I absolutely LOVE espionage!

I've seen a lot of "meh" reactions towards the espionage mechanics in GaK on the forum. I'd like to say that I, at least, love how it works.

TECH STEALING
I was a King player in Vanilla, and mostly won through outteching the AI. In GaK, the espionage helps the AI to remain competitive. In my current Prince game I was steamrolling my archrival Egipt with Ethiopia in the industrial era. I beelined to artillery to conquer one of his key cities. I did conquer it, and normally would have continued with the conquest until his bitter end. However, thanks to tech stealing, Ramesses was able to get ahead in the upper part of the tech tree and started producing WWI Infantry when I was still way behind with Mehal Sefaris. This forced me to sign a peace treaty. It's the first time for me in CivV that I am clearly winning but have to hold back and prepare because the AI has managed to get the upper hand in a key area.

RIGGING ELECTIONS AND COUPS
I've seen some people complain how spies destroy their diplomatic efforts with CSs. I, for one, enjoy it. Again, it helps the AI to remain competitive and diminishes the effect of bribing the CSs into alliances. It is annoying, but that's the point! I am no longer able to just get my way - I have to actively fight for CS support. With quests, money and spies. Love it!

SIMPLICITY
I've also seen complaints that espionage doesn't do much. Only one simple screen and just a couple options. For me, it's another plus. I hate micromanaging and getting bogged down in a million options. The espionage in GaK is minimalistic but pretty effective at what it is (in my opinion) set out to do: to help the AI remain competitive and to add more variety to the end game.

To sum up: it's like Ed Beach designed this XP specifically to fulfill my needs as a player.

Using the Espionage system further, I must say its been extremely helpful in getting me from 4th place in Literacy to 1st

Though some people just don't like that

I agree with you for the most part. I quite like the interface and the way the mechanics work. I just think that spies should have maybe one or two more abilities. Like, if you're way ahead in tech, there's nothing for your spies to do in enemy cities. Why not allow them to sabotage an enemy city in some way? That's my only complaint though. Overall, I quite like espionage.

The only problem with allowing you to sabotage enemy cities is that the AI would then be able to do the same to you, which could quickly get out of hand depending on exactly what kind of sabotage we're talking about.

sadsquid said:

I agree with you for the most part. I quite like the interface and the way the mechanics work. I just think that spies should have maybe one or two more abilities. Like, if you're way ahead in tech, there's nothing for your spies to do in enemy cities. Why not allow them to sabotage an enemy city in some way? That's my only complaint though. Overall, I quite like espionage.

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I don't know how easily spies get intrigue information but working withing existing systems I think if spies have nothing to steal they should get like a 100% success on intrigue gathering.

I've already said this, I like the system. It just needs a bit more meat on its bones

sadsquid said:

I agree with you for the most part. I quite like the interface and the way the mechanics work. I just think that spies should have maybe one or two more abilities. Like, if you're way ahead in tech, there's nothing for your spies to do in enemy cities. Why not allow them to sabotage an enemy city in some way? That's my only complaint though. Overall, I quite like espionage.

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Well, if you are way ahead in tech you are winning anyway and it is only fair that espionage is more helpful to the weaker civs. However, you can still play "the game of thrones" and fight for the favors of the CSs, or park your spies in your cities to prevent the opponents from stealing your techs and thus protecting your lead.

Or spy on enemy cities to find out which ones are worh conquering. Wich I've been doing in my Ethiopia game. Just won a Domination Victory.

I'm also in favor of the way espionage is handled in this game; it isn't a tool for the AI to pester your workers into rebuilding the same improvements (as it was in 4), and you can actually do something effective with it (unlike 3), yet you can't build foil probe teams which the AI has no idea how to handle (as in Alpha Centauri).

I would be leery of adding more options, especially any that allow you to directly damage a Civ, as then the AI would be capable of doing the same to a human, which will increase the annoyance factor of the game 100-fold and mean that you have to keep you spies at home instead of out doing espionage stuff anyway.

Where are G&K suggestion forums

Spies should be able to..

- Botch city production temporarily
- Decrease city growth temporarily
- Foil research (lose beakers)
- Spawn unrest barbarians
- Plant false counter-intel
- Masquerade as other civs
- Damage culture buildings
- Terrorism (any combination of above)

Agreed, Adjuvant. The more options the more strategies, as in Civ IV, and that's a good thing. I want to be able to sabotage AI improvements from halfway across the globe!

I've been struggling to re-adapt to Deity difficulty level since I've gotten G&K ....

On Deity -AIs have massive(MASSIVE) tech lead - spies are the only thing that helps me close the gap a bit ...

Morningcalm said:

Agreed, Adjuvant. The more options the more strategies, as in Civ IV, and that's a good thing. I want to be able to sabotage AI improvements from halfway across the globe!

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I want to dirty-bomb "runaway" Maria Theresa's coffee houses.

- Botch city production temporarily
- Decrease city growth temporarily
- Foil research (lose beakers)
- Spawn unrest barbarians
- Plant false counter-intel
- Masquerade as other civs
- Damage culture buildings
- Terrorism (any combination of above)

Click to expand...

Bolded things In this list I don't actually want.

Foil production has been a staple of Civ espionage games and would be consistent with the existing system as spies do report back wonders the AI has started.

Planting fake-intel and masquerading as another civ are interesting concepts, but how will it work in gameplay terms and who reasonable counter do AI/human players have to it?

dexters said:

Bolded things In this list I don't actually want.

Foil production has been a stable of Civ espionage games and would be consistent with the existing system as spies do report back wonders the AI has started.

