Barbarian ideas (not just encampment) but that too

[SMIFFGIG]

This discution was started in a PM if anyone is confused where I got the quote



Pedrunn

How does it work in civ3? Never played it.

Well a barbarian encampment appears randomly on the map (i would say maybe 5 to 7 or so on a map at one time. They can only appear outside your boarders and in fog of war. Each camp has a name of the tribe in which it is of. The camp has one barbarian always stationed in it and builds new barbarians from the camp at a constant and slowish rate. If a barb camp appears next to your city boarders a message comes up saying something like :
Phonecian barbarian tribe spotted near Pompeii and yes they have got the Phonecians as a barbarian tribe how dumb is that. Anyway as u can see it gives a message telling you what city of yours its near. It will slowly build barb units that come and attack u sometimes and are more than a pest more than anything. What you have to do is go out into the fog of war next to your city and find the camp when u destroy the unit stationed in it (or unit(s) as they may not have moved the unit they just built) you destroy the encampment recieving 50 gold.
Its a really good feature of Civ3 i love it and I hope it can be implemented EXACTLY the same into CtP2 (you wont hear me say that Civ3 has a good feature very often)


Furthermore a barbarian feature I loved from Civ2 is not in CtP2 or Civ3(im 95%sure). Im sure this could EASILY be implemented (by you the modders of course not me) is when barbarians appeared next to your civ it would say something like:
Barbarian uprising near Yorkshire I loved this
and when they came by sea (which i believe they can now do due to modding or correct me if im wrong it could just be that they have sea units.
Barbarian landing party near Venice
Could this be put back in??? please

Another thing on barbarians and I have mentioned it in the Best of all worlds thread. That now Civ3 units are being converted and eventually 3rd party ones (im pretty sure) i think there should definitly be some barbarian specific units.

And one more thing barbarian leaders could be quite cool (not sure on this one though if we have the barbarian encampment exactly as it is in civ3?)

Last thing (i mean it this time) remember the amount of barbarians that appeared on civ2 when you had them on raging (this was later on in the game) could you make it so that its like that in ctp2, i put it on the highest setting and you still get hardly any.

thanks for reading

[Immortal Wombat]

The pirates are in MM2, but due to an irritating limitation to SLIC, it is nigh on impossible to find the nearest water tile to the nearest city to the boat, move the boat there, and find out where it should be unloading.

Much more complicated than it first looks...

[SMIFFGIG]

big shame, that would be cool

Anyway what about the other stuff

P.S. On the subject of barbarian specific units take a quick look at the Best of All worlds thread. Plus the trireme for example from civ3 could be a barbarian specific ship (maybe a bad example but im sure you know what im getting at )

[Pedrunn]

This can be easily be implemented. Probably it is easier than my last code and does not require changes in the texts.
Totally different concept from my code but better. I think it will be a great addition to CTP2.
I will try to write it at night.

Correct me if anything you disagree in any of my ideas:

- Barbarians cities appears randomly in the map until a max of 7. It has a maximum city size of 1 (So that it get destroyed when conquered).
- It gets a militia unit.
- The player with the closest city gets a message if distance smaller than 10 squares.
- it constantly builds new units.
- Makes units move to one spot besides the camp and form armies if the city already have enough units.
- When it is huge enough (lets say 4) it can move again to spread terror to the closest cities and players.
- Kill a barbarian camp grants you gold (and PW?).

[Caranorn]

While you're at it, why not look for a way to recruit barbarian units as mercenaries? This would be best with barbarian specific units. It's one of the things I've been missing in CTP and CTP2 (I won't even mention Civ3). Quite a few nations used to buy out the barbarians pestering their borders (and then turn them against the next wave of barbarians).

For barbarian specific units, if we get all the civ3 units converted we should have a few worth using that way. We can also as I mentionned in the flic to sprite topic create multiple sprites from a single Civ3 unit (changeing basic colours and possibly using different frames, facings etc.). On the other hand not all Civ3 units are very attractive for conversion (and use) to CTP2.

Marc aka Caran...

[Pedrunn]

EDIT: Caranorn, I forgot i wanted to create the bribe order. If i manage that hire barbarians could cost much less.

A few more thoughts regarding Barbs. What do you think

- Barbarians can only have the camp. Therefore size 1 cities.
- If a barbarian conquers ones player city. The city and the barbarian city camp wich created the units becomes a new civilization (I need to make sure this is possible though).

