Ottoman SA not converting Barb Naval units killed by Cities

Ottoman SA according to the Civ V Manual: "Whenever you destroy a Barbarian naval unit, there’s a 50% chance of instead converting it to your side and earning 25 Gold."

I would expect that whenever a Barbarian naval unit is killed by me (regardless of how I killed it) there is a 50% chance of it converting. So far, I have been unable to see a naval unit convert if it was killed by a city attacking it.

I setup a game with raging barbarians and new random seed enabled (if I understand that option correctly, every reload should allow for a different outcome from the battle.) So far I've loaded this save up 15 times and destroyed the naval unit each time, but have not seen a conversion. I also played this game out quickly and killed another 8-10 naval units the same way and also never saw a conversion.

Version: 1.0.0.20 (Digital Deluxe)

Steps:
1) Have the city bombard (and kill) the naval unit just below the pyramids.
2) Reload, go back to step 1

You need to move a naval unit to adjacent hex (not attack) in order to convert the 'barbary pirates'.

Yeah, my first game as the Ottomans I killed 9 units with no conversions before deciding that the manual must be lying. The in game text gives you no hint whatsoever but Warriori is correct- move a naval unit next to them (or have them spawn next to you!) and there will be a 50% chance of conversion. As far as I can tell, once you fail to convert a barbarian it will never be converted even if you bring other ships near it.

In other words destroying a Barb Naval unit with a naval unit at a range of 2 or 3 gives a 0% chance of conversion? And killing one with a city and no naval unit adjacent to the Barb unit also gives 0% chance of conversion.

So it's either a case of missing documentation or the SA isn't working quite right. Since range is a huge factor with naval units it really weakens the SA, although I can see the need of having to be physically there to convert them...

Right. Actually attacking them the way you actually would (at range) means 0% chance of conversion.
Going for the damn achievement, btw, is a great way to kill your economy due to upkeep costs from all these damn useless ships. I look forward to getting just a couple more in my current game so I can then delete most of them.

I'm going to mark this as not being a bug. It makes sense that you can't convert a naval unit to your side without actually boarding it. The manual is unclear and the Civilopedia even more so ("50% chance of converting a Barb naval unit to your side and earning 25 Gold").

Further discussion welcome, though.

The manual isn't unclear, it lies outright- it says:
"Barbary Corsairs: Whenever you destroy a Barbarian naval unit, there’s a 50% chance of instead converting it to your side and earning 25 Gold. "

Civilopedia is just unclear in that it doesn't actually say anything at all about how to go about using the ability.

If it's not a programming bug, then it's certainly a HUGE missing detail from the descriptions of the SA. By not knowing that the SA only works when range=1 with respect to your naval vessel then your 50% chance is significantly reduced. You're likely going to make the most naval kills with range>1, so now the SA's effectiveness is less than 25%

Even knowing that forces you to change your tactics in a naval battle - parking your fleet right next to your enemies fleet, not attacking ships in your enemies second row, etc. It seems that in order for the SA to work you have to put yourself in a more dangerous position - something that no other SA does.

I don't really understand why this has been marked as 'not a bug' - unless non code bugs have their own category. That is this feature may behave as the coders intended but it certainly contradicts the descriptions of the SA given in manual and civilopedia and as such the sources of the misinformation should be fixored.

I first found out about this when my own ship accidentally run into a barb galley after which i started testing it. Interestingly it also happens when barb ships run into your own ships - happens often later in the game when the barb triremes and galleys start to refuse to fire on nearby ships.

OK, I'll move this thread to the Confirmed Bugs forum, since there's clearly a problem. I'll list it in the Possible Bugs list since it may be a programming error, or it may be a documentaion error.

Moderator Action: Moved to the Confirmed Bugs forum.