The "KISS" Espionage System - Draft 1.1

[Stalker0]

With a number of espionage systems that we have considered, one area that has been ignored.....what if we returned to a much simplier system ala vanilla Civ 5? We made huge sweeping changes to the espionage system....but was that actually what people wanted? Perhaps a much simplier more fire and forget type system is more in line with the community's desire.

So to debate that, I have created a draft of a "keep it simple stupid" espionage system.

The KISS Espionage System
Number of Spies: Unchanged
CS Rigging/Coup: Unchanged

Spy Travel Time: 2 turns to foreign city, 1 turn to own cities.
Spy Setup Time: 3 turns, -1 if you are popular+ with the civ.

The Mission: Steal Tech
When a spy settles into a city, it provides surveillance. In addition, it accrues "Spy Points" (see below). The points remain even if all spies leave the civ. Once the threshold is hit for a civ, a tech steal occurs and the points reset to 0.

• If a counterspy is present in capital: Spy is killed (but mission completes).
• Otherwise, Spy is identified and returned to HQ
• If no tech is available for steal, no further spy points accrue. When a tech becomes available, the tech steal occurs and points begin to accrue again.

Spy Points
Spies produce spy points on a civ basis. Ultimately a tech steal can only happen in the capital itself, but spies in other cities can support the effort.

• Spy in Capital: Generates 3/4/5 points for level 1/2/3 respectively.
• Spy in Other city: Generates 1/2/3 points for level 1/2/3 respectively.
• If there is no spy in capital, points still accrue, but no tech steal occurs until a spy sets up in the capital.

Spy Point Threshold and Security
At base, it takes 60 spy points to steal a tech, modified by security.

Security is now a CIV WIDE value, adding the bonuses from all of a civ's cities. The security value is the % increase in how many points are needed to steal a tech. Example: A security of 100 is 100% more points, or 120 in this case.

Security Modifiers (no lower than 0).

• +100 (before renaissance)
• -5 per city*
• -5 per unhappy city* (stacks with per city bonus)
• -5 per puppet city* (stacks with per city bonus)
• +10 per constabulary*
• +10 per police station*
• +10 per military base*
• +5/15/30 per level 1/2/3 counterspy in a city.
• +30 for every tech you have stolen from that civ.

*Values are scaled on map size.

Intrigue
You will receive intrigue on a civ every 20 spy points accrued, also modified by security.

Spy Roles, XP, and Death

• Standard Spy: +1 XP per turn settled in city.
• CS Spy: +1 XP per turn settled in CS.
• Diplomat: +3 XP per turn settled in capital
  • Otherwise unchanged.
• Counterspy: +3 XP per turn settled in city.
• XP levels: 50/100 for rank 2 and 3.

Death: When a spy dies, a new base level spy appears 5 turns later.

Spy Beliefs/Policies/Civs
General Updates (Civs/Policies/Buildings)

• Constabulary: +10 security (replaces spy mission duration modifier)
• Police Station: +10 security (replaces spy mission duration modifier)
• Covert Action: -1 setup time for all spies/diplomats (replaces spy mission duration reduced by 2 for spies). Spies can travel to any city in 1 turn. (CS bonuses unchanged)
• Double Agents: Counterspy security bonus is doubled (replaces spies are twice as likely to capture spies). Counterspies and spies in CS have 0 setup time (replaces spy mission duration reduced by 1, increased by 1 in foreign cities).
• Shadow Networks: -2 turns to Spy recruitment when a spy is killed. (replaces -1 spy mission duration).
• Police State: Removes the security penalty for cities and unhappy cities (replace +2 spy mission duration)
• National Intelligence Agency: -1 turn to Spy recruitment when a spy is killed. (replace 15% spy resistance, spy mission adjustments).
• Foreign Service: remove spy mission duration adjustment.
• Bletchley Park: Research labs generate +5 security (replaces spy resistance and spy mission duration modifiers).
• England: +5 security in all cities, spies start with a free rank, starts with a spy (replaces spy resistances, +10% stronger spies).
• White Tower: unchanged
• Empiricism: +20% to total security (replaces 34% spy resistance).

Version 1.1 Changelog

• Added security value for pre-reniassance (to ensure England is managed)
• Spy Beliefs/Policies/Civs section filled out.

