[Sponsored] (4-A) Espionage - Changes To Mission Selection

[axatin]

Proposal:

1. If a spy arrives in an enemy city and there is no mission to choose from, the spy goes into a state "Surveillance Established" (like the state "No Tech to steal" from the base game) and doesn't have to leave the city anymore. When a mission becomes available, the mission select screen appears.
2. If a spy has completed a mission and hasn't been identified, the mission select screen appears and the next mission can be chosen.
3. The mission select screen shows the additional option to go the state "Surveillance Established" and delay mission selection for one more turn (the screen will reappear in the next turn)

Rationale:

1. There are cases in which no mission can be chosen for example because the city is currently in resistance and produces no yields. Then all the time of moving the spy to the city and establishing surveillance is wasted if there's no option to keep the spy in the city and delay mission selection a bit.
2. It's an unnecessary restriction to be forced to continue with the same mission as the previous one. Selecting a new mission is desirable in particular if a spy has leveled up.
3. As pointed out by @Stalker0 : "A resistance will turn off the siphon missions for example but not some of the other missions, which I may not want. [With only point 1 of the proposal implemented] you still are ultimately stuck doing a crappy mission you didn't want or lose all the spy setup time."

If the AI moves a spy to a city and no mission is available, the AI is trained to wait if the city is currently in resistance, and to leave the city otherwise.

EDIT: Point 3 added.

 

[Stalker0]

Overall I love it. my main problem with number 1 is thats its not complete. A resistance will turn off the siphon missions for example but not some of the other missions, which I may not want. You still are ultimately stuck doing a crappy mission you didn't want or lose all the spy setup time.

 

[Recursive]

From what I saw there was a consensus that a "skip turn" mission would be a good idea (which would keep the spy in a Surveillance Established state). Maybe the spy can earn a handful of gold coins cheating in the local casino or mingling at the king's royal ball or whatever it is spies do during their free time.

In all seriousness, something lowkey to do with intelligence gathering would be appropriate flavor text for the skip turn mission.

 

[azum4roll]

Gather more intelligence
Skip one turn and do noth- er, I mean gather MORE intelligence. The more the better, right?

 

[axatin]

Overall I love it. my main problem with number 1 is thats its not complete. A resistance will turn off the siphon missions for example but not some of the other missions, which I may not want. You still are ultimately stuck doing a crappy mission you didn't want or lose all the spy setup time.

good point, proposal amended to account for it.

In all seriousness, something lowkey to do with intelligence gathering would be appropriate flavor text for the skip turn mission.

One idea is giving them extended visibility and then maybe remove the extend visibility mission, which is usually not worth investing many turns into it anyway.

 

[axatin]

I sponsor this.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal sponsored by axatin.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.