What if we made barbarians able to found city-states?

Pipiskus

Warlord
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Apr 3, 2024
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As i know right now barbarians are able to conquer city states, though it happens quite rarely(only happened once to me), but what if we made barbarians able to found city-states? For example after capturing civ's settler or if the amount of barbarians in the area exceeds some x number? I think that can be interesting. We can also introduce mercenary mechanic like in civ 6 through these cities making them unique among others. What do you think?
 
it'd be odd since you'd have some incentive to foster barbarian growth

currently barbarians are just a one dimensional thing to be destroyed, so this would be a big shift, adding some sort of depth
 
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But this is not a proposal, just What IF discussion
In that case, a "what if?" discussion doesn't need a "should we add this? (yea/nay)" poll.
 
after capturing civ's settler
Yeah could be interesting. Sometimes I lose a settler to barbs because I am drunk distracted by household chores, and it's always a pain to have to go and recapture. Here at least the barbarian city could actually start building while you moved over and you can get on-conquer bonuses or even puppet. I assume you are also suggesting a "liberate" option to create a city state (as per title)?
 
. I assume you are also suggesting a "liberate" option to create a city state (as per title)?
Wow, i haven't thought about that to be honest , but that sounds interesting.
What i wanted it to look like is to make barbs able to create their own type of city state on par with cultural, military, etc where you could buy unique mercenaries from and that would be constantly hostile like usual barbs untill you buy units from them. But now as you said that, it might be more interesting to let the player choose what type of city state out of existing ones they want to have as an (maybe) eternal ally after liberating it. Though we can merge our two ideas into one as well.Sounds cool to me
 
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Do they really conquer cities that often? While they technically can or should be able to it's very very rare from my experience. Mostly I see them flip cities with that city-state quest where there is an uprising of sorts and if there are barbs alive in x turns the city might flip. That is how they get cities out in the periphery mostly from my experience. It's rare that the quest works if it happens in a city that is close to the player or AI unless you want it to happen.

That said I'm not sure what the purpose of they becoming city-states would be. They already are one, a hostile one. A barbarian city-state. Is the point that they should flip back to becoming peaceful again? Or that it should break away from the city initial controller (usually then an AI or the player) other wise it's a city-state under barbarian control becoming another city-state?

In that regard I would find it more interesting to say if a city-state that conquer a few cities or other city-states would be turned into an AI player instead if it just reaches enough critical mass in that regard.
 
Barbs can conquer your city very easily if you settle right next to mid-lategame barbarians.
 
I think there's technical complications with founding additional city-states after game start. Things like Diplo votes, and maybe other stuff?

If the question is just "Do you want to see more City-States owned by Barbarians?", then my answer is "Yes", I think it's a fun point of variety. Making the Horde quest harder for CS to self-clear perhaps, and letting Barbarian cities grow more naturally (instead of being stunted severely) would go some part of the way towards this. Without the latter, I don't think it ends up being a good idea for more Barbarians to own cities.

I floated the idea of some percent of Hostile City-States spawning in as Barbarian-controlled awhile back, but the idea isn't fully fleshed out. What I like about the idea is that you have this conquest-related "quest" by default, where you need to defeat the barbarian city to "liberate" it back to a city-state (or just add it to your empire). It's an outlet for otherwise-warmongery Civs picking a target that doesn't upset everyone around them (including other CS).
 
I think there's technical complications with founding additional city-states after game start. Things like Diplo votes, and maybe other stuff?

If the question is just "Do you want to see more City-States owned by Barbarians?", then my answer is "Yes", I think it's a fun point of variety. Making the Horde quest harder for CS to self-clear perhaps, and letting Barbarian cities grow more naturally (instead of being stunted severely) would go some part of the way towards this. Without the latter, I don't think it ends up being a good idea for more Barbarians to own cities.

I floated the idea of some percent of Hostile City-States spawning in as Barbarian-controlled awhile back, but the idea isn't fully fleshed out. What I like about the idea is that you have this conquest-related "quest" by default, where you need to defeat the barbarian city to "liberate" it back to a city-state (or just add it to your empire). It's an outlet for otherwise-warmongery Civs picking a target that doesn't upset everyone around them (including other CS).
It can use the same system when your cities abandon you if your empire has too high unhappiness and join a random city-state. It didn't have to found a new one.
 
Maybe try making barbarian cities actually develop a little bit first (like city-states). Sometimes I play raging barbarians/new world kind of scenario, it will be cool to see some barbarian empires already there!
 
I kinda wanted to have multiple barbarian factions. So not all barbarians would work for each other and have a global vision, some would fight with one another.
But I'm not sure how hard it is to code it (because barbarian itself is linked to a single entity and it gets called heavily in the DLL.)

Of course, this would come with some sacrifice with the reduction of the maximum number of max CS that can be put in the game.
 
I kinda wanted to have multiple barbarian factions. So not all barbarians would work for each other and have a global vision, some would fight with one another.
But I'm not sure how hard it is to code it (because barbarian itself is linked to a single entity and it gets called heavily in the DLL.)

Of course, this would come with some sacrifice with the reduction of the maximum number of max CS that can be put in the game.
I am not sure what number of CS have to do with my idea, but i see this in a manner that barbarian camps would evolve into city states thoughout the game, not being spawned at the start like regular CS, so they would appear in the end of Antiquity and to the rest of the game. ( just how it works at Civ 4, well, sort of) It should look something like Barbarians Evolved mod on Steam. I believe it makes the game far more strategic and realistic as this way you cant just spawn in the corner of the map and win culturally with no army built whatsoever.
I also dont think that making barbs into different factions is a good idea, as it diminishes their primary purpose to mess things up.
 
I am not sure what number of CS have to do with my idea
The maximum number of player entities in the game is 63 + 1 which is already reserved for Barbarians.
You can only have so many barbarians that can turn into CS until you hit a hard limit.

By default, the maximum amount of Civs in the game is 22, and for CS is 41.
In 43 civs mode, there's only up to 20 CS.

This idea also conflicted with a Phoenician custom civ that could make its own CS by settling a city. And I'm sure Pdan would defend his creation badly.
 
The maximum number of player entities in the game is 63 + 1 which is already reserved for Barbarians.
You can only have so many barbarians that can turn into CS until you hit a hard limit.

By default, the maximum amount of Civs in the game is 22, and for CS is 41.
In 43 civs mode, there's only up to 20 CS.

This idea also conflicted with a Phoenician custom civ that could make its own CS by settling a city. And I'm sure Pdan would defend his creation badly.
I thought this was a problem only when creating game and then you can make as many CS as you wanted. Well, then there is no other solution but to create a singular barbarian entity i guess, its not that bad though, but i still believe that player that captured barbarian city should be able to form CS goverment of choice on conquering untill the limit is not met.This is too good of a mechanic to reject.
 
At some point we have to point out that enemy players are just Barbarians that you don't start at war with, right?

Like, there's already a mechanic where cities will pop up all over the map and you can wage war to take them over. And the barbarian in question even has better tech than "regular" barbarians, making it a tougher challenge!
 
Could just have it be a barbarian city instead of a city state. Would need to change the logic so they actually do something with the city. Way better than messing with adding even more pressure on the 63 player limit.
 
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