Thanks to Barbatos, I finally used the #$&! world editor

[blueparrot1966]

Generally, I love the "un-civ" extra stuff, like the orc king and the dragon. I'd love to see more of it.

But @#$! Barbatos HAS to get NERFED, fer chrissakes. Like others, I've seen him nuke AI civs, and had do-over games from being too near him. He routinely makes a huge chunk of land an absolute no go zone. But in a current game, I was intrigued to find him nestled comfortably within the barb-friendly Doviello civ, and took up the challenge of taking Charadon and his little purple robed friend on together.

The result? 200+ turns into the game, I'm thumping the Doviello silly- with substantial packs of swordsmen when they (like clockwork) declare war on me again, and with Larry, Curly, Moe, and some tame "barbarian" spiders when we're supposed to be at peace.

But now that I've got the buggers down to 3 cities, there's an unending tide of earth elementals and wraiths flashing out like lighting, laying waste to all in their path. No unit, no city, no stack I can assemble fast enough can withstand this onslaught.

I've never turned on the world editor before. Ever. But I just wanted to share my immense pleasure at using it to blot out Barbatos and his minions at a stroke. I've been playing civ since the original game in '91, I'm no rookie. But I'm already so challenged by FFH (in a good way!) that I'm only playing on PRINCE level. I don't need an unstoppable villain in the mix too.

If you're gonna throw a Sauron at me, at least give me a ring, some heroes, SOME reasonable way to deal with him. Barbatos has got to go.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I played a game with no barbarians, and his crypt started right next to me. I felt lucky. The crypt shouldn't spawn if you've got no bars on.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I think he should still be in the game, but not start out with so many starting promotions. Instead of starting with Death III, Earth III, Summoning, Channeling I-III, Extension I (or II in older versions), Sentry, and Sentry II, he should start with Hero, Channeling I-III, Summoning, (possibly also Sorcery,) and Death I. That way he could eventually be as much or even more of a threat, but it would take time for him to become that strong. Also, without the sentry promotions or the multiple long ranged summons, he wouldn't be able to eliminate all attackers before they got close enough to try to kill him.

 

[xienwolf]

Heck, just remove the Summoner Trait so that he cannot have 3 turn summons and I would be pleased as punch.


But, in my current game, Barbatos is pretty close to the Saphiric Pyre (free Fire mana, whatever the name), and I went ahead and tossed a city, hoping he might skirt my borders. Sure enough, he captured it, then an AI took it, he took it back, another AI took it, he took it... I took it again, he took it... So now I have founded RoK and I put Bambur in the city with the Defender (double fortify) promotion. He (well, his summons) hasn't bothered to even enter my borders, but terrorises anyone near them.

 

[blueparrot1966]

Magister and Xien, I think you're both on the right track. Summoning is a big part of why he's such a killer, and dumping the promotions and starting him with "hero" would be a good way to let him grow, but still give the civs a fighting chance to take him out.

In my current game, I've already dealt with the usual barbarian onslaught. I don't even want to know what "raging barbarians" is like, considering what's "normal" in 2.025. Also, Acheron spawned plunk in the middle of what would've been my normal expansion area. I'm kind of encircling him, and researching/building what I need for the courage promotion so I can go in and get him.

I'm making two points here- first, I relish challenges, I'm not just crying because I don't have it all my way. Second, there's a reasonable counter to both of these other two events. The barbarians can be dealt with if you plan well, and Acheron, scary as he is, isn't actively laying waste to everything within a country mile of his location!

 

[TravellingHat]

I know just what you mean. I had him sharing my corner of the world in an ongoing hotseat game where I'm the Grigori. I managed to mark out the extent of his summons range, at the cost of a few hunters, and had to build around that not inconsiderable area until some of my heroes where up to the task. Even then, some well promoted hunters got butchered leading the way in, but I did finally manage to take him down.

I pity anyone who faces this without heroes. I couldn't have taken him down without my obscenely over-promoted hero, and a few seasoned hunters to soften him up (and die in the process).

Does he have spell extension? If so, would losing that at least mean his summons couldn't rampage everywhere. He should still be damned dangerous, but it's a pain when he holds sway over a kingdom's worth of territory.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Especially when playing on smaller maps he can dominate half of the world

 

[Kael]

We are going to go with MagisterCultuum's suggestion and have him start with lesser summons and without extension and autogain xp (like other spellcasters). That way he ramps up a bit as the game goes on and doesn't have nearly the range early on.

I should state that I dont have any problem with an ai civ getting wiped out in the first few turns. I dont even mind a human player getting wiped out early on due to bad luck (I do mind a human player gettign wiped out due to luck an hour or so into a game though). The first stage of FfH is survival, not growth and there is a good reason we give those starting settlers plenty of bonus movement

 

[blueparrot1966]

Thanks for the reply and the info Kael. And thanks also for the fantastic mod. I'm not bugged so much by the fact that Barbatos can knock off a civ early on. Over the years of civ playing, that's been an oddity, but it happens.

My beef with this guy is that until you're VERY far along, there's just no way to deal with him. Period. Though theoretically killable, in practice, he's an expanding zone of death that causes a game restart, as often as not. That makes him a very different animal than Acheron, Orthus, or the barbarian rush.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Sounds like a good idea (wait, or course it is,its mine)

Actually, I just starting thinking that giving him death II might be better than death 1; the barbs have enough skeletons in the early game. Still I hope he has hero, not just normal xp gain, because it would allow him to access the twincast promotion latter on. (It might also be nice if new levels of empower were added, given by the heroic strength/defense promotions. This could make summoning heroes in general a bit nicer to have). Also, if he (as a barbarian) has access to all the mana in the world and can learn new sphere spells accordingly he could eventually be quite powerful.



