GEM: Espionage first draft

there's certainly room for some improvement over the vanilla implementation of espionage.

G&K has been out for a while now so we've had time to play with the expansion mechanics and form our opinions. so let's start discussing espionage here:

what are the drawbacks of the current system that could easily be improved?

what feels like a missing opportunity?

does it need balance tweaks somewhere?

how can it be made more interesting and fun?

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I'd love to see more options for civs that currently have a technology lead. As is, there's very little incentive to sending your spies abroad if you can't steal technologies with them (though being able to see enemy cities can be useful). I have no idea how moddable the espionage system is, but I'd love to see options like poisoning water supplies to slow population growth or sabotaging production.

Honestly, I really like the espionage system as it is. It is simple, clean, useful and flavorful. I think it would be a mistake to try to start weighing it down with other features.

Skobrin said:

I'd love to see more options for civs that currently have a technology lead. As is, there's very little incentive to sending your spies abroad if you can't steal technologies with them (though being able to see enemy cities can be useful). I have no idea how moddable the espionage system is, but I'd love to see options like poisoning water supplies to slow population growth or sabotaging production.

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seconded, the intrigue system is nice but some more options would be welcome, especially for tech leaders.

the espionage system as a whole is good enough, but it doesn't feel quite as complete as religion does yet imo. it's a bit lacking in depth... adding some more possibilities for the player would make it more fun and engaging.

As is, there's very little incentive to sending your spies abroad if you can't steal technologies with them

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Tech leaders don't benefit from rigging CS elections??

Yes, the tech leader doesn't benefit from tech stealing - but so what? They can then use their spies for other things.

but it doesn't feel quite as complete as religion does yet imo. it's a bit lacking in depth..

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I don't think it needs to have a lot of depth. It's a simple system at a level that the AI can use. Every time an espionage system starts adding lots of options, the AI falls down in using them.

it doesn't need a lot of depth, I agree. still, don't you feel like of the 2 expansion mechanic ( religion vs espionage ) it's only religion the one that seems fully fleshed out?

I dislike complicated stuff, so I'd be looking forward to simply adding a couple more SIMPLE options that the AI can handle. thinking of Civ4 for example water poisoning and building sabotaging ( as Skobrin said ) come to mind as good alternatives to coups. right now your choices are a bit poor, either a. stay b. move c. coup.

a system where "stay" allows say 3 options instead of 1 ( coups ) would still be fairly simple yet a lot more interesting to play with methinks.

still, don't you feel like of the 2 expansion mechanic ( religion vs espionage ) it's only religion the one that seems fully fleshed out?

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I agree that the religion mechanic is more complicated than the espionage mechanic.
But no, I don't agree that the espionage mechanic needs to be more complicated or have more options.

Espionage is small and beautiful. I think it is good design to have espionage that only helps you, it is much trickier if the effects can actually hurt other players - and that can't be defended against. That is much easier for the player to deal with, and it scales better across different numbers of players/map sizes. Imagine if every civ, even the tiny 1 city ones who still have just as many spies as large civs, chose to pick on you, and you were helpless to stop them; I don't think that would be fun.
If espionage can hurt other players, then it starts to feel annoying that a minor technologically backwards civ can be just as effective as a superpower (the only way they are weaker is if they are a full era or more behind). The US just doesn't need to be worried about espionage from Bhutan.

Water poisoning and building sabotage is also weird because in the post-Renaissance espionage represented in game, there aren't really any historic examples of these things happening at a strategically significant level (I guess you can argue anti-Iranian sabotage, but even so that hasn't had more than a ~1 turn impact). That's why I like the minimalist nature of the Civ5 mechanic; it is flavorful, but it doesn't try to make espionage more important than it really was.

Also, the Civ4 AI did not handle these well at all. The Civ4 espionage AI was terrible.

The one and only change I think I would make is that I in an ideal game, defensive spies would not need to be assigned to a city, they would function in all your cities. I don't think that the "where is the spy looking" guessing game is fun, and it would make defensive spying more useful if you didn't have the risk of accomplishing absolutely nothing because no-one was spying on the city you were defending.
But I don't think we have the kind of code access to do anything here.

I guess I could also see making spy veterancy slightly more important, so it meant higher chance of coup success, higher influence gain from election rigging, higher chance of catching enemy spies, and faster tech stealing/lower chance of getting caught/higher chance of getting intrigue. My understanding is that only some of these are currently in.

Ahriman said:

If espionage can hurt other players, then it starts to feel annoying that a minor technologically backwards civ can be just as effective as a superpower (the only way they are weaker is if they are a full era or more behind). The US just doesn't need to be worried about espionage from Bhutan.

