need help with crime

[RickyOfMontay]

I started in prehistoric era and now have 8 rogues in my capitol. I cannot stop the crime from going up despite devoting the majority of my national resources to building enforcers/dogs to seemingly no benefit. I feel like there's something obvious that I am missing. Is there something I need to do in order for the enforcers to start investigating/arresting besides just stationing them in my city? Please help.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sounds like the problems we were having on v37 stock. I strongly suggest getting the SVN version and then educating yourself on how to handle criminals through the descriptions given in the v37 Player's Guide thread. We tackled some issues with criminals being way out of hand immediately after releasing v37. v38 isn't quite ready for numerous reasons so getting the SVN setup is really the best way.

 

[RickyOfMontay]

Sounds like the problems we were having on v37 stock. I strongly suggest getting the SVN version and then educating yourself on how to handle criminals through the descriptions given in the v37 Player's Guide thread. We tackled some issues with criminals being way out of hand immediately after releasing v37. v38 isn't quite ready for numerous reasons so getting the SVN setup is really the best way.

Doing this now. Thank you!

 

[Septimius]

Also note that you can set the crime fighters to defend against crime, not just fortify the city. Click the red shield button. This means each unit gives at least one more point of crime fighting. Can't remember when the ability unlocks though...

 

[Rmi]

Yes, the 'alternative fortify' is VERY important. It goes hand in hand with the normal police promotions. It's all cumulative too.

 

[Noriad2]

Also note that you can set the crime fighters to defend against crime, not just fortify the city. Click the red shield button. This means each unit gives at least one more point of crime fighting. Can't remember when the ability unlocks though...

It unlocks at Deception. Don't forget to put your tribal guardian to fighting crime using the red shield button when you research that tech.

 

[Septimius]

I used like 5000 turns of my eternity game without using it, just built more policemen and fought keeping the economy rolling...

Then I thought, well let's have a look at what these buttons actually DO - and yeah, life with crime has been a song in the game ever since.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm very happy to see that buildups are a success in the mod! I'm sure there will eventually be quite a few more. I know DH and I were talking about using them as a way to sit and train the unit as well... as an alternative to their more standard selections.

 

[Acularius]

'Automatic buildup' is not bad either.
I do wish there was a hotkey to either, but that's a minor issue. Overall rather happy with it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

'Automatic buildup' is not bad either.
I do wish there was a hotkey to either, but that's a minor issue. Overall rather happy with it.

I'll take a look and see if I can figure one out and how to apply it. Eventually. I'm putting a task/bugfix tracking system here so I'll include the request.

 

[Septimius]

I think a question that should be answered is - do you really want all crime to be controlled? I don't believe we've ever lived in a world where shoplifting or theft wasn't a problem... But it's safe to say that if you let crime get out of it hand, it becomes organized.

Maybe the lesser crimes should be more like permanent effects than something you can supress?

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think a question that should be answered is - do you really want all crime to be controlled? I don't believe we've ever lived in a world where shoplifting or theft wasn't a problem... But it's safe to say that if you let crime get out of it hand, it becomes organized.

Maybe the lesser crimes should be more like permanent effects than something you can supress?

The Advanced Property system (Outbreaks and Afflictions option in development) should address that a little better. Once setup for crime as well as disease at least.

 

[tmv]

do you really want all crime to be controlled?

Completely suppressed, no. Possibly brought under control, yes. I think the effects of a crime building are much too strong to suggest merely that a crime happens every once in a while, but rather that the police cannot respond to this any longer. For complete suppression (especially of misdemeanors) you would need a strongly negative crime number, but crimes rarely happening should be off the radar for the scope you are handling in this game.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Completely suppressed, no. Possibly brought under control, yes. I think the effects of a crime building are much too strong to suggest merely that a crime happens every once in a while, but rather that the police cannot respond to this any longer. For complete suppression (especially of misdemeanors) you would need a strongly negative crime number, but crimes rarely happening should be off the radar for the scope you are handling in this game.

Not a bad way of looking at it. I see it as a severe crime wave taking place of said type. A rash of the problem rather than the occasional now and then we are used to always having to deal with no matter where you are because humans are ... human.

