Any specific Barb behaviours You have observed

[Victoria]

If a barb scout finds a city and gets back to its camp, the resulting swarm will usually attack only the city the scout saw and its units, whether it's you or the AI.

It’s not usually, it’s always.
I have observed (purely looking at barb play) quite a few times a scout missing a city or more and ending up 15-20 tiles away from its camp before it sees a city. It then beelines home, the raiding part is formed (while forming it will attack other troops) and then the raiding party will always beeline the city spotted.
Now for the interesting part... it is only once this raid successfully completes and at least one unit gets home that a city attack happens (siege units) and this attack city will target the same city as the raid.
The turn timers for these actions are 10 turns for a raid and 15 for an attack but these are for different phases (forming units, attacking, getting home) but a raid is roughly25 turns and an attack 50. Quite a lot of the game. I have run through to the end of an attack on a capital (never takes a capital) and the units went back home then triggered a raid against another spotted city.

please note that units also spawn that are not part of a raid/attack party, these wander and do not alert but will pillage and attack units. You need to identify what the barb unit is doing before saying life is unfair.

I’d say it can be a confirmation or a self-steem bias, but I’ve experienced the same behviour that azmundai comments: positioning “territory holding” units vs a rival civ, when a barbarian comes, it would attack my units first, regardless of the CPU player positioning theirs nearer (and they were damaged, iirc) ¿Maybe they did already set the target beforehand and do not change it?

You sure the barbs were not already targeting one of your cities? They are raiding you not them.
Use a scout, go up to a barb scout and push it toward an enemy city. If that scout can get home, barb units will not target your troops unless you attack theirs (by what I have seen so far) and let the raiding party soften them up.
Also keep an eye out for barbs reducing a capital, you can get a free capital.

A barb scout will always back away from an adjacent unit when in explore mode.

naturally destroy a camp and any barbs from that tribe go into rage mode and target your units also.

...so you see there are times a barb will target you directly, or another civ directly. If at all confused in a game, post a save, I would love to find odd behaviours.

 

[Josephias]

You sure the barbs were not already targeting one of your cities? They are raiding you not them.
(...)
naturally destroy a camp and any barbs from that tribe go into rage mode and target your units also.

...so you see there are times a barb will target you directly, or another civ directly. If at all confused in a game, post a save, I would love to find odd behaviours.

I'll try to get the save for you (it's in other computer I don't have access mid-week). Probably not a raid party, as there was no city near (I had my units just holding a strait to avoid the AI taking a settle spot I already planned near Sahara el Beyda).
Probably were enraged barbarians due to a camp destroyed, but IIRC, it was the AI who destroyed it, not me. Nevertheless, I'd check again as the conditions might have been different to what I recall.

 

[Arithmion]

Not a revelation, but for the sake of the guide: A scout can use the last of it's movement points to return to a camp, and the next turn, warriors can spawn. (Which indicates that the scout does not have an action that it performs like, say, an archer does. Perhaps when it sees a city it enters a "city seen" state, that triggers the raid based solely on it's proximity to the camp?

Also, the raid can be triggered (still in the turn immediately following the scout's return) even when the spearman is dead and the camp is empty.

A pitati archer can bring a spearman out of a camp, just like a slinger. I think I even had the +5 strength vs. barb card slotted, but no promises.

Also, free cities and their units act like barbarians in terms of XP given to your units. (Only 1 given after your unit has been promoted once.) However, the Pitati archer will get double the normal experience gained per its promotion (bringing it to a whopping total of 2 XP) when attacking a free city center, but not when attacking a free city unit.

 

[Victoria]

Perhaps when it sees a city it enters a "city seen" state, that triggers the raid based solely on it's proximity to the camp?

yes, and immediately.

free cities

Free cities are not part of this circus, too many things different.

the spearman is dead and the camp is empty.

Yes this happens, as long as the camp is there.
It does beg the point that why does the camp not have some type of garrison so a 1HP scout cannot just walk in and clear it... or worse a non military unit.

 

[Galvatron]

I hypothesize there is a wait time before barbs will take a city. In my current game I captured a city but about 10 barb horsemen, archers, and swords showed up immediately. The ranged units shot the city down to 0HP but the other units intentionally avoided taking it - one was standing next to the city and walked away, another just sat within range not moving. I thought I lucked out and even chopped walls, but about 5 turns later they all attacked and burned the city after about 3-4 rounds. My theory is the “clock” restarts after a city changes hands.

They have a mechanic called 'boldness' that is affected by in game events sooner od which are intuitive like losing units and being threatened and some of which aren't like time passing. This boldness factor multiplies their aggression depending on circumstances.

 

[Victoria]

This boldness factor multiplies their aggression depending on circumstances.

This is a difficult value to identify and track. It is fair to assume what you are assuming but it is an assumption , correct?

 

[Arithmion]

Free cities are not part of this circus, too many things different.

I agree, I just wanted to mention it because I found the Pitati XP doubling calculation interesting. Sorry for going off topic.

Anyhoo, love your guides!

 

[Pietato]

Their caravels are extra hurty.

