Do you think this "smartass" move is "cheating"?

[Leodim]

I'm guessing this has been done by plenty people before, I just did'n't think thought about it until now.
There is a civ far across the ocean that is scientificaly more advanced than me (mid-renaissance, I'm mid medieval, just beelined tech to cross ocean).
I just founded a new city near my capital in a spot not too problematic and gave it to them in the same turn and now intend to spam multiple great spy to it every turn, in order to get espionage points fast and steal every tech.
I think this will work "too well".
And also it really looks like the opposite of what it should do "RP-wise" (in cold war if either superpower where to give a small town near it's capital, it would probably be an opportunity to plant a spy base near the enemy's capital, not the other way around).
Do you feel that this is exploit or "good play"? I feel like leaning towards exploit.

Also I wonder why great spy aren't consumed when used to get espionage points in C2C. They were in BTS, right? In my mind they should give more points depending on the era (or cheapest researchable tech) BUT be consumed, so having a city near capital is not that big a difference (well maybe it would still help a bit but not game-breaking at all).

Thoughts?

 

[Somebody613]

intend to spam multiple great spy to it every turn

How? Even on the fastest speed you'd need several huge cities doing nothing but "focused spy training" for this to happen.
And if you mean "by using Worldbuilder" - then wouldn't it be smarter to outright give yourself those techs to begin with?
I'm fully confused here, lol.

 

[Leodim]

How? Even on the fastest speed you'd need several huge cities doing nothing but "focused spy training" for this to happen.
And if you mean "by using Worldbuilder" - then wouldn't it be smarter to outright give yourself those techs to begin with?
I'm fully confused here, lol.

Misunderstanding here. As I said it uses GREAT spies you might get (like great prophets etc.) to produce espionage points and they are NOT consumed (which, as I said, is a bit strange to me). So if you get let's say 5 (my case) great spies so far and only use them to spam espionage points in foreign city, you still have them 300 turns later.
Since the gifted town is reachable in 1 turn via roads from the capital, they all do their great mission every turn.
Is that clearer?

In my case it's a bonus 7500 espionage points each turn for free (and so still rolling 100% science, not affected). Nice bonus for medieval age, especially since stealing a tech cost quite less espionnage points than science points to research it (there is a page on bts on how to max spy cost reductions somewhere).
In my case it more than double my "tech discovery rate".

EDIT: Unless you're talking about the normal spies to actually do the steal-tech mission when you have enough points? Normal spies are trained very fast, so that is really not an issue. It occupies only one city less than half it's time, barely noticeable nation-wide.

 

[Nimek]

I think AI diplomacy needs love

When AI is offered a city it should calculate how much it will cost per turn and ehat benefits it brings so in case of small overseas city it should refuse even if it is a gift.

 

[Somebody613]

I think AI diplomacy needs love

When AI is offered a city it should calculate how much it will cost per turn and ehat benefits it brings so in case of small overseas city it should refuse even if it is a gift.

LOL!
I still fondly recall the game where I kept gifting an EMPTY city to a more advanced civ, then immediately RAIDING it for free tech points, then signing Cease Fire, rinse-repeat forever.
AI is stupid enough to agree to such manipulations almost without restrictions.
I just need to be careful to NOT sign a full out Peace Treaty, since it has a Cool Down Counter that a Cease Fire doesn't have.
Alternatively, it's easy to destabilize enemies by gifting them "border porn"-style cities so that they start annoying EACH OTHER because of such wonky city placement.
LOL, indeed.

 

[Somebody613]

Misunderstanding here. As I said it uses GREAT spies you might get (like great prophets etc.) to produce espionage points and they are NOT consumed (which, as I said, is a bit strange to me). So if you get let's say 5 (my case) great spies so far and only use them to spam espionage points in foreign city, you still have them 300 turns later.
Since the gifted town is reachable in 1 turn via roads from the capital, they all do their great mission every turn.
Is that clearer?

In my case it's a bonus 7500 espionage points each turn for free (and so still rolling 100% science, not affected). Nice bonus for medieval age, especially since stealing a tech cost quite less espionnage points than science points to research it (there is a page on bts on how to max spy cost reductions somewhere).
In my case it more than double my "tech discovery rate".

