Late in a game, a barbarian camp can be adopted by a nearby tribe, which hands the site and the barbarians on it to that tribe. This page shows when that can happen, how likely it is, and how to stop it.
The roll, step by step
- Only barbarian sites are eligible: Rebels, Anarchy, Raiders, Barbarians. A site already held by a real tribe never rolls again.
- The clock has to have started. Nothing happens until the game passes the tribe level's start turn (below).
- Roll the percent, once per site per turn.
- Find an adopter. A tribe qualifies if it owns a settlement within 12 tiles of the site in a straight line, across mountains and water. Among those, the site goes to the tribe whose settlement is closest by an actual path over land or water. With no qualifying tribe there is no conversion.
- The site must be quiet. The conversion fails that turn if any player unit is within 3 tiles of the site, or any of the site's barbarians is damaged.
- The handover. The site and each barbarian in range become the new tribe's. A barbarian that can strike a city from where it stands becomes a raider against that city instead.
When it can happen, and how likely
Both the start turn and the chance per turn depend on the Tribe Level setting. The later columns give the odds that one undisturbed site has converted after that many eligible turns.
| Tribe level | Starts after turn | Chance / turn | after 10 turns | after 25 turns | after 50 turns | after 100 turns |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | never converts | |||||
| Passive | never converts | |||||
| Weak | 60 | 3% | 26.3%by turn 70 | 53.3%by turn 85 | 78.2%by turn 110 | 95.2%by turn 160 |
| Normal | 50 | 4% | 33.5%by turn 60 | 64%by turn 75 | 87%by turn 100 | 98.3%by turn 150 |
| Strong | 40 | 5% | 40.1%by turn 50 | 72.3%by turn 65 | 92.3%by turn 90 | 99.4%by turn 140 |
| Raging | 30 | 6% | 46.1%by turn 40 | 78.7%by turn 55 | 95.5%by turn 80 | 99.8%by turn 130 |
Higher tribe levels convert earlier and faster: Raging starts 30 turns before Weak and rolls twice as often. On Passive, and with tribes off, sites never convert.
Who can adopt a site
Only the 7 tribes you can negotiate with can adopt a site, and only from a settlement of their own within range.
Why the adopter can look far away
The 12 tiles are measured to the tribe's nearest settlement, not to wherever you think that tribe lives. That explains conversions that look impossible.
- Tribes own scattered settlements. A tribe's main cluster can sit 30 tiles away while one outlying camp of theirs sits 9 tiles from the site being converted. You see the name and colour of a distant tribe, and the game measured to the near camp.
- Conversions chain. An adopted site counts as one of the new tribe's settlements, so it can bring the next barbarian camp 12 tiles further out into range. A tribe can cross the map one adoption at a time.
A barbarian camp near an established tribe will probably convert sooner or later, and then you have a neighbour you can trade, truce and ally with instead of a permanent enemy. To block it, park a unit next to the camp or leave one of its defenders wounded.
See also Tribes and Camp Unit Spawning.