After playing the game for many hours, I want to ask the developers what are the advantages of invisible units (partisans etc)? They are perfectly visible to the enemy on the map and in battle, they are weaker than regulars, they cannot enter the enemy's territory and destroy districts without declaring war, they havn't paradrops. In general, absolutely useless, although they could add depth to the art of war.

I believe the saboteur could enter the territory of another empire without declaring war... let me test again

Dont believe I saw another invisible unit - maybe the late game stealth jet?

They should be able to enter enemy territory, but given that with Authority districts can gain +2 detection range (and I'm not sure whether districts already detect everything around them or only the tile itself), it's finicky to utilize. It does mean that saboteurs can't really, well, sabotage anything. And from what I've seen there's no real stealth possible in urban combat when attacking which is... not great.

I do hope that they'll eventually expand on stealth units, starting by, like with virtually half of the other unit types, fixing the missing links in the troop tree. I get units getting obsolete and merging into other branches, but having some unit types be benched for a whole era is ridiculous and makes army composition a joke. There's saboteurs, nothing (unless you pick Haudenosaunee for their Rotiskenrakehte), Partisans and Commandos well into late game. Out of the four I really only experienced fighting against the Emblematic Unit (and it is fun, especially that in this era you don't really have many units that can afford walking up to the enemy, because then they can't attack themselves, at least gives Halberdiers a solid place in Early Modern armies and increases longevity of Knights). On water one time I was able to test stealth units it was hilariously sad, because proper navy just sat there trying to sail into range, but couldn't detect my subs this way, while troop transports actually had to get close with their limited range, so they just rammed into my subs and started throwing arrows at them.

Zolobolo wrote:
Now I would question the sense and viability of stealth in a game

I absolutely disagree. 

Waging sabotage wars, breaking enemy sources of resources and quarters without declaring a "hot" war is a very necessary mechanic in the game. In all 4x strategies this is an important part of the game. 

The developers need to cancel the detection of stealth units by districts and regular enemy troops. Detection should be triggered when the ransacking has already begun. And additionally give new abilities to stealth units, for example, paradrops for commandos.

Zolobolo wrote:
with the existing mechanics

that's the important part, I can absolutely see the ways to expand on it, but as it is now there's pretty much no use for it. Only stealth units worth the effort currently are the ones that are capable fighters on their own and for them the stealthy part is optional, though a nice perk.

human028 wrote:

Zolobolo wrote:
Now I would question the sense and viability of stealth in a game

I absolutely disagree. 

Waging sabotage wars, breaking enemy sources of resources and quarters without declaring a "hot" war is a very necessary mechanic in the game. In all 4x strategies this is an important part of the game. 

The developers need to cancel the detection of stealth units by districts and regular enemy troops. Detection should be triggered when the ransacking has already begun. And additionally give new abilities to stealth units, for example, paradrops for commandos.

Yes as mentioned below I consider the existing game mechanics unsuitable for such a function

In detail:

1. Maneuvering on the terrain is very limited to the point that we will always stumble upon deistricts or units that detect the invisible unit

2. There is no gradual metric for stealth meaning something is either stealthy or it isnt but this rases a huge amount of questions that would need to be addressed: 

- How do I know if the unit has been detected without clogging up the screen with hints or notification banners?

- How do I see detection ranges?

- What if an ally of my target sees my unit? Is it detected only for them or also to their ally?

- If yes is it detected for the ally of the ally of the unit etc.. :)

- In case of planes - are they detected while flying over terrain of vision or only when attacking within vision?

- How long is the effect gone if detected?

These are only some of the questions I came up right now but there are tons more for unit combination, outposts being merged to cities, and how it would all owrk when the AI is using them

Yes, stealth mechanic could be used to sabotage strategic resources of enemy empires while not at war to prevent production of their stronger units or even to prevetn income from luxury resources- but beyond these two cases it does not promise to provide much benefit and sonsidering the above questions it just doesnt seem worth the effort

The AI bug that made them "see" stealth is of course an issue but I can still answer a few of your question : 

Zolobolo wrote:
Maneuvering on the terrain is very limited to the point that we will always stumble upon deistricts or units that detect the invisible unit

I remember that we removed the detection range from the district, I'm not sure that the +1 detection range from Authority is really something that we want, I will ask around

Zolobolo wrote:

- How do I know if the unit has been detected without clogging up the screen with hints or notification banners?

- How do I see detection ranges

Yeah I agree with you that we are missing some feedbacks to tell the player that.

Zolobolo wrote:

- What if an ally of my target sees my unit? Is it detected only for them or also to their ally?

- If yes is it detected for the ally of the ally of the unit etc.. :)

Detection is *not* shared accross alliance. Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure this mean that vassals don't tell their liege if they see spy walking in their territory, which is kinda funny to me.

Zolobolo wrote:

- How long is the effect gone if detected?

It really depends. your unit is still techincally stealthy, but a unit trespassing (so, spotted inside ennemy territory) won't be stealthy anymore. To lose the trespassing effect you need to get in neutral / allowed territory again.

Zolobolo wrote:

1. Maneuvering on the terrain is very limited to the point that we will always stumble upon deistricts or units that detect the invisible unit

It is necessary to introduce the rules into the game - 1) the detection of the stealth unit ONLY by the enemy stealth and 2) the detection of the stealth units by the districts in the first turn of the ransacking. Just walking past enemy regular units and districts doesn't reveal your saboteurs.

Zolobolo wrote:

- How do I know if the unit has been detected without clogging up the screen with hints or notification banners?

there will be a notification about the opponent's claim and (or) a notification about an attack on you. no other notification are required.

Zolobolo wrote:

- How do I see detection ranges?

What for? just know about the rules

Zolobolo wrote:

- What if an ally of my target sees my unit? Is it detected only for them or also to their ally?

all allies

Zolobolo wrote:

- How long is the effect gone if detected?

moved away from the enemy spy by 1 tile or stop of ransacking and became invisible again

Zolobolo wrote:

I believe the saboteur could enter the territory of another empire without declaring war... let me test again

Dont believe I saw another invisible unit - maybe the late game stealth jet?

No, but it really need to. It's not fun, I wanted ransack with.

Enchanteur wrote:

Zolobolo wrote:

I believe the saboteur could enter the territory of another empire without declaring war... let me test again

Dont believe I saw another invisible unit - maybe the late game stealth jet?

No, but it really need to. It's not fun, I wanted ransack with.

Maybe transform it into stealing option taking more turns tho and would tell someone stealing you 

Enchanteur wrote:

Zolobolo wrote:

I believe the saboteur could enter the territory of another empire without declaring war... let me test again

Dont believe I saw another invisible unit - maybe the late game stealth jet?

No, but it really need to. It's not fun, I wanted ransack with.

Tested since: you can indeed enter other empire terrirory without declaring war BUT only if none of the hexes you are sending your unit to is in vision range of a unit or building that can detect it

Hence my arguments on how many things would still need to be designed, developed and tested just to make these 3 units be able to do this limited action

Way too much effort for a one-trick pony function that can esaily be negated: like on chaotic map there is absolutely no chance to get through those narrows passages undetected

Zolobolo wrote:
Just tested: You need to declare war if the target territory has vision on hte tile you are trying to access with the Saboteur

It's a glitch.  Sometimes you can do it sometimes you can't... I'm not sure if this is the case the other times it wasn't working, but the text 'can enter enemy borders...' does NOT appear for my saboteurs right now... or is that just me?

But yeah, normally they're able to enter without being seen... and yeah, authority makes them kinda useless.