Barbarian Wrath

[Slade Wilson]

A next level of barb activity. I figure someone here must have the full technical readouts to enabling this

I googled and found references to scen tools, but none seem to work

[AGRICOLA]

AFAIK, barb activity in a .sav or a .scn file has a value of

00 Villages only
01 Roving bands
02 Restless bands
03 Raging hordes

It is no problem to hexedit the value to something greater than 3. However, I have no idea what effect a value>3 would have on the game.

Have you any links to threads or posts where this is discussed? No point in reinventing the wheel if someone has already done it.

[Slade Wilson]

I have heard it discussed many times here and on civfanatics. Its even mentioned in some scenario making guides

Heres a thread right in this forum that mentions it

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61306

a thread at civfanatics about it. a method of activating it is described, but has no effect in my game.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=6950

heres a civfanatics SG with it

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=152647

Maybe i should be asking civfanatics? But i swear i have seen older vets\older posts talking about this here on poly.

quote from thread

I saw a message in an older thread in this forum discussing how to enable this extra Barbarian activity level. It's very simple: just open GAME.TXT and look for the @BARBARITY header. After "Raging Hordes," add another line of text (call it anything you want). That's it!

This works for beyond deity levels, seems not to for barb wrath. Maybe it was working and it wasnt apparent?
i also read in another old thread just now that it requires a older vers-maybe not MGE? i guess ill try that next...

[Boco]

Some of the older vets have no memory! AFAIK, Kull has the most experience with it.

Isn't this simply a matter of adding extra entries to @BARBARITY in Game.txt? Have to admit, that Alzheimers has set in for me on this.

[Slade Wilson]

Yeah i tried that, tried different versions, nothing seems to actually give more barbs. Guess ill have to settled for deity+s

[AGRICOLA]

@ Slade Wilson

Thanks for the links. I downloaded Kull's "Seeds of Greatness" and found the following excerpt in his readme for the Barbarian Wrath version of the scen:

Normally this appears at the end of a readme file, but in this case it MUST appear earlier. An Apolyton member named "RobRoy" decided to see what would happen if the SoG scenario file was hex-edited to increase the Barbarian level from Raging Hordes to the little known "Barbarian Wrath". The result is a radically different game which, if anything, is much closer to what life was REALLY like for the mighty Empires of the Ancient Near East. Major kudos to you, RobRoy! Be warned though - this variant has NOT been extensively playtested, and it utterly transforms the game!

I checked the .scn file and the level of barb activity is increased to 4, 1 more than Raging Hordes.

If you want me to hexedit whatever you intend to play, either attach the file to a post or PM me to exchange e-mail addresses.

[Slade Wilson]

Thanks, i overlooked that. I was hoping not to hex edit but it seems thats the way. PITA since i only have most minimal hexing skills but i did find a guide on it for civ

[AGRICOLA]

43 49 56 49 | 4c 49 5a 45 | 00 1a 28 00 | bf 80 78 e2 ||
3c 00 00 00 | d0 00 00 00 | 00 00 00 00 | 02 00 92 f0 ||
ff ff 01 00 | 16 00 00 01 | 01 01 ff 00 | 05 04 ff 02 ||


The above, taken from the Seeds of Greatness .scn file, is typical of the first 48 bytes of an MGE .scn or .sav file. The level of barb activity is in byte 45, the red one.

[Slade Wilson]

yup, i already changed it. Mercators site described where to find it also.

Thanks for all the replies though

[curtsibling]

The extra barb thing doesn't work with scenarios I recall, but does work in the vanilla game...

Dunno if things have changed?

[AGRICOLA]

Maybe they have.

Here is another excerpt from the readme for the Barbarian Wrath version of Kull's "Seeds of Greatness" scen:

**** WHAT IS BARBARIAN WRATH? ****

According to William Keenan's "Barbarian Paper":

"Barbarian Wrath is a level of barbarian activity that can not normally be chosen, it is only achievable through hex editing. Rebel bands number between 75 and 100 barbarian units. The number of piratical barbarian units appearing is normal however."


**** ROBROY DESCRIBES BARBARIAN WRATH AND IT'S IMPACT ON SOG GAMEPLAY ****

Barbarian Wrath appears to work great for Kull's Seeds of Greatness scenario! That's the second of his Ancient Empires series.

I changed both the 2D bit in the .scn file (one notch higher), and added one line in the Game.txt file (not sure if that was necessary). (Ed. Note - It isn't :-) The results have been most satisfying!

