I hate you so much, mod maker!

Don't take those words seriously. Let me tell you my story.

I decided to play Nightmare mode with 22 civs and 41 city states, my civ being Poland. Things were going pretty well for me, I was kind of keeping up in science. I kept getting messages about civs losing cities, capitals and city states being captured at a really fast rate, around one or even two per turn. But I was confident in my own strategy and kept on building wonders and training my soldiers. I was just sending my composite bowmen explore somewhere else and to finally level them up to get the logistics upgrade. And then..

a barbarian longswordsman appears just outside my second city. I was confused at first, I saw no camps whatsoever, and that was kinda ahead of time, if you ask me. I'm a science player, so I barely get many civs ahead of me in tech. Then I thought to myself "crap, this guy is going destroy my improvements. I better send my only really evolved warrior unit to defend it!"

How wrong I was. HOW WRONG!

Next turn even more showed up. And then more, and more, and more. And they besieged my city Krakow. It was then I realized those bastards were actually spawning there! I had to sent my now swordsman unit to Krakow with hopes to defend it. I thought I could do it if they stopped spawning. They never did. My composite bowmen had to keep their distance when they finally arrived but manage to deal some damage. Anyways, I lost Krakow. There were just way too many of them. I lost my swordsman (I will miss you and your double attack) and the spawned barbarian army marched to Warsaw. Thankfully, though, not only had I built the Great Wall, but also I had pretty nearby neighbours, which caused the barbarian army to divide itself in various directions. Now here I stand, defending my last city, Warsaw, as the divided but still huge barbarian hordes attack me.

That really got me by offguard, and surprisingly, that was really enjoyable! The game was too calm until that point. Was that supposed to happen though? Spawning right outside my city? I don't know if that was supposed to get you offguard, but regardless, I enjoyed the experience and I would like other people to have it, which is why I guess this is some kind of spoiler..? There was no warning at all about that anywhere though. God, I freaked out so much..!