The barbarians are easier in FfH!

[Alex Encandar]

I definatly like the idea of adding more special events like orthos and the red dragon. With enough of those spawning it would probably make things a lot more difficult. A nice mod is rebellion or revolution, can't remeber what it is but it has 3 major features, your people can rebel and form new civilizations (or old ones that you conqured ) if they aren't kept happy, barbs are likely to spawn cities, and they will work hard to develop them using workers, and if barb cities are left alone long enough they will eventually become civilizations! It's a pretty good mod and could probably be adapted to fit into FfH pretty well.

Here's a link to the mod:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171127

 

[seZereth]

so far the extra barb heroes i can think of are:
Raider King - strength 4, movement 4, basically a rogue stronger hippus raider hero for barbs, coming around same time as Orthus
Typhoid Mary - can summon plague carrier rats, coming midgame
Behemoth - 20 strength animal, maybe 2 movement, coming around the same time as acheron
Lich King - barb summoner hero that starts with death 1 (maybe also 2 and 3?), with about 7 strength, 1 movement, coming around the time of acheron


might be neat to make rituals/wonders people can build to give the barbs those heroes instead of times. so maybe you build a necromantic wonder that gives you a (few?) free Death mana(s), but unleashes the Lich King on the world (who may very well start near you and attack you).
the reason this might be a good delivery method for the barb heroes would be that then you dont need to do yearly checks to see if its time to create those heroes (kael mentioned that as causing turn slow downage)

on that vein, some existing wonders could be tied to barb hero creation, or new wonders for the current barb heroes.. like the great lighthouse could cause the sailors dirge to appear (tho the whole city sitting issue would need to be dealt with since by the time someone builds the great lighthouse thered be barb cities and the dirge would never see use).

those are great ideas!

 

[wilboman]

You're just dying to play more with blender...

 

[seZereth]

You're just dying to play more with blender...

thats one thing, but there is enough stuff to blender and i have enough ideas without those ideas.

so i really liked the ideas itself

 

[Maniac]

On my small maps I only get about zero to five barrows/ruins. Is this normal?

 

[Lord Vermillion]

a large behemoth monster (like 20 strength but animal classed so doesnt general enter borders), a mounted hero, typhoid mary as a barb with a summon rat ability would be cool, generally a summoner barb hero would be interesting.

The Tarrasque

 

[Silverkiss]

The Tarrasque would have to be Strenght 200 ;D

 

[Nero's fire]

I like the idea of more barbarian heroes. Especially the very powerful ones that have to stay in the wilderness. However, these would make a very localized problem and I see people that are away from the problem getting absurdly powerful.

What about if they just upped the possibility of barbs creating cities. This situation seems to solve the majority of Chandrasekhar points.

1) Since now barbs are mostly in well defended cities the tables have turned an now the players NEED those special promotions in order to take them out. Further the promotions should be harder to get since not every barb is suicidily attacking a very fortified city or forested hill.

2) Not 100% on this as far a mechanics but I remeber a topic eariler that was trying to determine how barbs "learned". One of the findings as I recall was that atleast to a limited degree their cities did research.

3) It would be very hard to expand with settlers now. Since now cities could produce units as well as the barrows and random pop ups barbs would be more common running around the landscape. Further it would require in some situations that a player would have to eliminate a neighboring barbarian city to build where they want too.

Since this would happen universally no one person would be overly overwhelmed. And it doesn't allow one Civ to be in the right place at the right time to avoid all the other "heroes" and take an easy road to the lead.
I used to play terra maps a lot and I always thought it was fun to invade a barbarian country. One of the few times I found drill to be useful on my heavycrossbowman who would get attacked by over 20 units a turn.

 

[Aeon221]

The Tarrasque would have to be Strenght 200 ;D

Are you talking about that _hideous_ band?

edit: In that case, I demand that it be called Spinal Tap, and that it have a strength of 11.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

With a decently promoted warrior, all the orc spearmen in the world can't hold a city. I'd only support more barbarian cities if Archery could be made more attractive to the AI. Otherwise, you're just giving free cities to the human player.

 

[SeriousTiger]

Are you talking about that _hideous_ band?

edit: In that case, I demand that it be called Spinal Tap, and that it have a strength of 11.

Why don't you just make 10 stronger and make 10 be the strength and make that a little stronger?

 

[Sarisin]

I stopped playing FFH with the raging barb option because IMO it is impossible to lose at even the highest game settings.

This really doesn't have much to do with me - I just establish one or two cities, defend them AND their improvements and let the barbs pour in.

The problem, and the reason the raging barb games became less fun, is the continued bad AI of the other civs. The only challenge is if there are one or more AI civs with the BAR trait. Then, you have a little more work to do.

However, the AI civs without the BAR trait continue to expand at will and do not have adequate defenders for their cities - you often see them wandering the map while cities are left unprotected. Their improvements are quickly taken out followed by their cities.

As a result the raging barbs with or without Orthus are able to easily pick off the cities one be one and eliminate the AI civs. You are guaranteed a Conquest Victory before the yr 800 or so playing on a huge map with 10 other civs. Adding civs helps, but if you play with 10, their AI will assure defeat for them. All you have to do is turtle up and defend...and there's not as much fun in that.

So, making the barbs tougher, more numerous, or with heroes, without improving the AI civ's ability to defend intelligently is not going to do anything to change this IMHO.

FFH remains a great game, but for me, the raging barb option just isn't that much of a challenge anymore.

