Yes, its another thread about espionage.
I know, its not new, the ideas might not even be unique and there are plenty of them already. But in contrast to them, this thread is started by someone, who would have voted No espionage in CiV, please! only some days ago.
Then I started to develop some ideas in a German Civ forum and I did write and write and when all my thoughts were written down, I realized, that at least *I* would enjoy espionage in CiV, if it would be something like this. So, please, let me know what *you* feel about my thoughts.
First of all, I have to state what I *dont* want:
- an overflow of micromanagement
- something overly complicated
- unimmersive Spreadsheet espionage
- in sum: Civ4 espionage
My goal was to suggest an espionage system, that actually can be played, not managed. A system, that can be surveyed easily but offers some fun options during peacetime (and war also). And of course a system, matching the CiV design philosophy.
So, lets go concrete:
1. Spies should be real units.
I think, there is not much dissent here. I just mention it, because I can read proposals every now and then, where spies should be put into duty just by clicking on a form. In my opinion thats not fun and thats not in the CiV design either. Our James Bond has to walk the world in his own representation!
Of course, spies are invisible to all other units than spies. To prevent "accidental" detection by moving on a spy's tile, there has to be a third layer of land units along with military units and civilians (=spies will stack with them, but not with other spies).
2. Spies interact. No automatic effects anymore.
In Civ4, a spy could just disappear by bad luck when being fortified in an opponents influence sphere. A small notification was all you got and at least I did miss it constantly.
I want spies to interact! You need spies to discover enemy intruders, you need spies to fight them. So, you need to actually PLAY the game!
3. Spies stay where they are, when doing their spys work.
What I really *hated* in Civ4, was the instant teleport back to your capital after a spy fulfilled (or failed) his mission. You had to move them all across the world to bring him back where needed. THIS is a perfect example of terrible micromanagement and NOT FUN!
I think, in CiV spies should stay in enemy territory until they are discovered and killed by defending spies (or until they fulfill one of the few "instant tasks" (see 5. "Instant effects") and are discovered. But then, their removal will be obvious and linked to a specific action and therefor traceable.)
4. No more instant effects (or at least in a much less degree)
The reason for the teleport was, of course, to limit the excessive use of spies. If not teleported back, an unlimited sequence of poisoned water or sabotaged constructions would have been the consequence.
But how to avoid this?
The effect of spies must be gradual, not instant.
4a. If you managed to install a spy in your enemys city, you are just able to reduce this citys production (maybe by 10-30%? See also "7b. Special task promotions"), not destroy a whole project at once. As long as your spy stays in duty, this production drain will continue.
4b. Same with tech espionage: A spy can only steal a certain amount of beakers. The amount depends on and is maximal equal to the citys scientific output. Maybe the science points should count *only* to the particular tech, the victim is currently researching.
4c. Resources are not pillaged, but only inaccessible as long as the spy stays on the tile. No worker is needed to repair the improvement, but another spy to kill the saboteur.
4d. Political manipulations
All previous actions are executed in the opponents country. Political manipulation is done in neutral nations capitals! Here, the spy has two options:
- lowering the reputation of *one* other civ
- enhance the reputation of your own civ
Both effects are shown in diplomatic overview during mouse-over.
To prevent an unnoticed drain of industrial power and resources, some information about enemy spy activities has to
reach the player. A small spy symbol at the affected city or resource might be thinkable (but is *maybe* too direct). There could be a "SPIES!" warning in the headline with an additional symbol for "production", "science" and "resources". A percentage of drained production might be displayed, too.
5. Still some instant effects, however.
Some thinkable (but not necessarily integrated) effects have to be instant. All of them have to have a special price to be done (see also "6. Spy points/ spy resources") and their effect must not be overpowered (see above).
5a. Stealing maps
It is recommended often, so I want to mention this possibility. I think that not the entire opponents knowledge should be reviled, but only a small part of the map he knows. A good basis of comparison might be the ancient ruin output.