I kinda had the suspicion this IS what you meant, but it still depends on your Game Speed, because it takes HUNDREDS of turns for a single Great Person per city when on Eternity.
You'd definitely KEEP them rotating once you already gain them, but it'd still take you forever to GATHER enough points for them nonetheless.
And you almost can't speed that up per city, even if you can have a dozen of cities each producing a Great Person EVENTUALLY.
Yeah...

 

[Leodim]

I kinda had the suspicion this IS what you meant, but it still depends on your Game Speed, because it takes HUNDREDS of turns for a single Great Person per city when on Eternity.
You'd definitely KEEP them rotating once you already gain them, but it'd still take you forever to GATHER enough points for them nonetheless.
And you almost can't speed that up per city, even if you can have a dozen of cities each producing a Great Person EVENTUALLY.
Yeah...

I'm not sure I understand, you mean the great spy mission produces the same amount of espionnage on every speed (while tech cost/etc dont) ?
If so, that is an issue imho, it means the usefullness of this great mission (compared to other possibilities/great persons type) depends on game speed, which is not supposed to be.
I could test it but I'm a bit lazy.

Or you mean getting the great persons is long? Well not if you kept them since the beginning of the game like I did (when it rolled spies). Since they didn't consume on missions I just figured I was better off keeping them spaming missions. I already have them, nothing long here.
Also what do you mean "per city" and "rotate"? They can all go do their mission in the same target city every turn, even selected as a group.
Clearly we are not understanding each other

Anyway, in my game, it indeed works "too well" to feel balanced.

 

[Leodim]

I think AI diplomacy needs love

When AI is offered a city it should calculate how much it will cost per turn and ehat benefits it brings so in case of small overseas city it should refuse even if it is a gift.

I still fondly recall the game where I kept gifting an EMPTY city to a more advanced civ, then immediately RAIDING it for free tech points, then signing Cease Fire, rinse-repeat forever.
AI is stupid enough to agree to such manipulations almost without restrictions.

Yeah I guess that is only one of the abuses possible with giving cities to AI now that you guys mention it.
Although I do have tech getting when capturing a city turned off, ruining their eco and other stuff is still possible.

 

[Leodim]

I kinda had the suspicion this IS what you meant, but it still depends on your Game Speed, because it takes HUNDREDS of turns for a single Great Person per city when on Eternity.
You'd definitely KEEP them rotating once you already gain them, but it'd still take you forever to GATHER enough points for them nonetheless.
And you almost can't speed that up per city, even if you can have a dozen of cities each producing a Great Person EVENTUALLY.
Yeah...

2nd reply, sorry:
I was not so lazy after all: I tested it and on eternity it gives 15000 (x10) espionage per great spy. So in my case 75 000 espionage points per turn. Which seems to works very well when still at medieval age, just as in normal speed or whatever.
Now that I think about it, it works even better on eternity, since you get same % of a tech each turn (which would be logical if the great spy was consumed but it's not) while you research 1/10th % of a tech each turn. Works 10 times better in boosting your tech discovery rate!
So I still really don't understand your point.

 

[Somebody613]

@Leodim
My point is simple:
It's really hard to roll for a Great Spy in the first place (didn't check, but doubt you'd be getting any in Prehistory altogether).
Add to that how many turns (hundreds) it takes per GP in general, and unless you are several THOUSAND turns into the game (and still Medieval, ugh), you won't have birthed enough GPs.
So, yeah, when you finally get the Great Spy to born - you can keep it forever.
But to GET enough of them is such a huge chore that I can't see how you managed to do it.
Unless, again, you are many thousands of turns into the game already.
I play my games way faster, though.

 

[Joij21]

Alternatively, it's easy to destabilize enemies by gifting them "border porn"-style cities so that they start annoying EACH OTHER because of such wonky city placement.

This is actually one of my favorite moves in Civ4 in general.

Divide and conquer!!!

 

[Leodim]

@Leodim
My point is simple:
It's really hard to roll for a Great Spy in the first place (didn't check, but doubt you'd be getting any in Prehistory altogether).
Add to that how many turns (hundreds) it takes per GP in general, and unless you are several THOUSAND turns into the game (and still Medieval, ugh), you won't have birthed enough GPs.
So, yeah, when you finally get the Great Spy to born - you can keep it forever.
But to GET enough of them is such a huge chore that I can't see how you managed to do it.
Unless, again, you are many thousands of turns into the game already.
I play my games way faster, though.

