We all know it was absent in vanilla civ5, and was implemented incredibly poorly in Civ4bts. This extract from gamespot describes the current system:

Espionage returns as well in Gods and Kings, and it mimics the options available in Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. Spies weave a web of intrigue, and though they never appear as units on the map, there is a special panel used to assign missions. These include stealing technology, working on counterintelligence, and listing what's inside an enemy city. In single-player, spies can even report on the future military operations of AI opponents. If you learn that France is going to invade Spain, you can blow the whistle and give Spain a heads-up, which will have serious diplomatic consequences.

Unlike in Civilization: Revolution, spies are not trained by a civilization. Instead, they are awarded at certain intervals along the timeline. Should one of your spies get captured or killed, you'll have to wait a set number of turns before you get a replacement. "It's almost like an executed spy is in time-out," Beach said, adding that your new spy will start back at level one. Spies can also be used to sway the influence in city-states by rigging elections or attempting a coup.


All seems very nice to me. They appear to have gone with a lot of the philosophy of the game which is to reduce MM as much as possible, and move stuff to a off-map screen. The man problem with Civ4 is that espionage came at the expense of science - and was rarely worth it. The other problem was the intense MM that came with building moving, and moving back spies. All this seems to have gone, which looks very promising. Having spies come rarely means I might actually value them and care what happens to them. More immersion is good in my book, but that depends on how much they can do. What's listed above seems a pretty impressive range of passive and active abilities.
I think I might look forward to this more than the new religion system

I'm curious how rig elections work with city-states.

I assume this is not related to the UN, but related to local elections that may elect 'city leaders' that are pro- or anti- certain empires, which would be quite similar to current events where elections affect foreign policy and smaller countries become chess pieces of the regional and world powers with interest in the region.

I assume it's a way to become allied to a city state. It does mirror historic things quite well.

I assume it's a way to become allied to a city state. It does mirror historic things quite well.

Yeah, that's what it does. If you look at the screenshot analysis, it just so happens that in one of the screenshots an election was rigged successfully in a city-state, which simply increases your influence and weakens the influence of others. Probably helpful if gold is less useful for bribing city-states, which it sounds like it will be.

the system sounds like it will work a bit like galactic civ2, that implimentation worked pretty well

its going to need some tweeking from release, espionage is pretty hard to get right

We all know it was absent in vanilla civ5, and was implemented incredibly poorly in Civ4bts. This extract from gamespot describes the current system:

Espionage returns as well in Gods and Kings, and it mimics the options available in Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. Spies weave a web of intrigue, and though they never appear as units on the map, there is a special panel used to assign missions. These include stealing technology, working on counterintelligence, and listing what's inside an enemy city. In single-player, spies can even report on the future military operations of AI opponents. If you learn that France is going to invade Spain, you can blow the whistle and give Spain a heads-up, which will have serious diplomatic consequences.

Unlike in Civilization: Revolution, spies are not trained by a civilization. Instead, they are awarded at certain intervals along the timeline. Should one of your spies get captured or killed, you'll have to wait a set number of turns before you get a replacement. "It's almost like an executed spy is in time-out," Beach said, adding that your new spy will start back at level one. Spies can also be used to sway the influence in city-states by rigging elections or attempting a coup.


All seems very nice to me. They appear to have gone with a lot of the philosophy of the game which is to reduce MM as much as possible, and move stuff to a off-map screen. The man problem with Civ4 is that espionage came at the expense of science - and was rarely worth it. The other problem was the intense MM that came with building moving, and moving back spies. All this seems to have gone, which looks very promising. Having spies come rarely means I might actually value them and care what happens to them. More immersion is good in my book, but that depends on how much they can do. What's listed above seems a pretty impressive range of passive and active abilities.
I think I might look forward to this more than the new religion system

Don't forget that they did away with the investment slider.
So espionage may not necessarily come at the price of science.
I don't want espionage as a mechanic to be too important at all.
I would really prefer if it blended it with all the existing mechanics and the new religion mechanic.
I shouldn't have to deal with an enemy spy every 5 turns or so.
But I don't want it to be totally useless either.
Balance is key.

The one downside I see right now is that I will miss the individual spy unit as a recon and covert "destroy improvement" option. It would be nice to have a unit that could do that in some form.

I don't want to make up my mind about a feature even before I tried it ingame.

Nevertheless, one of the complains (the mayor complain?) of players who miss espionage in CiV is, that they don't have to do something when not at war. I don't have the impression that the expansion's espionage concept will change something about this, as there will be no spy units to move around.

I know, *many* players didn't like how espionage was implemented in Civ4. Me neither!
Even so, I would have liked to see something more "real" than just a new "spreadsheet", but without the Civ4 micromanagement. Maybe something like in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=424193), I started a while ago.

Anyway, I'm very curios how the new feature will play. I really hope, that these "Spreadsheet-spies" won't feel to sterile...