To steal a map, you have to pay a certain amount of money (bribery!).
5b. Bribing units
An optional spy ability could be the stealing of enemy units. Money would be needed - and much of it! *At least* as much, as the unit would cost when purchasing. The amount of money could vary depending on targets happiness. An additional risk (maybe 20%) of being discovered and captured is possible, too.
5c. Unit sabotage
Spies do no direct damage to combat units in general (but see also: "7c. Snipers"). If unit sabotage is used, one (or *all* adjacent?) units loose all their movement points for the next turn. Again, the price is the risk of being discovered and captured (maybe 5% per target unit).
6. Spy points/ spy resources
In Civ4, all spy activities did cost spy points which were accumulated by certain buildings. A special spreadsheet was needed to keep track. This was complicated an unintuitive. I dont think that spy points are needed in CiV anymore. What do they actually represent? Information is what you gather by deploying your spies in foreign territory. Moreover, there is already a very obvious and realistic currency: money!
I know that some people feel that money is already needed too often. I know that builders want to have a reason to improve their cities. And I am aware of the need to limit the numbers of available spies and their activities.
Therefore, I propose a new Spy resource (SpyRes).
This resource can not be found on the map and can not be improved by workers. As espionage is more a social than a physical issue, SpyRes are generated in cities.
Build a special building (name it however you like. Proposals?) in a city and get one SpyRes per 10 population points. So, a size 1-10 city will grant 1 SpyRes, 11-20 2 SpyRes and so on. Numbers could be varied due to balance reasons, of course!
Let this building have a citizen slot to generate an extra SpyRes and Great Person Points, too.
Alternatively to this, several buildings could be needed. But the maximal SpyRes per city should be limited by city size (same as happy cap).
In both cases, these buildings are not build by puppet cities. If there are still too abundant SpyRes, these buildings might be extremely expensive in upkeep (5 gpt or even more? 10 gpt?) so the player *wants* to limit their number.
Like the normal resources, SpyRes are needed to train spies. And *only* to train them!
This solution would be intuitive and fits the existing CiV mechanic.
7. Promotions and upgrade path
Of course, spies should have their own promotions. As I feel that spies naturally fall into a scout upgrade path, they could be based on the scout promotions (but not be limited to them). So, survivalism and scouting as well as movement enhancements are obvious for spies. As for upgrading itself, I've absolutely *no* idea how to name more advanced (or older) spies. A spy is called a spy, no matter of era. Ideas?
(Maybe spies could enhance automatically when entering a new area? But this is *not* according CiV design...)
7a. Fighting promotions according cultural borders
As spies fight each other, some combat related promotions come into the mind, too. But in contrast to other fighting units, the battleground is not so relevant. Instead of that, social skills and an established network of informants are needed. To represent this, two different upgrade paths should be established:
- fighting bonus inside the own cultural boarders
- fighting bonus in foreign cultural boarders
With this, spies will be able to specialize into active spies or counteractive agents (is there any differencing in English language?)
7b. Special task promotions
As gathering information and doing sabotage in foreign cities will be a common task for spies, adequate promotions will be handy.
- Say, an unpromoted spy gathers 40% of the cities per turn science output. With the first science stealing promotion this will rise to 60%, with the second one to 80%.
- Analogical the industrial sabotage ability, but with less impact. Unpromoted: 10%, promoted 20% and 30% (maybe a little bit more after play testing.)
- cover ore dodging could lower the likeliness of being discovered when performing unit sabotage and bribing.
7c. Snipers
The idea of snipers is mentioned in many threads. I think, as a spy promotion it makes sense. Sniping will be available after completely finishing one of the two fighting branches.
Snipers can do 1 point of damage against combat units and therefore kill heavily damaged units behind the lines. But their main purpose is to kill Great Persons (Generals!) and maybe workers where they do 4-5 points of damage.
EXP points are gathered in the "normal way" by fighting other spies. Additionally, spies get experienced continuously when deployed to a task (not more than 1 EXP/turn).