Spoiler Pointless part: :

EDIT : I apologize if this spoiler part is said in a somehow harsh way, not my intention. I think it's not

What can I say? We might not be playing the same mod then

If you use spies as specialist just with the free slots and in cities where you can (just priority 1 in terms of which specialist), you get.. about 18% of rolling spies in my era. Also, just tested with a reload just before born and end turn for a fresh one, I still have about 14% without spy specialists at all in cities.
Reloaded old point in the game to check: my first GP was in 11000 BC and already had 55% of being a spy and 45% artist (and I didnt roll a spy for that one actually ). It seemed to decrease over time.
So actually it was more likely to roll in earlier era, for me.
Right now I have a new GP born every 150 years, year is 100AD.
Difficulty is nightmare but I don't think it plays much role in GP generation anyway.
What you describe is not what I'm playing, I already had about 12 GP (from memory, my best guess) born since game start and I'm in medieval era.
Play speed is normal, but both years/science and GP points needed are multiplied the same way, I suppose you would have had about 12 GP born at this era too playing on eternity, playing the same way. You seem to claim gamespeed plays a huge role, I just don't see it as a major factor on GP born per era (if any).
Out of those 12 (approx), 5 were great spies. I would say that was slightly more than average with my 18% quickly down from 55% chances it seems, which is "lucky" if you like them, but not incredibly lucky too.
But honestly 3 GSpies would have done a decent enough job when spamming mission every turn. Just not as fast to catch up (but quite fast still).

Never focused on GP, just used buildings and specialists when seemed decent.

I did my best to describe my game in that regard here. Never felt I did something special, except maybe liking spy specialist more than other specialists when free and available, since I knew I wasn't ahead in tech.
What you describe is just not the experience I had playing the mod. We could argue for hours getting nowhere, we must play differently, who knows?

Back to the main question: my son (10y) says I should do it, but I still feel like I'm scamming the game And I think I'll reload to that point (wasnt long ago).

Having a gifted bulls*** town near MY capital shouldn't increase the GSpy value by so much: it is exactly multiplied by the number of turns to get to any of it's real overocean city actually (versus every turn with the bulls*** gift city).

I might mod the game localy so either:
- GSpy is consumed but gives a lot more points depending on era/techs. So location of use doesn't affect much since it is a one-time thing each GP.
- GSpy is not consumed but points given depends on distance between where you use it and the civ's capital. The more you use it near its capital, the better.
- Or maybe just depending on the city size vs target civ's largest city size. That would make sense RP-wise, usefull spying wasn't done in smallest villages I guess, even though I'm not one to care much about RP-fidelity (not as much as balance at least).
In both case, bulls*** gifting town is not much use (or at least have big pro/cons).

If anyone has thoughts on what is best to mod/modmod (pretty sure I can do any of those quickly), always appreciate.
And if I should PullRequest it or not.

 

[Somebody613]

Ah, well, I always start by focusing on Prophets to get early religion, and then on Artists for culture (that's on Eternity, whereas on Ultrafast I don't "specialize" at all).
And I always build pretty much ALL available Wonders, which is why Spies quickly become much less relevant, unless I focus on them (which I never do).
I also play Culture Conquest with neighbors and Neanderthal Conquest with those who are farther - but I never tried Espionage Conquest the way you described it.
Maybe I should actually try it, though - it sounds quite FUN, lol.
So, yes, we ARE playing the same mod extremely differently, lol.

Here, take a look at the latest example, lol:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ible-by-pit2015.552901/page-173#post-16462522
And yes, that's a genuine NO-cheating game, I mean it.

 

[Leodim]

Ah, well, I always start by focusing on Prophets to get early religion, and then on Artists for culture (that's on Eternity, whereas on Ultrafast I don't "specialize" at all).
And I always build pretty much ALL available Wonders, which is why Spies quickly become much less relevant, unless I focus on them (which I never do).
I also play Culture Conquest with neighbors and Neanderthal Conquest with those who are farther - but I never tried Espionage Conquest the way you described it.
Maybe I should actually try it, though - it sounds quite FUN, lol.
So, yes, we ARE playing the same mod extremely differently, lol.

