pineappledan
Deity
They are still in order, so you know who is in 1st, 2nd, etc, but you aren’t given the exact score so you don’t know how far ahead the leader is, etc.
(6-CP) The "Intelligence" Spy System
- Thread starter pineappledan
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Ok, so this would create even more differences between humans and AI. Not a fan of that.
As for the improved fog of war, it would be cool to still have in UI e.g. total population, but calculated based on what you actually currently see, just to remove the tedium of calculating it yourself. Using spies would override it with the actual total population.
pineappledan
Deity
It would and yet it wouldn’t. With more, earlier spies you can just put them in your neighbours/the leader’s cities and get all that info. With 2 spies you already have enough resources to gather relevant info from the civs that you prioritize. In fact, my proposal for lvl 3 military action would give human players info that is closer to what the AI already has (army size info).
The idea is that spies are easy to deploy that the 1st level of spying bonuses is mainly Quality of Life improvements.
Ok, fair point.
Imho QoL improvements should be best possible all the times, without hiding them behind spies.
pineappledan
Deity
If the only info that spies offer to you is the stuff you don’t care about anyways then spies don’t offer anything of value. The only thing left for them to do in that case is steal yields and sabotage and make a nuisance of themselves, which is the system we currently have.
As the OP states, I do not like the current system very much.
As the OP states, I do not like the current system very much.
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I feel like the problem with all of these espionage proposals is that it is very difficult to actually get a feel of them just from reading a proposal. Translating numbers and what not into felt experience is quite difficult for something as abstract as espionage. While unrealistic, it would be great there were a way to play a game or two with each system before voting, especially for a system like this one that changes the game in such a fundamental way.
I meant that spies should give you info that you care about, but the info that you already have, that only require tedious counting, should be available without spies. Because you already have that information, it's just presented not optimally.
pineappledan
Deity
Except you don’t always have that information. You don’t always have vision of all cities in a civ’s empire to count up their population. You can’t always see all their wonder tiles, and some wonders don’t even have graphics to see. You can only get an incomplete picture of the size/strength/wealth of an empire, and spies give you the precise information to resolve that into an accurate portrayal of the other civ.
You know the placement of civs, but spies give you the exact score. You know that the civ with the biggest
per turn has a GDP of 100,000, but you don’t know who that is unless you have a spy on them.
Any criticism of the spies giving you information that you could impute yourself from map data either implies one of two things:
1. that you are willing to do the work to count up tiles and work off those estimates. In that case this system rewards you, because you could put that effort in and just use your spies for CS rigging, and try to play optimally that way
2. That you aren’t even willing to touch the spy mechanic even if it is needed for basic fact-finding. In which case you should just turn the system off.
3. You think that players should be given everything for free. In that case you should just play with InfoAddict
Otherwise, what you are actually arguing is that you will not use spies in this system… because you refuse to help yourself with the tools available to you. Its a claim that you won’t be able to access information you never tried to get in the first place. That’s like demanding that we make roofs lower so we can climb on top of them without the use of the ladders, while holding a ladder.
You know the placement of civs, but spies give you the exact score. You know that the civ with the biggest
per turn has a GDP of 100,000, but you don’t know who that is unless you have a spy on them.Any criticism of the spies giving you information that you could impute yourself from map data either implies one of two things:
1. that you are willing to do the work to count up tiles and work off those estimates. In that case this system rewards you, because you could put that effort in and just use your spies for CS rigging, and try to play optimally that way
2. That you aren’t even willing to touch the spy mechanic even if it is needed for basic fact-finding. In which case you should just turn the system off.
3. You think that players should be given everything for free. In that case you should just play with InfoAddict
Otherwise, what you are actually arguing is that you will not use spies in this system… because you refuse to help yourself with the tools available to you. Its a claim that you won’t be able to access information you never tried to get in the first place. That’s like demanding that we make roofs lower so we can climb on top of them without the use of the ladders, while holding a ladder.
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Anarcomu
King
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Well, I think what @CppMaster wanted to say, is that any information, however incomplete, you have access to, should be display. If you have vision on 3 cities which sum 18pop, you should have the information that you now the player have maybe 18 pop.
In the same way, the moment you stop seeing a city, pop count does not update.
This way, you have less and more accurate information, which should be accessible regardless of spies. Having a spy gives accurate information about the civ.
This is a cool idea, but the more I think of it, the less feasible it looks to me.
In the same way, the moment you stop seeing a city, pop count does not update.
This way, you have less and more accurate information, which should be accessible regardless of spies. Having a spy gives accurate information about the civ.
This is a cool idea, but the more I think of it, the less feasible it looks to me.
Ladders are dangerous, and if no one is helping you hold it, may result in injury directly proportional to the height of the building. Best to lower the roof, just to be safe.
Joking aside:
I like the direction of this. I sympathize with the notion of not wanting to feel compelled to micro-optimize city/tile scouring in fog just to free up a spy. This issue specifically feels like certain bugs in various games like "if you look at all of the start locations and notice that this patch of grass is missing, you can deduce where their start location is". Like, sure... I guess. But it feels like cheating, or it feels like you should equalize everyone's access to that random fact and just make it clear. So I get that feeling, with regard to scouting vs. spying for info. If we could do something with fog of war info not updating unless you walk a unit with vision past it, that would really help shore up the system I feel. Yes, you'll micro a scout for the sake of microing it, but it's at least something active to do, and it feels much more realistic.
