Spy rework suggestions here -->

Seems interesting. I find a lot of the event systems are quite interesting and offers good randomization (when it's not the somewhat to common "1-3 of your farms are destroyed" event).

A suggestion might be just as you can build diplomat units and missionaries etc perhaps a "spy"-unit that you can build (it could also use papers, sort of like your "fake identity" to boost the numbers or trigger espionage events?
So they sort of "spread espionage points" when consumed just like a diplomat or missionary. Perhaps then also a spy-hunter (inquisitor) to purge (or try to) purge spies from a city. I'm not suggesting these replace the normal espionage but as a compliment.
 
The pushback I am getting on troop movement micro in another thread makes me wonder if people would really appreciate spies constantly prompting you to select missions for them? People are acting like I killed their mother over there, and here we are talking about implementing an entirely new events-driven mechanic where there is currently almost zero input from the player.

A big difference between multiple clicks every single turn, and a mission I might activate once every 15-20 turns. That is the genius of the Civ 5 trade unit mechanic, I found it was the perfect blend of user interactivity and behind the scenes don't worry about me mechanic. I think something with the spy that is the same, every so often I do a bunch of spy actions and then I don't think about it again for a good while....is reasonable.
 
A big difference between multiple clicks every single turn, and a mission I might activate once every 15-20 turns. That is the genius of the Civ 5 trade unit mechanic, I found it was the perfect blend of user interactivity and behind the scenes don't worry about me mechanic. I think something with the spy that is the same, every so often I do a bunch of spy actions and then I don't think about it again for a good while....is reasonable.

That's the plan. With the change, Spy Actions will happen when you cross the threshold with a spy while it is doing surveillance. So spies that are actively stealing Great Works or Techs will work like they do now (though I've refactored the code...again...trying to make it more transparent and static).

The flow will work like this:

Spy-> move to major enemy city-> pick diplo/spy for Capital; spy/thief for non-capital; if tech/GW are possible, thieves/spies work on that until complete; if not, thieves/spies are in 'surveillance' and will tick up x spy power per turn; at threshold, a spy event will occur.

There will still be chances for death as before, but it'll all be tied to player choice (i.e. you'll know exactly your chance with each action).

Minors will work the same way as before.

G
 
if not, thieves/spies are in 'surveillance' and will tick up x spy power per turn; at threshold, a spy event will occur.

So as I far as I understand it, the only time a spy is not stealing is when there are no techs to steal, and a thief when no great works to take. So is that the only time that the spy power ticks up, or is there something else that would trigger "surveillance?"
 
I hope you can integrate some of the suggested advanced actions after you are done with the tests. It spices up things.

the sky is the limit really. Just look at the city events table. I also added an option to trigger a player level event choice so you can do yields to the spy owner, etc. like I said this really opens things up.
 
So as I far as I understand it, the only time a spy is not stealing is when there are no techs to steal, and a thief when no great works to take. So is that the only time that the spy power ticks up, or is there something else that would trigger "surveillance?"

it only ticks up when you are not stealing techs/works. Gives those spies a role.
 
it only ticks up when you are not stealing techs/works. Gives those spies a role.

But I am confused about when that actually happens. Are you talking about spies that just hang out in your hideout? When is a spy in an enemy city not stealing tech?
 
So you can only do various spy actions against a civ that you have a tech lead against, or have already stolen all their GWs in that city?

kind of a punching down mechanic then, no? Right now if you eclipse another civ in tech you have an incentive to move to another civ and stop bothering them. If you only get to do spy actions if you can’t steal tech then this is only a mechanic to kick civs while they’re already behind.
 
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I think stealing a tech and levelling up or failing and dying is too big of a swing either way.
I'd suggest either stealing some percent of a random tech (50?), some significant amount of science or spies in their capital giving a 10% (Scaling with Level?) research cost reduction for all techs known by that civ .

Also something from Civ 4 that was cool was being able to see what a civ is researching when you were spying on them. And I liked seeing when civs were in a golden age also but that's not so important.
 
So you can only do various spy actions against a civ that you have a tech lead against, or have already stolen all their GWs in that city?

kind of a punching down mechanic then, no? Right now if you eclipse another civ in tech you have an incentive to move to another civ and stop bothering them. If you only get to do spy actions if you can’t steal tech then this is only a mechanic to kick civs while they’re already behind.

Sorry I wasn't clear (I'm writing this as I'm developing the mechanics, hitting a moving target). I'm not removing the tech steal mechanic (for CP purposes), but I'm setting it aside in favor of events being the 'endcaps' of a spy gathering intel in a city.

G
 
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Alright, so here's the current status. This status is the roughly-implemented version:

Tech stealing and heists are gone. Gone!!
When you assign a spy to a foreign major city, it takes a few turns to establish. Once in, you get an event popup with a choice of focus for that spy cell:
EVENT_CLASS_ECONOMIC
EVENT_CLASS_SCIENTIFIC
EVENT_CLASS_MILITARY
EVENT_CLASS_URBAN

There will be multiple events in each category (community: more events will be possible and encouraged!). There's also the option to not select a category, or to leave an event 'unassigned' so it can fire for any of them.
Every turn, you get spy power from your spy, which has to tick up to a threshold. Once there, an event from the specific pool fires and you get an outcome.

