Cloak

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> Cloaks are infiltration specialists trained in the arts of subterfuge and clandestine operations with two new abilities – Stealth and Infiltrate. They are invisible to enemy units until they perform an action.
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> –Diplomacy website
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The **Cloak** is a stealth unit designed to infiltrate enemy cities. It is unlocked by the Diplomacy technology.

The Cloak cannot fight, and because of its *infiltrate* skill it can only target adjacent enemy cities with its attack. Because it has the *dash* skill, it can move next to and attack a city on the same turn.

When a Cloak infiltrates a city, it will be consumed, and three things will happen.

1. Any enemy unit in the city at the time will be slightly damaged. This damage is equivalent to what a unit with an attack force of 2 would deal.
2. Daggers friendly to the Cloak's owner will be spawned within the city's borders. The number of Daggers is relative to the city's size, with a maximum of 5. Daggers will prioritize spawning on terrain where they can benefit from a defence bonus. They will not be able to perform any actions (e.g. attack, move) until the owner's next turn. Daggers which are spawned on water tiles will instead spawn as Pirates.
3. The infiltrating player will immediately gain stars equal to the income of the city. The city will produce zero stars on the opponent's next turn. This does not affect other ways of producing stars, such as the Customs House or Ice Bank.

Cloaks cannot infiltrate cities that are already under siege. Note that infiltrating a city does not count as an attack for the Pacifist task.

The Cloak additionally has the *hide* skill, which makes it invisible to enemies after it moves (to the player controlling it, this is indicated by the Cloak turning transparent). However, the Cloak is visible upon being trained, capturing a village, or exploring a ruin. A Cloak can also be revealed when an enemy unit attempts to move onto a tile containing an invisible Cloak; this allows the enemy unit to attack the Cloak. Moreover, all units can detect surrounding Cloaks; a small eye symbol 👁 will appear on the unit's icon if a cloak is next to the unit. Cloaks that belong to tribes the player has made peace with are also visible.

The cloak also has the *scout* and *creep* abilities, allowing it to reveal tiles in a 5x5 area, and ignore any movement penalties, effectively making it a replacement for the removed Scout unit.

When a Cloak moves onto a Port, instead of turning into a Boat like other units, it turns into a Dinghy, a special naval unit which retains the stats and abilities (except creep) of the Cloak but cannot be upgraded into other naval units.

The in-game unit info box states that the Cloak can be promoted to veteran status. However, this is not achievable in normal gameplay because the Cloak cannot attack enemy units.

## Gallery

The Xin-xi CloakThe Imperius CloakThe Bardur CloakThe Oumaji CloakThe Kickoo CloakThe Hoodrick CloakThe Luxidoor CloakThe Vengir CloakThe Zebasi CloakThe Ai-Mo CloakThe Quetzali CloakThe Yădakk CloakThe Aquarion CloakThe ∑∫ỹriȱŋ CloakThe Polaris CloakThe Cymanti Cloak
### Tribe Skins

The Xin-xi Sha-Po Cloak.The Luxidoor Aumux CloakThe Vengir Cultist CloakThe Zebasi Anzala Cloak
## Strengths and Weaknesses

Cloaks are good for:

* Scouting. The Cloak's large sight range and ability to ignore terrain penalties makes it great for revealing unexplored terrain. Its invisibility will also give your enemies a hard time in finding your scouting unit.
* Creating disruptions. Expending a cloak on an enemy city will not only steal its income for the turn, but also spawn several units that the enemy is forced to deal with as they do not take retaliation when attacking. This will also disrupt the movement of enemy units trying to move through the area.

Cloaks aren't good for:

* Combat. The cloaks are not a combat unit, are unable to attack, and will die in one hit to most attacks. Their vulnerability when trained also makes them a risky choice to train on cities in range of enemy attacks, and may result in you losing the city you trained the Cloak in.

## Trivia

* In the Diplomacy beta update 2.2.0.7406, the Cloak sprite was changed to be more detailed.