 

[Starwars]

I don't have any save to back this up so there is no evidence but in a game I played fairly recently, I was on the warpath with another civ and was attacking it from the north. To the south was a barb camp, and I saw the scout from that camp come up to the AI civ's city from the south, trigger its alerted state and head back to the camp. A few turns later the barb army showed up, promptly ignored the city that triggered the invasion, and proceeded to basically chase my units all the way back to my own territory again, ignoring quite a few of AI civ's units on the way as was as pillagable tiles and trade routes.

So even if a barb camp triggers on a city, there are things that will make the units ignore that city and go after other things. Whether it be a bug in that particular game or feature, I have no idea. But it happened and I was very annoyed by it.

I'm aware of the sort of "random units" the barb camps spawn that attack whatever. But if this were those units (which I personally don't believe) they were moving in the same big numbers that the barb armies do. I can't confirm 100% either way of course because the barb camp was in my fog of war and thus I didn't actually see it start spawning the units.

 

[Victoria]

It’s fine to have no save, anecdotal helps, I have limited time online.

and proceeded to basically chase my units all the way back to my own territory again,

Did you attack them at all? Or got in their way? As soon as they get triggered for ‘chase units’, they seem to enjoy themselves for a while.

So even if a barb camp triggers on a city,

Key question: did you see the red exclamation mark above the scouts head?

 

[Starwars]

No, I didn't attack them. If I got in their way is a bit hard to judge, I'm not sure what the AI would consider that, but I actively tried to stay away from them because I didn't want to tangle with them (my army was pretty weak). I was on the opposite side of the city in question when the barbs started pouring in from the other side. There was a barb archer that shot me, and I think that was the first attack that I took from them. Perhaps that act of agression "triggers" that the rest of the barb army would go after the unit that was shot instead? No idea.

The exclamation point was definitely there, I saw it pop when the scout came around to the city's borders. Then it went down to the camp right away (sometimes the scouts seem to sort of wander a bit before they make their way back but not this time), then the barbs started pouring in a few turns later.

 

[Victoria]

The exclamation point was definitely there,

Perfect, I said it was a key question because it only shows if the Scout spotted your city first and therefore will be the target of the raid.... you were the surprise course for dinner and did not realise it.

Now I think about it, this would explain why the scout hangs around you, a sort of warning that you are the one.

because Firaxis do not make things clear, we end up dissing their design while all along we were misunderstanding. I feel Firaxis are not doing themselves any favours with this approach.... in some ways.

 

[Starwars]

Hm, not sure I follow you. Do you mean that the exclamation point only shows up if it spots a player city? Or am I misunderstanding something?

 

[Victoria]

Hm, not sure I follow you. Do you mean that the exclamation point only shows up if it spots a player city? Or am I misunderstanding something?

If a barb scout spots another players (or AI's) city it will not show the exclamation mark for you.
The barb scout may see 10 different players cities but it has the exclamation mark for the player currently being targeted.

 

[Starwars]

That's really interesting, I had no idea the mechanic worked like that.
But then I still have to say that something was definitely up, whether bug or something else, because I saw the exclamation mark pop when the scout approached the enemy city. Like, one turn it wasn't there, and the next it was and then the barb scout headed back. My own territory was quite a ways away. I got excited at the time because I figured that hey, this is gonna mean that me and the barbs will smash this guy up together, it will be epic.

So then it must've somehow magically sensed my territory far up north, maybe something bugged out? And the barb forces did not make it all the way to my city, they made it to just about the border of my territory but then "broke off". I have no idea what they did after that. But yeah, something weird must've been going on.

Or hey, I could've dreamt it but I must say that I'm very sure that I didn't.

But that's good info. I never actually thought about that the exclamation point only showed up if the scout was triggered on a player city, even after playing the game so much.

 

[Victoria]

because I saw the exclamation mark pop when the scout approached the enemy city

I am testing in firetuner and it does not show up there at all unless it spots me.
I game I am fairly confident it does not show up either.
Without a save or the log files if you have not restarted the civ ap since that game then we can only chalk it up to the unknown. Yes there is quite a lot I am learning too.

 

[Victoria]

So for targeting I just did this test. The barb was spawned as a 'wandering' barb (not raiding) so I put a german scout in a place it could not move and looked to see what would happen with the barb. It targets the german scout not me because it is weaker.
The barb does not run away because it is not sufficiently damaged, despite having so many of my warriors nearby

 

[bbbt]

So no, not cheap terrible code, quite the opposite as far as I am concerned.
Your statement is also very incorrect... I showed this about a year ago and can provide a save if you want with an up to date example. Barbs target the weakest unit, now it used to be based purely on combat value but i believe it is now based on damage as well... will check that out for you
However... Great comment and one to add to the guide as many people say it (I used to think that also)

So with the AI combat bonuses on King+, it would mean the barbs effectively target the player more often on those levels? As if both have warriors the player warrior is weaker than the AI one?

I am curious about how close a scout has to get to their home camp to start the spawning. I had a warrior between a scout and the camp (so two tiles) and that still promoted spawning. So it doesn't seem like it has to get right next to it.

 

[Navelgazer]

Mostly I've just seen that barb scouts will rush back to their camp as fast as they can after finding you, and that barb camps with the ability to create cavalry will also have crazy good production and pump them out like mad.

 

[nauberry]

A weird behavior I saw on a marathon game was as follows. In multiple occasions, both with alerted and non alerted camps, the barbarian spear man was standing one tile outside the camp. This made taking the camps as a scout very easy. I only saw this on marathon games after the last update.