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

Reinstitute a low xp cap for barb combat. (vanilla had a cap of 10)

Then you(and AI) will not get uber-units from fighting them, thus making them harder to beat.

 

[Sureshot]

no way, the heightened xp cap is a ton of fun

theres a lot of things the AI doesn't handle well, but a defeatist attitude of "remove them cause the AI doesnt handle it well yet" is hardly a good or fun idea.

Sarisin, have you played the most recent version? not that i agree with the AI's getting bonuses versus the barbs, but that seems to have solved the problem of them dying in my games.

instead of bonuses versus barbs for AI's, id rather see the archery line get higher city defense (like +50% city def min), and put a greater emphasis on archers for the AI (though hunters need to be moved to tracking for choosing archery to ever be intelligent).

also, recently ive noticed the best tactics the AI's seem to pull off is to build adepts... they end up with tons of high combat, 2 strength units that arent affected by the shock promotion, makes them hard to kill. currently, any AI without adepts can easily be beaten with a warrior rush (weakening the barbs will not protect AI's against player hordes, AI's need better city defense).

giving warriors +50% city defense might be nice as well (and upping enforcers to +70%), ive noticed bannor tended to do well before the barb bonus, since their enforcers have higher city defense. would also make barb cities harder to take, currently a barb city just saves you the trouble of making a settler.

 

[BlazeRedSXT]

I like the Idea of adding some more Barbarian hero types, but as Kael says, the art is very important and somewhat time consuming...

Why not start with something simple? What if the racial promotions got pushed back to Combat 2 or 3 instead of 1? Unless you are playing a smaller map with quicker speeds, you aren't likely to need them against other civs until later on anyway, and don't forget that the Orc Slaying promotion is not just meant for Barbs, but Clan of Embers.

Also, things like Barbarian Cities and spawn rates etc, can be controlled in the Handicap file.. maybe create a Raging Barbarians difficulty level(maybe matching around Prince), and pump up the rate of thier city spawns, lair spawns, etc...

Just thinking of simple ways to resolve the issue without massively alterting the current play mechanics... don't know if they will actually work yet...

Cheers!

 

[TheBoatman]

What about a chance getting weapons promotion, depending on how many civs know each metal working tech? Orc spearman with bronze weapons would stand a chance against promoted warriors. I could be linear to number of civs knowing the techs.

If everyone knew bronze working it would be 50% for bronze weapons.
If everyone knew iron working it would be 50% for iron weapons and 100% bronze weapons.
If everyone knew mithril working it would be 50% for mithril weapons and 100% iron weapons.

Upgraded barbarians could also start nearer to active mines of respective metals. This may be harder to code in.

 

[Lord Vermillion]

Are you talking about that _hideous_ band?
.

Hehe no, The Tarrasque is a creature from Dungeons and Dragons that appears once every 1000 years.

 

[Lord Vermillion]

Why don't you just make 10 stronger and make 10 be the strength and make that a little stronger?

LMAO

 

[cvlowe]

...

What about if they just upped the possibility of barbs creating cities. This situation seems to solve the majority of Chandrasekhar points.

...
3) It would be very hard to expand with settlers now. Since now cities could produce units as well as the barrows and random pop ups barbs would be more common running around the landscape. Further it would require in some situations that a player would have to eliminate a neighboring barbarian city to build where they want too.

In my current game I have easily taken over 8 barb cities by turn 400, 7 of them right where I would have built myself- 1 ons square off, but I kept it anyhow because I didn't feel like bothering to make a settler. So your point 3 should be you don't need settlers at all with that change.

 

[Sarisin]

no way, the heightened xp cap is a ton of fun

Sarisin, have you played the most recent version? not that i agree with the AI's getting bonuses versus the barbs, but that seems to have solved the problem of them dying in my games.

Yes, I've already won two raging barb games at the Deity level and I'm playing a third now. I let the computer randomly select my civ and this time it is Hippus so I am piling up some obscene XP - I think I have one Ranger with over 800 now. I do like the heightened xp cap as well.

Again, like the other two games, I am in the yr. 800 and 6 of the 10 AI civs have been eliminated by the raging barbs. I have built 4 cities and am able to defend them without problems as I am running one step ahead of the barbs - although they are sending lizardmen rangers in droves. I am trying to get my second army of werewolves together - another good strategy for fending off barbs and going after the remaining civs.

As I mentioned the only thing that makes it a bit tougher is having one or more civs with the BAR trait. I use two strategies in this case (1) let him (in this case it is Chardon) exceed the 50% rule in pts and let the barbs wipe him out or (2) if his points are below or hanging around the same as mine, I go after him. This is challenging when you have raging barbs beating on you, but it is easily doable, especially if you can get the Baron and start up your Werewolf Army.

As with other versions, the AI tries to expand too quickly IMO in the early game leaving its cities defended by one or two warriors. This cities are easily crushed by the barbs, especially if Orthus is on the loose. Except for the civs with the BAR trait, they should be more in a defensive rather than an expansive mode or they will go down in short order.

All you have to do as any game difficulty level is turtle up, defend, and let the AI get defeated by the raging barbs giving you a Conquest Victory.

So, it is just the raging barb feature than IMO doesn't work. I am also playing a 'regular' game without raging barbs at Monarch level and it is very, very tough staying up with AI civs - they really expand like crazy while I am fighting to not have negative gold with just a few cities. Also, even without the raging barb feature selected, the barbs can be pesky if you happen to have open territory near your civ like I do.