use it as weight against the ivalue variable before determining the best target.

2)judging by the only comment in the code, it seems that AREAAI_OFFENSIVE isn't actually ever suppose to happen. "Does this ever Occur". in actuality, it is the rule, not the exception. a small mod i made shows that almost as soon as humanoid barbarians(non animals) show up on the map where a player is, in BtS, the AREAAI for the barbarians in that area switches over from assault, to offensive, and this is when the conga line seems to trigger(more accurately, when they pick a target city i think). I propose changing the logic to make the switch to offensive more rare.

3) adjust the way the AI picks the best city to attack. I've looked over the code and haven't been able to figure out why(nothing jumps out at me anyway), but the barbarians almost always go after me(in either attack mode) regardless of how well i'm doing in respect to others. Its got to have something to do with the way i develope my cities, but with virtually no comments(and none useful) and such messy code, i'm afraid i don't have the patience to look any further.

Again, only if you were going to change it anyway, and i guess only if you see it as a problem. Since though they add flavor and fun when behaving fairly, i can always just turn them off to avoid the problem.

 

[xienwolf]

I thrill in being able to set Raging Barbarians and guarantee myself some 100 exp warriors throughout my empire, so I have had quite some experience with the Barbarians thus far in FfH .25


Numerous games I have played (huge, raging barbs, default # Civs), I have seen AI civilizations wiped out by Barbarians throughout the course of the game. And generally the Barbarian Empire will be one of the largest ones. So they WILL attack the AI. However, I must admit that it is never my neighbors who are assailed, and typically it is never anyone on my continent.

One thing I wouldn't mind seeing is a return of the Civ III Barbarians. In Civ III, if you set it for Rampaging hordes, then at some point (thankfully with a warning pop-up before they even get in view), you would get STACKS of barbarians steamrolling the map. Now, 3 stacks of 15 Horsemen each is a BIT MUCH, but I would love to see the Barbarians be smart enough to stack up with each other.


So, if weighting of Barb AI gets some tweaks, I would make it something like 20% chance to select a city to smack. 30% chance to roam aimlessly looking for a fight, and 50% chance to go stack with the nearest other Barb unit (of matching unit type, or at least Base Move). And of course, once stacked ideally they would never unstack.

 

[BeefontheBone]

I expect that might reappear in Shadow - there's a BtS event (or possibly a few) which spawn stacks of era-appropriate barb units.

 

[eoin62]

Long time FfH fan, don't think I've ever posted here before, but...

Another possible cause for the barbarians avoiding AI is that several civs (clan and one Doviello leader, right?) start at peace with the barbs, so that may exacerbate the issue of barbs marching through/around enemy land to get to the player.

To second what xienwolf mentioned, I've played several games where one or more AI civs were wiped out or significantly harmed by barbs, though only once was it a civ on the same landmass as me.

ps Thanks to the team for the great mod! I bought BtS mostly to play FfH when its finished

 

[Inkling]

To start with

Long time FfH fan, don't think I've ever posted here before, but...

in that case, welcome.

I thrill in being able to set Raging Barbarians and guarantee myself some 100 exp warriors throughout my empire, so I have had quite some experience with the Barbarians thus far in FfH .25

Back in .13 or .16, when your warriors had only 2 strength as in vanilla, and lizardmen had 3, it was definentely another story. and in vanilla, where promotions are a +10 percent instead of +20 in FFH2, its really a different story especially since the xp cap for vanilla is far short 100 when dealing with barbarians, and the accumulation of that experience was also reduced in speed compared to ffh2.

Numerous games I have played (huge, raging barbs, default # Civs), I have seen AI civilizations wiped out by Barbarians throughout the course of the game. And generally the Barbarian Empire will be one of the largest ones. So they WILL attack the AI. However, I must admit that it is never my neighbors who are assailed, and typically it is never anyone on my continent.

To second what xienwolf mentioned, I've played several games where one or more AI civs were wiped out or significantly harmed by barbs, though only once was it a civ on the same landmass as me..

Are you both certain it was really even regular barbarians? the few times i've seen the AI wiped and checked out the cause, i often found it to be acheron, barbatos, or orthos, or the events beefonthebone mentions(BtS).

