How Espionage could be expanded

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Bisqit

Warlord
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May 12, 2012
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I really like the new espionage system. Stealing tech and the intrigue system is awesome. I would say it is the most useful espionage system that has ever been brought into a Civ game. I really like it but i feel it could easily be expanded upon in a number of ways:

1. Causing unhappiness
2. Stealing a lump sum or gold per turn from other nations
3. Destroying nearby improvements. You could station a spy in a city and then use them to destroy the nearby city improvements
4. Destroy buildings

Most of these could easily be used in Civilization 5 and it would really open up more options for your spys. Intrigue is the most useful as well as city-state election rigging but it could be expanded upon a lot in my opinion.
 
Plant misinformation. Attempts to convince one AI Civ that another Civ (which you choose) is plotting against them. Success leads to a large, negative diplomatic modifier between those civs, while failure causes you to take a diplomatic hit with both empires.

Also, when you catch an enemy spy while running counterintelligence, I'd love to see it give you the option of passing bad info instead of simply killing the spy. At which point instead of gaining the chosen technology, the other civ takes a research penalty equal to the boost a GS would give them.
 
Bisqit, for the most part those are terrible ideas. With all the fuzz about other civs making successful coups constantly and undermining you relationship with CSs, do you really want this? Constant notifications about gold being stolen, production being destroyed, buildings I spent a dozen turns getting blown up, no thank you. Not unless there is some kind of a trade-off for the other civ (like in CIV you had invest money into espionage), otherwise it will quickly get out of hand.

I think Firaxis need to focus on the intrigue side of things, something along the lines of what Harv722b said - lies, deception and misinformation. Water poisoing, sabotage and tile improvement destruction would be interesting, but they would also need some kind of a considerable investment, otherwise it would just be imba.

Then again, I think not having to do anything to get a spy is a bad thing. It gives you little satisfaction, and makes Espionage seem like an afterthought. Everyone has it automatically, every civ can do just as much with it as the next one, an extra spy or two aside. One of the things that makes religion so awesome is the race to found one before anyone else does, the investment on your side, whether it's choosing a specific civ over another just for religious bonuses, taking the quarry pantheon and settling cities specifically where you can build many quarries, or constructing buildings that generate faith.

That's actually my biggest gripe with the expansion - not really the system itself, but rather how we acquire access to it.
 
Yeah, I think that less is more here, and am quite happy that espionage is as simple as it is. It's a spreadsheet sideshow and I don't want a bigger spreadsheet.
 
I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately and I'd like to add a few more options other then just stealing technology that can add flavour without making espionage a Civ5 minigame. All of these would be passive abilities that would require the agent to "get in position" and all have a chance to be caught every turn they're active - thus adding risk. These aren't meant to be game breaking, just added options for causing minor grievances and gaining mild benefits on top of getting intrigue

1)Steal Map information - This gives a vision bonus around the city up to a 4 tier radius around the city based on the agents skill.

2)Sabatoge Production - Provide a % reduction to production in the city based on agent skill and the buildings present in the city. Every turn, if a spy is preforming counter-espionage, there is a % chance of catching the spies doing this and killing them; additional spy reduction buildings reduce effectiveness of this act.

3)Steal Gold - Every turn spy steals % of gold based on agents skill from the city they're in (not directly from your treasury) which would result in additional GPT for the player. Effectiveness of this would depend on how much gold the city their placed in actually produces.

4)Plant Nuclear Bomb - Turn to complete lowered by agent skill, high chance of capture, high reputation lost if caught, low % chance to succeed with rookie agents, only for the best of the best to complete and have a chance to getting out.

Just off the top of my head but i'd really like some new options other then just stealing technology
 
Andulias said:
Bisqit, for the most part those are terrible ideas. With all the fuzz about other civs making successful coups constantly and undermining you relationship with CSs, do you really want this? Constant notifications about gold being stolen, production being destroyed, buildings I spent a dozen turns getting blown up, no thank you. Not unless there is some kind of a trade-off for the other civ (like in CIV you had invest money into espionage), otherwise it will quickly get out of hand.

I think Firaxis need to focus on the intrigue side of things, something along the lines of what Harv722b said - lies, deception and misinformation. Water poisoing, sabotage and tile improvement destruction would be interesting, but they would also need some kind of a considerable investment, otherwise it would just be imba.

Then again, I think not having to do anything to get a spy is a bad thing. It gives you little satisfaction, and makes Espionage seem like an afterthought. Everyone has it automatically, every civ can do just as much with it as the next one, an extra spy or two aside. One of the things that makes religion so awesome is the race to found one before anyone else does, the investment on your side, whether it's choosing a specific civ over another just for religious bonuses, taking the quarry pantheon and settling cities specifically where you can build many quarries, or constructing buildings that generate faith.