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technically Bhutan is 2-3 eras behind US.
Further, US is bothered about Ukrainiang or Czech or N-Korea hackers, which are kinda like spies, from low-tech, low power civs/countries (they don't have the capability to build high-end techs, or even computers... they buy it, mostly)/
if in reality, US is not-so bothered, it's because the Espionnage/counterespionnage force of US is huge ; not because US army or US economy or US tech lead is Huge.

so yes, powerful countries that don't want to be bothered by small countries spies spend a lot of money to have more spies or more efficient spies than the others.

otherwise I agree with you that the effects of water poisoning or else don't happen in modern era ... but IMO, it is because counter-espionnage is well developped.

last, I think that espionnage could also represent terrorisme as in :
-killing a leader (palestine, bin-laden, those plutonium-killed guys, JFK...Etc)
-extrading/kidnapping/killing a scientist/artist (happened all the time in cold war
-bombing /gazing cities, (IRA actions, subways gazing, planes on 9/11...Etc).
true, those actions are not "reported" to be linked to a foreign COUNTRY.

however, those happened, and they could (mechanicaly speaking) have been controled by another country.
further, Cold-war induced a lot of those kind of actions... mainly in non-aligned countries (because easier targets), but both URSS and US (and UK, FR...Etc) did it.

they even did it a lot pre-WW2, in the colonial era.

so yes, powerful countries that don't want to be bothered by small countries spies spend a lot of money to have more spies or more efficient spies than the others.

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In the real world? Yes.

But Civ5 doesn't operate like that. In Civ5, a Bhutanese spy is just as effective as an American spy. The only difference is that the US has slightly more spies because it is ahead in tech. There is no mechanic for the superior US technology or economy to hinder the Bhutanese spy.

That's the problem with trying to allow espionage to be used offensively to hurt other players; it will be frustrating on the receiving end of being whacked around by the spies of some backwards minor power. Whereas you don't really care if a backwards/minor power steals a tech from you.

Ahriman said:

But Civ5 doesn't operate like that. In Civ5, a Bhutanese spy is just as effective as an American spy. The only difference is that the US has slightly more spies because it is ahead in tech. There is no mechanic for the superior US technology or economy to hinder the Bhutanese spy.

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in RL there is no "mechanic for the superior US technology or economy to hinder the Bhutanese spy".
There is only "the US superior empire has more spies."

so maybe to balance it you'll have to find other ways to help powerful countries to increase their spy numbers if they spend money on it.


The argument : "ciV doesn't allow for richer/more powerful civs to get more or more powerful spies, so the espionnage system is already unbalanced" is a better argument.

If you had argued like this I would not have pounced on you.
however your initial argument, supposedly based on RL, was fallacious. RL espionnage power has nothing to do with the tech / size / power of the country, only to its commitement on spending money on spies.

what's so weird about spies damaging other players? is that not what a coup does already?

however I do agree that spy XP needs to be more important, perhaps more stages should be added and an XP system akin to the one for units?

I also think players should be able to invest into espionage instead of having everyone be at the same level all the time. that would solve the "ant vs dinosaur" issue since the tiny crappy civ won't be able to tickle the big huge civ... UNLESS the big huge one completely ignored espionage while the tiny civ focused 100% on it.

so there could be ways of getting more spies, more powerful spies, unlocking new spy abilities, more protection from espionage etc.

in RL there is no "mechanic for the superior US technology or economy to hinder the Bhutanese spy".
There is only "the US superior empire has more spies."

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Sure there is. The US has an advanced network of surveillance satellites. It has a large budget with which to bribe people. Its agents have all kinds of equipment - supercomputers for data analysis, communications interceptions capability, etc. It has embassies all over the place and business interests that can be used for cover for agents.

Bhutan doesn't. It isn't just "number of spies". Economic power and technology matter IRL espionage.

so maybe to balance it you'll have to find other ways to help powerful countries to increase their spy numbers if they spend money on it.

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But this is starts making the espionage mechanic massively more complicated, and starts down the path of a Civ4-style mechanic where you have espionage points that can be generated by your economy.

Or you start getting into a situation where you might have a dozen or more spies, and it starts becoming a micromanagement mess.

I think going that way would be a mistake. Civ5 espionage works because it is simple.

what's so weird about spies damaging other players? is that not what a coup does already?

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My concern with spies damaging other players is that it starts getting frustrating when minor powers can dish out lots of damage with espionage, because espionage is done on a per-civilization basis.

The coup doesn't hurt a player directly; it slows their rate of income, it doesn't damage any of their stuff. I agree that it's a bit of a grey area in that there isn't a huge difference between, say, losing access to a cultural city state and having your opera house destroyed.

The more important point is that a coup is based on accrued influence. If I have 200 influence in a city state because I have used my economy to invest in it, and you have 20 influence, you aren't going to be able to succeed with the coup. It's hard for weak civs to hurt powerful civs with coups.

I guess other offensive abilities wouldn't be so bad if they used a similar mechanic, but I don't see how that would work if the abilities were targeting non-CS cities.

I also think players should be able to invest into espionage

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But then, as above, you start losing the clean simplicity of the system. I think that would be a mistake.

