(4-21c) Proposal: Espionage - Changes to Siphon Missions

[axatin]

Problems with the current Siphon Missions:

• The reward from the missions scales with mission duration, meaning that mission duration effectively doesn't matter at all. There is no difference in the reward for completing two missions of 30 turns each and the reward for completing three missions of 20 turns each
• Yields are stolen as instant yields, which (a) encourages the gamey behavior of always spending all the gold one has to prevent it from being stolen, (b) is frustrating for the player if they are on the receiving end and (c) contributes to overall yield inflation as the spy owner always gets the full amount even if that's more than can currently be stolen

Proposal to address these issues:
When a siphon mission is completed, it doesn't result in an instant yield, but in a yield change per turn over a certain duration (like a trade deal). The transferred amount per turn is based on the average of the city yields while the spy was in it to conduct the mission. The effect duration is always the base mission duration (so operating quicker than the base mission length will be rewarded).

Example:
It takes a spy 25 turns to complete the "Steal Gold" mission in a city. The city produces 50 gold per turn on average in this time. Then, the mission will result in 25 gold per turn (50% of 50 gold per turn) being transferred from the city owner to the spy owner for a duration of 30 turns (total amount: 750). If the spy had taken 30 or 35 turns to complete the mission, these values wouldn't be different.
In the current implementation, an amount of 625 gold would have been stolen instantly.

 

[Stalker0]

A few notes about this:

• Due to yield inflation, this type of steal is weaker than the previous one. Getting 100 science now is stronger than 10 SPT over 10 turns. That can be compensated before but its important to note.
• I assume that the new +X GPT would not get any gold modifiers from the new city (but would operate like a process does, a flat amount of gold gained every turn with no modifiers). This needs to be clarified.
• Also note that this in some ways penalizes the defender a bit more for gold and faith. Currently if a steal drops your gold to 0, the attacker gets their full amount due, but the defender doesn't lose as much gold as they were "supposed to". With this version, the defender will lose every drop of gold.

 

[N.Core]

Why not just change the siphon mechanic to reduce yield per turn on the targeted city?
It makes more sense than the current mechanic. I dislike gold just generated out of nowhere and the defender's gold suddenly depleted.

If a city generates 100 GPT, then it still shows 100 GPT on the UI. But in reality, the civ only received 50 GPT from that city.

The defender doesn't know that their city's GPT is being siphoned until they realized they don't receive the actual GPT from that city.

 

[azum4roll]

Why not just change the siphon mechanic to reduce yield per turn on the targeted city?
It makes more sense than the current mechanic. I dislike gold just generated out of nowhere and the defender's gold suddenly depleted.

If a city generates 100 GPT, then it still shows 100 GPT on the UI. But in reality, the civ only received 50 GPT from that city.

The defender doesn't know that their city's GPT is being siphoned until they realized they don't receive the actual GPT from that city.

It's public knowledge (yes, even other civs know) how much gold is being gained during the turn. It's just tedious to note down the gold amount every turn for it.

 

[axatin]

I sponsor this.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal sponsored by axatin.

 

[Slyceth]

There is another savescum problem with this mechanic, and that is that you can just reload to the previous turn if a civ steals all your gold with a spy.
You can then spend all the 2000+ gold on something, then the next turn you lose 0 gold, so it was pointless for them to spy on you.
For the player, I spend all my spies on keeping my cities happy, 2 happiness per spy, or to coup city states (constantly moving them around)
I seriously cannot imagine a game on emperor difficulty or above where I can afford to lose a spy for 20 turns just to get some gold or faith

And while we're at it, spies are useless unless they're at level 3, because that's the level they can destroy enemy city defenses (even though it has barely any impact and I usually take the city before the spy even arrives there)

 

[azum4roll]

If you don't want any "savescum" problem you should go play a game with 0 RNG elements. Like chess. Or just don't reload.

 

[alchx]

If you don't want any "savescum" problem you should go play a game with 0 RNG elements.

I wouldn't mind if there was an option in the map's customization options to remove +-20% damage variance and the damage taken/delivered was always consistent with the calculated value.

Because it is incredibly annoying when over and over again units survive with 1-4hp, despite the fact that by all calculations we should kill them.

There are also some strange features in dealing damage, when for some reason the damage is calculated as a % of the current hp of the target - the lower the hp, the less damage we deal in absolute numbers (early era, no stamina bonuses):

Conventionally, the attack Composite Archer + Dromon kills the weakened barbarian camp spearman, and the attack Dromon + Composite Archer does not kill due to lack of damage.

In the first variant, the archer deals enough damage that Dromon is able to finish off the spearman.

In the second option, Dromon deals his damage, but the barbarian has more health left than the archer pierces.

There is also a dispersion in damage, depending on which tile we stand on before the attack. From two identical water tiles, Dromon deals different damage.

Or we see a wounded CS spearman with 53hp. Our composite archer should deal 35 damage, skirmisher 18.

Individually, each of them does so much, but in any sequence of attacks, the enemy has 2-3 hp left, because for some reason we start doing less damage with the second attack, although we should have done more.