[Caranorn]

Sounds good, but I'd say this should happen on a percentage, not every time. Sometimes barbarians would just hang on to a few cities for a time and not really settle. Other times they'd take to city life very fast and indeed create a new civilisation. Possibly make it 3 way if that's possible, 50% chance the city is plundered (destroy 1 improvement or wonder, lose 1 population and some gold), 25% the city becomes barbarian (is plundered anyway), 25% the city forms a new civilisation (if a slot is free). Actual percentages if possible would have to be tested though to see what would work fine.

Marc aka Caran...

[SMIFFGIG]

Pedrunn:
All that you mentioned is great just right
Glad u like the ideas

- When it is huge enough (lets say 4) it can move again to spread terror to the closest cities and players.

Not entirely sure what you mean by that ??

BTW the barbarian specific units and the bribary code (which i hope can be done) would work bloody amazing together it would be so cool
(lol bit off topic but ive just remembered on civ2 when u bribed the barbarian leader and where successful he turned into a diplomat ?? lol)

Caranorn

50% chance the city is plundered (destroy 1 improvement or wonder, lose 1 population and some gold)

Good idea, but not the wonder. (i know this used to happen on civ2 where the barbs would capture the city and destroy the wonder and in the wonders screen it said "Lost" for that wonder) I dont think that would be a good idea in CtP2 though cause I mean they could capture the city and then the next turn you could capture it back but between this time youve just lost the best and newest wonder in the world


What about the more powerful barbs appearing though.... barbarian uprisings (not camps) like the default barbs in ctp2. Will you make these hordes rather than little gangs of 2 or whatever (have you played civ2 on raging barbarians, in the places u dont have cities tons of barbarians appear on raging level its way cool) I remember (this is dumb but just an example) the barbs where powerful enough to take over paris in the industrial age and another time when russia only had moscow on this little island and barbs landed there and took it over and destroyed "Shakespears Theatre" lol
They where way better



P.S. How come in civ2 the barbs could use transport ships and disenbark near a city (even if quite a few times they got it wrong and landed on the one tile island next to your city) and in CtP2 they CANT????

P.S(2) Is anyone making a mod or slic code that makes the AI build massive navies as in civ2 (the navies the AI had in civ 2 come the modern age where massive) I dont remember once having any GREAT navy battles in CtP2 only the odd trireme meeting my corocle or whatever


Anyway thanks again

EDIT: Caranorn what do you mean some of the Civ3 units arent good enough quality to be converted . Why not whats wrong with them? You got any examples

[Caranorn]

Well, I can't think of one right away. But lets say once I decided not to go alphabetically for the conversion (there doesn't seem to be an interest in that), I went to look which units were most appealing. Unfortunatelly I found that a bunch are either unrealistic, plain ugly or have serious anathomical problems. One thing is obvious, the vast majority of Civ3 flics was created at the scale used in that game (CTP sprites appear to have been scaled down at some point from decent and realistic graphics). Worse, a number seem to have been created from other half-baked units.

So for now I plan to convert the units I remotely like, even creating multiple sprites from a single Civ3 unit. The ugly ones will have to wait till last (unless someone has a specific request). I plan to do all of them eventually (slower then I thought at first as this really ain't motivating work), just a question of time.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: The swordsman I added today might be useful as a medieval barbarian, it's not quite realistic (maybe I'll manage to modify a copy later to create a velite) but at least it looks good. The hoplite is just plain ugly, the legionary acts like some halftrained militiaman... But there are some beautiful units too.

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Not entirely sure what you mean by that ??

I was thinking in control the stacks. To make the camp only send big stacks turning it really dangerous. Thats something to think of because i really never had a good experience with the moving of stacks through slic but i think it is a nice feature.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
BTW the barbarian specific units and the bribary code (which i hope can be done) would work bloody amazing together it would be so cool

The idea can be easily implemented with a click in an army. But i want to make it a order thats what makes it difficult.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Good idea, but not the wonder. (i know this used to happen on civ2 where the barbs would capture the city and destroy the wonder and in the wonders screen it said "Lost" for that wonder) I dont think that would be a good idea in CtP2 though cause I mean they could capture the city and then the next turn you could capture it back but between this time youve just lost the best and newest wonder in the world

It probably is impossible to destroy a wonder too. I cant find a fuction or an event to do this.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
What about the more powerful barbs appearing though.... barbarian uprisings (not camps) like the default barbs in ctp2. Will you make these hordes rather than little gangs of 2 or whatever

Now i did not got what you meant.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
P.S. How come in civ2 the barbs could use transport ships and disenbark near a city (even if quite a few times they got it wrong and landed on the one tile island next to your city) and in CtP2 they CANT????

