Now this is weird...

[Mrdarklight]

I conquered a barb camp with a captured worker in it. The worker was from Melbourne. I elected to return the worker for the reputation boost with the CS. I liberated the worker with an archer, if that means anything.

Ever since, the worker has been following my archer around the map. I am now something like 20 hexes away from Melbourne, and the thing is still following me around. The camp I liberated it from was only 6 hexes from its home city.

Anyone ever seen this?

 

[fyar]

Maybe the damsel in distress, a Melbournian princess, fell in love with the handsome bow-wielding prince that freed her from the ruthless barbarian overlords.

 

[Mahasona]

Romance is a wonderful thing.

 

[aafritz17]

Actually did see something like this within the last couple of weeks. I don't remember that the freed unit exactly followed my unit around, but it did wander aimlessly around my general territory. I kept saying "Go home, boy!", didn't change its mind.

With the kind of control you apparently had, ya shoulda led it back to the barbs, freed it again for ANOTHER 40 influence!

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Life debt, duh.

 

[Callonia]

Have you tried sending that archer to the borders of Melbourne, maybe the worker didn't know if it was safe in the fog of war or not so it stayed near your archer as the result. It might will go back to working in Melbourne once you lead it there.

 

[Aea]

Really? Can you walk your archer by a barb camp and get that worker captured again?

 

[Browd]

Yes, you can. Kind of gamey, I suppose, but you can do it.

 

[inthesomeday]

This is what I usually do; it's also something you can do with workers you captured in the ancient era. Say you took a Melbourne worker in like 2500 BC, and then you don't need it in 1600 AD, you can trap it in a peninsula with a barb camp and then just keep grabbing it over and over with new barb spawns. Endless influence

 

[Redaxe]

Really? Can you walk your archer by a barb camp and get that worker captured again?

I have done this - it is crazy OP. The amount of experience you gain is gamebreaking.

 

[fyar]

This is what I usually do; it's also something you can do with workers you captured in the ancient era. Say you took a Melbourne worker in like 2500 BC, and then you don't need it in 1600 AD, you can trap it in a peninsula with a barb camp and then just keep grabbing it over and over with new barb spawns. Endless influence

Haha! That's hilarious, but how do you know which worker it was? By 1600 AD I assume that you've built other workers too, and I have no idea which ones are which. I guess if you have a really good memory or are careful to keep them confined, say, near a particular city. But once I start building roads that just doesn't happen.

 

[fyar]

It also occurred to me that maybe the reason that the worker follows you is because the barb led him far from Melbourne, and the city-state Melbourne hasn't revealed the fog of war yet in the area in between. Does the AI for city-states have fog of war? If so, the worker may feel that following your archer is safer than walking into unrevealed territory.

 

[inthesomeday]

On single player, I know because I rename the workers to their city state name, which has a variety of strategic purposes. You need mods to do this; unmodded, it may sometimes require a bit of trial and error, but if you're desperate enough for influence it may not be that big of a deal. On multi, I usually build only about one or two workers ever, the rest gained from cs steals, and can usually get lucky enough. -60 influence really isn't that much; a point in patronage can counter act a weary city state conference. In multiplayer games, wherein one is competitively going after city state quests, it can be easily counteracted with this kind of cheap exploit.

As to the question at hand, the idea the barbs led the worker so far away that upon liberation it had no line of sight is actually probably the answer, props to fyar. Imagine having a civilian suddenly appear in the middle of fog of war; you'd want to follow your liberator too, rather than risk being recaptured.