Thoughts on Barb Recruiting.

[awetzel]

I hadnt had a chance to play for quite some time, but managed to find time during this holiday weekend to do some catching up.

First thing i noticed from the last time i played was the new barb recruitment. It seemed great at first glance, but i like to play on marathon with large maps on king level and it quickly turned from a neat addition to an effective strategy to route the computer.

It created a snowball affect where after getting one barb i could use those to get two more an so on and so forth. It was obvious after awhile that i was not only double any of the other nine civs in millitary via demographics but i also had gotten most of the goody huts. I think the system is nice but might need some tweaks for longer games. Maybe, make it a 50% chance on epic and 25% chance on marathon. I played my first two games and having such a millitary was too big an advantage and not killing the barbs before the computer would be nuts so i played a 3rd and took the barbs out which in turn took bit of feel from the game.

Anyway great mod keep up the good work!!!

 

[markusbeutel]

I hadnt had a chance to play for quite some time, but managed to find time during this holiday weekend to do some catching up.

First thing i noticed from the last time i played was the new barb recruitment. It seemed great at first glance, but i like to play on marathon with large maps on king level and it quickly turned from a neat addition to an effective strategy to route the computer.

It created a snowball affect where after getting one barb i could use those to get two more an so on and so forth. It was obvious after awhile that i was not only double any of the other nine civs in millitary via demographics but i also had gotten most of the goody huts. I think the system is nice but might need some tweaks for longer games. Maybe, make it a 50% chance on epic and 25% chance on marathon. I played my first two games and having such a millitary was too big an advantage and not killing the barbs before the computer would be nuts so i played a 3rd and took the barbs out which in turn took bit of feel from the game.

Anyway great mod keep up the good work!!!

Have you tried out v10.9? The locations/frequency of barb camps appearing has been altered quite a bit, which should reduce how overpowered and readily available they were in v10.8. If people still find them to be op'd, I'll look into reducing the percentage from 100%, but I'd like to explore all other avenues first to avoid making the mechanic be all about luck.

 

[awetzel]

I'll try that tonight thanks

 

[Mordachai]

I really enjoy that mechanic. I hope to see it around in some form.
I've only played two games, and one of them not very far into it. So I can't say much about balance, other than to say my first game gave me lots of barbarians, but my second did not. So I think it varies.

 

[Gorhaax]

Well i've started a standard game with America on King level, and I have yet to build even one military unit. All 11 units of military are from barbarian encampments, I have at least one of every barbarian type. It's a little OP especially when u factor in that they don't affect happiness like normally recruited units do;

I understand the reason for happiness not changing, but I think it might be better if there was a bit of a chance that they won't convert. Maybe only a 90% chance that they will?

Guess we shall see what everyone else s experiences are.

 

[markusbeutel]

I really enjoy that mechanic. I hope to see it around in some form.
I've only played two games, and one of them not very far into it. So I can't say much about balance, other than to say my first game gave me lots of barbarians, but my second did not. So I think it varies.

I enjoy it as well - although it'll be continually tweaked to get a proper balance. There'll be some changes regarding happiness buildings in v11 that also take all of this into consideration.

Well i've started a standard game with America on King level, and I have yet to build even one military unit. All 11 units of military are from barbarian encampments, I have at least one of every barbarian type. It's a little OP especially when u factor in that they don't affect happiness like normally recruited units do;

I understand the reason for happiness not changing, but I think it might be better if there was a bit of a chance that they won't convert. Maybe only a 90% chance that they will?

Guess we shall see what everyone else s experiences are.

The problem with having a 90% chance is that it starts to become about like luck, (or perceived luck). If a human player were to get 1-2 encampments in the game where they didn't get the recruitment, it'll feel like the AI is cheating - even though this may just represent a 5-10% period over multiple games. (And if mods are supported in multiplayer in the next patch, I expecially wouldn't want to add this layer of luck).

It's fairly tweakable to adjust camp locations and spawn rates, so I'm confident this mechanic will keep improving over subsequent updates.

Having said all that, you'll invariably be getting more free units the slower you and/or your AI opponents expand - with the tradeoff being that you'll capture more early cities then build them yourself. I'd like this juxtaposition to represent an active strategy in the early game. Out of curiosity, were you expanding fairly quickly in your current game with the 11 units? (Quickly being 6-7 cities in the first 100 turns?)

