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[member66170]

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[dexters]

I'm curious how rig elections work with city-states.

I assume this is not related to the UN, but related to local elections that may elect 'city leaders' that are pro- or anti- certain empires, which would be quite similar to current events where elections affect foreign policy and smaller countries become chess pieces of the regional and world powers with interest in the region.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I assume it's a way to become allied to a city state. It does mirror historic things quite well.

 

[BobDole]

I assume it's a way to become allied to a city state. It does mirror historic things quite well.

Yeah, that's what it does. If you look at the screenshot analysis, it just so happens that in one of the screenshots an election was rigged successfully in a city-state, which simply increases your influence and weakens the influence of others. Probably helpful if gold is less useful for bribing city-states, which it sounds like it will be.

 

[Selous]

the system sounds like it will work a bit like galactic civ2, that implimentation worked pretty well

its going to need some tweeking from release, espionage is pretty hard to get right

 

[ShahJahanII]

We all know it was absent in vanilla civ5, and was implemented incredibly poorly in Civ4bts. This extract from gamespot describes the current system:

Espionage returns as well in Gods and Kings, and it mimics the options available in Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. Spies weave a web of intrigue, and though they never appear as units on the map, there is a special panel used to assign missions. These include stealing technology, working on counterintelligence, and listing what's inside an enemy city. In single-player, spies can even report on the future military operations of AI opponents. If you learn that France is going to invade Spain, you can blow the whistle and give Spain a heads-up, which will have serious diplomatic consequences.

Unlike in Civilization: Revolution, spies are not trained by a civilization. Instead, they are awarded at certain intervals along the timeline. Should one of your spies get captured or killed, you'll have to wait a set number of turns before you get a replacement. "It's almost like an executed spy is in time-out," Beach said, adding that your new spy will start back at level one. Spies can also be used to sway the influence in city-states by rigging elections or attempting a coup.


All seems very nice to me. They appear to have gone with a lot of the philosophy of the game which is to reduce MM as much as possible, and move stuff to a off-map screen. The man problem with Civ4 is that espionage came at the expense of science - and was rarely worth it. The other problem was the intense MM that came with building moving, and moving back spies. All this seems to have gone, which looks very promising. Having spies come rarely means I might actually value them and care what happens to them. More immersion is good in my book, but that depends on how much they can do. What's listed above seems a pretty impressive range of passive and active abilities.
I think I might look forward to this more than the new religion system

Don't forget that they did away with the investment slider.
So espionage may not necessarily come at the price of science.
I don't want espionage as a mechanic to be too important at all.
I would really prefer if it blended it with all the existing mechanics and the new religion mechanic.
I shouldn't have to deal with an enemy spy every 5 turns or so.
But I don't want it to be totally useless either.
Balance is key.

 

[crashcrush]

The one downside I see right now is that I will miss the individual spy unit as a recon and covert "destroy improvement" option. It would be nice to have a unit that could do that in some form.

 

[Deggial]

I don't want to make up my mind about a feature even before I tried it ingame.

Nevertheless, one of the complains (the mayor complain?) of players who miss espionage in CiV is, that they don't have to do something when not at war. I don't have the impression that the expansion's espionage concept will change something about this, as there will be no spy units to move around.

I know, *many* players didn't like how espionage was implemented in Civ4. Me neither!
Even so, I would have liked to see something more "real" than just a new "spreadsheet", but without the Civ4 micromanagement. Maybe something like in this thread, I started a while ago.

Anyway, I'm very curios how the new feature will play. I really hope, that these "Spreadsheet-spies" won't feel to sterile...

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Why all the hate for espionage in BtS ? It had some balance issues, but I liked it.

On the screenshot we saw an 'initiate coup' option. I wonder what the difference is between election rigging and a coup...

 

[MadDjinn]

On the screenshot we saw an 'initiate coup' option. I wonder what the difference is between election rigging and a coup...

That's a good question. One that should maybe be asked in the 'Ask Dennis' thread?

 

[Gucumatz]

Maybe a Coup is to remove support of another Empire? Like weaken/destroy influence of another Civ?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Maybe a coup is more extreme? So rigging an election gives you a small popularity boost, but a coup completely rests relations?

That was also my first thought, but it would be a bit redundand to have the same mission just more so.
Another possibility that I'd like would be to change the nature of a City State with a coup, for example forcibly convert it from Militaristic to Cultural.
Would be a good way to speed up a cultural victory, but could potentially be really annoying or unbalanced.

 

[dexters]

Maybe a Coup is to remove support of another Empire? Like weaken/destroy influence of another Civ?

Coup = switch influence by force

Rig-election = lining up to be the next 'master'.

My speculation is that City States will hold regular elections so timing of influence changes will be more predictable. Granted there are also other avenues to gain influence, I suspect the elections route will be one of the options if the quests are unpalatable. This also means the 'dump 10,000 gold to buy up all CS 1 turn before UN vote' is no longer a viable option.

Rigging the election means you ensure yourself to be their next master. Coup-d'eta would imply change masters in-between elections.

I would also venture the guess not all CS will be 'democratic'. Some may not hold elections at all. Given that in the late game AI will care about your political system instead of your religion. This would mean the city states may also have favoured political systems like freedom, order or autocracy.

 

[Seek]

I hope you're right, dexters - this is just the sort of thing the expansion needs to bring to diplomacy in Civ5!

 

[Sommerswerd]

YEEESSSSSSSSS! . This is what I have been waiting for, now I can blow the dust off my copy of ciV and actually give it a try, I had given up on it as it just seemed that cIV was better with the Religions and especially the Espionage system.

Now all we need is a fun and sensible Corporations system and a reliable Pitboss and its off to the Races!

More on-topic... I think/hope the "Rigging Election" feature will be more like the "Civic Swap" mission in BTS and the "Coup" will be more like a combination of the Spread culture and Revolt missions. Maybe a way to actually force a city to flip, without attacking it... Awesome... Creates all kinds of possibilities for "Cold" Wars.

 

[Snoopaloop]

Do you think we will see a Great Spy unit in the expansion?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Do you think we will see a Great Spy unit in the expansion?

I would like some sort of Great Spy, but if Espionage is not going to work the same as in cIV (using the tech slider) I dont know what the G.Spy would do.

 

[Trias]

In single-player, spies can even report on the future military operations of AI opponents. If you learn that France is going to invade Spain, you can blow the whistle and give Spain a heads-up, which will have serious diplomatic consequences.

This is such an incredibly bad idea. Wow.

Many players already complain that the AI is too easy. Why not introduce a mechanic which gives the human player a fundamental advantage over the AI, which the AI cannot use in return? Doh.

 

[BobDole]

This is such an incredibly bad idea. Wow.

Many players already complain that the AI is too easy. Why not introduce a mechanic which gives the human player a fundamental advantage over the AI, which the AI cannot use in return? Doh.

Well, the AI is "supposed" to be getting some improvements, so hopefully the AI will be more intelligent. And it certainly will make global politics more interesting, and so I think it has certainly got promise. Plus, it might not always be in your best interest to let another civ know about an impending invasion anyway.

 

[Haig]

Another spy action you haven't listed is 'provoke unrest', I don't remember was this from a screenshot or an interview.