Hmm, not really related, but I was wondering if you could make it easier for a specific unit's death to cost a player certain traits. I've noticed that Hyborem and Basium's deaths no longer cost the Infernals and the Mercurian's their traits, and when I tried to copy the related code from pre bts versions to cost them their traits (and to cost the barbarians their traits when Orthus died, which I had modded in in .22) it didn't work. Adding this ability to random events could make coding these two features easier to reimplement, and would open up some very nice minimodding possibilities. I was thinking that it would be really cool if the barbarians could have Charismatic/Aggressive/Raiders traits until you kill Orthus, and Arcane/Summoner until you kill Barbatos. Costing the barbs the traits which would otherwise make them much to powerful in the late game (especially with high ACs) would give you a very good reason to want the barbarian heroes dead.

 

[xienwolf]

If losing a unit can Cost a trait...

Building a unit could maybe add one? Now THAT would be a hero!
(more realistically, any way of losing the Barbarian Trait when they declare war on you? Or at least a way to return to Peace)



On Barbatos though, before making a change to his AI (or design) please make sure he eventually grows to be the Same death monger we know and love in the new system.

If at 100 exp he is summoning Carebears and holding tea parties instead of destroying Empires, it will be a sad day.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The same death monger? nay...he should grow to be a greater one! (Of course, I would almost certainly increase the max free xp anyway, so my version will probably be stronger than most)


Yeah, having building or spawning a unit be able to add a trait is also a very good idea (even if the ability isn't used in the main game). It would probably be better if spawning Orthus (and Barbatos) made the barbarian state gain Aggressive/Charismatic/Raiders (and Arcane/Summoner) and losing the unit cost them the traits. That way the barbs on a Labruscum map wouldn't be terribly overpowering at first, but once their King shows up to lead them they become quite scary for a time.


I too think that there should be a way to get rid of the Barbarian trait when no longer at peace with the barbs (although I would prefer it if the trait could instead me made to allow its civ to conduct diplomacy with the barbs, trading maps, resources, liberating cities, negotiating open boarder agreements, and possibly even allowing you to ask them to focus their attack on certain rival civs/cities. On the down side, they could get fed up with you for not joining the war against their enemies, i.e., everyone. You could make peace latter, but would have to deal with a very fickle barbarian state. Of course, this implementation is probably impossible)

I also think that there needs to be ritual that can make peace with the barbs. This should probably be AV specific, require or be faster with entropy/death/choas/body mana, and have an AC requirement. It would be most fun if it were repeatable and made the barbs declare war on everyone else (except perhaps barb trait leaders, since the horsemen declaring war on Hyborem doesn't seem to fit), so that you would only be safe from the barbs until another AV civ builds it too. I actually already tried to implement this myself (but without the religion/AC requirements, since the projects file doesn't yet have these as possible prerequisites), but it doesn't seem to have any effect. I probably did it wrong, since I don't have much experience with Python. To bad I deleted "light" from my hard drive to save disc space; I sure the code for the original Wrath ritual would have been helpful.

 

[xienwolf]

On a small side note: Anyone ever try to CAPTURE Barbatos? (I think I have a new goal in life if not...)

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I know of no unit or promotion that allows capturing undead units. However I have cheated in order to acquire him.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Also, if he (as a barbarian) has access to all the mana in the world and can learn new sphere spells accordingly he could eventually be quite powerful.

I'm not sure he does have access to any mana. Barbs have affinity for all players mana, but that isn't the same as having access for promotion purposes, is it? If it is, then I'm cool with the changes, but it'd be a shame if he couldn't level up his casting.

 

[Grillick]

Well, as long as he starts with Death I, he'll be able to level that up, at least.

 

[Lucius Sulla]

In my oppinion the main problem are the summoner&spell extension traits, which make the devastation zone just too big. Apart from that, I would even make him stronger otherwise.

 

[xienwolf]

Heck, could even invent a new set of spells just for him ;P


So far as I remember, he flings around Earth Elementals and Wraiths mostly, so needs to have Death and Earth at the least. As long as he starts with Level 1 of each of them he'll be able to wind up with the same summons later on. Pity his tomb doesn't count as a city, can't use Wall of Stone now that he'll have level 1 Earth

Watch out for those turn 30 or so Kikkijub though!

 

[Pandemonis]

In my current game, Barbatos has nicely settled in the middle of th eCharadon Empire. Needless to say, my Elves are having trouble to warmong against them...

 

[daladinn]

how are you all trying to deal with him? i have killed him many times over using the standard mage killer techniques. waht your experiencing is the exact same thing as if any civ had a summoner unit in a city and has the summoning trait and is just summon bombing you.

solutions to killing him ...

1 - any invisible unit. get like 2-3 together or 6+ if your using t3 and sneak up on him.

2- calvary and haste. close the distance as fast as you can. if you can use enemy roads all the better.

3- use summons or fireballs yourself.

what i would rather see instead of nerfing this poor lad who made some bad choices in a previous life is to have the benefits increased. currently you get death mana (woot) however for all the trouble i feel its just not worth the effort. what i think would be a nice added benefit would be a "free" building if you place a city on the necropolis. this building would give bonus beakers and allow any archmage to cast liche without knowing the death mana to the right level. another good concept would be to allow you to give units the undead promo in this spot (undead is both a benefit and a curse so imho its still balanced but adds alot of flavor).

2 coppers worth of ideas...