Crime System
How criminal status, constable AI, and in-city crime clearing work in the current Early Access build.
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Created by ironfrost
1 revisionsThe crime system in Huaxia: Warring States tracks unlawful actions the player commits and shapes how constables and city authorities react to the player inside settled areas. It runs alongside but is distinct from infiltration and disguise, which covers entering a rival city under cover. Crime is the legal status the player carries; infiltration is the entry method. The two interact, but each has its own rules.
Many actions in or near a city raise the player's criminal status: assaulting a city resident, stealing from a shop, disrupting public order, or trespassing in a restricted area. Each action contributes to a tracked record that constables and city officials reference when the player is observed. A clean record means the player can move freely; a flagged record means the player is subject to challenge, pursuit, and arrest attempts on sight.
Crime is local to the prefecture where the action happened. A clan with holdings in several prefectures may have a clean reputation in one and a flagged record in another. Travelling away from the affected city does not erase the record on its own.
Constables and city guards are the enforcement arm of the system. Their behavior changed materially in a recent update. In the current build, constables do not attack the player on sight even when the player has crime status. Instead, they remain on patrol and the player can move through the city scene, interact with merchants, and engage in conversations without being immediately struck down. This is a deliberate design choice: it gives the player room to resolve their record rather than being forced into combat the moment they enter a city.
The change does not make crime weightless. Constables can still confront the player, demand surrender, and arrest. NPCs may refuse interactions. Some quests and faction interactions become unavailable while the record is flagged. The shift is that the system no longer locks the player out of city scenes entirely.
Because constables no longer attack on sight, the player can clear their record from inside the city. The typical paths involve paying a fine to a city official, completing a court-mandated task, performing service work for the local authority, or resolving the dispute with the wronged party directly. Specific clearing options depend on the prefecture, the severity of the record, and the player's reputation with the local faction.
Method | What It Does |
|---|---|
Pay a fine | Simplest option. Cost scales with the severity of the recorded offences. The fine clears the immediate record but does not erase the underlying reputation hit. |
Court task | Some prefectures offer a public-service task in exchange for clearing minor crimes. Slower than paying but cheaper in coin. |
Restitution | Speak directly with the wronged NPC, return stolen property, or compensate them. Restores both the legal record and the personal relationship. |
Faction service | If the local faction has assigned the prefecture, a player aligned with that faction may resolve the record through faction-side work rather than civic channels. |
The two systems interact in a useful way for clan-building. A player with a flagged record in a rival prefecture cannot move openly through the city, but they can still enter under disguise via the infiltration and disguise path. The disguise hides the player's identity, including the crime record, until the disguise breaks. This makes the wandering-warrior loop viable even after a string of legal mishaps in a hostile region.
Crime is one input into a broader reputation system that also tracks acts of generosity, faction loyalty, and notable deeds. A long-running clean reputation in a prefecture reduces the impact of a single later infraction, while a chain of unresolved infractions can lock the player out of council seats, marriage opportunities, and certain quest lines until cleared.
Resolve crime status before it accumulates. A few small infractions are cheap to clear; dozens of unresolved ones become an expensive cleanup.
If you must commit a serious crime, plan the clearing path before you act. A clan-affiliated player has different options than a wandering warrior.
Use infiltration as a workaround, not as a permanent solution. The disguise can fail, and a string of failures in the same city draws heavier enforcement.
Infiltration and Disguise: entering a rival city under cover, including the interaction with crime status.
Diplomacy: formal channels that can sometimes mitigate a clan-level reputation problem.
Wandering Warrior Path: the lone-actor play style that interacts with the crime system most often.