Those Barbarians are tough

Davor · December 31, 2000, 16:51

Is it the only race the Barbarains the ones that attack all the time? I had one game where all they would do is wait outside my cities and units cause I had the GREAT WALL and once it expired Bang. they attacked me like crazy.

In anthor game they attack all the time. I just wished the other races did the same.

Davor

marcuspeddle · December 31, 2000, 21:11

Barbarians are pretty tough in my games, too. I started a world map game and figured, "It'll be a while before I meet any other nations. I'll just build one hoplite and then a settler to make more cities" I sure was surprised when the barbarians appeared, knocked out my hoplite with a couple of swings and trampled my city out of existence. Sad, but at least I got to see neat 'game over' movie. In my next game (same map) I immediately trained two hoplites and survived the first barbarian attack (minus one hoplite). There weren't many barbarians during the rest of the game (so far) because there's a lot of nations taking up all the land. There isn't really anywhere they can appear from. Of course, you never know . . .

Bluevoss · December 31, 2000, 22:29

Oddly, today I had some barbarians move on one of my cities. Since it was a distant city, I'd placed 3 units in it (to maintain the peace). I figured that I'd just clobber the barbarians when they attack. Low and behold, they fortified just outside the city. I had to march out and dig 'em out.

------------------
Bluevoss-

Triumphus Romanus · January 1, 2001, 01:51

ive been playing with barbarians on the max setting recently and they have given me fits. definately makes it more interesting

Alpha Wolf · January 1, 2001, 05:08

I'm having no luck with the barbarians. i modified barabarian strategy so that if they take a city they'll pump out a ton of units and an occasional settler. i have all these huge stacks of barbarians running around but they wont attack (i'm playing impossible with the hardest barbarian level). When alone, they attack anything but for some reason as soon as they stack, they stop attacking. Has anyone else noticed this?

------------------
History is written by the victor.

Martock · January 1, 2001, 10:10

Alpha Wolf, i noticed the same thing. single barbarian units would strike out but stacks tended to stay back. i've had a few stacks attack cities but mostly just single units. what's odd is that the AI will delibertly stack it's unit to make it more powerful but then just sits there. like you, i too am playing on the hardest barbarian level but my changes are even worse. i have enabled the AI to use ANY unit available to ANY empire in the world...and since tanks are the most powerful units right now, tanks are all i see. there are a few cities that have been over run by the barbarians but nothing seems to be taking place there save it building some happiness buildings to prevent riots AND (with some help from the cheat menu by me in the form of 100000 gold and PW) farms/roads/mines.

anyway, in a few days time, i'll open up a topic to mr ogre about the SLIC coding of making barbarians use stealth units only later in the game. i have a major problem with barbarians using modern units like tanks and whatnot.

Davor · January 1, 2001, 11:13

In my game today I had Barabarians attack one of my cites. They stacked up on two from the north and two of from the south, and then they attacked me at the same time. Just barley made it through.

Davor

Alpha Wolf · January 1, 2001, 12:52

Martock, some of that is controllable by the strategies file. have you played with that to see if you can only get special units? I instructed the barbarian to build 60% offensive and 40% ranged, but all it seems to build are hoplites. (thats as advanced as anyone is right now)

------------------
History is written by the victor.

BUSHIDO · January 1, 2001, 12:58

it is weird i play on the highist barbarians level. and i only was attack ones in the game. IT was my capital ok. But they dont do a thing they walk around and 1 time they just left a undefended city there so that the could pillage a farm????? how is that possible and one other thing how do you make all changes you make?????