In the original CTP2 the barbs dont ever get ships. Barbarians ships is only possible with the Locutus code.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
P.S(2) Is anyone making a mod or slic code that makes the AI build massive navies as in civ2 (the navies the AI had in civ 2 come the modern age where massive) I dont remember once having any GREAT navy battles in CtP2 only the odd trireme meeting my corocle or whatever

One thing i have never seen nobody discuss about is the best strategy the AI should follow to moving its sea navies.

I will start coding now

[Pedrunn]

Here is the first version of the code.

It is a untested test version but without syntax errors..
Here what it does (or should do:

- Creates a city for the barbs in ramdom places of the map every turn (testing) until the max number of Map width divided by 15.

- Adds a warrior (testing) to all barb city build queue every turn until a max of 5 items in the buid queue. If it is a coastal city it has a 50% chance of being a coracle (testing).

- Capture a barb camp gives a random 50-80 gold.

- Barb encampements can only have a maximum size of 1.

- When a barb conquer a city 3 thins may happen. 25% of taking the city, 25% of turning into a new civ (if there is a barb camp 15 square distant from this city it also is given to the new player) or 50 % of plundering that kills a pop from the city, destroy 20% of the buildings of the city, steal gold and PW according to the formula (player gold / number of cities / random 1 - 4 number.

These lines below needs to be added in the info_str.txt otherwise will cause crashs and write some stuff between " " would be nice. It is for the messages.

GOOD_NEWS " "

BAD_NEWS " "

BARB_CAMP_CAPTURED " "

BARB_PLUNDERED_CITY " "

BARB_BECAME_CIV " "

BARB_UPRISING_NEAR_YOU " "

SMMIFIGIG could you come up with something for these messages?
I will appreciate if you or anyone tests this code.

Tomorrow we talk about it. I need to get some sleep

[SMIFFGIG]

yay, this is great pedrunn and your making it so uses the sea more woohooo (have u played civ2 the AI used to have tons of navy just waiting until they or you declared war)

Creates a city for the barbs in ramdom places of the map every turn

I take it in the final they will stay in one position until destroyed ?

Will you be using the graphics from the apolyton tile file for the encampment (last TI in the file)

Now i did not got what you meant

What i mean is. The barbarians that appear randomly on the map (original ctp2 unmodded) well will you make it so that on the higher difficulty setting for barbarians (eg raging) that they appear in much greater numbers? I dont think they have been changed in AIFrenzy.slc however i play MM2 and there might be a slic that im not using that makes them much more powerful. Im not sure.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok now onto the messages

GOOD_NEWS " "
BAD_NEWS " "

What exactly do these do


BARB_CAMP_CAPTURED " "
Our forces have succesfully pludered the [tribename] tribes barbarian encampment and pillaged [goldamount] gold

Our forces have succesfully pludered the [tribename] tribes barbarian encampment we recived [PWamount] PW for our efforts

Our forces have succesfully pludered the [tribename] tribes barbarian encampment we pillaged [goldamount] gold and recieved [PWamount] PW for our efforts

BARB_PLUNDERED_CITY " "
{sir, my lord, president etc}! The [tribename] tribe have utterly destroyed our city of [cityname]!

BARB_BECAME_CIV " "
{sir, my lord, president etc}! The [tribename] tribe have overwhelmed our city of [cityname] and have decided to form a new civilization called the [civname]!

BARB_UPRISING_NEAR_YOU " " (this one is for randomly appearing hordes of barbarians not encampments)
Barbarian uprising near [cityname]

(i think you should add a couple more)
BARB_NAVY_SPOTTED(if barbarian ships appear near your civ [certain amount of tiles near city or whatever])
Barbarian navy spotted near [cityname]

BARB_ENCAMPMENT_NEAR_YOU (barbarian encampment appeared
The [tribename] barbarian tribe have settled rather to close to us.
They have been spotted near [cityname]. Beware!


hope these can be of some use, if there is anything else just ask
Anyway i gotto go back to college now im late ill test you barb encamp code as soon as i can no doubt
Ohe yea and i left it up to you to fill in the [cityname] bits etc. Cause i dont know what they are anyway gtg cya later

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Pedrunn
It probably is impossible to destroy a wonder too. I cant find a fuction or an event to do this.

No event to remove a wonder and what is this:

WonderRemoved(city_t, int_t)
Triggered when a wonder is removed.

-Martin

[SMIFFGIG]

Ok i missed my last college lesson which lasted (lasting two hours) Walked all the way there as well (lucky Jersey is a small island

Oh well I have time to try the barbarian encampment slc now before i go to work at 5

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
yay, this is great pedrunn and your making it so uses the sea more woohooo (have u played civ2 the AI used to have tons of navy just waiting until they or you declared war)

Yep but just for the barbs.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
I take it in the final they will stay in one position until destroyed ?