When outcome is over, the spy is booted out of the city and returns home, and the city's 'potential' decreases (makes it harder to hit the same city over and over).

And that's it! It's all pretty clear. The UI is WIP, and the events are outlined but not written. But the core is in place.

At this point, I need at least three events per 'theme' above to get started. Any ideas would be appreciated. :)


G
 
Alright, so here's the current status. This status is the roughly-implemented version:

Tech stealing and heists are gone. Gone!!
When you assign a spy to a foreign major city, it takes a few turns to establish. Once in, you get an event popup with a choice of focus for that spy cell:
EVENT_CLASS_ECONOMIC
EVENT_CLASS_SCIENTIFIC
EVENT_CLASS_MILITARY
EVENT_CLASS_URBAN

There will be multiple events in each category (community: more events will be possible and encouraged!). There's also the option to not select a category, or to leave an event 'unassigned' so it can fire for any of them.
Every turn, you get spy power from your spy, which has to tick up to a threshold. Once there, an event from the specific pool fires and you get an outcome.

When outcome is over, the spy is booted out of the city and returns home, and the city's 'potential' decreases (makes it harder to hit the same city over and over).

And that's it! It's all pretty clear. The UI is WIP, and the events are outlined but not written. But the core is in place.

At this point, I need at least three events per 'theme' above to get started. Any ideas would be appreciated. :)


G

I like the idea of focuses and how you set up everything. I am personally not as much of a fan of getting a random event once the spy ticks up. The spy system is already variable enough, now I may go 60 turns and never get a tech steal if the dice gods frown on me. I would rather that the first popup has a list of missions, you select the one you want, and it goes to work.
 
It could be interesting that a specialised spy gets some benefit per turn, in exchange for the reduced options.
For example, if it specialises on science, then only science related actions will appear, reducing our options, but it could gain a percentage of the science yield of the city. A generalist spy will have all the actions available, but no extra bonus.

Could you add an option to postpone the decision? Something like "let me decide tomorrow!". Let's say that one of the effects is adding a blockade status to the city, or kill a garrison unit, then I would prefer to decide exactly when I want the event happening.

Also, it would be interesting that the available actions changed dinamically depending on some factors. For example, if the target city has very low science, learning science and hiring a scientist / engineer might not be available.

I suppose that cities will increase their 'spy alert' every time a covert action is made there, and that it will be reduced in time, so maybe we can use it a couple of times per era. If this 'spy alert' is a propriety of the city, then it is possible to prevent multiple spy attacks from different players to the same city. Then, only the first spies will harvest easy benefits. When the spy alert becomes too high, it could be necessary to reassign the current spies to other targets. Spy alertness should be visible at any time, then.
 
I'm thinking of "spy points" like GPP/GAP - each successful spy action (regardless of spy owner) increases the spy points required for the next action, while spy points per turn depends on the city's "potential" (use the current metric) AND the spy's level (and policies/beliefs/buildings can increase that).
 
How the event system would affect spy defense? Counter espionage is very frustrating at the moment even with level 3 spies and this is my main issue with espionage right now. If you choose to go full defense with all your spies, you should at least be able to prevent most of spy actions. Maybe each additional spy dedicated to counter espionage should increase overall probability of catching enemy spies.
 
one could get inspiration for events here https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Intelligence_agency
And I mean inspiration how to name, title events and show progress:

Like: Research center succesfully infiltrated -> Resarch codes decrypted -> Research blueprints stolen -> 10% research cost reduction for Astronomy

If I understood the question for events correctly
 
At this point, I need at least three events per 'theme' above to get started. Any ideas would be appreciated.
I think others will have better ideas than I, but I just want to mention that I love Tu's idea about making the target city weaker (militarily) from a blockade or something.
 
Alright, so here's the current status. This status is the roughly-implemented version:

Tech stealing and heists are gone. Gone!!
When you assign a spy to a foreign major city, it takes a few turns to establish. Once in, you get an event popup with a choice of focus for that spy cell:
EVENT_CLASS_ECONOMIC
EVENT_CLASS_SCIENTIFIC
EVENT_CLASS_MILITARY
EVENT_CLASS_URBAN

There will be multiple events in each category (community: more events will be possible and encouraged!). There's also the option to not select a category, or to leave an event 'unassigned' so it can fire for any of them.
Every turn, you get spy power from your spy, which has to tick up to a threshold. Once there, an event from the specific pool fires and you get an outcome.

When outcome is over, the spy is booted out of the city and returns home, and the city's 'potential' decreases (makes it harder to hit the same city over and over).

And that's it! It's all pretty clear. The UI is WIP, and the events are outlined but not written. But the core is in place.

At this point, I need at least three events per 'theme' above to get started. Any ideas would be appreciated. :)


G


Very interesting. I would also suggest that missions should be era specific. That way you would get a nice variety throughout the game.
 
I'm thinking of "spy points" like GPP/GAP - each successful spy action (regardless of spy owner) increases the spy points required for the next action, while spy points per turn depends on the city's "potential" (use the current metric) AND the spy's level (and policies/beliefs/buildings can increase that).

that info will be stored per city. So, every time a spy from a specific civ hits a city, that city will 'harden' to that civ's spies.

G
 
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