Thief II: The Metal Age -- Kidnap

Cavador

The main objective is to kidnap Cavador. This is problematic since he has two bodyguards that follow him everywhere he goes and they'll alert if Cavador is attacked while he travels around the Lost City, visiting the various sites. The solution is to separate him from the bodyguards. By judicious use of boxes, Cavador and his bodyguards can be partially blocked so the lead bodyguard wiggles past the block leaving Cavador and the trailing bodyguard behind. When the lead bodyguard gets far enough away Cavador gets excited and starts to run to keep up. He may then slip through the same way the lead bodyguard did leaving the trailing bodyguard alone. With luck the lead bodyguard is far enough away that Cavador can be chased down and blackjacked before the trailing bodyguard gets through the block. Cavador must be blackjacked since he is wearing a gas mask against the possibility of Burricks. I noticed that Cavador went through a startup routine when loading a save made while he was running to try to keep up but still behind the block. After this startup routine he was through the block. He then continued running to catch up with the lead bodyguard. I hid a short ways ahead and whacked him as he sped past. I chose a narrow spot in the tunnel just outside the site 5 entrance but there are many spots throughout his route that could probably be used. This spot has a sloped tunnel wall and the AI work their way up this wall slightly in their attempts to get around the boxes. Cavador and his bodyguards begin their patrol from Site 5 when you read the papyrus with his route on it found back in the base camp at the beginning of the mission. I waited until I had the boxes set up the way I wanted before reading the papyrus. The boxes need to be stacked since the AIs' lower legs seem to be insubstantial and don't clip a single box at all. Discovery and development of this technique, entitled "The Train Wreck", is credited to Sneak of the EIDOS Thief Forum.

Site 9

There is a watcher monitoring the entrance to Site 9 that I was unable to figure a way past without the watcher yellow alerting. I built a box staircase to detour around this watcher. Even though the watcher's eye is plainly visible while standing on the ledge with the boxes it doesn't seem to be able to see Garrett.