headcase
Limit 1 Facepalm Per Turn
You know, there's also a chance it's a unit created specifically for the Civil War scenario (a ton of the scenarios have unique unit art) and they just chose to also recycle it in the main game for barbarian art to get more use out of the asset.
This theory makes a lot of sense to me. Barb-only unit, and made because they already had it for the Civil War, a scenario where native Americans could very well by represented as barbs in game.
Otherwise:
- A UU that the devs made a barb either by accident or to tease a new civ without revealing it.
- A new unit, so either everyone gets a tomahawk unit, or the axeman's symbol looks like a tomahawk.
- A UU that has Civ4Privateer abilities, but players would know exactly who it's from and the AI is supposed to be like the players, so that doesn't sound likely.