------------------
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
-Sun Tzu- 'the art of war'

Martock · January 1, 2001, 14:55

Alpha Wolf, i was checking on just that last night to see if the AI could build anything other then hoplites...it seems that the barbarian AI is granted something like the 7 or 8 necessary techs and that's it. so in it's build menu, it could only build hoplites and archers, nothing else. i'll see if i give it techs today if it'll start building other units. i do know that if u give the barbarian AI PW and cash that it does use them. i've seen barbarian cities where there were no farms present a few turns later (still a barbarian city mind you) there were farms or mines...i know from my settings that when the barbarians are created now, they are created from all the units that are currently available to ANY player so in my game i see many barbarian tank units.

i have been playing with both the risk and strategies files to see what i can get the barbarians to do. i do know if you give the barbarians an infector and they are plenty of plump, juicy, and bloated cities around (and it has money) that it will "infect" those cities. i tested this out about 2 weeks ago. i'm gonna tinker tonight and see what happens if i give the barbarians a nuke, a spy, and an eco ranger unit. i'll also see what it does if i give it access to ALL techs concerned. i'm wondering if this happens, will it still be limited to using only the best weapons available to all civs of if it could go right to using fusion tanks and the like. i made similiar changes as you did to what it could build. i did notice in one barbarian city (this also crashed my game) that it was building happiness improvements [that city was very large] to keep the population in line.

BUSHIDO...with regards to barbarians walking around and not attacking your defenseless city, did you have the great wall wonder built?? if so that would explain this. with that wonder, i do believe the barbarians will come but they won't attack. only pillage your farms. this happened in my game yesterday where i had it built, the barbarians kept coming, but all they did was pillage. it wasn't until the great wall went obsolete that they started to attack again.

Alpha Wolf · January 1, 2001, 15:38

I gave the barbarians 10% PW and they definitely use it. They really did act like another civ, except i think I finally cut them off from building wonders (Attila was building them all). I have seen mixed stacks of barbarians but not sure why so often there are no ranged units. With a 60/40 mix of offensive/ranged, i fully expected a better mix. To bad we cant specify the % of flankers. or can we????

------------------
History is written by the victor.

Martock · January 1, 2001, 16:21

i don't know exactly what settings i gave the barbarians to build with but i know offensive and defensive were 40 and 30 respectively. i'll have to play a game longer tonight and see what happens. not sure about the flanker though...have to check into that. i do not recall them building any wonders though it could be because they were already building stuff or cuz my empire or one of the others had built them already...would be rather strange though for that to happen.

Alpha Wolf · January 1, 2001, 16:51

Since the american cities were already building the wonders, i figured that the barbarians just finished them. But at one point the barbs had 3 finished. Thats another thing that bugs me about the AI. A civ may have 2 or 3 building the same one, with no one providing units.

I figured that i wouldnt give the barbs any defensive because their purpose to run around and cause havoc.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

BUSHIDO · January 2, 2001, 08:52

how could i be so stupid. the great wall ok tanks for that martock. But could anyone tell me how a make all those changes. i am not a real notepad kind of guy? so please tell me??

------------------
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
-Sun Tzu- 'the art of war'

Martock · January 2, 2001, 12:59

BUSHIDO your best bet is to go into the creation forum and read thru some of the older messages. you'll find a lot of helpful suggestions in there. modifying CTP is a bit of a pain in the butt if you're not into using wordpad and hunting thru large text files for things to change. some are easy like the tileimp.txt file which allows you to change the settings for the listening posts and radar etc...others like the units.txt are a general nightmare due to the amount of items in it.

Alpha Wolf, i gave the barbarians a defensive building ability as i wanted to use them as a "rogue city-state" type annoyance. i don't want any barbarian cities to be undefended.

Alpha Wolf · January 3, 2001, 05:10

in the strategies file, for the barbarians, i upped the goal for siege and attck and now i have the barbs have been grouping and attacking.

The reason they only had hoplites before is because like all the AIs, they are confined by the build lists. Since i made it 60% offensive, the best offensive unit available at that time was the hoplite. They will continually build the best unit on the list that is available. The game comes shipped with only offensive units available to barbs so just add ranged build list and sea/air/defense based on your preference. I'm going to add some 5% sea unit so they'll build pirates

not sure how to give the barbs better tech so they have more choices, but i'm hoping its an easy update.

------------------
History is written by the victor.