Ninjas and assassins

[Lachu]

When writing this idea I doubt spy haven't similar action - called sabotage unit.

I have idea about two unit types - both can be used to the same task.

These units will works as spy. It have some percentage chance to success and on misfortune it will be killed. These units will have only one action: silent kill. User will select unit to kill on destination tile. On success battle will start with selected unit and our assassin/ninjas - one of them must die. No killstack here. Also this kind of attack will not accept any defense bonuses except given by terrain.

Assassins will obsolete ninjas.

These kinds of unit could been used to kill enemy leader/great leader(if implemented) or to destroy catapult. It could also been used to kill defender of city(ninjas/assassins can get over city walls and it's some kind of spy).

I know that's my idea isn't very realistic (what about battle noise?), but it's interested to have units to destroy enemy catapult, when city is under siege, etc.

In future we could implement action such as capture unit, but with smaller amount of chance to success.

[cazfi]

Such an unit should be mostly (one may need to adjust some details - sveinung knows that part of the code better) doable in 2.6 rulesets via Action Enablers for diplomat/spy actions.

Unit capturing in one form has been there for a long time via Capturer/Capturable flags, but better implementation (one that uses Action Enablers) is coming in 3.0.

[Lachu]

I don't know much about action enablers, but in my opinion there should exists additional action type, because there's no spy action, which start battle with selected unit.

[adamo]

Good idea. Ninja assassins should have be somehow invisible to enemy units in some terrain tiles (mountains, swamps, jungles etc., but obviously not grasslands or plains). With only 1 movement point, hey should treat all terrains as roads (just like explorators does). They should have a lot of offensive (3 or 4) and minimum defensive points (1). They should ignore city walls and fortifications of all kind. To compensate their potential power, they should be hard enough to be built, and barracks should not provide veteran status (they should gain veteran status only by successful combat actions, as spies does). To compensate it yet more, it should be easier to bribe them (well, in contrary to the spies, they are ordered-hired assassins, motivated only by the money, not a state-duty service). Since they are not regular army units, they might not capture cities (they're used only to kill enemy units inland or near the frontline). There are not very loyal, so there is always a slight chance, that they would desert (vanish) without warning.

"Special forces" will obsolete "ninja assassins".

[Lachu]

I wrote about two unit types - Ninjas and Assassins. In my idea Assassins will obsolete Ninjas. Better name for assassins is "Special Forces".

[sveinung]

it's interested to have units to destroy enemy catapult, when city is under siege, etc.

If a target unit selection UI is added to the clients this could be achieved in a 2.6 ruleset.

Sabotage unit will halve the target unit's hit points or, if the target only has a single hit point left, kill it. The bundled rulesets forbid killing a unit by sabotage. Most of them also forbid sabotaging a unit that isn't alone at its tile. This is done via requirements in the action enabler of "Sabotage Unit" in game.ruleset.

If you sacrifice the sabotage unit action the following should be possible: Rename sabotage unit to silent kill. (ui_name_sabotage_unit) Use Lua's action_started_unit_unit() callback to kill the victim of sabotage unit. You could even use Lua to implement a custom combat type before killing the assassin or the intended victim. A Lua combat wouldn't show proper action success probability information in the client. This UI problem could be avoided by always killing both the ninja and the victim in stead of doing combat.

I don't know much about action enablers, but in my opinion there should exists additional action type, because there's no spy action, which start battle with selected unit.

I have been toying with the idea of making if regular battle must be done before an action is successful ruleset configurable in 3.0. It would be a follow up to doing the same for diplomatic battle. What I think you are asking for - battle vs the selected unit - could potentially be done as a next step after that.

The clients would still need an UI to select the target unit of an action.

Proper generic action support would let you add you action without sacrificing sabotage unit or bribe unit.

[Lachu]

Sorry for don't responding too long.What a status of Selection Dialog UI in CivClients and Diplomat battle?

[sveinung]

Sorry for don't responding too long.What a status of Selection Dialog UI in CivClients and Diplomat battle?

Action selection dialog target selection is there in the Qt and the GTK clients. Diplomatic battle is still hard coded. Unseen units (inside a city etc) still can't be targeted.