8. Automatic Effects
During their normal work, spies might stumble over some useful information. If the spy is placed in an opponents capital, this automatic information gathering might reveal the leader's backstabbing plans (5% chance maximal). When deployed in an enemy city witch starts to build a wonder, information about it's finishing time might be transmitted (*maybe* only if the player is building this wonder himself, too).
9. Spy related wonders (world and national)
I did not think about concrete names for them as this is not my main interest. The Kremel should be a Spy wonder instead of it's actual effect. The CIA might be one, too.
As effects are thinkable:
- enlarging the sight distance of spies in the players realm by two tiles. (CIA?)
- granting a fighting bonus when in own territory. (?)
- granting a fighting bonus when in foreign territory. (Kremlin?)
Plenty of other wonders are thinkable, effecting movement, combat, EXP when built,...
10. The Great Spy
In Civ4, the Great Spy was sort of useless. It's only use was, that he could not be discovered. He could not do any spy missions at all!
In CiV, the Great Spy should be very usefull. As there will be *no* promotions, he should have better stats right from the beginning: Higher combat strength than normal spies and a special ability (randomly generated when born). For example a Great Science Spy will be able to steal 100% of a city's scientific output (more than any maximal promoted normal spy!) or a Great Saboteur Spy will drain 50% of a city's industrial output (instead of max. 30% normal). When sabotaging units, he will be discovered and killed less likely (maybe 1% per unit). But maybe a GS should be better at *all* fields equally...
His special improvement could be a Spy Headquarter, granting some (3?) extra SpyRes and making all enemy spies in 5 tiles distance visible. Spies build in the owning city could have 15 extra EXP, too.
I'm afraid my thoughts turned out to be a terrible wall of text and a hard one to read due to my bad English. I apologize for this but hope you like at least the skeched concept.
Please let my know, whether or not you could imagine having (and liking) spies like this in CiV. I think, I could make friends with them...
I know, its not new, the ideas might not even be unique and there are plenty of them already. But in contrast to them, this thread is started by someone, who would have voted No espionage in CiV, please! only some days ago.
Then I started to develop some ideas in a German Civ forum and I did write and write and when all my thoughts were written down, I realized, that at least *I* would enjoy espionage in CiV, if it would be something like this. So, please, let me know what *you* feel about my thoughts.
First of all, I have to state what I *dont* want:
- an overflow of micromanagement
- something overly complicated
- unimmersive Spreadsheet espionage
- in sum: Civ4 espionage
My goal was to suggest an espionage system, that actually can be played, not managed. A system, that can be surveyed easily but offers some fun options during peacetime (and war also). And of course a system, matching the CiV design philosophy.
So, lets go concrete:
1. Spies should be real units.
I think, there is not much dissent here. I just mention it, because I can read proposals every now and then, where spies should be put into duty just by clicking on a form. In my opinion thats not fun and thats not in the CiV design either. Our James Bond has to walk the world in his own representation!
Of course, spies are invisible to all other units than spies. To prevent "accidental" detection by moving on a spy's tile, there has to be a third layer of land units along with military units and civilians (=spies will stack with them, but not with other spies).
2. Spies interact. No automatic effects anymore.
In Civ4, a spy could just disappear by bad luck when being fortified in an opponents influence sphere. A small notification was all you got and at least I did miss it constantly.
I want spies to interact! You need spies to discover enemy intruders, you need spies to fight them. So, you need to actually PLAY the game!
3. Spies stay where they are, when doing their spys work.
What I really *hated* in Civ4, was the instant teleport back to your capital after a spy fulfilled (or failed) his mission. You had to move them all across the world to bring him back where needed. THIS is a perfect example of terrible micromanagement and NOT FUN!
I think, in CiV spies should stay in enemy territory until they are discovered and killed by defending spies (or until they fulfill one of the few "instant tasks" (see 5. "Instant effects") and are discovered. But then, their removal will be obvious and linked to a specific action and therefor traceable.)