That's actually my biggest gripe with the expansion - not really the system itself, but rather how we acquire access to it.
Click to expand...
Well you obviously make it so when they cause terrorist attacks it would be a declaration of war and things like the police station would increase the failure rate of said attacks.

It would definitely provide another mechanic to war. I think its dumb we can't destroy tile improvements with ranged attacks. It would definitely give a use to guided missiles. Same applied to bombing a city. City bombing should at the very least damage buildings and would need repair especially after heavy siege. Guided missiles should allow you to strike particular buildings so you can shut down production in key cities. Its what we do in real war.
 
Kabloosh said:
Well you obviously make it so when they cause terrorist attacks it would be a declaration of war and things like the police station would increase the failure rate of said attacks.

It would definitely provide another mechanic to war. I think its dumb we can't destroy tile improvements with ranged attacks. It would definitely give a use to guided missiles. Same applied to bombing a city. City bombing should at the very least damage buildings and would need repair especially after heavy siege. Guided missiles should allow you to strike particular buildings so you can shut down production in key cities. Its what we do in real war.
Click to expand...
And that also costs resources. Only Espionage in CiV doesn't. The diplo repercussions are there by default, that's hardly enough, an actual price to pay is needed here
 
Andulias said:
And that also costs resources. Only Espionage in CiV doesn't. The diplo repercussions are there by default, that's hardly enough, an actual price to pay is needed here
Click to expand...

Well sure. Some gpt to fund the operation sounds fair and it should take time. Hell coups should take like 3 turns and should cost some money.
 
I feel that there should be more high risk/big reward and no risk/small reward situations.
Kind of like with the city states right now.

I find that the following should be added:

City States
Disturb Communications:c5citystate::
Makes it so that other civilizations wont get quests from this city state. In addition to that other civilizations wont know when you demand tribute.
Also reduces effectiveness of gifts.
A spy can't do anything else while doing this.​

Will make it possible to ensure that a city state will stay your ally on the other hand you can use it to abuse a city state a lot.
​



Civilizations

Sabotage Research:c5science::
Just like a coup, it is a high risk/big reward option. When it succeeds you cut the research of that city by a set percentage (50%-75%) for a couple of turns (15-25) depending on the skill of the spy and other city factors. Spy gains a level when succeeding.​

Useful against civilizations that are ahead of you and you want to slow them down and against civs that are close to you. ​



Sabotage Production:c5production::
Just like the previous option but instead you sabotage their production.​

Useful when you see a city make a late-game wonder you really need or when your enemy has a high production city spamming military units preventing you from getting through. Just a few useful situations.​

Spread Misinformation:c5angry::
Another high risk/big reward option. When successful the spy will spread information that will make the city go into a riot.
Successfulness also depends on happiness, lower happiness equals increased chances. When it's done and the empire is unhappy the riot last twice as long. Can't be done when an empire has more than 25 happiness.
Riot nullifies production, disables growth, stops all citizens from working (maybe starving the city 2-3 citizens) and makes the city defense drop by 50%.
Only lasts 'citizens / 3' turns.​

Lasts a lot less longer than sabotaging production but has a bigger effect. Usable to harm a city big time or use it to make taking a city easier.​



Just a few of many ideas I have that could make it a lot more interesting. Though I'll refrain from posting more because I'm not designing a game here and posting all these ideas will only hurt as I'd start to wish they were in the game even more.
 
Andulias said:
Bisqit, for the most part those are terrible ideas. With all the fuzz about other civs making successful coups constantly and undermining you relationship with CSs, do you really want this? Constant notifications about gold being stolen, production being destroyed, buildings I spent a dozen turns getting blown up, no thank you. Not unless there is some kind of a trade-off for the other civ (like in CIV you had invest money into espionage), otherwise it will quickly get out of hand.

I think Firaxis need to focus on the intrigue side of things, something along the lines of what Harv722b said - lies, deception and misinformation. Water poisoing, sabotage and tile improvement destruction would be interesting, but they would also need some kind of a considerable investment, otherwise it would just be imba.

Then again, I think not having to do anything to get a spy is a bad thing. It gives you little satisfaction, and makes Espionage seem like an afterthought. Everyone has it automatically, every civ can do just as much with it as the next one, an extra spy or two aside. One of the things that makes religion so awesome is the race to found one before anyone else does, the investment on your side, whether it's choosing a specific civ over another just for religious bonuses, taking the quarry pantheon and settling cities specifically where you can build many quarries, or constructing buildings that generate faith.

That's actually my biggest gripe with the expansion - not really the system itself, but rather how we acquire access to it.
Click to expand...