 

[Chile]

2nd game with 10.9 at king+epic:

I also think recruiting in its current form is too powerful. In this game i just flushed out 6-7 encampments and rushed Catharine, curbed Alexandre + Wu. Z. from expanding. Now I'm sitting on 2 thirds of a big continent.... the game is basically over at this point.

Why do these units doesn't raise unhappiness? If they did an accumulation of such an army like mine in the early game would not be possible. I think this and a advisor-window which asks if I would try to recruit the barbs will suffice to manage this feature.

Is the AI also actively going for encampments?

Anyways... nice feature... I love it.

 

[Ophryon]

I know you're working on a new version, so I'm not sure if you're still interested in feedback on barbarian recruitment. I agree with the earlier posts about the snowball effect: although I love the recruitment idea, and it was a blast to play at first, it seems too easy to exploit, especially on longer game speeds. It's a fascinating new mechanic, though, and I am very much looking forward to seeing where you take it. Here are some observations from my first game with it (Prince, Large Map, Marathon speed).

Do barbarians heal within their camp? I could consistently take over any camp with only two other units, regardless of type because, even if my first assault failed, I could sit outside their camp and heal while they did not appear to. Two simple Warriors earned me my first Swordsman that way.

Is there a way to make recruited barbarians refuse to attack other barbarian camps? Maybe one of those negative-effect promotions? This would greatly reduce the snowball effect. An example from my game: I recruited a phalanx and then sent it exploring the continent. It came upon another barbarian camp in neutral territory between three other civs. The barbarian unit was a horseman. The other three Civs each had a single Warrior standing around the camp but not attacking. I waltzed in between them and my phalanx easily took out the horseman. Voila. I now had a fast strong unit to further explore and conquer and all the AI could do was stand around and watch.

Could you perhaps keep camps from spawning in the same place more than once? I was able to "farm" barbarians in my first game by moving back and forth between two known camp spawning locations, allowing the fog-of-war to cover one while I attacked the other with the recruits I just got from the first. (Come to think of it, I was using PerfectWorld mapscript if that makes a difference, so maybe the respawning isn't part of your mod...)

Anyway, thanks again for breathing new life into Civ with your creativity!

 

[markusbeutel]

I know you're working on a new version, so I'm not sure if you're still interested in feedback on barbarian recruitment. I agree with the earlier posts about the snowball effect: although I love the recruitment idea, and it was a blast to play at first, it seems too easy to exploit, especially on longer game speeds. It's a fascinating new mechanic, though, and I am very much looking forward to seeing where you take it. Here are some observations from my first game with it (Prince, Large Map, Marathon speed).

Do barbarians heal within their camp? I could consistently take over any camp with only two other units, regardless of type because, even if my first assault failed, I could sit outside their camp and heal while they did not appear to. Two simple Warriors earned me my first Swordsman that way.

Is there a way to make recruited barbarians refuse to attack other barbarian camps? Maybe one of those negative-effect promotions? This would greatly reduce the snowball effect. An example from my game: I recruited a phalanx and then sent it exploring the continent. It came upon another barbarian camp in neutral territory between three other civs. The barbarian unit was a horseman. The other three Civs each had a single Warrior standing around the camp but not attacking. I waltzed in between them and my phalanx easily took out the horseman. Voila. I now had a fast strong unit to further explore and conquer and all the AI could do was stand around and watch.

Could you perhaps keep camps from spawning in the same place more than once? I was able to "farm" barbarians in my first game by moving back and forth between two known camp spawning locations, allowing the fog-of-war to cover one while I attacked the other with the recruits I just got from the first. (Come to think of it, I was using PerfectWorld mapscript if that makes a difference, so maybe the respawning isn't part of your mod...)

Anyway, thanks again for breathing new life into Civ with your creativity!

An interesting suggestion regarding the barbs refusing to attack other barb camps... Once we get .dll access I'll really start to explore scenarios like this - as the ultimate goal would be to bring back barb cities in some shape or form. As for barbs healing - they don't, and this is the same in vanilla CIV V. That might be something to look at so it's not a cakewalk to take the camps.

Having said all that, you are playing on large/marathon, and barb recruiting is going to be the most unbalanced on these settings for now. I'll look at tweaking the mechanic further in v11.2, but v11.1 won't change anything on this front.

Glad you're enjoying it though. v11.1 is going to add a lot of polish, as it focuses heavily on balancing buildings/policies, and diplomacy - so I'll have to get your feedback on that when it's released.