Espionage Unit And Archers On Walls Ugrade

[General Octavian]

I think it would be cool if there was a special unit that, after killing an enemy, takes the enemies uniform and sneaks into enemy cities and, lets say, starts a riot or steals resources. When a riot starts, the victim player's productivity in gathering resources is obstructed for a set amount of time (a riot icon appears on screen). If a unit is stealing resources, the unit comes out of his disguise but runs at an increased speed. Edit: These units could have a cooldown time so players wouldn't spam them. To counter this, players could get a gate upgrade that puts guards at the gate (guards could have a 60% chance of spotting a espionage unit) And every time a guard catches an espionage unit the chance of doing it again increases.

Another upgrade that would be cool is to have is archers on the wall. You wouldn't be able to control the archers, but they would show on the wall and attack enemies + increase sight of the walls.

Edited April 17, 2011 by General Octavian

[Mythos_Ruler]

Archers on walls is planned. A 'spy' unit would be cool. Though, I think something like that will be decided after we ship 0 A.D. Part 1 (the game design for Part 1 is pretty much "locked" except for some minor things here and there).

[General Octavian]

Cool !

[satchitb]

Archers on walls is lovely. I don't like the idea of causing riots; it adds an unnecessary added layer of complexity to the game. Stealing resources might work, but will require a great deal of thought. I just like the simpler idea of a fast, hard-to-see scout.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Right. If we ever implemented a Spy unit for Part II, it wouldn't cause riots or anything like that, even though that would be amusing. lol. Although, when I think about it, a "riot" could be something as easy as a button in the Spy's UI. Click that, it costs 500 Gold or something (you have to pay the agent provocateurs, right?), and citizen units within the Spy's vision start to run around in panic and are uncontrollable by the player for X seconds (30 seconds?). Maybe the "rioting" units attack the player's buildings and unrioting units too. lol. I think using this feature then kills the Spy (he's a casualty in the riot). It's kind of an amusing idea, but I could see it being abused somehow, unless you make Spies cost a lot of money or limit the player to 1 spy alive at one time.

Here are other ideas on how the spy would work:

- The Spy looks like a random citizen-soldier unit to the enemy player, but to the owning player it looks like a dude (or dudette) in a black hooded cloak.

- Spies have a narrow vision range when in motion, but vision increases as they stand idle (like "Oracles" in Age of Mythology:The Titans). There would be a maximum vision of course.

- A spy can garrison into any enemy building, allowing the owning player to click on the building and see the enemy player's queue.

- Spies cost a lot of money and you can only have 1 alive at any given time.

- The Spy is recruited at the Civ Centre, available at Town Phase.

- Spies can assassinate one unit at a time, but it takes time to recharge and reveals the identity of the Spy for a short time. A Spy cannot assassinate a Hero.

- A Spy can enter and exit through enemy gates at-will.

How to counter a Spy:

- If an enemy Spy is within vision range of one of your scout towers, then its identity can be revealed if you click on the Spy.

- Celts get a bonus by allowing War Dogs to do the same thing as scout towers. If the Spy is within vision range of 1 or more War Dogs, then clicking on the Spy and revealing its identity immediately causes the War Dogs to maul the Spy (teeheeheehee).

- A Spy can be unmasked by another Spy.

- Another way to tell if an enemy Spy is in your midst is if you try to task a unit to do something and it refuses to do so. This is a very good indication that this unit is not a team player.

[SMST]

Michael's got it.

[General Octavian]

I wasn't thinking of an actual riot happening, just the effect of the riot lol but GREAT ideas! Go with what you want i was just planting the idea =)

[Jeru]

Archers on walls is planned.

Are archers on castles planned? A fan from Facebook asked re: the Iberian fortress.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Are archers on castles planned? A fan from Facebook asked re: the Iberian fortress.

Yes, the same for walls, (open) towers, and ships. Not sure if we'll do this in the actor/mesh with attachment points or in the entity with coordinates. We seem to be having weird issues with prop points on collada meshes (not to mentioned we'd have to re-export every single propped building and ship to make it work), and Actor Editor would need updating in order to hotload attach points from the meshes. On the other hand I could see a coordinate system being used within a building's entity template (or even within an actor) to "create" new attach points. Something like this might already be necessary for building projectiles.

[oshron]

for the spy unit, you could simply make it a stealth unit, perhaps with greater stealth abilities than some other types. in Empire Earth 2, there was a spy unit which could only be seen by towers and other spies

i think spies should be reserved for super units, though

[satchitb]

Mythos_Ruler's idea is almost perfect. Just a question: You can discover (but not unmask) a Spy by tasking it to do something and it refuses. Can you then (inadvertently or otherwise) attack it while it's in stealth?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Mythos_Ruler's idea is almost perfect. Just a question: You can discover (but not unmask) a Spy by tasking it to do something and it refuses. Can you then (inadvertently or otherwise) attack it while it's in stealth?

I'd say you have to manually task units to attack it. The only units that would auto-attack the enemy Spy would be dogs.