vanishing barbarians, .bat files, etc..

Harlan · February 21, 2000, 03:04

I was looking at the Scenario League tips today, to refresh my memory on some tricky design things. There are a couple of things I'm still fuzzy on though.

First, one tip says that barbarian units tend to vanish, depending on the unit slot. Is this true only for barbarians starting the game and randomly created ones, or does it also hold for barbarians created through the events.txt file? I don't recall that being the case for the events ones, but its been a while.

Second, I recall that barbarian boats don't really attack. Has anyone found a clever way around this to make a viable barbarian navy?

Third, does anybody out there know anything about .bat files? I'm still a bit vague on them. What I'd like is have a program that asks which civ you are going to play, and then automatically loads the right events and rules file (there being different ones depending on what civ the human player picks). Can that be done? Would anybody be interested in helping me do it?

[This message has been edited by Harlan (edited February 21, 2000).]

February 21, 2000, 04:57

This post was an accident. UBB screwed up again. Sorry...
[This message has been edited by Fast_Eddie (edited February 21, 2000).]

Mercator · February 21, 2000, 08:19

I'm not sure about the barbarians, but I could have a go at the batch file.

Mercator · February 21, 2000, 15:26

I made up a small batch file:
http://www.wins.uva.nl/~jvermeir/setup.bat

Panda · February 21, 2000, 16:56

I had an idea of a multiple option set-up for a two-tribe civ with the options:

1. Choose side: tribe1, tribe2
2. Starting positions: pro-tribe1, historical, pro-tribe2
3. Reinforcements: pro-tribe1, historical, pro-tribe2
4. Victory conditions: limited, bloodbath

It' simply just using choice options and copying the relevant files. http://members.xoom.com/HistCiv2/change.bat
is an example of a batch file I used for seasonal changes, much like Nemo's later one.

Harlan · February 21, 2000, 20:11

Thanks guys, for the .bat examples. That will surely help. On the downside, I've been struggling with the barbarian navy problem, to no avail. Lessons learned:

Barbarian ships created via events will not appear unless they're built in a coastal city, in which case they never leave it. Or unless they appear on an ocean square with a land unit already on it, in which case they disband as soon as they move off the square!

Barbarian Domain 3 units can't move over water, so that doesn't help. I also noticed by the way that barbarian air units or Domain 3 units will attack other air units regardless if they have the unit flag for that or not.

RobRoy · February 22, 2000, 10:47

Try reviewing Hanti's 4 Sea Republics scenario(v 2.5, I think).

He manages to get barbarian ships to attack.

Some appear at the start and others (especially "Pirates") appear via events in island cities. There are always plenty of land barbarians in these islands. The Pirates will load up the land units and move toward a target, attacking ships they encounter along their way.

I'm not sure if it's related to unit position, unit values, technology, enemy city proximity, or what. I suspect one key element is the presence of land units that can be embarked (and I notice the AI seems picky about which of several available unit types it embarks).

While I'm sure his event-created Pirate units move out of the cities and attack, he also tries to use a transport-like unit and some other naval units. I'm not sure whether the transport-like unit ever moves out of the city; and the units created outside of the cities seem to disappear after a turn or two (and don't seem to attack anyway).

His Pirate ships do disappear after the carried units have debarked. I can't say whether the ships engage in Shore Bombardment of ground units or not, but they do seem to attack naval units en route to their destination.

P.S. Harlan, you can ignore an e:mail I tried to send you. I seem to have been granted forum privileges after all.

Harlan · February 22, 2000, 16:25

Turns out I'm completely wrong about barbarian ships. As you point out Rob, they do work. The thing I didn't realize is they're shy. Turns out, after more testing, they usually wait a good number of turns inside the city until they load up a number of units, and then leave. Good news for me!

I'm not sure what email you refer to, sorry. If it was sent to my harlant@hawaii.edu address, I very rarely check that one.