Why all the hate for espionage in BtS ? It had some balance issues, but I liked it.

On the screenshot we saw an 'initiate coup' option. I wonder what the difference is between election rigging and a coup...

On the screenshot we saw an 'initiate coup' option. I wonder what the difference is between election rigging and a coup...

That's a good question. One that should maybe be asked in the 'Ask Dennis' thread? :mischief:

Maybe a coup is more extreme? So rigging an election gives you a small popularity boost, but a coup completely rests relations?

Maybe a Coup is to remove support of another Empire? Like weaken/destroy influence of another Civ?

Maybe a coup is more extreme? So rigging an election gives you a small popularity boost, but a coup completely rests relations?

That was also my first thought, but it would be a bit redundand to have the same mission just more so.
Another possibility that I'd like would be to change the nature of a City State with a coup, for example forcibly convert it from Militaristic to Cultural.
Would be a good way to speed up a cultural victory, but could potentially be really annoying or unbalanced.

Maybe a Coup is to remove support of another Empire? Like weaken/destroy influence of another Civ?

Coup = switch influence by force

Rig-election = lining up to be the next 'master'.

My speculation is that City States will hold regular elections so timing of influence changes will be more predictable. Granted there are also other avenues to gain influence, I suspect the elections route will be one of the options if the quests are unpalatable. This also means the 'dump 10,000 gold to buy up all CS 1 turn before UN vote' is no longer a viable option.

Rigging the election means you ensure yourself to be their next master. Coup-d'eta would imply change masters in-between elections.

I would also venture the guess not all CS will be 'democratic'. Some may not hold elections at all. Given that in the late game AI will care about your political system (http://www.gamespot.com/sid-meiers-civilization-v-gods-and-kings/previews/gods-and-kings-brings-big-changes-to-civilization-v-6350514/) instead of your religion. This would mean the city states may also have favoured political systems like freedom, order or autocracy.

I hope you're right, dexters - this is just the sort of thing the expansion needs to bring to diplomacy in Civ5!

YEEESSSSSSSSS!:D :clap:. This is what I have been waiting for, now I can blow the dust off my copy of ciV and actually give it a try, I had given up on it as it just seemed that cIV was better with the Religions and especially the Espionage system.

Now all we need is a fun and sensible Corporations system and a reliable Pitboss and its off to the Races!

More on-topic... I think/hope the "Rigging Election" feature will be more like the "Civic Swap" mission in BTS and the "Coup" will be more like a combination of the Spread culture and Revolt missions. Maybe a way to actually force a city to flip, without attacking it... Awesome... Creates all kinds of possibilities for "Cold" Wars.

Do you think we will see a Great Spy unit in the expansion?

Do you think we will see a Great Spy unit in the expansion? I would like some sort of Great Spy, but if Espionage is not going to work the same as in cIV (using the tech slider) I dont know what the G.Spy would do.

In single-player, spies can even report on the future military operations of AI opponents. If you learn that France is going to invade Spain, you can blow the whistle and give Spain a heads-up, which will have serious diplomatic consequences.


This is such an incredibly bad idea. Wow.

Many players already complain that the AI is too easy. Why not introduce a mechanic which gives the human player a fundamental advantage over the AI, which the AI cannot use in return? Doh.

This is such an incredibly bad idea. Wow.

Many players already complain that the AI is too easy. Why not introduce a mechanic which gives the human player a fundamental advantage over the AI, which the AI cannot use in return? Doh.

Well, the AI is "supposed" to be getting some improvements, so hopefully the AI will be more intelligent. And it certainly will make global politics more interesting, and so I think it has certainly got promise. Plus, it might not always be in your best interest to let another civ know about an impending invasion anyway.

Another spy action you haven't listed is 'provoke unrest', I don't remember was this from a screenshot or an interview.

This is such an incredibly bad idea. Wow.

Many players already complain that the AI is too easy. Why not introduce a mechanic which gives the human player a fundamental advantage over the AI, which the AI cannot use in return? Doh.

The AI already comes to you to warn you off attacking when you're building up forces/when they sense that you're going to attack in a certain direction.

The AI already comes to you to warn you off attacking when you're building up forces/when they sense that you're going to attack in a certain direction.

I think tying in espionage into diplomacy would be interesting, but not in the way that was suggested.

Perhaps there can be a one time trade deal where players gets one turn to look at what another Civ can see (selectively) on a specific target.

That way allies can work together. The AI may come to you requesting data on a specific city or city state and if you happen to have a spy in a city and don't want to let them in on it, you can bluff and say no. And when your spy is potentially exposed by a 3rd party in a counter intelligence, the diplomatic ramifications will mean there will be collateral damage both from the target civ and the civs you lied to.