One thing I wouldn't mind seeing is a return of the Civ III Barbarians. In Civ III, if you set it for Rampaging hordes, then at some point (thankfully with a warning pop-up before they even get in view), you would get STACKS of barbarians steamrolling the map. Now, 3 stacks of 15 Horsemen each is a BIT MUCH, but I would love to see the Barbarians be smart enough to stack up with each other..

I expect that might reappear in Shadow - there's a BtS event (or possibly a few) which spawn stacks of era-appropriate barb units.

The few times i've seen the AI wiped out in vanilla BtS, its been because of these events. Era appropriate... sort of, the few times its happened to me its been the best type of unit, which i have built only a couple of by then, if any, in such quantity there is really no stopping them. quite nasty. And odd, after they kill their target they seem to go haywire, running off in an random direction, but i digress.

So, if weighting of Barb AI gets some tweaks, I would make it something like 20% chance to select a city to smack. 30% chance to roam aimlessly looking for a fight, and 50% chance to go stack with the nearest other Barb unit (of matching unit type, or at least Base Move). And of course, once stacked ideally they would never unstack.

as long as im not their sole target, it sounds interesting.

Another possible cause for the barbarians avoiding AI is that several civs (clan and one Doviello leader, right?) start at peace with the barbs, so that may exacerbate the issue of barbs marching through/around enemy land to get to the player.

true but the behavior is in both ffh and vanilla. and i've made note of who they were walking by. The peace with barbarian trait doesn't help, but isn't the cause.


double checked the quotes, hope i got them right.

 

[vorshlumpf]

I'm playing a game against Ultra Raging Barbs (a personal setting). 11 of the AI civs have been knocked out of the game and I had only meet three of them. I get hordes of barbs coming after me, but they're also going after the AI (obviously). I've even had a few barb units walk through my territory to go somewhere else (to another civ, I assume). When I finally got Hunting and made a hawk, the two AI cities I was able to recon were totally beset by barb units.

If anything needs to be fixed, it's the AI strategy for defending itself against barbs. Even with CITY_BARBARIAN_DEFENSE_MODIFIER set to 100% the AI can't hold its cities. I haven't lost one yet, though I've had to kill around 300 units so far.

Also, the Barb trait civs don't seem to be holding on to their peace with the barbs. Charadon was knocked out early, and the Clan is under seige.

 

[Demus]

as far as i know, the AI was set to build workers and settlers earlier in BtS compared to vanilla, so i recon this should be the cause. It should be possible to have them build at least 2 warriors per city, and 2 more ready before building another settler (if they could program the khazad AI to count it's gold stash in before building another one, this shouldn't be that tough).

Still, i doubt it's possible to make the AI shift it's military production based on the amounts of barbarians coming in (or change strat based on raging barbs being turned on or not)

Besides that, i recon the player recommended-next-unit-to-build should be adjusted aswell (if possible). Plenty of times i've had a settler recommended, while only having 1 warrior and 2 scouts as military force.

 

[xienwolf]

What I hate is a settler recommendation when you have no open space to settle. Or Worker Recommendations when you don't even know any tech to let a worker do anything yet (heavily forested lands).


Pretty sure that you could set the option for raging barbarians to change the AI building preferences as well easily. The setting of the option just activates a couple of value changes in the setup files as is, so it is a simple matter of also changing some AI values.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, the settler recommendations are really annoying. Assuming that these recommendations are tied to how the AI plays the game, then they could use some major improvements.

 

[beorn]

If anything needs to be fixed, it's the AI strategy for defending itself against barbs.

I agree 100%. I like intense barbarian pressure, but the problem is that it helps the human player, who can win almost every time and build up strong untis, but it destroys multiple AI civs, or leaves them cripples.

A couple of times I have, for strategic reasons, tried to help defend an AI civ against barbarians, and I find their disregard for the barbs appalling. I feel like I have a five year old for an ally.

 

[Inkling]

I'm playing a game against Ultra Raging Barbs (a personal setting). 11 of the AI civs have been knocked out of the game and I had only meet three of them. I get hordes of barbs coming after me, but they're also going after the AI (obviously). I've even had a few barb units walk through my territory to go somewhere else (to another civ, I assume). When I finally got Hunting and made a hawk, the two AI cities I was able to recon were totally beset by barb units..

well, like i said, its probably got to have something to do with the way i develope my cities to compete with the AI, with the ultra raging barbs mod, i imagine you wouldn't be able to develope your cities,lol, especially since its surviving, not competing, that you have to worry about in that case.

without the AI knowing what to do, i bet it would be the best target in that case.