You would get notifications for things that happen to you or missions that your spys completed. The suggestions i made were in Civilization 4 and what the other people suggested were also more or less in Civ4. Some of the civ4 espionage missions were dumb but a lot of them werent and i believe they could fit right in. The intrigue system could be easily expanded upon of course like misinformation, among other things suggested. I think formenting unhappiness etc wouldnt get too out of hand and it would add to espionage and make it more important. I found it very useful and in your face but i have seen a lot of people say that it feels like it really runs in the background and they forget about it, which i don't understand because once you hit industrial there are a lot of things going on with espionage. I don't like the idea of a points system because, in my opinion, that was what was wrong with the civ4 system. I liked the options but the points system was annoying and overall very tedious. I wouldn't really use espionage because i found that using it wouldn't have any lasting effects. The civ5 system is probably the best espionage system in any Civilization game. I like the system now but i also like options and i think it would be good for espionage in civ5 to be expanded upon and given more options. That is not to say that it is bad as is, it could just be more.
 
Bisqit said:
You would get notifications for things that happen to you or missions that your spys completed. The suggestions i made were in Civilization 4 and what the other people suggested were also more or less in Civ4. Some of the civ4 espionage missions were dumb but a lot of them werent and i believe they could fit right in. The intrigue system could be easily expanded upon of course like misinformation, among other things suggested. I think formenting unhappiness etc wouldnt get too out of hand and it would add to espionage and make it more important. I found it very useful and in your face but i have seen a lot of people say that it feels like it really runs in the background and they forget about it, which i don't understand because once you hit industrial there are a lot of things going on with espionage. I don't like the idea of a points system because, in my opinion, that was what was wrong with the civ4 system. I liked the options but the points system was annoying and overall very tedious. I wouldn't really use espionage because i found that using it wouldn't have any lasting effects. The civ5 system is probably the best espionage system in any Civilization game. I like the system now but i also like options and i think it would be good for espionage in civ5 to be expanded upon and given more options. That is not to say that it is bad as is, it could just be more.
Click to expand...
You missed my point! With the current system the only thing stopping you from doing anything yes, well, nothing actually. There is absolutely no price to do anything, whereas in 4 it all costs money. That's what balances it out, if we could do all those things in CiV, we would be doing them all the time. It will completely obliterate any kind of balance and would make the game unfun. I am not talking about notifications here, I am talking about constant loss of production, money and so forth. It's not going to be fun.
 
Stop with the AI focused crap and have your ideas reflect both multiplayer and singleplayer. Intrigue should have been a fog of war eliminator that allowed you to directly see the movements of units instead of just telling you the AI is moving units in your direction or another. Then it would have a purpose in multiplayer.

Anyway defiantly we need more missions for spies to perform other than steal technology.
 
Andulias said:
You missed my point! With the current system the only thing stopping you from doing anything yes, well, nothing actually. There is absolutely no price to do anything, whereas in 4 it all costs money. That's what balances it out, if we could do all those things in CiV, we would be doing them all the time. It will completely obliterate any kind of balance and would make the game unfun. I am not talking about notifications here, I am talking about constant loss of production, money and so forth. It's not going to be fun.
Click to expand...

The constant poisoning of my water supplies was exactly why I always turned espionage off.

/I mostly like this system, but agree that it could be expanded.
//But not by re-adding the same mistakes that were made in the prior system.
 
Harv72b said:
The constant poisoning of my water supplies was exactly why I always turned espionage off.
Click to expand...

You must've been playing with good old Sitting Bull then. Just gotta turn him off instead!

You missed my point! With the current system the only thing stopping you from doing anything yes, well, nothing actually. There is absolutely no price to do anything, whereas in 4 it all costs money. That's what balances it out, if we could do all those things in CiV, we would be doing them all the time. It will completely obliterate any kind of balance and would make the game unfun. I am not talking about notifications here, I am talking about constant loss of production, money and so forth. It's not going to be fun.
Click to expand...
Then just add prices! Basic stuff like spying to steal tech, rigging elections, counterespionage can still be free, coups can be the way they are (since your spy can fail and be killed) and new options, if deemed too powerful (i.e., sabotage production) can cost a bit of gold to attempt or whatever. I'm fine with espionage not being overly complex, but it's reeeaally barebones right now.
 
mabalogna said:
4)Plant Nuclear Bomb - Turn to complete lowered by agent skill, high chance of capture, high reputation lost if caught, low % chance to succeed with rookie agents, only for the best of the best to complete and have a chance to getting out.
Click to expand...

I think a nuclear bomb would be too much. Maybe just a normal bomb which would destroy some buildings and kill some of the citizens, that is if it's not found before it's too late.
 
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