Fireproof Barbarians!

[dog]

I recently started a game where I was started on large chunk of coastal grasslands surrounded by lots and lots of mountains. There were at least six or seven volcanoes in the immediate vicinity. When barbarians appeared there was one camp on a mountain right next to a volcano and one camp was actually right on top of a volcano. Now the one on top of the volcano really stunk because volcano was set as impassable terrain and so I could never attack them! I got to thinking "just wait until that volcano blows ha ha ha..." It did blow, and so did the one with the barb camp in the next tile over. Neither eruption effected the barbs at all. The camps were still there and all the barbs were still there bathing happily in boiling lava.

BUG: Barbarian units are not destroyed by volcanic eruptions.
BUG: Barbarian camps are not destroyed by volcanic eruptions.
BUG: Barbarian camps are put on impassable terrain.

The last one doesn't bother me so much if at least the volcano would destroy them eventually.

 

[Chieftess]

Do you have a save just before this happened? Please try to follow the bug report guidelines, too.

 

[dog]

I play a personal mod so I can't post a save game (I've added close to 800 units). I can't help but think that someone else must have seen the same thing in a standard epic game. Anyone?

 

[Smoked_Ham]

I've had it happen in the MesoAmerican Conq though, It there was two Barb camps in the rain forest to the south of me (I was Inca) and one over in what would be Brazil.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by dog
I play a personal mod so I can't post a save game (I've added close to 800 units). I can't help but think that someone else must have seen the same thing in a standard epic game. Anyone?

800 units!?!? Are they all civ specific or something? Anyway, you could post a before/after screenshot.

 

[dog]

Originally posted by Chieftess


800 units!?!? Are they all civ specific or something? Anyway, you could post a before/after screenshot.

Yeah, it's crazy. From the release of Civ3 I've tried to add every custom unit graphic into the game. I've got a folder with over 450 units waiting to be added.

If it happens again I'll grab some screenshots and post them.

 

[Mercade]

To test this, I made a two scenarios which I uploaded as BarbarianToast.zip. Note these scenarios don't modify the properties of volcanos. I did that in a third test that I didn't include in the zip, but can be easily reproduced by modifying the 2nd scenario.

Running BarbarianToast1.biq - designed to make a lava inferno with barbarians - for some turns a number of times, I observed the following:

1) When on or near an erupting volcano, barbarians do burn / bbq / die.
2) When on or near an erupting volcano, barbarian camps do not disappear.

Running the BarbarianToast2.biq - which is designed to have many dormant volcanos to invite barbarians - for some turns leads to the following:

3) With default rules ("impassable" is unchecked), the game does randomly put a barbarian camp on top of a volcano. I'd say this is normal (although brave) behaviour.

Then I changed the rules to have "impassable" checked for volcanos, and played 400 turns on the same map. I did not observe any barbarians on the volcanos. Of course this doesn't prove that Dog and Smoked_Ham didn't see it happen to them. Perhaps they can post a screen shot of their experience.

Based on my checks, I'd report the following bug:

Bug: Barbarian camps on top of a volcano do not disappear when the volcano erupts.
Steps: Observe a barbarian camp on top of a volcano (that has not yet erupted), like in BarbarianToast1.biq and then wait for the volcano to erupt.
Effect: While the barbarians die from the lava, the barbarian camp stays right where it is.
Expected: Barbarian camp to disappear when volcano erupts.

 

[dog]

That's really weird. I sat and waited and waited for them barbs to burn up but after the two volcanoes erupted the barbs were sitting right there in their camps with pollution all round. I really wish I would've saved that game.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by dog
That's really weird. I sat and waited and waited for them barbs to burn up but after the two volcanoes erupted the barbs were sitting right there in their camps with pollution all round. I really wish I would've saved that game.

Are you sure it was that turn, and that the barbs didn't respawn?

 

[dog]

Originally posted by Chieftess


Are you sure it was that turn, and that the barbs didn't respawn?

I can't say 100% for sure Chieftess. As I remember it, I had stationed units nearby to watch the fireworks. But it is possible that when I got the pop-up message that the volcano was about to blow that I sent units to the volcano to witness the aftermath. I never even thought about the camp surviving the eruption and spawning new barb units before I got there. That may have been what happened. I suppose I never considered that because I have never seen an instance in a game where a barb camp had it's defender destroyed without the camp being dispersed. I never thought that maybe an empty camp could spawn another defending unit. Has this ever been tested? I guess it would just take a land unit with "lethal bombard land" to destroy a barb camp defender and see if another was created. If so, then your theory, given Mercade's results, is the most likely explanation.

If so, then the bug is that barb camps don't get destroyed by volcanic eruptions.

 

[Gogf]

And that they can get placed on immpassible terrain.

 

[Mercade]

Originally posted by Gogf
And that they can get placed on immpassible terrain.

We still have to see a screenshot or save file to establish that, Gogf.

 

[Gogf]

Well, someone must have a save to verify this... anyone?