I would also submit that a large reason why doing a number of terrorist type acts is not common to espionage is that there are usually consequences if anyone connects you to the deed. Stealing technology typically doesn't incur the wrath of a nation and using spy like moves on minor powers as part of the game of nations is only incidentally noted. These are the two primary functions provided.

Killing a governor or mayor or scientist attracts attention by contrast and the only limitation is the relative power of the two or more nation-states involved. If "Bhutan" did something like that, we would go and crush their regime. When we do it in Iran, Iran doesn't have much it can do. This would mostly encourage high tech players to go stomp on everyone every game, which would be annoying and limiting.

Some of those are nonetheless interesting. Disrupting local economies through assassinations of governors or capturing a GP or somehow negating/weakening its effects (temporarily)? Resource disruption/pillaging should also be useful.

A water poisoning one is no longer as viable because Civ5 does not use health as a growth limitation. Maybe you could make a case for biological warfare, but that's mostly successful in the medieval era and plagues during sieges. Prior to spies appearing in the game. I agree building sabotage doesn't make much sense except on very large projects (wonders, spaceship, manhattan/nuclear weapons).

I would like to see some mechanic for adding more spies by choice/investment, or improving their ranks. This could make the spy based buildings more interesting as one example. Especially in wider empires, where they serve little utility.

. Disrupting local economies through assassinations of governors

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This kind of meddling to me is already represented through the election-rigging/coup mechanic.

or capturing a GP

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Sounds infeasible. GPs do nothing except when they are used.

Resource disruption/pillaging should also be useful

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I find these effects to be underwhelming, and in Civ4 at least were handled poorly by the AI, even when there was specific AI code to manage them - which we don't have in Civ5.

My biggest concern regarding espionage is one of the quotes the developers did before the release of the game.
They said that eventually religion would be less important and espionage would take it's place, but this is not how the game is atm.
Having those +gold or + happiness per citizens following a religion is a huge deal all game through. There are another examples as well, depending on what victory you're going for.

Having espionage dealing direct damage/bonus to religion would make espionage a more fun mechanic imo.
One such thing (from the top of my head) could be atheism. Making people convert back to no religion (removing bonuses).
Or the ability to overthrow smaller civs where 90% of their citizens following your religion, making them a puppet state to your fundamentalist country.

They said that eventually religion would be less important and espionage would take it's place,

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I think they meant less important in terms of adding new stuff and espionage would become more important in terms of adding new stuff, which is true because of rising faith purchase costs and increasing numbers of spies. Once you're in the modern eras, religion doesn't add much new stuff, and doesn't swing as rapidly relative to what can be done through other means.

I think it would be a bad idea to start trying to take away the existing benefits of religion. You've structured your empire around the happiness and other bonuses you got from follower beliefs. It would be really annoying and IMO not-fun to suddenly start losing those benefits.

Having espionage dealing direct damage/bonus to religion would make espionage a more fun mechanic imo.

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I don't see the need for a direct interplay between religion and espionage. Espionage damaging religion feels a bit ahistoric. What aspects of real world history do you have in mind here?

Or the ability to overthrow smaller civs where 90% of their citizens following your religion

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We already have a bit of this: coups are easier in city states where you have more influence, and you will have more influence (from losing influence more slowly) in city states that follow your religion.

Lazaroth said:

My biggest concern regarding espionage is one of the quotes the developers did before the release of the game.
They said that eventually religion would be less important and espionage would take it's place, but this is not how the game is atm.
Having those +gold or + happiness per citizens following a religion is a huge deal all game through. There are another examples as well, depending on what victory you're going for.

Having espionage dealing direct damage/bonus to religion would make espionage a more fun mechanic imo.
One such thing (from the top of my head) could be atheism. Making people convert back to no religion (removing bonuses).
Or the ability to overthrow smaller civs where 90% of their citizens following your religion, making them a puppet state to your fundamentalist country.

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I'm not sure how that's realistic. It's far more common to use espionage-like mechanics to convert people to an actual religion than to no religion. And that system of conversion is already available in the game (both of them). This sounds more like something that should go with beliefs overhauls in the faith section.

Ahriman said:

It would be really annoying and IMO not-fun to suddenly start losing those benefits.

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It sure would, which is why counter espionage would have to play a more important role. Or even making the "stop spying on me" dialogue more important.

Ahriman said:

What aspects of real world history do you have in mind here?

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Two comments:
1. Everything can't be historical correct in a game. That would more often than not lead to a lesser game.
2. An example could be any country that has converted to another faith or semi-removed/removed its importance all together. E.g. catholic countries converting to Protestantism (e.g. Sweden in the 1500's) or the Soviet union.

Ahriman said:

We already have a bit of this: coups are easier in city states where you have more influence, and you will have more influence

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Just trying to come up with additional fun gameplay.

mystikx21 said:

This sounds more like something that should go with beliefs overhauls in the faith section.

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Perhaps, perhaps not. It would add to that entire dynamic later in a game. Religion is not unimportant in today's world. And CIA for example have helped overthrow countries which have both strengthen and weakened USA, in regard to religion.