The barbarians are too strong!

[Lemminkäinen]

No, I don't have too many problems defeating barbarians. The AI has!

I've played FF a lot less than FFH2 but the four or five games that I have played have been way too easy as, at least on Immortal difficulty, the barbarians seem to kill off most AIs and the ones that don't die are completely crippled. Only the civs in peace with barbabrians seem to fare better in FF (well, they and Hippus, but Hippus nearly always seem to have a really powerful game for some reason).

I've disabled Orthus, Acheron and Illians to help with things. I even put in more AIs than usual to try and help with the fog busting but to no avail it seems. Last game Doviello were overrun by a crazy super Lich (where did he come from?) and his accompanying Orcs and two civs disappeared before I even met them.

Anyone else have this problem or am I just having bad luck? I really wouldn't want to turn the barbarians completely off.

 

[xienwolf]

By what turn are you seeing AI Civs die? I have run quite a few autoplay games lately, and unless the AC takes off (fairly rare) I don't ever see any AI civs even lose a single city to the Barbarians. I would expect some rare situations like a strong Lair pop early in the course of the game (mostly Lich spawns are the worst) to cause a couple fatalities, but they are fairly rare occurances since the AI won't pop lairs close to home until they are well defended.

 

[Vehem]

I've played FF a lot less than FFH2 but the four or five games that I have played have been way too easy as, at least on Immortal difficulty, the barbarians seem to kill off most AIs and the ones that don't die are completely crippled.

We've been discussing ways to make the AI more proactive at dealing with Barbarians in its territory, not just ones that attack cities. It seems to be a recurring theme however for high difficulty level games that the AI becomes "penned in". I think it's time to bring back AI bonuses vs barbarians at those levels, at least until we find a better solution.

 

[WarKirby]

I've not seen barbarians being a significant problem for AIs lately
However, I'm currently two patches behind, so if there have been any changes to make them more powerful recently, look there for the cause.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I don't play FF, but maybe AI's exploring the lairs in the early game does more harm then good to them.

 

[notque]

I tend to agree that the barbarians are too strong. Their extra levels of aggression makes it that much worse.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I do not know about the AI, but the barbarians in FF, withought aggressive barbarians on, lack the Lairs spawn rate FFH has. It is very uncommon for any lairs to spawn anything more than 2 or 3 units during the timespan of the whole game. This was supposed to be offset by the fact that barbarians could spawn everywhere in FF, but, it seems, this has been disabled as well. I do not know which patch the OP plays, but in G and later patches, the barbarians are, effectivelly, pathetic, in my experience.
My experience is from Emperor difficulty, however. The OP speaks about Immortal, of course.

 

[WarKirby]

I'm not personally a fan of giving the ai any more cheat advantages.

If they're having trouble with barbarians, maybe they need to tend to their defences better?

They seem to get about 10 free warriors on Deity, though. And I didn't see the barbarians getting any stronger with a higher difficulty. Maybe the OP is playing on a relatively low difficulty?

 

[WarKirby]

double post -_-

 

[xienwolf]

With all the reports of "OMG THERE ARE TOO MANY GREAT PEOPLE TOO QUICK!" for the week after the AI started to actually explore lairs effectively, I think it is doing them mostly good. They are smart enough to wait till their city is well defended to explore anything which is seriously close to home.


In regards to lair spawnrates, those are actually in mid-overhaul right now. The big crashing bug put lots of things on hold when it reared up. The intention is for lairs to be self-limited eventually, where right now they are area-limited. In other words, right now the more lairs in an area, the LESS barbarians you will face (since more are contracted for guard duty). But the final intention is for the lairs to simply make spawning of barbarians happen quicker than normal for the area, but once you get too many lairs in an area, they will allow barbarian presence to EXCEED the normal limitations and begin to seriously swarm. (but they won't make it possible to have unlimited barbarian presence)

 

[Thunder_Gr]

With all the reports of "OMG THERE ARE TOO MANY GREAT PEOPLE TOO QUICK!" for the week after the AI started to actually explore lairs effectively, I think it is doing them mostly good. They are smart enough to wait till their city is well defended to explore anything which is seriously close to home.

Since you've brought it, I think these reports were much exaggerated, and noone waited to play a complete game to see if that made the AI too unbalanced or anything...
And, while I see the the issue with barb lairs nor spawning units in FF reported repeatedly, I haven't seen any responce.
The interesting thing is that I played a game in FFH using the same settings I use in FF, and I had the Barbs pestering me more than they do in FF... I must say I feel this is not right. I do not say the barbs must be killers, but, at least, make them as irritating as they are in FFH... They used to be much more irritating in FF.

