Thieves and Bandits

New Units that can wreack havoc to neighbor's countryside and border. These units have hidden nationality and thus you can attack your neighbors w/o declaring war. They cannot use friendly neighbor's roads or RR (neutal land is ok) and cannot capture city. They have access to the pillage promotion that will be discussed below. Their purpose is to annoy the ai (or the ai annoy you). Each civ can have up to a limited number at one time (no thief army!)

Thief: (max 4)
Melee unit
Str 4
Mov 1
Special: Pillage 1.5x gold than normal
Tech: Code of Law crazyeye
Upgrades to Bandit

Bandit: (max 4)
Melee unit
Str 6
Mov 1
Special: Pillage 2x gold than normal
Tech: Guilds
Upgrades to Pirate

Pirate: (max 8)
Melee unit
Str 9
Mov 1
Special: Pillage 2.5x gold than normal. Free Amphibious Promotion. Have access to drill promotion.
Tech: Astronomy
Upgrades to Mob

Mob: (max 8)
Melee unit (finally machine gun w/shock has some use!)
Str 12
Mov 1
Special: Pillage 2.5x gold than normal. 20% Withdrawl Chance
Tech: Facism
Upgrades to Gangster

Gangster: (max 8)
Melee unit
Str 14
Mov 1
Special: Pillage 2.5x gold than normal. 30% Withdrawl Chance
Tech: Refigeration

Special Promotion only these units can have:
Pillage 1: Pillage gold +50%
Pillage 2: Pillage gold +100%
Pillage 3: Pillage gold +100%, road and RR pillaging now yields gold

Flee 1: 15% withdrawl chance
Flee 2: 25% withdrawl chance

Poor and Desperate: (1 time ability) next pillage yields 300% gold

GG cannot attach to these units.

What era do these units come out in?

Imo they should be significantly weaker then comparable military units of their time. Seems like you've kinda done that by not 100% where they would match up against military units.

Interesting idea though. I think the units should have a very high maintenance cost attached to them when their outside their own borders though. Supporting "secret" units is expensive.

Thief-Classical (CoL)
Bandit-Medieval (Guilds)
Pirate-Renaissance (Astronomy)
Mob-Industrial (Facism)
Gangster-Modern (Refrige)

They are pretty weak compare to their military counterparts...Axeman owns thieves like axeman>spearman, same as maceman>bandits, pirates are pretty dangerous, but thats ok because they are cool . Likewise, Rifle and Infantry can easily defeat mob and the gansters.

High Maintenance...hmmm maybe, i mean they are thieves...maybe for mobs and gansters, as they can form pretty efficent organization

Pirates have been around alot longer than the renaissance! Also, it doesnt seem to realistic for the player as a "king/president/etc..." to be able to actually fully control criminals. Maybe a better option would be able to "recruit" criminals for certain missions and have to pay a one time fee, which has lots of historical precedent. This could tie into espionage to be able to hire another civ's "mafia", if you will, to perform assassinations or sabotage etc..

All in all, I think privateers and spies already accomplish much of what this system would do.

the gangstas and mobs shouldn't be melee. if i recall the gangstas and mobs of the 1920s used machine guns. and pirates should be armed with swords and pistols. thiefs usally carried a small dagger. The Venetian assasians of the renissanice era usally used glass daggers leaving only a small cut.

buffalo6542 said:

the gangstas and mobs shouldn't be melee. if i recall the gangstas and mobs of the 1920s used machine guns. and pirates should be armed with swords and pistols. thiefs usally carried a small dagger. The Venetian assasians of the renissanice era usally used glass daggers leaving only a small cut.

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I would love to see Assasins in the game and let them kill any one of enemies units

Add a new espionage mission:
Assinate unit
Assinate super specialist

Give spies promotions like military units can recieve:
Counter Espionage (Alphabet): Reduces chance of being caught whilst in oponents territory, provides extra espionage points against civ.
Assisin (Hunting): Increases chance of success of assination missions.
Saboteur (gunpowder): Decrease cost of destroying improvements and sabotaging production.
Hacker (computers): Decrease cost of stealing technology and treasury.

You could also have different levels of these, perhaps the first level of Hacker decreases the cost of steal tech, the second level decreases the cost of steal treasury and the third level increases the chance of success for both.

Security Bureau gives level 1 counter espionage upgrade free
Monarchy: +1 Espionage points
Castle: +1 (Goes obsolete with Castle)
Intelligence agency: +2
Settled great spy: +2
Scotland Yard: +3
Kremlin: +3

But of course these are only suggestions for figures, this might make things a little over powered. I also think that Intelligence Agency should be a National wonder (but if it was it should be the same as scotland yard and they should both be more powerful). Spies should return to that city with the Intelligence Agency rather than the capital.

Anyway this thread is supposed to be about bandits and the like, sorry I went off topic.

OK spies and privateers already cover most of this. Maybe they can be late game barbs. Know what would be cool SNIPERS!!! Think of it would be like a mix of a spy and military unit with the ability to have like a fifty percent chance of causing damage to military units or can assassinate great generals or reverse their affect on units. For the strength of theivs make it lower dont want your small army getting destroyed by 4 theives.