This excellent scenario becomes extremely difficult, but not impossible, I think. Yes, you do see small pirate bands almost every other turn. And, yes, you do get rebel hordes 80-100 strong (I've only seen hordes composed of Bronze Inf I/Battering Rams, so far, but I'm just barely in the Bronze Age in my current game). But the rebel hordes seem to be somewhat more random. At times they seem to rest and let you deal with what they've already thrown at you. Between attrition, dispersal, and disappearances, you actually have a chance against the three-four units that reach your vulnerable cities each turn (usually just a few are directly in their path).

I can't remember a civ game that has been more challenging and more fun! Yet it flows along reasonably historical lines. Defensive play gets a whole new dimension, especially in those early phases of Kull's game where there are few good defensive units.

At one point, my mighty Hittite empire reached from the homeland, down to Syria (along surprisingly historical lines), and had several outlying cities in western Anatolia, Messepotamia, and the Levant). When the first rebel horde appeared, I was forced to write off many of the outlying cities. At one point the barbarians gave no rest and were dispersing units from three 80+ hordes near my capital, forcing me to abandon many of my heartland cities and head for the hills (literally). The Hittites looked more like a fledgling Aegean power by the time that round was spent.

You lose a fair number of cities on a regular basis. The trick is figuring out how recover from this realistic situation. Once a horde has spent itself, you frequently lose the race against the AI civs to re-establish yourself in your former dominions. I'd have thought the AI civs would be toast at this level, and indeed some of them do seem to struggle more. But others seem to do okay, perhaps because the hordes seem to focus on the human player, but also because that key Palace Guard unit seems to help keep the capitals alive.

It is galling as a player to see my neighbors occupy many of my former cities, while I'm still hugging the hills and coasts. But Kull couldn't have designed a more elegent way of reflecting the ebb and flow of ancient empires, particularly after major barbarian incursions.

If there was a flaw in SoG before, it was being excessively generous - having both goody huts and rewards for killing the barbarian town-defenders (Warrior unit). Once you play the game a few times, it becomes apparent that you can get far ahead of the AI quickly by exploiting these features.

Now, however, I find myself thinking differently in many ways. Should I abandon a city to increase its chance of survival? Granaries and City Walls take on new significance. Frequently, it makes more sense not to try to regain outlying cities (non-human cities can grow faster, few barbie cities produce offensive units, and democratic barbarians make good trading partners). Furthermore, since it's not the AI civs but the barbarians that are your primary adversary, I actually find myself thinking about sharing techs to help prop up some of the AI civs near my borders hoping they'll take some of the heat from the next barbie incursion.

For those interested in even more challenge, it's fairly easy to reverse the event files such that the AI empires receive the gold/settlers for destroying Warrior units, but the human player does not (give the most likely enemy refugee settlers when the human player kills Warrior units). Or one could just eliminate goody huts. But those options do more violence to the designer's intent than simply ratcheting up the barbarian level a notch. Plus, I really like playing with goody huts.

I've tried Barbarian Wrath as both the Hittites and the Minoans. It was more satisfying as the Hittites. The Minoans were plagued by Pirates, slowing them down considerably, and making trade miserably difficult, but I never saw the same level of rebel horde activity. I wonder if there is something in the barbarian algorithms that consider the location and accessibility of the human player's capital?

Sorry this is so long-winded. But players looking for a real challenge have got to try Barbarian Wrath in a scenario like this - one that was designed with active barbarians in mind.

Plus, barbarians as democrats! That works wonderfully. Thanks Kull and Allard! That should become the standard for all future scenarios, as far as I'm concerned. Bribery is still available, but only against competing AI empires.

Sounds awesome, doesn't it?
Maybe Slade Wilson will be kind enough to report on his experience in playing "Seeds of Greatness".

[Andemagne]

Slade: check back original thread in Civ2General.

[Slade Wilson]

Maybe Slade Wilson will be kind enough to report on his experience in playing "Seeds of Greatness".

I havnt played that scenario, but here is a screenshot from a test game i tried yesterday. I turned off research, built colossus and turned citizen into elvis so i could endturn fast. At first there seemed to be no\little effect, and no uprisings. And then THIS.








Combined with deity+s that could be game ending....

[Slade Wilson]

From that same game later on




None of the AI received such a super stack, however 3 AIs did perish to trireme-landed barbs.

[Straybow]

It does work in scenarios; it doesn't work for PBeM. Only SP, MP, and perhaps hotseat.