A corollary to that is exchanging line of sight information could become tradeable as well though this isn't directly tied to espionage. I am keen on opening up more avenues for allies to work together and to have agreements in place, outside defensive pacts or declarations of friendships that are more under the table -- similar to how the old 'agree to work together against X' used to work in the earlier builds of Civ5.

The AI already comes to you to warn you off attacking when you're building up forces/when they sense that you're going to attack in a certain direction.

Yes, but the AI can hardly read your mind, which is what this espionage ability allows the player to do to the AI. This type of asymmetric feature has always been a bad design choice.

Yes, but the AI can hardly read your mind, which is what this espionage ability allows the player to do to the AI. This type of asymmetric feature has always been a bad design choice.

The AI will never be able to read your mind. It can anticipate actions based on set rules, and how well it can anticipate it also related to how well it is allowed to cheat.

Parts of the Civ3 AI -- the military part -- for example was functionally omniscient so their SoDs could be lured into traps by emptying cities or simply be strung around while the human player readies their units.

Espionage as a concept isn't bad for the AI, if you build it in such a way that the AI needs to perform the same operations a human has to to reveal certain bits of information that it has but can't use or pass on to another module in the AI subsystems until certain conditions are met, such as performing a spy operation.

Tying espionage less to units but to operations and a Civ3 style sub screen, but with agents, is also a fairly safe way to create a feature the AI can understand.

From the preview, Espionage seems more tied to intrigue with city states, which actually is quite a neat idea as it makes it more of an arms length feature against your real competitors, and the rationing of agents means you probably can't find out everything you need to know or do everything you want to do.

The AI will never be able to read your mind. It can anticipate actions based on set rules, and how well it can anticipate it also related to how well it is allowed to cheat.

Parts of the Civ3 AI -- the military part -- for example was functionally omniscient so their SoDs could be lured into traps by emptying cities or simply be strung around while the human player readies their units.

Espionage as a concept isn't bad for the AI, if you build it in such a way that the AI needs to perform the same operations a human has to to reveal certain bits of information that it has but can't use or pass on to another module in the AI subsystems until certain conditions are met, such as performing a spy operation.

Tying espionage less to units but to operations and a Civ3 style sub screen, but with agents, is also a fairly safe way to create a feature the AI can understand.


I wasn't saying that espionage in general was bad for the AI. (As you say, if implemented the right way it may even be helpful for the AI. What I was sating was bad for the AI (and bad in general) is allowing the human player to use espionage to read the AI's mind, which is what they are saying. You apparently, can use a spy to obtain (part of) the AI's midterm/long-term plans.

As a rule of thumb, you should not be able to do things to the AI, that you could not do to a human player. This clearly is such a thing.

Yes, but the AI can hardly read your mind, which is what this espionage ability allows the player to do to the AI. This type of asymmetric feature has always been a bad design choice.

I would assume it would use the same criteria to predict an attack by an AI opponent as one by a human player. The difference is probably more that whatever criteria that is would be more in line with how AIs actually act, as opposed to how humans act. That does put it in favour of the human player, but it's not a mechanic only the human player would be able to use, and it would seem no more in favour of the human player than any other situation in which you can do something the AI cannot successfully predict. It's only allowing you to read the AI's mind as much as it is allowing them to read the minds of their opponents.

I would assume it would use the same criteria to predict an attack by an AI opponent as one by a human player. The difference is probably more that whatever criteria that is would be more in line with how AIs actually act, as opposed to how humans act. That does put it in favour of the human player, but it's not a mechanic only the human player would be able to use, and it would seem no more in favour of the human player than any other situation in which you can do something the AI cannot successfully predict. It's only allowing you to read the AI's mind as much as it is allowing them to read the minds of their opponents.

That is not what I am getting for the various articles. They are literally saying that you can use spy missions to get data on the inner workings of the AI. For example, to you could learn that the AI is planning to backstab you in 15 turns. This data based on the innerworkings of the AI, that is not determined by the rest of the game state. This means that AI won't be able to use this on the player. (A fact also suggested by the mention that this option will only be available in single player.)

That is not what I am getting for the various articles. They are literally saying that you can use spy missions to get data on the inner workings of the AI. For example, to you could learn that the AI is planning to backstab you in 15 turns. This data based on the innerworkings of the AI, that is not determined by the rest of the game state. This means that AI won't be able to use this on the player. (A fact also suggested by the mention that this option will only be available in single player.)

While this is true in general, there *are* game mechanics thinkable to make this work - under special circumstances even in the current game!

All you need is a "warm-up phase" for war. So, if you want do declare war on a certain civ, you have to make this decision, say, 10 or 15 turns in advance by checking a checkbox. Until the turns are over, you will not be able to declare war. After the turns are passed, you could still decide, whether or not to declare. You could even leave the checkbox active, to declare later on immediately - the AI spy will have the possibility to learn about your "readiness for war".