Sounds cool though.

If anything needs to be fixed, it's the AI strategy for defending itself against barbs. Even with CITY_BARBARIAN_DEFENSE_MODIFIER set to 100% the AI can't hold its cities. I haven't lost one yet, though I've had to kill around 300 units so far.

Also, the Barb trait civs don't seem to be holding on to their peace with the barbs. Charadon was knocked out early, and the Clan is under seige.

and

I agree 100%. I like intense barbarian pressure, but the problem is that it helps the human player, who can win almost every time and build up strong untis, but it destroys multiple AI civs, or leaves them cripples.

A couple of times I have, for strategic reasons, tried to help defend an AI civ against barbarians, and I find their disregard for the barbs appalling. I feel like I have a five year old for an ally.

I need to clarify something here. are you both now refering totally to .25 ffh2, i'm waiting(impatiently) for .30 to start playing again, but isn't the AI still broken and unable to build anything but warriors and eventually catapults(one of the reasons i am waiting for .30)? thats a pretty big handicap even if they deal with only a handful of barbs. Also i imagine this portion of the logic had to be changed by the developement team to account for all their modifications to the game. probably a few bugs in it to work out from the BtS move.

as far as i know, the AI was set to build workers and settlers earlier in BtS compared to vanilla, so i recon this should be the cause. It should be possible to have them build at least 2 warriors per city, and 2 more ready before building another settler (if they could program the khazad AI to count it's gold stash in before building another one, this shouldn't be that tough).

Still, i doubt it's possible to make the AI shift it's military production based on the amounts of barbarians coming in (or change strat based on raging barbs being turned on or not)

Besides that, i recon the player recommended-next-unit-to-build should be adjusted aswell (if possible). Plenty of times i've had a settler recommended, while only having 1 warrior and 2 scouts as military force.

What I hate is a settler recommendation when you have no open space to settle. Or Worker Recommendations when you don't even know any tech to let a worker do anything yet (heavily forested lands).


Pretty sure that you could set the option for raging barbarians to change the AI building preferences as well easily. The setting of the option just activates a couple of value changes in the setup files as is, so it is a simple matter of also changing some AI values.

Yeah, the settler recommendations are really annoying. Assuming that these recommendations are tied to how the AI plays the game, then they could use some major improvements.

i recall seeing a couple of checks that the raging barbarian option is set. And i believe one such check doubled the number of defenders the AI wanted per a city, but thats not the portion of the code i was really interested in so i barely glanced at. still its there.It does have a nasty habit, in both ffh and bts, of sending troops to barbarian cities that couldn't hope to take the city, so instead they simply sit there and watch.

 

[beorn]

Much of the damage done to AI civs seems to come from skeletons, with some lizardmen mixed in. The numbers get quite high, and can amount to a series of stacks of 2-6 and even higher that arrive nearly every turn.

A couple of properly promoted archers in a hill city can usually hold them off, maybe with a warrior or two backup. And the human player can use that city to build up some great units. AI civs don't have the sense to put enough quality troops in the city to hold it at all, let alone use the situation to their advantage.

 

[Caradoc]

I miss the human barbarians. In the main game, you get a progression in their strength as Warriors give way to Spearmen and Archers, and then Axemen and so on. But apart from Orc Archers defending cities and an occasional Wolfrider, the barbs don't seem to upgrade.

 

[xienwolf]

Same problem there as with the AI civilizations Charles. The Barbarians can do Axemen and other nifty units (not sure if they can eventually do magic though). It is just that the current AI doesn't ever decide to do anything like that.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

If you start in the classical age their first units are axemen. Before BtS, they also all started with the Bronze Weapons promotion.

 

[Blakmane]

I generally play with lubrascum, and I find the barbs are doing a good job at targetting AI players.

However, as has been mentioned before here, the AI does atrociously. I once had to retake and regift my vassal's city from the barbs 3 times within about 10 turns. Why? because the AI wouldn't move any of it's 10 strong capital city archer stack to defend a town 1 turn's move away.