 

[Rmi]

Any (non-exile) crime unit can spiral out of control quite easily and if one can spawn so can another...
As a human player you want every city to have a crime rate of -100 at the least. After the medieval 'castle wave' where anti crime buildings peak, you should have every city at a comfortable -500+ if not far better.
A positive crime stat is a threat, a positive rating is a huge threat. Crime units are just too dangerous because they snowball.
Also they are a pain to remove, and getting a rampant city under control costs an enormous amount of resources.

This leads to a game situation to either you have a crime problem or you live in utopia.
So in theory any crime unit in the game now represents that crime has already got out of hand and that one unit is actually an entire mob organization.

If you want crime to be a permanent part of citylife you have to make it function more like the pests and have it not spin out of control fast but also hard to diminish it all.

For now i can only think of units that don't increase crime but instead only cost commerce or production.

 

[Thunderbrd]

There are limits now to how many can spawn in a city. Additionally, they get more and more difficult to spawn the more that are present. Yes, they do push the crime levels but there's some natural pushback to that out of control spiral we had at the beginning in the v37 release version.

 

[Rmi]

My views may be warped by v37. Since then i am just extremely vigilant against any crime at all.
It's still a potential threat i can avoid, so i will.

Just had an idea..
Any crime thing that is a potential threat no matter how small I WILL counter. So we need crime that CANNOT be countered.
If certain criminals can spawn not on crime rate but on city size, you will always have a nuisance to deal with. These criminals should attack your commerce and production, not your crime busting capability.
Might just be a free source of captives but it does cost infrastructure and upkeep to have police and dogs around.

 

[Noriad2]

That is the problem with playing a game with ever-changing game rules. Strategies that are essential at a certain moment can become obsolete later when the rules change. And you can get stuck in them.

For example, during the V36 development cycle, crime and education used to be very important in the prehistoric. Crime could financially cripple you. As a result, you could develop an zero-tolerance strategy with regards to crime.

Nowadays, crime is much less important in the early game. As far as I currently know, you start with only 2 crimes (murder and rape) that appear only at very high crime level, and you slowly get more crimes as you progress through the tech tree. But early game, the effects are so mild you could ignore them and get away with it.

Same for education. The really big penalties come later in the game, early game the penalties are modest and the game is quite playable and winnable if you mostly ignore education until the classical era or so. I won my last deity/nightmare game that way. The mild penalties are compensated for by the fact that you need to build far less education buildings and units. At deity/nightmare the population size is a big factor in crime and education, and use of the "avoid growth" button (bottom right on the city screen) which stops the city from getting more population, is very handy to keep crime negative and education positive later in game, without using any education units or anti-crime units (just buildings). I felt that crime and education were nicely balanced at deity/nightmare with the SVN version of a few months ago, as long as you don't let cities grow too much.

I just started a new latest-SVN game, and I noticed that the new building costs significantly changes the game. Higher cost of buildings means you get a relatively lower Return on Investment (ROI) i.e. it takes longer to get your investment back, so it is no longer a matter of just spamming all hammer buildings, then all science buildings, then all cheap money buildings, then grab the cheap food buildings to speed up growth to size 6 where new build options become available. Harder choices need to be made and other strategies that used to be non-optimal become valid.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I just started a new latest-SVN game, and I noticed that the new building costs significantly changes the game. Higher cost of buildings means you get a relatively lower Return on Investment (ROI) i.e. it takes longer to get your investment back, so it is no longer a matter of just spamming all hammer buildings, then all science buildings, then all cheap money buildings, then grab the cheap food buildings to speed up growth to size 6 where new build options become available. Harder choices need to be made and other strategies that used to be non-optimal become valid.

Exactly. Good synopsis Noriad2, well put.

With the future Projects, that the foundations are being laid for now, the usage of a "set group" of Strategies for any Difficulty level will change. C2C is a Mod all about constant change. Players need to understand this. What works today may bite you tomorrow. We the Modders like to think of it as "refinements" to play.

 

[Acularius]

Another thing to note is that education is rather easier to manage since most 'tech beaker' buildings have education costing effects. Sure, they cost money, but the payoff is there. Short term tech beakers, long-term education bonuses or at least to avoid the penalties.

Crime is the reverse, basically 'systems theory' in which you pay upfront and then a maintenance cost to keep crime manageable, which is help by units (crime fighters). Otherwise, crime gets out of hand and then the cost to bring it down is significant.