Yes. It wont chang its location until it is destroyed. It was suppose to change?

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Will you be using the graphics from the apolyton tile file for the encampment (last TI in the file)

No. The camp will have a sprite according to the mod. We can think about changing the city sprite after every things is working out.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
What i mean is. The barbarians that appear randomly on the map (original ctp2 unmodded) well will you make it so that on the higher difficulty setting for barbarians (eg raging) that they appear in much greater numbers? I dont think they have been changed in AIFrenzy.slc however i play MM2 and there might be a slic that im not using that makes them much more powerful. Im not sure.

The uprising are defined in the file risks.txt my code only deal with emcampments. But i can make messages pop up if a barbarian stacks gets to close to a city. But this could make message poping up to repeatitively and making the game boring.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Ok now onto the messages.

Ok. I changed some stuff but not much.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
hope these can be of some use, if there is anything else just ask
Anyway i gotto go back to college now im late ill test you barb encamp code as soon as i can no doubt
Ohe yea and i left it up to you to fill in the [cityname] bits etc. Cause i dont know what they are anyway gtg cya later

The code inside this zip is the same. The only changes was regarding the messages.
The content of the barb_msg.txt has to be pasted in the info_str.txt.
I am eagerly waiting the results of your testing.
So that we can move on and come up with new stuff.
If you have no time i can test this later (probably at night).

[Pedrunn]

Ok i missed my last college lesson which lasted (lasting two hours) Walked all the way there as well (lucky Jersey is a small island

I promise i wont tell anybody

For the bribe code:

Martin, do you know wich one are the possible values for the entry

  TargetPretest:

of the orders.txt? Or anyone else does?

- Thanks for the remove wonder info.

[Martin Gühmann]

Here is everything I have about TargetPretest:

None	
EnemyCity	
OwnCity	
EnemyArmy	
EnemySpecialUnit	
EnemySettler	
EnemyTradeUnit	
TradeRoute	
TerrainImprovement	
MovePosition	
AttackPosition	
Transport	
AdjacentPosition

-Martin

[SMIFFGIG]

Small typo in the scripts

BARB_PLUNDERED_CITY "Sir! The Barbarians tribe have utterly pillaged the our city of {city[0].name}

but a tiny problem to say the most.

Anyway a couple of things (i still havent tested it but have dled it and I am going to test it right after this post)

1. I thought it was going to be random weather you got PW, Gold or a little of both from a barb encampment when u destroyed it.

2.

The uprising are defined in the file risks.txt my code only deal with emcampments. But i can make messages pop up if a barbarian stacks gets to close to a city. But this could make message poping up to repeatitively and making the game boring.

I was thinking rather differently. You know as well as I that barbs appear randomly. Well could you not make the message trigger only when the barbarian appearing event takes place. And even then the event would have to be say 5 tiles near one of your cities. This would mean it would only appear every so often (probably not that much at all) And I was talking about making the barb hordes bigger, this is related to this. As when the barbarians randomly appeared (like they do) and they are a big horde of different (hopefully eventually barbarian specific) units (like the amount in civ2) and they are near a city and the message pops up. Not only will it be shock the hell outa you but it will also be VERY helpful.

Ok im off to test and mess around with the SLIC now ill post tonight (or tommorow even as its 11:30pm) and let u know of the results etc.


P.S. Will you eventually make the general CtP2 AI build big navies ???? anyway keep up the good work



EDIT: Oh yea just before I go, how come in none of the scripts youve included the name of the barbarian tribe, im sure this could be done as the name of the tribe is the same as the name of the encampment in which the barbarian units came from ??

[Pedrunn]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Small typo in the scripts

BARB_PLUNDERED_CITY "Sir! The Barbarians tribe have utterly pillaged the our city of {city[0].name}

but a tiny problem to say the most.

Ooops

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
1. I thought it was going to be random weather you got PW, Gold or a little of both from a barb encampment when u destroyed it.

We can go over this tiny details after the main idea of the code is working.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
2.
I was thinking rather differently. You know as well as I that barbs appear randomly. Well could you not make the message trigger only when the barbarian appearing event takes place. And even then the event would have to be say 5 tiles near one of your cities. This would mean it would only appear every so often (probably not that much at all) And I was talking about making the barb hordes bigger, this is related to this. As when the barbarians randomly appeared (like they do) and they are a big horde of different (hopefully eventually barbarian specific) units (like the amount in civ2) and they are near a city and the message pops up. Not only will it be shock the hell outa you but it will also be VERY helpful.

