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Barbarian Wrath - great with Kull's SoG
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). 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.
(Kull: do you have any thoughts on such monkeying with the event files?)
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.
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). 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.
(Kull: do you have any thoughts on such monkeying with the event files?)
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.
But as was true in history, they will cease bothering you soon enough.
I hit refresh about 10 times and finally forced my way in. To spare you the pain, here's the links to the four SoG files:
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