They have mods for that... try the Revolutions mod.
Click here for the link.

rhinoman said:

OK spies and privateers already cover most of this. Maybe they can be late game barbs. Know what would be cool SNIPERS!!! Think of it would be like a mix of a spy and military unit with the ability to have like a fifty percent chance of causing damage to military units or can assassinate great generals or reverse their affect on units. For the strength of theivs make it lower dont want your small army getting destroyed by 4 theives.

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You can also send the SNIPERS into enemy capital, take out enemy leader. cause anarchy in civilization for long time. SNIPER has 50/50 chance of killing leader

The chance of killing the leader would require balancing, 50% is fine as a starting point but you might find in game that that just makes the unit too powerful, or not powerful enough, there is no point suggesting a chance like that other than to demonstrate a mechanic.

"You've just been pwned by an enemy sniper. Game over."

Not sure I would like it...

I agree that their should be some form of land privateer. Maybe just add another espionage mission of "Hire Criminal" Which would spawn a few criminal units.

Navarre said:

"You've just been pwned by an enemy sniper. Game over."

Not sure I would like it...

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I believe their suggestion is not to assassinate you, the player, but the political leader, sending a civ into anarchy until their government is restored. There are different leader concepts floating around. It could be that your actual Leader is killed and you have to choose another of your countries great leaders giving you different traits. But no one is suggesting your game ends.

ICNP said:

I agree that their should be some form of land privateer. Maybe just add another espionage mission of "Hire Criminal" Which would spawn a few criminal units.

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So your saying hire a crook like a mercinary? why cant you just get one?

Oh wait obvious game balance issue for assassinating. for 1 thing assassinating a leader requires a huge amount of espionage points and the new leader would be safe for a couple of turns. Otherwise most smart human players would just put a sniper in an enemy's city and sent them into almost permanent anarchy. I also agree that 50/50 is almost definently not right for sending an entire civ into anarchy. I also think that my sniper thing doesnt perfectly cover political assassinations as technically assassinations are made by ASSASSANS not snipers. snipers dress up in cameo and wait for some capitan or general to come out of the enemy camp. Assassins are in normal street close, get in a warehouse, and wait for the parade to go by. Also all the crooks represented in the beginning except maybe pirates can be hires as mercenaries and become an assassin or you can just use your spys as assassins and let the crooks continue to be free agents.

Aye snipers are a military unit, don't know how I would describe them in current civ terms, perhaps they can move fast and can attack the weakest unit in a stack, they would be weak of course and receive a good attack bonus. Dunno about the fast movement, I don't want to make them totally invisible but they need some form of stealth. I also don't think it should depend on espionage, I mean a good sniper is invisible even when you know where he/she is, in which case maybe they should be strong all round. They're weakest against large numbers though, hmm, its confusing. I think giving spies assassination missions is a simple enough solution for me rather than having an assassin unit. I have mentioned spy promotions many times lately, it feels like more than half my posts I say something about it. Assassin level 1 - increase chance of success, decrease cost. Assassin level 2 - increase chance of success, decrease cost a bit more. Assassin level 3 - increase chance of success, decrease cost a bit more, allow assassinate leader. Or just make the assassinate leader mission less likely of success, presumably the leader resides in the capital, but I fully support having a leader unit which can move around to give a capital like bonus, perhaps the option to increase your leaders security, food testers, body guards, motorcade, police escort etc. just represent these as levels which you can pay a maintenance fee for, 1 gold gets food testers and decreases assassination success rate, 2 gold gets body guards (and food testers), so on and so forth.

Scilly_guy said:

I believe their suggestion is not to assassinate you, the player,

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I can see that having some negative impact on game sales, yes. It would wipe out the market for expansions entirely.

but the political leader, sending a civ into anarchy until their government is restored. There are different leader concepts floating around. It could be that your actual Leader is killed and you have to choose another of your countries great leaders giving you different traits. But no one is suggesting your game ends.

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Assassinating a leader causing a couple of turns of anarchy sounds workable, if assassins are a) suitably expensive and b) the diplo hit for being caught using them is suitably huge. Maybe there should be an expensive small wonder you need to build in order to be able to build them at all.

Well what I wa suggesting would mean that only level 3 assassins would be able to have a shot at the mission (pun intended) and how often do you get level 3 woodsmen? and compare that to how many spy points it would cost, and the rate at which a spy gets its points, its not going to be easy to assassinate a leader, even if you are capable of carrying out the mission there is a good chance you'll be caught and so lose a really powerful spy.

Scilly_guy said:

Well what I wa suggesting would mean that only level 3 assassins would be able to have a shot at the mission (pun intended) and how often do you get level 3 woodsmen? and compare that to how many spy points it would cost, and the rate at which a spy gets its points, its not going to be easy to assassinate a leader, even if you are capable of carrying out the mission there is a good chance you'll be caught and so lose a really powerful spy.

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that makes sense and as they become more experience, they gain higher percentage of kill.