Ever notice this about Germany?

I often kill a barb nest with archers. I'll kill the last guy and on the next turn I just walk in.

I have not noticed one time in my current game that I've done this and the barbs have joined me. I killed three nests in a row and didn't get one 'join'.

Does the coup de grace have to be with a melee unit for the 'barbs have a 67% chance of joining you' thing to work?

Yeah, I noticed that. It seems you need to take the camp on the same turn the unit occupying it dies. And it needs to be killed by you, too-if an AI archer kills it and you walk in and steal it, no spawn.

tetley said:

Yeah, I noticed that. It seems you need to take the camp on the same turn the unit occupying it dies. And it needs to be killed by you, too-if an AI archer kills it and you walk in and steal it, no spawn.

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Yeah, it seems very consistent - no kill and take = no joining you.

Bummer. I wish I'd know that at the beginning of this game.

IIRC, I've gotten units from empty camps. It was my scarcher killing the guard, so the unit inside was destroyed the previous turn.

I think it's about the game remembering what type of unit it is. If the last unit was an axeman, then you get an axeman. That information does not save to disk. So if you load a game with an empty barb camp, it doesn't know what unit to give you so it doesn't. Likewise if an AI kills it, the game never bothered to remember what it was because it wasn't Germany.

The unit you receive is not dependent on the unit that was killed

Care to make a wager on that?

You could also capture barbarian units after killing them with a german warrior and dont have to take the barb camp.

I just killed an archer in a camp with my frigate then marched my scout into the unoccupied camp two turns later and got an archer for it. Though it was on a different turn that I killed the unit, I still took it with a melee unit so it doesn't shed any light on whether or not it has to be a melee unit.

Whatever the encampment spawns with for the first time is the unit you will get when you defeat it in combat. It could be in the game for four hundred turns but the first unit it spawns is a barbarian brute, even when it's been spawning barbarian paratrooper..

You defeated and conquered it? You get the barbarian brute. Carry on. Even when that brute has been dead for 200 turns.

So you must kill the unit AND take the camp on the same turn?
Do you have to do this with the same unit and does the barb unit have to be physically on the camp?

no, you just have to walk a unit into an empty camp

Last time I killed a brute inside a camp with an archer, next turn i walk into it and poop ! free archer.

If you have New Random seed preference turned on then simply save the game before going into each encampment. While it is a hassle, it should help you get units when you need them most.

I came to this thread from MegaBearsFan excellent article.

Sherlock said:

I often kill a barb nest with archers. I'll kill the last guy and on the next turn I just walk in. I have not noticed one time in my current game that I've done this and the barbs have joined me. I killed three nests in a row and didn't get one 'join'.

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You could have just be unlucky, but I am assuming that all your camps were cleared by archers. The UA is not activated until you kill a camp using a melee unit.

Does the coup de grace have to be with a melee unit for the 'barbs have a 67% chance of joining you' thing to work?

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Only the first camp. Also use a melee unit to clear the camp when you spot one with a better unit.

Magma_Dragoon said:

The unit you receive is not dependent on the unit that was killed.

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Correct. It is based on the last unit you killed with a melee unit (on a camp). In my current Germany game, I have gotten three different types of units. Sadly, I was not able to farm camps aggressively enough to raise an army.

rover6695 said:

So you must kill the unit AND take the camp on the same turn?

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Only once. Or to change the barb type that will be spawned by future camps.

Do you have to do this with the same unit and does the barb unit have to be physically on the camp?

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No, it does not have to be the same unit. Yes, the bard unit has to be killed on the camp tile for the UA to go into effect. If you only use archers for barb hunting, you will never trigger the UA. For the first camp, use your warrior or a scout for the kill. After that, you can stick with archers.

Callonia said:

Whatever the encampment spawns with for the first time is the unit you will get when you defeat it in combat. It could be in the game for four hundred turns but the first unit it spawns is a barbarian brute, even when it's been spawning barbarian paratrooper. You defeated and conquered it? You get the barbarian brute. Carry on. Even when that brute has been dead for 200 turns.

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That is substantially incorrect. Whatever the encampment spawns with for the previous time is the unit you will get for the next camp. When you defeat a camped barb in melee combat, you set the next spawn. So if you want a barb paratrooper, kill a barb paratrooper with a melee unit while the paratrooper is sitting on the camp. The next camp you clear (which can, and probably should, be empty when you clear it) has a 67% chance of spawning you a paratrooper.

Hoplite191 said:

If you have New Random seed preference turned on then simply save the game before going into each encampment. While it is a hassle, it should help you get units when you need them most.

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I have my doubts that this works. Did you try it?