Planting fake-intel and masquerading as another civ are interesting concepts, but how will it work in gameplay terms and who reasonable counter do AI/human players have to it?

Click to expand...

I don't understand your question. Do you mean how will we know otherwise if it appears "Gandhi's spy was caught messing with your stuff?". I imagine it'd be foiled on percentage chance of various success rates. If you have well-skilled counter intel or a lucky roll it may say "Monte's spy tried to make it look like Gandhi tried to mess with your stuff.". Else you may not know the difference and get really mad at someone else.

OR Monte may tell you Gandhi is forming to attack you, while he's on your other flank intending to attack, or foiled would simply say "Monte's trying to misdirect you".

etc.

And I understand sensitivity to civilian sabotage, but what's wrong with a spy spawning a hostile militia in your borders? Isn't that what "Arab Spring" is all about?

What about Stuxnet; completely foiling someone's opportunity at a national wonder until an allied civ who's already completed it, sells you some "pass" or "fix" to continue working on it?

"Gandhi's spy was caught messing with your stuff?". I imagine it'd be foiled on percentage chance of various success rates. If you have well-skilled counter intel or a lucky roll it may say "Monte's spy tried to make it look like Gandhi tried to mess with your stuff.". Else you may not know the difference and get really mad at someone else.

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Oh wow that is interesitng and could lead to some serious consequences. I can see it possibly being too extreme.

Right now we can rely on intel as being 100% correct, but when you have a system that makes you second guess the reports then espionage could be broken.

And that's really what I was asking. There should be a game system or a counter to something as significant as masquerading as another civ that could cause players and AI to potentially blame others for things they didn't do.

People will likely complain about diplomacy being broken again if the AI targeted the human players for this.

I like it conceptually just not sure how we can implement something like this and not need another layer of espionage systems to keep players from overreacting.

Other spies in their "discovery" or "establishment" routine could reveal such plots. Ultimately if you put yourself on a pedestal and don't try to befriend other civs, I guess you'd get what's coming to you in the form of mass-misdirection and an ulcer. hehe!

edit: make it a mod or push a DLC with "toggleable enhanced espionage". That way, people can choose to play with it.

and further: I have to second guess "shared espionage" or whatever anyway. In my game last night I had 2 civs tell me "Napoleon is plotting against you", and also "Napoleon is planning a surprise naval attack". I was 16 turns from steam with 20 coal so I built a dozen caravels, upgraded them all to ironclads, waited a bit, then pre-emptively decimated poor Napoleon. When he was about 2/3 dead I get from my own spy "Napoleon is planning an attack on Isabella... Austria and Mayans called me a warmongerer, but the rest didn't really care because they'd denounced Nap or were glad to see him dead as one of the 2 "top civs".

Can a spy destroy a specific building or poison the water hydraulic systems of a city ?

If not, I ask for these features to be added in the next patch if you agree.

There's three sides to this: Firstly, there do seem to be a bit too few options. There's only rigging elections for city states (and coups, but that has the same effect). There's only tech stealing for civs (and looking at the city which doesn't do enough). There should be 2-3 options, not more. And not too complex. I could think of "map the lands" (for civs on far away continents instead of exploring, or to see wether there is an invading army), "destroy wonder/nuke/spaceship production" (slow them down in wonder race or scientific victory) and that's it. We don't need too many. Maybe something against a cultural victory. But the simplicity is the key to success.

Secondly, there's the ressource argument. They are free at the moment making espionage very intransparent/luck-dependent and very hard to defend. Thirdly, there's the balance argument. Does Espionage help Tall or Wide civs at the moment? Peaceful Diplomats or Warmongers? And that's where the simplicity runs against the wall. There's no way at the moment for you to get better at espionage, the buildings are mostly defense and no social policy has an impact. There should be a way imho and it should be enhanced by the underpowered gameplay style (tall?) at the moment, no matter if that fits with history or not

Adjuvant said:

I have to second guess "shared espionage" or whatever anyway. In my game last night I had 2 civs tell me "Napoleon is plotting against you", and also "Napoleon is planning a surprise naval attack". I was 16 turns from steam with 20 coal so I built a dozen caravels, upgraded them all to ironclads, waited a bit, then pre-emptively decimated poor Napoleon. When he was about 2/3 dead I get from my own spy "Napoleon is planning an attack on Isabella... Austria and Mayans called me a warmongerer, but the rest didn't really care because they'd denounced Nap or were glad to see him dead as one of the 2 "top civs".

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I don't see that there's anything wrong there. You obviously have friends willing to share intel with you.

But the game still penalizes players for declaring wars and taking too many cities, especially city states and some AI will be more sensitive to it than others.

I don't see it being a problem if the AI called you a warmonger if you DoW on Napoleon based on the intel you have.

From the view of those AI civs, you are the agressor. They don't know/don't care you were told Nappy was about to attack you. The best course of action seems to be to wait for Napoleon to DoW then spring the trap.

dexters said:

Bolded things In this list I don't actually want.

Foil production has been a staple of Civ espionage games and would be consistent with the existing system as spies do report back wonders the AI has started.

Planting fake-intel and masquerading as another civ are interesting concepts, but how will it work in gameplay terms and who reasonable counter do AI/human players have to it?

Click to expand...

One problem with what you bolded is that those were all, except terrorism, were in past civilizations as spy abilities. Destroying buildings was in civ 3&4(I think) and posion water supply was a civ 3 thing.

Also fake intel wouldn't work with humans since real intel is turned off in multiplayer. As for single player. It could be your spy in Civ A's city plants intel that saying Civ B is plotting against them. when Civ A plants a spy in Civ B's city Civ A receives the fake intel instead of real intel