Bug: early invasion

[Jet]

My civ was going to be invaded by barbs in a few hours while I was asleep. Nobody else in my civ was awake or had put up any units for defense, so I threw some units down and started playing with their orders. I fortified some, which appeared to eliminate an attack bonus the barbs had, but also reduced the strength of the fortified unit. I thought they might just need some time to dig in, but their strength didn't seem to change over time, so I set some back to Normal.

What happened next must have been a bug. The invasion was scheduled for a few hours from then, but instead it started right away, with me attacking the barbs. It was though changing my units' orders to Normal caused the invasion to start. (I pwned the barbs, by the way. Oh yeah.) This was Mongolia in game 130, at 1AM EST.

 

[GambleFish]

My civ was going to be invaded by barbs in a few hours while I was asleep. Nobody else in my civ was awake or had put up any units for defense, so I threw some units down and started playing with their orders. I fortified some, which appeared to eliminate an attack bonus the barbs had, but also reduced the strength of the fortified unit. I thought they might just need some time to dig in, but their strength didn't seem to change over time, so I set some back to Normal.

What happened next must have been a bug. The invasion was scheduled for a few hours from then, but instead it started right away, with me attacking the barbs. It was though changing my units' orders to Normal caused the invasion to start. (I pwned the barbs, by the way. Oh yeah.) This was Mongolia in game 130, at 1AM EST.

The timer on battles between nations is correct. For barbarians, the timer is how long you have until you auto-lose. If you field troops before then, the battle starts in a few minutes after that.