As I mentioned, there are already circumstances, an AI spy could learn about your plans: If you have accepted a "let's declar war in 10 turns" agreement with another civ!

See, there *are* ways to make the AI "psychic"... :)

--

By the way: this could work for MP, too.

That is not what I am getting for the various articles. They are literally saying that you can use spy missions to get data on the inner workings of the AI. For example, to you could learn that the AI is planning to backstab you in 15 turns. This data based on the innerworkings of the AI, that is not determined by the rest of the game state. This means that AI won't be able to use this on the player. (A fact also suggested by the mention that this option will only be available in single player.)

I guess it depends on how the AI gathers its data. Will it simply be able to see that an opponent is set to planning a war on someone, or will it be able to see what the AI is doing, and extrapolate from there based on certain criteria. I guess you're probably right that it's the former, in which case I don't know how they tell if a human is planning an attack. Though I assume it'd be similar if not the same to how they can guess that you're preparing for an attack currently.

But then, my original point was that the AI is able to see that you're preparing for an attack on them. They aren't entirely reliable in doing so, but they can do it to some extent, so it's not like they're going to be completely cut out of this mechanic (and would presumably still be able to act against other AIs in any case).

FWIW, if you reach an agreement with another civ to declare war in 10 turns, the AI could presumably discover this through espionage. It might not be entirely reciprocal between the player and the AI, but at least it'll be less pronounced.

FWIW, if you reach an agreement with another civ to declare war in 10 turns, the AI could presumably discover this through espionage. It might not be entirely reciprocal between the player and the AI, but at least it'll be less pronounced.

Though, that option isn't used very frequently. But it might give the AI 'something' on the player.

That is not what I am getting for the various articles. They are literally saying that you can use spy missions to get data on the inner workings of the AI. For example, to you could learn that the AI is planning to backstab you in 15 turns. This data based on the innerworkings of the AI, that is not determined by the rest of the game state. This means that AI won't be able to use this on the player. (A fact also suggested by the mention that this option will only be available in single player.)

Yes, assume that the AI will not be able to use a feature, at least against the human player, as they can't read your mind. If they 'could' guess about your intentions, all you'd have to do is fake them.

I consider this part of espionage, from what has been posted, to be more of a 'random chance positive diplo modifier' for the player with an AI. Given that almost everything is negative diplo modifiers, that can't be bad.

But don't forget that AIs (likely anyways) can use it on each other. There are always games in vanilla where one AI gets OP due to speed running through their neighbours/former friends. If the targets are given time to move units around/build more units/defensive buildings/etc rather than an extra wonder, they might survive longer.

edit: and there's no concerns about 'asymmetrical' feature design here when the AI can do a lot of things that the player can't.

That is not what I am getting for the various articles. They are literally saying that you can use spy missions to get data on the inner workings of the AI. For example, to you could learn that the AI is planning to backstab you in 15 turns. This data based on the innerworkings of the AI, that is not determined by the rest of the game state. This means that AI won't be able to use this on the player. (A fact also suggested by the mention that this option will only be available in single player.)

The balance could be that the "Inner thinkings" option for the spy is incredibly risky. Reading the articles on espionage so far, I've come to thinking that certain missions make it more likely that your spy will be caught.

I wonder what you can really do with the information? We already know you can share information with other AI's, which if they're about to be attacked will either get you sucked into a war or put you in one of those positions where you do something nice for them but they still wind up pissed off at you (Hey, Izzy, Monty's about to come burn your house down. Oh, you want an alliance.... Nah, not now, thank you <cue denouncement music>).

If it's information that you're about to get attacked, well, the other AI's don't help now, not sure how this changes it other then to invite a premeditated dogpile.

What will be more interesting is if you can confront the aggressive civilization - in which case you might be able to get them to back down or force them to attack early/before they're completely ready.

I guess the other question I have is just because the AI decides to attack you 15 turns from now with 15 archers, if you suddenly have a tank show up on their border will that give them pause? That's probably the most likely/useful scenario. And, while you know the attack is coming, not sure that you really have any sense of the composition of the force (or at least we haven't seen that mission yet.)

I think it's going to be an interesting feature that could be a lot of fun.

edit: and there's no concerns about 'asymmetrical' feature design here when the AI can do a lot of things that the player can't.
This. Basically the game being balanced is not that AI & the player are equal in all aspects. There are things where human has a great advantage (where u have to plan 50 turns ahead or fighting a war tactically etc). While in other cases AI has the advantage (more happiness, gold, diplo with other AIs, general info about map & measure of things that a player can't see/calculate). For example in cIV AI units used to haved extra sight & in ciV DoF civs can ask for luxuries for free.
In short they need to strike the right balance between player & AI so the player feels that it is fair. So if they add some features to player as well as some to AI exculusively (or just make it less idiot !), I am sure it won't hurt balance if done properly.