Here, take a look at the latest example, lol:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ible-by-pit2015.552901/page-173#post-16462522
And yes, that's a genuine NO-cheating game, I mean it.

That seems pretty nice!

 

[Leodim]

I just modded corresponding to "GSpy is not consumed but points given depends on distance between where you use it and the civ's capital. The more you use it near its capital, the better."
That might not be the best of the 3 approach mentionned, but it seemed the quickest to do and was lazy (again!).

I used : +50% from original base value (since now it has a diminishing factor)
formula is: 0.25 + 0.75 / std::max(1.0, ((double)iDistance) * 0.2); //each 5 dist from target capital

In my example, using bulls*** town, I get a 32% coeff which gives 732 points instead of 1500. Still quite better than travelling accross the ocean so I might tune numbers a bit right now.
I'm ok with it being better than traveling, since you have to create town and possibly diplo repercussion when getting it back/razed. But I feel 32% is still too high nonetheless.

While I was at it, I added it to tooltip (see screen attached) and debugged them since in my game value was not showing at all in tooltips.

EDIT : tweaked formula to 0.2 + 0.8 / std::max(1.0, ((double)iDistance - 3.0) * 0.4);
Since we don't want it to decrease too fast away, 3 tiles at 100% (not likely to be a city so close anyway) feels ok.
This gives in my example 24%. Which is still better than travelling for like 8 turns (approx) but the "scam" is 4 times less effective (not counting reperscussions). Which I think is ok balance-wise.
I tested it on some WB sandbox games for values vs distances, felt decent.

 

[Leodim]

I still feel I should add some bonus/minus depending on era/tech you are at too for this mission.
Right now this value means a lot more tech steals in earlier era (too high atm I think) than later era (incredibly low I guess, even though I haven't been there yet); because of the highly increasing tech costs.
Maybe something like 0.50 * 1.4^(#era)? Meaning compared to now, from prehistoric = 50% (see image).
Most likely I should look at tech increasing cost formula and base it on it more or less. Actually less since you can "store" more and more Great Spies.
Or maybe the increase in great spies you get and can keep is enough to keep them a bit relevant? I really don't suppose so but... Still thinking

 

[Nimek]

I mentioned it on bugs thread but here it fits too.

Why i cannot enter enemy territory with great spy during wartime??? Doesn't have any sense for me since he supposed to be kind of super spy right?

 

[Leodim]

I mentioned it on bugs thread but here it fits too.

Why i cannot enter enemy territory with great spy during wartime??? Doesn't have any sense for me since he supposed to be kind of super spy right?

I tested it on a sandbox game and while normal spies can do whatever, it seems that in my version GSpies can enter border but not enemy cities when at war.
While at peace it doesn't even need open borders to enter cities.
I suppose this is a bug you are right (or at least I see no reason why).

EDIT : I'll look at it, but never get into that kind of things, will keep you posted if I manage to change that.

 

[Leodim]

I mentioned it on bugs thread but here it fits too.

Why i cannot enter enemy territory with great spy during wartime??? Doesn't have any sense for me since he supposed to be kind of super spy right?

Quickest workaround "not too ugly" I found:
Open U_Land_CIV4UnitInfos.xml
Find <Type>UNIT_GREAT_SPY</Type>
add <bBlendIntoCity>1</bBlendIntoCity> somewhere ok to that unit (like the line after <bRivalTerritory>1</bRivalTerritory>)
Save and relaunch the game.
Now it can enter enemy cities while at war. See notes below for detail.

I advise NOT to recompute building values when asked at game reload. You changed nothing in that regard and this feature has some bugs.

Notes:
- I tried setting the GSpy as a spy but it gave him the ability to do spy missions and other issues
- This is actually using the same thing as a criminal to enter city I think. There might be some "count" limit inside a city looking at the code (didnt spend time digging what this was actually checking) but unless special cases it seems to work fine.
- This will not give the ability for the GSpy to use enemy roads (which is a levelable spy promotion), but I guess it's fine, no?
- A cleaner way would be to add another new tag "bRivalCity" or something but the instructions for you would be quite longer (and would require to recompile DLL). Unless such a tag already exists but in that case my quick look missed it

EDIT : Nobody cares but I changed my distance coeff function and it feels even better!

 

[Leodim]

@Nimek Did you try that?