4. No more instant effects (or at least in a much less degree)
The reason for the teleport was, of course, to limit the excessive use of spies. If not teleported back, an unlimited sequence of poisoned water or sabotaged constructions would have been the consequence.
But how to avoid this?
The effect of spies must be gradual, not instant.
4a. If you managed to install a spy in your enemys city, you are just able to reduce this citys production (maybe by 10-30%? See also "7b. Special task promotions"), not destroy a whole project at once. As long as your spy stays in duty, this production drain will continue.
4b. Same with tech espionage: A spy can only steal a certain amount of beakers. The amount depends on and is maximal equal to the citys scientific output. Maybe the science points should count *only* to the particular tech, the victim is currently researching.
4c. Resources are not pillaged, but only inaccessible as long as the spy stays on the tile. No worker is needed to repair the improvement, but another spy to kill the saboteur.
4d. Political manipulations
All previous actions are executed in the opponents country. Political manipulation is done in neutral nations capitals! Here, the spy has two options:
- lowering the reputation of *one* other civ
- enhance the reputation of your own civ
Both effects are shown in diplomatic overview during mouse-over.
To prevent an unnoticed drain of industrial power and resources, some information about enemy spy activities has to
reach the player. A small spy symbol at the affected city or resource might be thinkable (but is *maybe* too direct). There could be a "SPIES!" warning in the headline with an additional symbol for "production", "science" and "resources". A percentage of drained production might be displayed, too.
5. Still some instant effects, however.
Some thinkable (but not necessarily integrated) effects have to be instant. All of them have to have a special price to be done (see also "6. Spy points/ spy resources") and their effect must not be overpowered (see above).
5a. Stealing maps
It is recommended often, so I want to mention this possibility. I think that not the entire opponents knowledge should be reviled, but only a small part of the map he knows. A good basis of comparison might be the ancient ruin output.
To steal a map, you have to pay a certain amount of money (bribery!).
5b. Bribing units
An optional spy ability could be the stealing of enemy units. Money would be needed - and much of it! *At least* as much, as the unit would cost when purchasing. The amount of money could vary depending on targets happiness. An additional risk (maybe 20%) of being discovered and captured is possible, too.
5c. Unit sabotage
Spies do no direct damage to combat units in general (but see also: "7c. Snipers"). If unit sabotage is used, one (or *all* adjacent?) units loose all their movement points for the next turn. Again, the price is the risk of being discovered and captured (maybe 5% per target unit).
6. Spy points/ spy resources
In Civ4, all spy activities did cost spy points which were accumulated by certain buildings. A special spreadsheet was needed to keep track. This was complicated an unintuitive. I dont think that spy points are needed in CiV anymore. What do they actually represent? Information is what you gather by deploying your spies in foreign territory. Moreover, there is already a very obvious and realistic currency: money!
I know that some people feel that money is already needed too often. I know that builders want to have a reason to improve their cities. And I am aware of the need to limit the numbers of available spies and their activities.
Therefore, I propose a new Spy resource (SpyRes).
This resource can not be found on the map and can not be improved by workers. As espionage is more a social than a physical issue, SpyRes are generated in cities.
Build a special building (name it however you like. Proposals?) in a city and get one SpyRes per 10 population points. So, a size 1-10 city will grant 1 SpyRes, 11-20 2 SpyRes and so on. Numbers could be varied due to balance reasons, of course!
Let this building have a citizen slot to generate an extra SpyRes and Great Person Points, too.
Alternatively to this, several buildings could be needed. But the maximal SpyRes per city should be limited by city size (same as happy cap).
In both cases, these buildings are not build by puppet cities. If there are still too abundant SpyRes, these buildings might be extremely expensive in upkeep (5 gpt or even more? 10 gpt?) so the player *wants* to limit their number.
Like the normal resources, SpyRes are needed to train spies. And *only* to train them!
This solution would be intuitive and fits the existing CiV mechanic.
