Crime rate events

[TC01]

I just got one of those "crime rate" events, the governor's daughter kidnapping event (or something like that) in my Illian game. There's no reason for me to do anything but pick the first option, because all it does is "-5 to the Crime Rate", whereas all the others are variations on the same theme "+5 to the Crime Rate", "-10 to the Crime Rate", but cost gold too.

After the guilds were removed, does Crime Rate even do anything anymore? It seems to me like these are worthless events (just like the other crime rate reduction/increase events)... there's no longer a Ratcatcher's Guild, for instance. So does crime rate actually do anything? I've never seen it have an effect on my game (other then the increase or decrease) since my last game of .30 (I went straight from .30 to .40/.41, with a year-long break in between).

Anyway, if they don't do anything, can these events actually have a different purpose instead? One that does something?

 

[cypher132]

What I more wanna know is if the crime rate even has an effect on the game.

 

[Domingo]

Yeah, those events don't have any effect anymore. They should really be changed to have some other result of some sort.

 

[cypher132]

These days, it feels like they're just there to annoy me from time to time.

 

[kumquatelvis]

Perhaps if the crime rate affected the maintenance cost of the city? High crime (corruption) causes the maintenance to go up, low crime causes it to drop. Perhaps tie an event or two to having a courthouse, or running social order.

 

[deanej]

Doesn't the pedia state that the crime rate affects what events trigger?

 

[Honor]

These issues are probably going to be addressed some time in the future. I do, however, believe that they should be prioritized and addressed as soon as possible, as they stand out to be one of the few unpolished aspects of an otherwise well-polished game.

 

[Emptiness]

Yeah, those events don't have any effect anymore.

I think that a city's crime rate affects the likelihood that a crime event will take place in the city. There are some good crime events, so raising the crime rate in your cities can actually be a good idea - but it comes at the cost of gold/resources required to deal with the bad crime rate events. If you'd rather not mess with the chaos (and expense) of crime then you can work to lower your crime rates.

The event TC01 mentioned is all about manipulating crime rates. If you want to raise it then you take the +5 option. If you really want it lowered then you pay for the -10, which may be better than the free -5 because of the gold you could save from crime events that don't occur over the long term. If you don't care about your crime rate (or don't feel that the expense of the -10 option will pay off), then you get -5 for free.

 

[TC01]

I think that a city's crime rate affects the likelihood that a crime event will take place in the city. There are some good crime events, so raising the crime rate in your cities can actually be a good idea - but it comes at the cost of gold/resources required to deal with the bad crime rate events. If you'd rather not mess with the chaos (and expense) of crime then you can work to lower your crime rates.

The event TC01 mentioned is all about manipulating crime rates. If you want to raise it then you take the +5 option. If you really want it lowered then you pay for the -10, which may be better than the free -5 because of the gold you could save from crime events that don't occur over the long term. If you don't care about your crime rate (or don't feel that the expense of the -10 option will pay off), then you get -5 for free.

It used to do this, I know. But now, according to the event trigger infos, 265 events have a prereq crime rate of "0" out of 278 events*. That leaves 13 events that require a crime rate value of some sort. Further, in the event info (responses to events/event options), there are 524 events and 511 of them have no effect on crime rate. So here 13 events also have an effect on crime rate.I'm going out of the trigger info names, I don't know the actual in-game names or effects off the top of my head for some.

There's:

-The Farm Bandits Event
-The Farm Bandits Again Event
-The Nietz Bandit Event
-The Governor Assasination Event
-The Crime Decrease Event
-The Dissent Event
-The Market Theft Event
-The Slave Ring Start Event
-The Ransom Event
-The Smugglers Event
-The Traitor Event
-The Pyschopath Event
-The Corrupt Merchant Event

*That are defined in the XML. Some are scenario specific and some are armageddon events.

If crime rate's only purpose is to affect a few events, then more events that have to do with crime rate should be added.

 

[Emptiness]

I didn't realize it affected so few events. I agree that it should affect more.

 

[cypher132]

Yeah, so many buildings and events mention the crime rate. I didn't even know where to check the crime rate of a city for the first few months until I my mouse hovered over a city's name bar.

 

[WCH]

It needs to do something. In order to make it make sense, a lot of changes would need to be made. For instance, a couple of the buildings which effect it are dubious, and others which should don't. I'd make it reciprocal with unhappiness... so the more unhappy people are, the higher the crime rate, and the higher the crime rate, the more unhappy people are. Then give it an additional effect where it makes revolts more common than unhappiness would normally lead to. That in addition to an increase on maintenance costs.

Complicated mechanic, sure, but that's what crime is like. Otherwise it should be left out of the game entirely.

 

[deanej]

The unhappiness thing would have to be balanced carefully. Otherwise, if unhappiness causes crime, which causes more unhappiness, etc. both unhappiness and the crime rate could grow without bound.

 

[Tasunke]

how about, for every 10/ 15 points above an initial 10 crime points, an extra unhappiness is added, unless you are Esus state religion.

For ever angry citizen, not unhappy pop, but an actually overflow angry citizen, 2-5 crime points are added. perhaps inquisition should be able to temporarily remove 5 crime points (3-4 turn lag) ... so a determined inquisitor could wipe the extra crime long enough for unhappiness caused by crime to be removed, thus stopping it from getting out of hand too quickly, with the proper force, and order inquisitors could remove ALL crime temporarily, or 10 points instead of 5. but only for a 2 turn lag.

Esus dont have priests, but they are also immune to the effects. I think there should be an event called, unit goes to buy weapon from a shady dealer. Costs 20 gold. If your state religion is Esus, 50% unit gains poison blade, 30% unit gains enchanted blade, 20% unit takes 10% damage and is poisoned.

If state religion not Esus, 30% enchanted blade, 20% chance unit takes 10% damage and is poisoned, and 50% chance NOTHING happens.

If your state religion is ROK, there could be some penalty events of lost gold for cities that dont fight crime, yet worhip the god of hard work.

 

[Aeon221]

The unhappiness thing would have to be balanced carefully. Otherwise, if unhappiness causes crime, which causes more unhappiness, etc. both unhappiness and the crime rate could grow without bound.

So, like, Detroit?

 

[Fafnir13]

Crime is one of those not fully realized concepts that has faded into the somewhat muddles background as the mod has moved on. There's a lot of stuff like that.

 

[megamanx06]

Crime rate affects maintenance costs. Check your financial advisor screen.

 

[Emptiness]

Crime Rate != Inflation

 

[Luckmann]

Crime Rate != Inflation

But maybe it should be. Act as some kind of city-specific inflations. Opposite for Esus, of course, instead gaining gold.

 

[Opera]

Law mana should affect it too, as Chaos mana should. Maybe the initial crime value should also depend on the civilization/leader (some traits?).

However, this would only be useful if the crime rate actually did something. And it need to be useful in both case (huge rate, low rate) both with drawbacks. So you'll want to lower it for certain benefits and to increase it for others benefits.

I guess that a high crime rate city should be top priority for a "Bandits spawn" event or something similar.