Player A sends troops at village X (8hr journey) after Player B sends nobles (16hr journey) ---> Lose protection
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\__The reason for this is because the server registers the incoming attack from Player B first on the barbarian, whereas Player A's attack is registered after since Player A would be sending the attacks just before the mid-way point for Player B's noble train.
Player B sends nobles at village X (8hr journey) after Player A sends attack (16hr journey) ---> Keeps protection
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\__The reason for this is because before the middle of Player A's travel time-after the game has registered Player A's attack, Player B launches his nobles and although Player B's attack may land before and conquer, the village ID in game has been assigned to roll-calculate Player A's attack as though it were still a barbarian.
Now, this is all speculation from playing the game and seeing/hearing reports from other players. It is very difficult to test this due to a small sample size, cost of nobles early on, the cut-off of new players/email invites on a world, people to participate and boring/time consuming with no pay off because of how small the chances of this situation occurring are. Keep in mind too the Devs will never truly tell us, as that would give too much advantage to players. Same reason we must make our own calculators for noble predictions and rng for battle calculators. If anyone figures it out, might as well add it to a guide. Although I dislike Jhin due to his behavior I have witnessed and encountered, I advise you take a look at the guide others and himself have created about technicalities in Tribal Wars if you are still confused or have questions; it covers a lot and it may touch upon this subject. (I haven't gave it the time of day to glance over-Jhin and Co.'s guide)