why doesn't my barbarian cities produce units?

hardjoy · December 27, 2003, 13:36

I've recently played around with version 2 of my scenario Hammer of the North. I've noticed a slight problem with my barbarian cities. They don't seem to produce the units they're supposed to. There is simply no shield buildup in the production boxes, even though their cities often have between 5 or 10 shields to build from.

Anyone have a clue what might be the problem?

I made the barbarian cities and their production with CivCity, which is different from what I used to do. I used to do it the old-fashioned way, letting land-grounded barb units take control of the cities, and then change the units to whatever they had to be. I don't recall a similar problem then. The cities would always reproduce the unit that took control of the city, be it changed to air, sea og whatever roles and domain. But now, no barbarian units are coming out at all...

Is there something that needs to be done, before the cities can be effectively "barbarian" and produce barbarian units?

All the barb cities have barbarian units preplaced in them, but alas, still no barbarian production.

Harry Tuttle · December 27, 2003, 15:14

Is there at least one unit in the scenario that does not need any prereq tech to build that unit? If there are no "open to everyone" units then the barbs cannot build units.

hardjoy · December 27, 2003, 15:57

Yes, there are two, spearmen and settlers. But even those barb cities producing spearmen won't produce them. The shield box simply isn't filling up.

hardjoy · December 27, 2003, 16:38

Hmmmm... looks like its working now... gonna have to test it further. But the shields are coming up now... opened up civtweak and gave the barbs a bunch of money. Maybe thats got something to do with it.

Henrik · December 27, 2003, 16:57

In my experience cities in the begining of the games "list" may produce units when barbarian and cities at the end of it can't.
So cities that where founded early will produce units others won't acumulate shields even...

hardjoy · December 27, 2003, 17:07

nope still not working... no shields in any barbarian city. Very strange. Apparently I could produce a shield growth in one game, and the next again I can't.

And no connection to city history that I can spot. There's no difference between early founded cities and later ones. Any other ideas, Henrik?

Henrik · December 27, 2003, 17:30

Strange, normally that's how it works for me atleast. Have you tried making all cities barbarian and have the scenario run a few turns? Usually they do produce units in atleast a few cities...

techumseh · December 27, 2003, 17:36

Once a certain number of barbarian units are on the map, barb cities no longer produce units. I forget the formula, but it's a pretty low number- 12 or 15, I think.

Anyway, you shouldn't expect barb cities to produce units. Use events, or make use of one of the barbarian activity levels if that's suitable. William Keenan's Barbarian Paper is very useful for that purpose: http://coc.apolyton.net/guides/barbarian_paper.shtml

hardjoy · December 27, 2003, 18:09

thx, guys. I think its the number of barb units then. There's quite a few of them, and I need more still. Just gotta preplace them, then, so its not so much of a problem.

Does this mean there will be no random barbarians (raiding hordes or pirates), if the formula number is reached?

academia · December 27, 2003, 18:50

Mmm... i´ve never had problems with the barbarians in my iron curtain scenario. And believe me, there are rebels everywhere!!

For your info, 13 cities are in rebel hands + 60 barbarian units in the map. and the random barbarians (created with events commands) appear always... no problem.

Take a look:

academia · December 27, 2003, 18:54

These are the stats of the "rebel forces" unit:

Rebel Forces, no, 0, 2.,0, 7a,5d, 3h,2f, 3,0, 1, no, 000001001000010

And a city producing that unit:

Heresson · December 27, 2003, 18:54

Oh, they "produce", by which I mean they are set to produce stuff. But no shields appear, always zero. Still, I'm not sure if it means that these units aren't produced by them from time to time.
Perhaps the sollution is to set the cost of the unit to 0?

academia · December 27, 2003, 18:55

Anyway, i have no idea why it works!!!

I hope you can "discover" the answer...

Heresson · December 27, 2003, 18:56

I posted my post before yours, that's for the first part

academia · December 27, 2003, 19:00

Same city, turn 2:

academia · December 27, 2003, 19:04

The unit finally built:

hardjoy · December 27, 2003, 19:42

Still have no clue whatsoever what is causing the no-shield build-up. I had no problems of the kind in the previous version of the scenario.

One strange thing, I noticed, however, is that the barb cities receive free irrigation and roads, without a settler in sight. So now I tried to give settlers a preq and see if this changes anything.

hardjoy · December 27, 2003, 22:15

Quote:

Originally posted by academia
Mmm... i´ve never had problems with the barbarians in my iron curtain scenario. And believe me, there are rebels everywhere!!

For your info, 13 cities are in rebel hands + 60 barbarian units in the map.

In comparison, I have 59 cities in barbarian control in the new version of my scenario, with 119 barbarian units.

In an old (well-working) version of the scenario, there was just 26 barbarian cities, with 98 units. I begin to believe that I am nearing the limit, since no random barbarians appear, and barb cities cease to produce shields.

I'll probably have to get rid of some cities to balance things out, since I prefer fewer cities with more units, than too many, that are too easy to take.

academia · December 27, 2003, 22:17

Well, then that might be the problem. Too many barbarian units/cities in the map

Good luck solving the problem

Eivind IV · December 28, 2003, 06:40

I had the exact same problem you have with the barb cities in my Blitzkrieg scenarios. I still don't know the sollution, but in my experience the cities started to finally produce units afer a couple of turns.