These messages can go in the next version of this code. About making the stacks biggers i already thought in a way to make stacks bigger if there is a city camp around

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
P.S. Will you eventually make the general CtP2 AI build big navies ???? anyway keep up the good work

It is a totally different code. And I had some bad experience in moving stacks through slic before. But i guess we could think on trying this later after we have this code finished. Doesnt the Martins BetterAI code gives a improvement in this area?

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
EDIT: Oh yea just before I go, how come in none of the scripts youve included the name of the barbarian tribe, im sure this could be done as the name of the tribe is the same as the name of the encampment in which the barbarian units came from ??

The name of the barb tribe is going to have the same name of the encampment in wich it was created therefore it is defined in the civ_str.txt. Where there is a list of the city in the order they are built.

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
Anyway a couple of things (i still havent tested it but have dled it and I am going to test it right after this post)
...
Ok im off to test and mess around with the SLIC now ill post tonight (or tommorow even as its 11:30pm) and let u know of the results etc.

 Here is everything I have about TargetPretest:

And this is all i need


For Modders:
Is there a way to know in wich barbarian difficult level the game is in?

[SMIFFGIG]

Ok!

Well ive added the barbs.slc to H:\Call To Power 2\ctp2_data\default\gamedata

and I have written #include "barbs.slc" at the bottom of the script.slc

And when i try to start the game i get this

" H:\Call To Power 2\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\barbs.slc:130: syntax error "





EDIT:

It is a totally different code. And I had some bad experience in moving stacks through slic before. But i guess we could think on trying this later after we have this code finished. Doesnt the Martins BetterAI code gives a improvement in this area?

I have never tried martins BetterAI as I play MM2, I think im gunna start playing Cradle now, seems to have more in it. Shame cause i dont wont to loose the stuff in MM2 nevermind. Just a stand in until HotW mod comes out


Anyway i really want to test this script for you so any ideas on the above ???

[Pedrunn]

Oooops again

A missing ';' at the end.

Try this code now.

[SMIFFGIG]

Cheers wildo right now

P.S what mod do u play

[SMIFFGIG]

Ok it boots and everything fine but when i take my very first turn it says this:



" H:\Call To Power 2\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\barbs.slc:117: Array index 0 out of bounds "

[Pedrunn]

I am current making my own mod.
If you get too curious about check the charts:

Note: The unitChart and any info about goods will be totally changed since i plan to add strategic resources.
And the readme isnt finished it. Some important info are missing.

[SMIFFGIG]

Ok it boots and everything fine but when i take my very first turn it says this:



" H:\Call To Power 2\ctp2_data\default\gamedata\barbs.slc:117: Array index 0 out of bounds "
I click ok and it says:

" In object SetGlobalVariable, variables 'BarbTribe' and 'noname' are of different types "

"In object SetGlobalVariable, variables 'ClosestToBarbCity' and 'SetGlobalVariable#tmpCity' are of different types"

In object SetGlobalVariable, function _PlayerCityCount: Wrong type of argument"

Phew! and thats it, hope you know what that all means anyway im going to bed in a min but i would like to know what you think on these things

[Pedrunn]

Just Forget this

[Pedrunn]

Ok! Here is the newest code. Error message dont show up anymore. And the best part: It Works

Added: i made camp coordinate the formation of stacks therefore it is very bad to have a camp near you.
It gets all armies that are smaller than 4 in a radius 10 from the camp and sends them to a location near the camp. In this location the units are grouped and once the army has a size bigger then 4 the army is free to perform its terror . Yet if an army shares a location with another army/unit this unit becomes part of the stack.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by SMIFFGIG
I have never tried martins BetterAI as I play MM2, I think im gunna start playing Cradle now, seems to have more in it. Shame cause i dont wont to loose the stuff in MM2 nevermind. Just a stand in until HotW mod comes out

Therefore you should play GoodMod v.1.0 it contains now also a version for the MedPack2 setup.

Actual it just moves land units into ships but does not make the AI to build more ships of course this can be easily adjusted by chnaging the SeaUnitsPercent in the AI strategies of the strategies.txt.

-Martin

[centrifuge]

I've been thinking of some more Barb. possibilities, namely, I think that in modern era, they should have stronger weapons... Including the possibility of Nukes. Does anybody agree with me when I say that modern day "barbararians" should have a status similar to terrorists? For realism, I think that this is something to look into. I think that it would make the game very interesting if out of nowhere you could get nuked by a barbarian...

[Martin Gühmann]

Once a civ has discovered a tech that enables a certain type of unit the Barbarian will use this type of unit. To give them nukes is another dimension of course if you change the status of nukes from speceal unit to normal land based unit the Barbarians will get one. Presuming there is anough free space in the end available to appear for them.

-Martin