Privateers (and other hidden nationality units)

Often you see a privateer sail your waters, then it goes hiding in a stackpile of units of a certain civ, then it comes out and attacks you. You can be absolutely sure that unit came from that civ. My suggestion: when you create hidden nationality units and they are identified by you as that nationality (either it came out of their port or from a group of other units), it will provoke war if that unit attacked the other civ. Of course when it leaves your sight you can't be sure it was that unit so it is hidden again.

This can also have diplomatic consequenses: if you see a privateer you identified attack your allies, the relations will suffer or maybe war will start also. If you want to attack with hidden nationality, be smart and don't do stupid things that will reveal you did it.

Good idea!

I've thought many times when i played that "if this was in multiplayer they would know it was me"
For example if I am the only with privateers the AI doesn't know it was me. That would be a great improvement since I i think many times that i know who it was but I can't declare war at them and say it was their fault (to get war happiness etc.)

*Knowing* where a privateer comes from and where its based doesn't mean you can prove it, ie having it be reason enough to go to war.

Privateers work the way they did in real life, to be quite honest. French privateers attacked british shipping, and of course the English knew they were French privateers. Privateers are the ultimate "cold war" weapon in the age of sail.

Countries were known to harbor pirates, but only after piracy was so awful and your country was strong enough to tackle the sympathetic government, would war actually commence.

I think privateers are perfect the way they are. They are good on attack, extremely weak on defense.

Privateers balance out how the AI loves to put ships just outside your borders (or even inside your borders ... the AI really doesn't play fair when it comes to that.) The use of privateers by a human player forces the AI to possibly research ironclads, and at the very least provide substantial escort to its shipping.

At least in conquests they fixed the bug of having an ironclad in the same square as your escort would cause an enemy ship to attack your ironclad, starting a war!

But in all honesty, I like the current system. It just feels historically cool

Yes but if a Privateer occupies a square with any given nation it *must* be that nation because you cannot share the same square. I think it should be possible to ask a Civ to disband their Privateers, or some kind of non-military action to be taken (being able to legitimately stop gpt/lux deals within 20 turns, for example).

But what about other hidden nationality units?

In real life, a terrorist puts a bomb somewhere and it blows. America boms Afghanistan and invades it, just because that country was probably creating terrorists.

This brings up a new idea for a unit: the terrorist! Can walk on any tile, even enemy cities. Actions when on the same tile as a unit/city: place bomb, suicide attack, etc.

Spys can already carry out these kinds of actions, effectively simulating this already. I know Terrorism is a contemporary concern but it shouldn't be allowed to take over such a great game. It could be argued that US/Afghanistan relations were already Poor because of human rights violations (yes i know that's not why they went in), and they may eventually have gone in there. And there are no other Hidden Nationality units in Civ3, unless you've modded your game.

maybe you should be able to hire pirates

BTW, according to bamspeedy's column, the computer AI's do know who the privateers belong to. If you kill one of their ships, you get a rep hit.

Terrorism could become a new tech, available after nationalism and espionage, but dependant on newer techs as well, like Rocketry and something like Plastic Explosives. So, it would stay a contemporary issue(towards end of modern age)

www.glodas.net

What about just allowing units that have hidden nationalities to travel into the lands of other nations..? A menu would pop up asking "Declare War/Attack" or "Move Here." Then the other nation (or you) could choose to attack the hidden unit. Also it would be interesting if you were allowed to attack your own privateers, etc. in order to trick human players.

Rather than have a separate set of hidden nationality units, I think instead you should have...

1) stealth units, such as spies and commandoes, that require some special attribute for teh enemy to detect. This are yours to command as you wish.
2) The ability to designate any unit as a 'rogue' unit. These effectively become barbarians, and are controlled by the barbarian AI. It can be done at any point, so you could build a unit, move it into place, and then make it rogue. Certain units cannot be made rogue, such as most modern high-maintenance units. It should also be possible to give these rogues certain standing orders, but direct control should no longer be possible, and there will be a cumulative chance each turn that the standing orders will be lost and it becomes a true barbarian unit.

@ Rhialto:

1. If stealth units have only one tech to discover them, then it could be overpowering. To prevent this from happening:
A. There should be other ways to discover it, such as length of stay in enemy or vicinity territory, movement, number of units in the square, etc.
B. Once the tech is discovered, the detection is not automatic. It is very high, and that is increased by the things in part A.

2. Rogue units could be the result of:
A. Bribes or espionage
B. unhappiness
C. civ is conqueored

Rogues would operate like pirates or barbarians would would be independet from all governments, although they can become "for hire" by other governments and can morph into terrorists.

I like this but it also has problems. Since enemy airplanes can see everywhere I have to protect them latter in the game or else they'll all be shot up.

@h4ppy
What's the problem? Who says an airplane (combat ones anyway) will be able to detect invisible units? It's not like any modern force is able to reliably detect terrorists (or freedom fighters, or commandos) even with today's state of the art aircraft. And what's a spy but another civilian in a black hat? Aircraft can't spot that. I was thinking that, on the principle that it takes a spy to catch a spy, it would generally only be those units that have the stealth/small-squad flag that have the detection/small-squad flag.

'Stealth' infantry are in no more danger from aircraft than any other civilian. Of course, a bomber on an indiscriminate bombard mission will probably hit any stealth infantry on that tile.

@Searcheagle
One point I should have added to my original post is that any stealth infantry unit that attacks loses its stealth factor until it leaves enemy line of sight. It's good for one surprise attack, but after that, they'll be watching you as long as you stay in their sight. The small squad stealth flag is essentially your men acting inconspicuous, which is kinda hard to pull off after you've been seen acting suspicious.

Actually, I've always thought privateers should operate slightly differently. As i see it, the privateer should operate automatically, IE you have no control over over it.
Yes, you still build it but after that, it's on it's own, with the exception that it will not attack any of your units.
To heal it would still come to your cities etc.

Rhialto: I think we are thinking along the same lines with reguard to stealth units.

Adding attack to list of things that can detect units is also a good idea, which i should of mentioned. I just don't want the stealth units to become too overpowered but also want them to have the power to make things interesting. Subs in Civ I and Civ II did not have this power and therefore did not make the game interesting.

Having Guerrillas as stealth units could slow down expansion.

I agree that privateers should be auto tomic once created and launched they go out attacking any target of oportunity except the nation that built it

kinda like barbarians

This is largely about fun, right? I like even the weak, Vanilla/PTW Privateers... I want control! Less control might be more realistic, but I still don't think it's a good idea.

Maybe give them an 'automate' command, but make it optional as with workers. And if you want to be 'realistic' you could automate all Privateers as soon as they're built.

But the whole point about privateers is that their governments did NOT CONTROL them. Anything else really strains credibility. Making them computer controlled makes the game more immersive.

My system expands the general privateer concept so you can have rogue troops at any level of technology. Well, maybe not rogue aircraft carriers though.

ETA: Sure, you put in an automate command, but no successful player has ever used the automate worker command. I can't imagine any good player intentionally limiting his options to win.

iTS VERY DOUBTful that there could be any large rouge water craft or aircraft in modern times.

oh maybe rouge gun boats or simular small craft but beyond that with satilites they would get tracked and sunk

also the sheer cost of operation would prevent it.