7. Promotions and upgrade path
Of course, spies should have their own promotions. As I feel that spies naturally fall into a scout upgrade path, they could be based on the scout promotions (but not be limited to them). So, survivalism and scouting as well as movement enhancements are obvious for spies. As for upgrading itself, I've absolutely *no* idea how to name more advanced (or older) spies. A spy is called a spy, no matter of era. Ideas?
(Maybe spies could enhance automatically when entering a new area? But this is *not* according CiV design...)
7a. Fighting promotions according cultural borders
As spies fight each other, some combat related promotions come into the mind, too. But in contrast to other fighting units, the battleground is not so relevant. Instead of that, social skills and an established network of informants are needed. To represent this, two different upgrade paths should be established:
- fighting bonus inside the own cultural boarders
- fighting bonus in foreign cultural boarders
With this, spies will be able to specialize into active spies or counteractive agents (is there any differencing in English language?)
7b. Special task promotions
As gathering information and doing sabotage in foreign cities will be a common task for spies, adequate promotions will be handy.
- Say, an unpromoted spy gathers 40% of the cities per turn science output. With the first science stealing promotion this will rise to 60%, with the second one to 80%.
- Analogical the industrial sabotage ability, but with less impact. Unpromoted: 10%, promoted 20% and 30% (maybe a little bit more after play testing.)
- cover ore dodging could lower the likeliness of being discovered when performing unit sabotage and bribing.
7c. Snipers
The idea of snipers is mentioned in many threads. I think, as a spy promotion it makes sense. Sniping will be available after completely finishing one of the two fighting branches.
Snipers can do 1 point of damage against combat units and therefore kill heavily damaged units behind the lines. But their main purpose is to kill Great Persons (Generals!) and maybe workers where they do 4-5 points of damage.
EXP points are gathered in the "normal way" by fighting other spies. Additionally, spies get experienced continuously when deployed to a task (not more than 1 EXP/turn).
8. Automatic Effects
During their normal work, spies might stumble over some useful information. If the spy is placed in an opponents capital, this automatic information gathering might reveal the leader's backstabbing plans (5% chance maximal). When deployed in an enemy city witch starts to build a wonder, information about it's finishing time might be transmitted (*maybe* only if the player is building this wonder himself, too).
9. Spy related wonders (world and national)
I did not think about concrete names for them as this is not my main interest. The Kremel should be a Spy wonder instead of it's actual effect. The CIA might be one, too.
As effects are thinkable:
- enlarging the sight distance of spies in the players realm by two tiles. (CIA?)
- granting a fighting bonus when in own territory. (?)
- granting a fighting bonus when in foreign territory. (Kremlin?)
Plenty of other wonders are thinkable, effecting movement, combat, EXP when built,...
10. The Great Spy
In Civ4, the Great Spy was sort of useless. It's only use was, that he could not be discovered. He could not do any spy missions at all!
In CiV, the Great Spy should be very usefull. As there will be *no* promotions, he should have better stats right from the beginning: Higher combat strength than normal spies and a special ability (randomly generated when born). For example a Great Science Spy will be able to steal 100% of a city's scientific output (more than any maximal promoted normal spy!) or a Great Saboteur Spy will drain 50% of a city's industrial output (instead of max. 30% normal). When sabotaging units, he will be discovered and killed less likely (maybe 1% per unit). But maybe a GS should be better at *all* fields equally...
His special improvement could be a Spy Headquarter, granting some (3?) extra SpyRes and making all enemy spies in 5 tiles distance visible. Spies build in the owning city could have 15 extra EXP, too.
I'm afraid my thoughts turned out to be a terrible wall of text and a hard one to read due to my bad English. I apologize for this but hope you like at least the skeched concept.
Please let my know, whether or not you could imagine having (and liking) spies like this in CiV. I think, I could make friends with them...
) you will be happy about their GP-points, as you don't have an overflow of citicen slots in your "normal" SpyRes buildings.
