Hidden Nationality Exploit Breaker

[xienwolf]

I've read quite a bit about how much everyone loves to use HN, and I have read a fair amount of strategy about using it which seems exploitative (and some that flat out IS an exploit). Personally, I enjoy a little HN work, but if I use it too heavily I feel all icky.


I'd propose a mild change in how it works:

1) When an HN unit dies in rival borders, it will join their civ instead of meeting Death. Along with this: Declaring Nationality gives them to the control of the borders they are in. So if you declare nationality outside of all cultural borders, they go Barbarian, in your own borders it is still your unit, and anywhere else, you just gifted the unit away.

2) A 15% chance that any HN unit will convert to the rival civ if are in their cultural influence and that civ has more gold than you do.



This keeps people from attacking, then declaring to avoid reprisal. Also keeps you from using a HN rush to take down defenses, since it is likely that you will give them as many units as you lose. And the second part allows for a natural defense against HN if you do not want to deal with them.

 

[3141592]

Most of the HN exploiting only work against the AI, and since there are already so many other ways to hose the AI, why bother changing this one. As long as a human player can deal with an event then it should probably be kept in (within reason). After shadow the team is going to take a good long look at the AI and try to teach it all the mechanics, X-something is already trying to fix the AI and has already made some good changes.

 

[JDexter]

Not all HN units are mercenaries (see Svartalfar hero or all of their units after you use their world spells), so #2 wouldn't make sense.

But of course against the AI it's not such a great system always - maybe it should only be possible to declare nationality in your own territory or city. This would also disable the really sick "trick" of using Alkazan the Assassin to take down a city and then conquer/raze it with a declared nationality mirror of him (did that in my last game, really not funny for the AI).

 

[Blakmane]

Alkazan is really the only strong way to exploit HN, and as such I think this is more an issue with his mirror images being able to declare nationality continously more than anything.

HN really isn't that powerful. It's next to useless in multiplayer, and I think you'll find a lot of what it accomplishes can also simply be obtained by declaring war on said civ.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Ghosts with CoE religion can take HN & hidden in their own lands, sneak into enemy cities, kill, and declare nationality the same turn. Human players, I expect, would immediately declare war, but the ai has no idea what happened.

So I think only declaring nationality in your own lands a very good fix, although it might make it hard to bring animals back home if you captured them far away.

 

[xienwolf]

Maybe only declare nationality if you are in the same square as another of your own units?

Or, if willing to implement new mechanics: Grant a situational spell available to all units.

If you are in a square adjacent to an HN unit, you can cast "Uncover Nationality" with a 30% chance to force that adjacent unit to declare nationality (100% if it is your own unit), but a 50% chance to take 40% damage (limit 80%) on unit who investigates (no chance if it is your own unit). Also remove the ability for a unit to declare personally.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't really like these ideas. They would be very good for mercenaries, but those aren't HN anymore anyway. These ideas would be horrible for the Svartalfar. I don't reallt think HN needs nerfing; frankly I think that it is much too weak as it is, as it lets you capture neither cities or units (I think you should be able to capture units, at least slaves)


Theere already is a spell to uncover nationality (Revalation), and I wouldn't want to infinge on it by adding such a spell availible to everyone. However, I wouldn't mind if Revalation were moved down to level 2 instead of 3.


I don't think that needing to be in your own territory to declare nationality is a good idea, nor is requiring one of your declered units on the same tile (although that idea isn't as bad). I would rather make declaring nationality in someones else's borders cause you to declare war. Esus civs need to be able to attck while thir nationality is unknown, and then declare (nationality and war) in order ot capture a city.


On the other hand, I would like some passive way to uncover who is using HN units against you. I think that BtS's "Discover Spy" mechanic might work well for this. It would remove the HN promotion from the unit and/or kick it out of the civ's borders instead of destroying it, and would cause a diplomatic penalty. I'm thinking a "we suspect you may be spnsoring attacks against or people" penalty correponding to the even where a spy is uncovered but its alliegence isn't uncovered, and possibly an automatic declariation of war corresponding ot the rarer event where the nationality is revealed.

 

[Quetz]

agree with nikis

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Esus civs need to be able to attck while thir nationality is unknown, and then declare (nationality and war) in order ot capture a city.

Doing so in order to capture a city is fine with me, but doing so on the same turn that you attack to avoid repriasal by a friendly ai is exploitive. At the least they should not be able to declare nationality on the turn that they attack, like you can't go hidden on the turn you attack.

 

[Mithrus]

Why not just allow a small chance (say 1-2%) that a HN unit will be discovered (losing HN), and thus potentially trigger a war. The chance can't be too high, but high enuf to hopefully add a little risk to clandestine ops.