When barbs attack...

[Winston Hughes]

In my last game (monarch, pangea, epic, tiny) I spotted a barb axeman on a small peninsula south of my borders, separated from my cities' tiles by a two-deep range of hills. I expected him to come marauding into my territory, and so kept a chariot close at hand.

But instead he just kept marching back and forth across the peninsula, even as my borders expanded and cut him off on just two tiles. It seemed as if he was reluctant to enter my territory. Only when I started improving a tile near to the border (much later in the game) did he finally move into my lands. I'm not sure whether or not he could see my workers before he did so - I think the hills may have blocked his view.

My question is: are barbs programmed to avoid entering cultural borders until there is something to nearby? And, if so, do they have to actually see the unit/improvement/city, or do they have some kind of psychic knowledge? (Or was this guy just acting crazy?)

 

[jerVL/kg]

There's a grace period where barbs won't enter your cultural boundaries -- but if you're seeing axemen already, this period has probably already passed.

Barbarians do make moves however; I've seen games where a barb came within 1 tile of an undefended city, and stopped to pillage a road instead...

 

[Winston Hughes]

Well, I ran a few rather limited tests using WB-placed barbs, and found that they did avoid entering cultural borders when there was nothing immediately available to smash. Even when within the borders, they didn't travel any further inside unless there were units or improvements within one tile of them (though I didn't test HAs).

Also, they seemed to prioritise attacking units over destroying improvements (so the lack of a unit in jerVL/kg's city may actually have saved it from capture), and non-road improvements over roads (do undefended cities rank even lower than roads?!).

However, I didn't find anything to explain why the barb axeman in my original game finally decided to enter my borders.

 

[obsolete]

I've had them wander in my territory when I had absolutely nothing to pillage.. not even a dirt road.

 

[Winston Hughes]

I've had them wander in my territory when I had absolutely nothing to pillage.. not even a dirt road.

Nothing at all? What's that, a massively seafooded start?

Anyway, I'm not saying that barbs won't cross the border when there's nothing to kill in an adjacent tile (the axeman in my game did so). What I don't understand is why they don't always cross the border (even when they've nowhere else to go), and what causes them to do so (ie. is it just random, or is barb behaviour at least partly predictable).

Unless someone knows anything about the barb AI, I guess I'll have to run a whole lot more tests to clear this up. I wonder if map type/size has anything to do with it, and whether city-built barbs act differently to spawned/placed ones.

 

[obsolete]

Nothing at all? What's that, a massively seafooded start?

A few forested hills = hammer production without needing a worker to lift a finger.

I think the only unit who is truely random is the bear. It either wanders into your hex and kills you, or it doesn't.

 

[KMadCandy]

I think the only unit who is truely random is the bear. It either wanders into your hex and kills you, or it doesn't.

even that's not entirely random. bears aren't allowed to step onto a tile that have any resource on them ... revealed or not. they know where everything is on turn 0, mind you. if you WB yourself a bear, and try to step onto a tile with a resource on it, even non-strategics like dye, you're not allowed to go there, it's impassable to you. tiles that have uranium on them are the same way, even tho you can't see it yet.

so, if the bear doesn't wander onto your hex to try to kill you, it could be that he wasn't in the mood for a fight, or it could be that particular tile was off-limits to him!

 

[jerVL/kg]

even that's not entirely random. bears aren't allowed to step onto a tile that have any resource on them ... revealed or not. they know where everything is on turn 0, mind you. if you WB yourself a bear, and try to step onto a tile with a resource on it, even non-strategics like dye, you're not allowed to go there, it's impassable to you. tiles that have uranium on them are the same way, even tho you can't see it yet.

so, if the bear doesn't wander onto your hex to try to kill you, it could be that he wasn't in the mood for a fight, or it could be that particular tile was off-limits to him!

Wow...that's really interesting. Does it apply to all animals, or only bears?

 

[CivCorpse]

LOL, the scary part is that Kmad knows these things.

 

[InFlux5]

I'm confused - do bears enter cultural borders? If so I've never seen it!

 

[obsolete]

Animals are NOT allowed to enter borders, this is what makes them different from barbs.