 

[Stalker0]

so the idea is a back to basics. Like in vanilla, spies are here to steal tech and give surveillance, period. You want to get crazy with your spies, go send them on coups, otherwise they settle in cities and steal tech, its just what they do.

Security no longer shifts continuously, but has a few core baseline values, and then has a little bit of shift due to unhappiness. The biggest change here is the global nature of security. This ensures that every security building you make has an impact, you need police stations in the capital and in the backwoods if you want to minimize your security risks.

Counterspies are back to basics as well. They kill spies in the capital when they complete the mission....boom. They accrue 3x the xp, so its a great training ground for your new spies, but eventually you may want to send them elsewhere and train up a fresh recruit.

Diplomats also gain the 3x xp, making them a useful alternative to tech stealing in the form of training.


Another big change here is that the cities you choose no longer has a big impact on the spy game. You need a spy in the capital to do real work, but otherwise pick a city you want surveillance about. You know longer need to measure security vs yields vs xyz to make the decision....just pick the city you want info about, plop down the spy, and start getting points..... its that simple.

 

[AndreyK]

I would prefer existing spy system but with some adjustements, like in my current game seems that counterspy didn't work and security provided by him seems low. Also, I would like specialists kidnap work better, because now you kidnap them only from one city, those that you kidnap from other cities add only to duration of timer, but I would much prefer have separate timers for separate kidnap missions.

 

[CppMaster]

so the idea is a back to basics. Like in vanilla, spies are here to steal tech and give surveillance, period. You want to get crazy with your spies, go send them on coups, otherwise they settle in cities and steal tech, its just what they do.

Security no longer shifts continuously, but has a few core baseline values, and then has a little bit of shift due to unhappiness. The biggest change here is the global nature of security. This ensures that every security building you make has an impact, you need police stations in the capital and in the backwoods if you want to minimize your security risks.

Counterspies are back to basics as well. They kill spies in the capital when they complete the mission....boom. They accrue 3x the xp, so its a great training ground for your new spies, but eventually you may want to send them elsewhere and train up a fresh recruit.

Diplomats also gain the 3x xp, making them a useful alternative to tech stealing in the form of training.


Another big change here is that the cities you choose no longer has a big impact on the spy game. You need a spy in the capital to do real work, but otherwise pick a city you want surveillance about. You know longer need to measure security vs yields vs xyz to make the decision....just pick the city you want info about, plop down the spy, and start getting points..... its that simple.

I love the simplicity of that! It would be great if you could choose the simpler or the complex spy system in the advanced settings, but it may be costly to keep and balance both systems.

 

[Arthur Jama]

Shouldn't we add another variable to the security modifier based on tech level difference to help civs that are way behind?

 

[Rosete]

I really like this. If you're behind, pop spy in enemy city and try to catch up. If you're ahead, pop spy in your city to not get mugged. Dead simple.

Given that, tech stealing is still a very powerful effect, and 60pts I think is too low. I don't want to rebase a spy every 30 turns. I think 200 is more appropriate.

 

[stii]

This sounds a lot better than the current system. Not sure how good it is but I hate the current system.

 

[Stalker0]

version 1.1 is ready

 

[Gazebo]

I mean, I'm sad to see my efforts at novelty go, but the reality is that the tools we have (and the UI) to work with for spies in CiV is just...not great. Its ultimately just a system that is either too complex and important or too bland and too unimportant. Hard to find happiness in the reeds of such a weird, tacked-on system like espionage.

 

[Stalker0]

I mean, I'm sad to see my efforts at novelty go, but the reality is that the tools we have (and the UI) to work with for spies in CiV is just...not great. Its ultimately just a system that is either too complex and important or too bland and too unimportant. Hard to find happiness in the reeds of such a weird, tacked-on system like espionage.

If your endorsing a return to the simplier systems I'll take the endorsement, but in case you missed them there are several other threads workshopping various versions of the mission based espionage system as well. We simply don't know what the community really wants right now, so will likely propose several flavors and see which the community goes for. @Gazebo

So I wouldn't call your efforts dead yet, though I think there is general agreement we need to push things in some direction, the current status of the system isn't sitting right with a lot of people

 

[Solic]

I actually like a more complex system, but I can see why you would prefer something like this. The only thing that has bad mouthfeel to me is spies idling doing nothing when they cannot steal a technology. It means tech leaders just don't have an effective use for spying against other civs. They can only hurt them indirectly through spying whatever city states they are allied in. Another thing is that there is an incentive to just follow a weird tech path that others would not follow, just so you could steal one of their technologies. Admittedly, there is already such a similar incentive through tech trading, but this makes that worse.

