[SPOILERS] scooter's AW lunacy - De Gaulle of Native Americans

[Commodore]

For contemplation and meditation. Forests might grow, grasses might wither into dry plains, but some distant day you might have a start that looks like this.

[scooter]

Well cool - thanks!

Can I get some clarification on barb spawning mechanics? I fired up a test game with Emperor + Raging barbs. I figured there would be a turn number the barbs would start coming. So I did this:

-tiny team battleground, raging barbs, emperor, 1 opponent, quick speed

I then took that one opponent and walled him in with peaks in worldbuilder to prevent him from fog-busting. I then sat there and hit enter building mundane things (barracks, settler with a citizen) and not really exploring or anything. Even on quick speed I got well past T50 before I considered it a failed experiement and bailed out. I then remembered it might have something to do with techs researched?

So can anyone clarify and/or point to a reference that shows what triggers the conditions in which barbs spawn? To be clear, animals were out for sure, but no warriors/axes or anything that could enter my land despite me and the walled-in AI basically hitting enter for 50 quick speed turns. There's just NO way it'll take more than 50 turns for barbs to spawn - I was guessing less than 20 turns?

I thought it had something to do with tech of players in the game..?

[Commodore]

Ah, for FFH at least it's tied to how many cities are down, 1.5xN players. Less sure in BtS. Techs...isn't it N-1 possess the techs? No idea.

[scooter]

Ok I went code-diving and found:

Code:

if (getNumCivCities() < ((countCivPlayersAlive() * 3) / 2) && !isOption(GAMEOPTION_ONE_CITY_CHALLENGE))
    {
        bAnimals = true;
    }

Ok basically if this boolean Animals flag is turned on, we stick with animals rather than barbs. So it's triggered by if the number of cities in the game is less than (players * 3) / 2. So that's why it didn't work for me - in my test with 2 players, that makes ((2 * 3) / 2) => 3 cities. So barbs would spawn as soon as a second city was founded which was not happening since I walled in that city.

So to relate that to our game, that means:

((4 * 3)/2) => 6 cities. So we are not getting barbs in this game until 2 people have founded their second cities. This is pretty sweet news actually as that means I can easily build Henge before having to worry about barbs . Since I'm guessing most people will not be in a rush to found their second cities, that likely means we may see a long time with no real barbs.

Edit: for the curious, this is in CvGame.cpp:createBarbarianUnits()

[DaveV]

Ah, for FFH at least it's tied to how many cities are down, 1.5xN players. Less sure in BtS.

Same in BtS, so you need to create a second city. Turn number also has to be greater than or equal to iBarbarianCityCreationTurnsElapsed, which is 25 at Emperor handicap.

[scooter]

And we're off:



I moved all units, saw nothing pressing, and settled in place. Workboat first:



I'm considering OCC'ing for a little longer than usual - going vertical first. I can get Henge by T19 and then whip the necessary workers. I'll have to think about how long to wait for Pyramids. T1:



Just taking a brief look at my surroundings. Marble is interesting. Stone would be way better. Gotta be super picky with cities though because obviously.

[scooter]

Funny forests on the peaks though. Obvious WB there. Not that I care though - maybe it'll spread forests hah.

[scooter]

Quick scouting update:







I need to figure out pretty soon how close I am to people and how much effort I need to expend to get my ideal city 2 + 3. If I can get it without much racing, I'll OCC for awhile and then grab them when convenient - maybe waiting til after Pyramids has been landed. Otherwise I'll change my plans a bit.

[scooter]

Brief update:



I've met Dazed. Um I really need to turn around and head home with one of my defenders or this might be a quick game .

Can we build war elephants?



Nothing too exciting but good stuff again. Now this is interesting:



First yes those are Cyneheard's borders. May try to sneak up on him. I won't be able to kill him, but I may be able to force him to swap builds or something. He has fishing so he's probably max-hammering a WB like I am (ignore the 6T date on my capital, I changed tiles after this screenshot.

Anyways, the stone that close makes me nervous. I'm a little unsure I like the idea of wasting a city by settling one of my three down here. However, by settling down here I could lock down any wonder I want. Yeesh. Good map decision Commodore. It's a pain to deal with, but that's a good strategic decision you've given us to make.

It's mildly tempting to settle down here on the stone, build Pyramids, then leave it empty and hopefully Cyneheard will raze it for me so I can build a new city .

[scooter]

I'll put it this way - if Cyneheard has not kept one of his three units back or sunk a turn into a warrior, he's dead:



I put the sign there for reference. Basically, our caps cannot do better than a 3T warrior. That's not quick enough for that sign (he couldn't see me last turn I don't think). If he moved his units like me (straight out without keeping one back) he's dead. Guessing he'll be ok though.

I also accordingly moved an archer back to keep that from happening to me .