However, Criminals are a little different, and they are the ones that can and will happily pillage if they can. They have some skill in camo but also have strong skills in disguise, which dogs alone cannot see through. So it helps to also have a Law Enforcement unit in the city that specializes in seeing through Disguise invisibility. Between that and the dog's camo spotting, you should be able to see most approaching criminals.
I have that as well. every city has a LE unit (latest available) with max level in spotting disguise and the spot disguise buildup
I'm not saying that I should perhaps spot all hidden units. but shouldn't I at least spot some?
But Criminals can also use your roads to speed up their travel so if you can get a few units outside the city that can block them from entry as soon as you see them, like some strong anti-melee (early criminals are usually both melee and throwing and are weak to anti-melee and/or anti-throwing units) fortified guards on the most used/fastest paths for entry (adjacent to the city so that even criminals with STRONG disguise or camo will by spotted at that range) can help.
Yeah, I'm fairly certain one of my problems is the roads, and also that I use minimize AI turn time to make the game playable and that really limits the visibility of out-of-turn events
Speaking of visibility, does the + visibility range promotion help the dog to spot camo farther away. or is that for "regular" vision only?
Also be a little wary of forests and town improvements near the city... a pure invisibility specialist can blend into these plots better and use them for a strategic approach plan that can sometimes defeat even the most vigilant visibility defenses. It takes some practicing with your own criminal approach paths to get into cities to start seeing how you may need to defend your own.
Since the UI in civ is a bit unerachieving when it comes to displaying this would you mind listing the camo-bonuses given by the different classes ruffians/criminals/strike teams as a reference (like reference you created with the different camo-classes.
Plus, if you have crime in your city, your city may be spawning the criminals from within, at which point you'll only be able to try to investigate and arrest them.
All my cities are running negative crime (-100 and more) so it can't be that.
On a side note the numbers feel a bit wonky when it comes to spotting and investigating criminals that are lurking inside the cities as well (I do understand that I don't have full understanding of the numbers). I have a city that at the most had 4 lurking criminals (I got them for "free" when I invaded), it has now had sub 0 crime for over 100 turns, one LE specialized in investigating (2nd level promo + buildup) & one LE specialized in seeing through the disguise (2nd level promo + buildup) and there's still one criminal lurking in the city that it just seems like I'll never see or arrest (I caught the first three within like 20 turns). As stated I do know I don't have full understanding of the numbers behind this, and it's not like it's a gamebreaker in any way, but it feels wonky that no matter what I do with that lurking criminal I can not see him and therefore not arrest him. Afaik I am using all tools that are available to me at this point.
Another thing that I thought of was a wish for an additional diplomatic agreement between civs (not too early in the tech tree) to allow them to agree not to send false-flag or invisible units inside eachothers borders. Not that it is realistic, but to counter the fact that civ is a rather unrealistic game. Since all civs in civ are your competitors no matter what it creates kind of a cutthroat relation between nations that doesn't really mirror the real-world. Even though I really like all this cold-war stuff with assassins and ruffians and all that it also helps creating a state-of war between all civs even when there is none. It gives a bit of the same problems as minor civs does where the AI is just too simplistic to act good about it. The AI has these tools to their disposal to stab you in the back and they will do it no matter how friendly you are and how good your relations are, simply because in the end you are rivals. In the real world this really isn't so. For example it doesn't matter how certain Canada would be that they'd never get caught, they still wouldn't send assassins against top US folks for example, simply because the US and Canada are not rivals.
So, in order to help emulate this a bit more perhaps there could be a new diplomatic agreement in the modern eras and onwards that allow you to actually forbid (and gamewize actually prohibit as well) these unflagged and/or invisible units against one another.