I'd propose to change this point

• If no tech is available for steal, no further spy points accrue. When a tech becomes available, the tech steal occurs and points begin to accrue again.

to

• If no tech is available for steal, you gain 50% of the science necessary for their highest costing technology. Points reset to zero.

 

[Gazebo]

If your endorsing a return to the simplier systems I'll take the endorsement, but in case you missed them there are several other threads workshopping various versions of the mission based espionage system as well. We simply don't know what the community really wants right now, so will likely propose several flavors and see which the community goes for. @Gazebo

So I wouldn't call your efforts dead yet, though I think there is general agreement we need to push things in some direction, the current status of the system isn't sitting right with a lot of people

My statement was simply to acknowledge that the system is wonky no matter how you slice it, and if the community feels like we've hit a wall, best to go back to basics.

 

[Slyceth]

I still maintain my hard stance.

The current system is fine, but anything over 50% should always succeed, and anything under 50% should fail, but its % will be added to the next coup attempt.

So if you have a city state with a 25% chance of succeeding, and another with a 35% chance of succeeding, you can strategize and fail to coup one, then succeed to coup the other.

It is the only system that eliminates RNG, which is the big problem with couping considering you can fail 5 80% chances in a row while the ai can succeed 5 20% chances in a row. This not fun nor fair.

And please don't go back to stealing techs as a system, sabotaging is great.

 

[CppMaster]

It is the only system that eliminates RNG, which is the big problem with couping considering you can fail 5 80% chances in a row while the ai can succeed 5 20% chances in a row. This not fun nor fair.

I know it's an extreme example, but the chance of that is 0.00001024%

 

[Dimmy]

As far as 3.6.x 's spy system goes, I like it and don't see the need of overhaul changes. Just polishing is needed.

 

[Little Billy]

Imo the biggest problem with spies is and always has been that there is no real effective way to fight them. For most of the game, the hardest you can commit to stopping spies in the capital is to build your constabulary and get a level 3 spy there. Constabularies are not good at their job (1 extra turn to get a bunch of yields? That's supposed to deter people?) and you can get stretches where your counterspy fails to kill anybody. In my current game I have killed 1 spy out of about 7 attempts. Telling people not to spy on you does nothing. What more is there that can be done?

Before the change to stealing income rather than a lump sum, at least you could mitigate the effect by having a huge income but never any money on hand, which was also bad, especially for strategies that rely on instant yields.

In a multiplayer game I'd say the solution is that when the spy attempts to steal, if you can guess who it is, the spy dies and the mission fails. I would assume this does not work for the AI though

 

[azum4roll]

As far as 3.6.x 's spy system goes, I like it and don't see the need of overhaul changes. Just polishing is needed.

No amount of polishing the current system can make tactical missions useful. You can blockade this city 24 turns later? What a joke.

 

[Stalker0]

So looking at the main areas of polish needed to get this ready for congress

• the wide security problem. Right now if a wide civ gets a lot of security buildings they actually get a very high security value. That needs a look.
• What scaling value to use for game speed/map size?
• What should be the base amount of spy points for a tech steal?
• Should it be a tech steal or just some number of science? Should the science depend on the tech difference between the two civs?

 

[Arthur Jama]

I would love to see this proposal in the Congress. Here are some thoughts:

- the wide security problem. Right now if a wide civ gets a lot of security buildings they actually get a very high security value. That needs a look.

I think it should be the other way around, having many cities and population (to a lesser degree) should make your security rating lower. This should make thriving civs easier to keep catch up with.

- What scaling value to use for game speed/map size?

Not sure where to start, maybe playtest and adjust.

-What should be the base amount of spy points for a tech steal?

A starting point could be for it to be enough for one tech steal per era when focusing all your spies on one civ. Assuming target is a couple of techs ahead and no counterspy.

- Should it be a tech steal or just some number of science? Should the science depend on the tech difference between the two civs?

This makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but the actual tech steal would feel more natural.

Maybe add a security modifier of -2 per tech difference to make it easier for lagging civs.