Game cheated with barb spawn

[michael]

Turn 396: Barb spawned just south of screenshot. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2982317697
Turn 397: Barb camp spawned on my internal trade route - with both horseman and archer.

[michael]

Turn 398: I responded to new barb camp and saw this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2982317727

[DerEider]

No cheating going on. Unusual to have new encampment spawn so close to a city though.
If, indeed, this is a new Barb camp, the Horseman would not have had time to become damaged. It must have been left over from another camp {perhaps now destroyed}

[knighttemplar1960]

I've never seen that behavior in a vanilla game. Check for a mod conflict.

[Damsteri]

Looks perfectly normal (but somewhat unlucky).

Barbarian camps can spawn anywhere where you have fog. Barbarian camp can spawn to any tile that is not seen by anybody (including you, AI civs or city states, their culture borders or units) and do not have an terrain improvement (including hidden improvements). It's important that you can always see every tile between your own cities as barbarian camp spawning inside your own area can be bad.

Why two barbarian units? Answer is very simple. In first screenshot you have two trade routes, while in second screenshot you have only one. The barbarian camp spawned to the fogged area on top of your trade route and the horseman in the camp destroyed it immediately (which spawns a new barbarian unit, the archer).

Next time you probably keep an unit to guard your trade routes and do some fog-busting between your cities.

[knighttemplar1960]

The tile where the barb camp appeared was observed by the chariot archer on turn 397 and was still in view of the chariot archer on turn 397. The tile(s) that the chariot archer had to pass through were adjacent to (or in view of) the tile in question. The tile the camp appeared in was never obscured by fog of war.

Neither screen shot shows the caravan but I suspect that DerEider has it right. The camp spawned with an archer that moved out and pillaged the trade route. The horseman was likely on the sand hill to the north east (or somewhere in that strip of fog and obscured on turn 397) and was generated previously by a different encampment and it moved in to cover the camp so that the chariot archer couldn't pillage it the next turn. The chariot is greyed and so has been used/moved this turn so the horseman could have been undamaged but was fired upon by the OP but we weren't given this information. The archer is also greyed so it has moved this turn the horseman still has movement left and is not greyed.

In any case the camp shouldn't have spawned where it did since camps aren't supposed to spawn into tiles that are observed. No matter which path the chariot took it would have had that tile under observation the entire time.

[forkofspite]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

The tile where the barb camp appeared was observed by the chariot archer on turn 397 and was still in view of the chariot archer on turn 397. The tile(s) that the chariot archer had to pass through were adjacent to (or in view of) the tile in question. The tile the camp appeared in was never obscured by fog of war.

The first screenshot is on turn 396, and the next screenshot isn't until turn 398. How do you know where the units were at the end of turn 396? For example, the chariot could have been in Petra. If that's the case, there's no vision at the end of turn 396 allowing the camp to spawn on 397.

[michael]

Originally posted by DerEider:

No cheating going on. Unusual to have new encampment spawn so close to a city though.
If, indeed, this is a new Barb camp, the Horseman would not have had time to become damaged. It must have been left over from another camp {perhaps now destroyed} :Citadel:

The horseman has just been shot by the chariot archer I moved from up north. I had vision of every tile in the vicinity until I moved the chariot archer and warrior shown in 396 south to deal with the barb camp that spawned on that turn. One shot from the chariot and finished off with the warrior. The new barb camp then spawned immediately. There's no way either the horseman or archer were in the vicinity previously. They were both produced in the same turn that the camp spawned. That's what seemed like a cheat to me. I must admit that I very, very rarely have trade routes plundered, so maybe it's possible for a new unit to spawn on the same turn if the camp happens to spawn right on top of the caravan. If so, it's a learning experience.

[michael]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

The tile where the barb camp appeared was observed by the chariot archer on turn 397 and was still in view of the chariot archer on turn 397. The tile(s) that the chariot archer had to pass through were adjacent to (or in view of) the tile in question. The tile the camp appeared in was never obscured by fog of war.

Neither screen shot shows the caravan but I suspect that DerEider has it right. The camp spawned with an archer that moved out and pillaged the trade route. The horseman was likely on the sand hill to the north east (or somewhere in that strip of fog and obscured on turn 397) and was generated previously by a different encampment and it moved in to cover the camp so that the chariot archer couldn't pillage it the next turn. The chariot is greyed and so has been used/moved this turn so the horseman could have been undamaged but was fired upon by the OP but we weren't given this information. The archer is also greyed so it has moved this turn the horseman still has movement left and is not greyed.

In any case the camp shouldn't have spawned where it did since camps aren't supposed to spawn into tiles that are observed. No matter which path the chariot took it would have had that tile under observation the entire time.

Different chariots. The one showed in 396 moved south. The one in 398 has just moved from up north and shot the horseman. So yes, the camp did indeed spawn on a tile I didn't have view of for one turn. It's the two barbs in a brand new camp that struck me as odd.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by michael:

Different chariots. The one showed in 396 moved south. The one in 398 has just moved from up north and shot the horseman. So yes, the camp did indeed spawn on a tile I didn't have view of for one turn. It's the two barbs in a brand new camp that struck me as odd.

That's the answer then. It only takes one turn of not having the tile in view for it to spawn a camp. The time when units spawn is specific. They can't spawn at the beginning of a turn and then in a middle of the turn and they are affected by the 1UPT code same as all other civs so they couldn't have both spawned inside the camp when the camp spawned unless you have a mod conflict.

[Damsteri]

It's not a mod conflict or a bug, it's just how the game works. A new barbarian unit is spawned every time barbarians destroy a trade unit (caravan or cargo ship). Unit spawned that way don't need to be in the fog of war, that can happen anywhere. You were lucky in your unluckiness that you had only one caravan crossing that part of the map, not half a dozen.

The first screenshot shows 2/2 for trade routes and second one shows 1/2. The barbarian archer is your caravan captured by barbarians. There is also that red notification that says barbarians destroyed your trade route.

There is no limit on how many barbarians can spawn from captured trade routes at the same turn, it's always one barbarian for each destroyed trade route. Defending trade routes is important. Once when I played with Venice a barbarian ship slip through my defenses to the capital's coastal water and destroyed over 10 trade routes in just couple of turns. My coast was full of barbarians ships (and couple of land units too) after that.

The problem really is that barbarians don't need to use an action to destroy a trade route, they just need to stand in its way to destroy it. Barbarian AI doesn't really even know that trade routes exists, barbarians destroy trade routes purely by accident.

[ulroth]

The barbs are ridiculous. They just come in waves...forever. Build enough to stop the spawn go broke and they still span further away. Tiresome.

[Jiggy]

Originally posted by Damsteri:

You were lucky in your unluckiness

That is some real good play of words I have seen lately

[Mr. Monday]

Originally posted by ulroth:

The barbs are ridiculous. They just come in waves...forever. Build enough to stop the spawn go broke and they still span further away. Tiresome.

Vanilla barbs aren't a problem. You want ridiculous barbs use this mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=485249197

[Sergeant Poultry]

How are you at turn 396 and yet still at such an early point in development, you only have 37 science. How is this possible?

[Damsteri]

Originally posted by Sergeant Poultry:

How are you at turn 396 and yet still at such an early point in development, you only have 37 science. How is this possible?

They are playing on Marathon speed. Year is 460 AD, that reveals it. Same as between turns 133 and 134 in standard speed. Pretty early, late Classical or something like that.