 

[xienwolf]

Well, you can see a response about the lairs if you scroll up. Seems you caught my post pre-edit

 

[Lemminkäinen]

By what turn are you seeing AI Civs die? I have run quite a few autoplay games lately, and unless the AC takes off (fairly rare) I don't ever see any AI civs even lose a single city to the Barbarians. I would expect some rare situations like a strong Lair pop early in the course of the game (mostly Lich spawns are the worst) to cause a couple fatalities, but they are fairly rare occurances since the AI won't pop lairs close to home until they are well defended.

I checked my saves for my latest game and the Doviello died somewhere between the turns 160 and 200 and Dural had already died before turn 160. I play on Epic speed, btw. Oh, and both had more than one city at some point in the game.

They seem to get about 10 free warriors on Deity, though. And I didn't see the barbarians getting any stronger with a higher difficulty. Maybe the OP is playing on a relatively low difficulty?

I included my usual difficulty (Immortal) in the first post. I hope one wouldn't have to play only Deity to feel at all challenged.

As for the barb irritation, I find them much more challenging in FF because they come in stacks. In FFH I've never lost a city to barbs (unless they were a lair spawn, Orthus, the Horsemen or the Guardian Gargoyles) as how could you lose to single units. In FF it is quite easy to lose if you just have a little bad luck when six Frostlings or four Axemen come knocking on your door.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Well, you can see a response about the lairs if you scroll up. Seems you caught my post pre-edit

Indeed.
However, still this does not explain why burrows do not spawn any skeletons, nor why ruins spawn a so limited number of lizardment, and goblin forts spawn so few goblins... It is not uncommon to have 1 Ruins + 1 Goblin Fort + 1 burrow in the near vicinity and that the burrow is unguarded, the Goblin fort has 1 guard, the ruins have 1 guard, and no other barbarians present anywhere in the area.
It may look like uneeded complaining, but I think it is important that FF barbarians should be more numerous than FFH barbarians...
It is comforting that you are working on it, that's for sure .

 

[Thunder_Gr]

As for the barb irritation, I find them much more challenging in FF because they come in stacks. In FFH I've never lost a city to barbs (unless they were a lair spawn, Orthus, the Horsemen or the Guardian Gargoyles) as how could you lose to single units. In FF it is quite easy to lose if you just have a little bad luck when six Frostlings or four Axemen come knocking on your door.

Which makes me wonder, since you haven't read my post, or didn't feel like saying it, which patch are you playing on.

EDIT: Of course, you could be playing with raging barbarians...I do not use this setting, yet, but nor I do in FFH. So the comparison is on the same grounds.

 

[Lemminkäinen]

Which makes me wonder, since you haven't read my post, or didn't feel like saying it, which patch are you playing on.

EDIT: Of course, you could be playing with raging barbarians...I do not use this setting, yet, but nor I do in FFH. So the comparison is on the same grounds.

Ah, sorry, I mean to say it but forgot. Playing on the j patch. And no raging barbarians or any other options that should affect the barbarians (other than no Orthus or Acheron).

 

[xienwolf]

You don't see skeletons because I am pretty sure the Lair is still limited by the limit placed on the Civ, and for Demons, that is tied to the AC. So if the AC is 0, no demons are allowed. As it crawls up toward 10, still very few are allowed. This will change once the work is finished on Lairs.


For the Lizzies and Gobbos, that is probably just from the stacks filling up the area quicker than usually happens. And they don't spawn new stuff if contained in Hostile Culture range (and seem to wander away if contained in friendly culture range, not sure why honestly)

 

[Iceciro]

The Lich that can spawn from Barrows on a BigBad goody roll has killed significantly more civs than Orthus.

 

[Bitwise]

Bradeline's Well seems to kill off the AI around it if the AC gets to 20 or so. I don't necessarily think that's a problem, but maybe the AI should be proactive about sanctifying terrain near it's borders.

 

[ICanHasName?]

I rarely see AI civs die, even with Orthus or a Lich. I almost always see them get penned in by barbarians and spend the rest of the game struggling to survive though. After about a while I usually open up World Builder and pass out some archers and settlers to all the civs with 1-2 cities. It seems like they do some stupid stuff early on and then just get farther and farther behind as their workers get killed, their stuff gets pilliaged and their lone units all get picked off by stacks. I think its more the barbarians coming in stacks then anything else, thats different from vanilla civ 4 (and vanilla FFH) so it makes sense that the AI cant deal with it properly. I usually do immortal difficulty, or monarch + increasing difficulty.

I usually play on classical start though, so it might just be that the more peaceful AI's just go and build Inns instead of the axeman spam they need.