Overall I think this change definitely succeeds in what it's trying to promote: less spy activity overall, and nothing "crazy" to do with them. It's a very passive system, and I think the complaints about how level 1 information feels sort of lackluster, or like something you should get "for free" should be weighed with the fact that you are getting two extra ways to get that information for free, and the "cost" of putting a spy in a city is fairly trivial. Moving one to a new city, however...
I will say I think city-state rigging might continue to be the best thing to do with spies though, I'm not sure how often I'm using most of the information in the demographics anyway.
Joking aside:
I like the direction of this. I sympathize with the notion of not wanting to feel compelled to micro-optimize city/tile scouring in fog just to free up a spy. This issue specifically feels like certain bugs in various games like "if you look at all of the start locations and notice that this patch of grass is missing, you can deduce where their start location is". Like, sure... I guess. But it feels like cheating, or it feels like you should equalize everyone's access to that random fact and just make it clear. So I get that feeling, with regard to scouting vs. spying for info. If we could do something with fog of war info not updating unless you walk a unit with vision past it, that would really help shore up the system I feel. Yes, you'll micro a scout for the sake of microing it, but it's at least something active to do, and it feels much more realistic.
Overall I think this change definitely succeeds in what it's trying to promote: less spy activity overall, and nothing "crazy" to do with them. It's a very passive system, and I think the complaints about how level 1 information feels sort of lackluster, or like something you should get "for free" should be weighed with the fact that you are getting two extra ways to get that information for free, and the "cost" of putting a spy in a city is fairly trivial. Moving one to a new city, however...
I will say I think city-state rigging might continue to be the best thing to do with spies though, I'm not sure how often I'm using most of the information in the demographics anyway.
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Yes, exactly!
This one. However, I don't want to be rewarded for tedious things, like watching over every tile I see, which involves no strategic thinking at all and is probably the most boring thing you can do. Playing a game is not a work. This should just be displayed in UI, because why not?
pineappledan
Deity
I agree that cities, territory, population, etc, not updating inside the fog would be a huge improvement that would validate this system. Not only would you have more accurate information with less worth using a spy, but it would also be up-to-date.
However, that feels like a stretch goal, and definitely outside my own technical knowledge to speak about whether that would be implementable.
If it were, however, it might come with the side-benefit of freeing up some computation, if the map data only needs to update information that is visible within a unit's radius.
However, that feels like a stretch goal, and definitely outside my own technical knowledge to speak about whether that would be implementable.
If it were, however, it might come with the side-benefit of freeing up some computation, if the map data only needs to update information that is visible within a unit's radius.
That's correct. You can't detect, or kill, or counter spy actions in your cities, except to mitigate any potential action against you via passive security.
Legen
Emperor
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Thematically, it makes no sense to tie such information to spies. These are things that tend to be common knowledge from your people being in contact often enough with a given civilization, be merchants, intellectuals, artists, journalists, or mere tourists. That everyone knows about Saudi Arabia being plentiful of oil doesn't mean they're being spied by every single country in the world, that's just how markets work (and enough exposure from news about the region).
This would have made more sense if it were a proposal related to trade routes, tourism and/or Open Borders. As a espionage proposal, I find it thematically weak.
pineappledan
Deity
That's a very post-industrial view. Before the invention of Wire Services (a building that VP adds, actually), this information would not be easy to find, and it would either be the full-time job of someone to keep that line of communication open through a diplomatic channel or to send spies/foreign agents to find that information and report it back themselves. All of this information can be gained by sending your spy as a diplomat; the definition of a diplomat is basically "legal spy", after all.
The availability of global national statistics is a very modern invention, so the theme is strong, but it breaks down in the later eras that depict post-modern societies that (with a few exceptions) publish a lot of this data openly. As a counterpoint you can look at China, and how they have decided sharing this kind of economic and demographic information is no longer in their self-interest. We even have a wonder in the game (Great Firewall) depicting exactly that.
For some sort of Verisimilitude, you building a Foreign service in your civ could just make all those lvl 1 spy things automatic, without requiring Spies/Diplomats anymore, and you only got effects with lvl2+ spies now. Yet another stretch goal to keep in the back pocket if people like how this proposal stacks up.
The availability of global national statistics is a very modern invention, so the theme is strong, but it breaks down in the later eras that depict post-modern societies that (with a few exceptions) publish a lot of this data openly. As a counterpoint you can look at China, and how they have decided sharing this kind of economic and demographic information is no longer in their self-interest. We even have a wonder in the game (Great Firewall) depicting exactly that.
For some sort of Verisimilitude, you building a Foreign service in your civ could just make all those lvl 1 spy things automatic, without requiring Spies/Diplomats anymore, and you only got effects with lvl2+ spies now. Yet another stretch goal to keep in the back pocket if people like how this proposal stacks up.
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Just for my own comparison, I tabled out the Spy vs Diplomat options. Posting here for anyone else's convenience.
This shows how comparable the two choices are, and is a good step towards clear benefits and trade-offs between the two options.
This shows how comparable the two choices are, and is a good step towards clear benefits and trade-offs between the two options.
Spoiler Spy vs. Diplomat :
Gold from Trade Routes in your own 
capital. Yields are halved for each level of security in the city (ie. 100%/50%/25%/12.5%/6.25%/3.125% at security level 0/1/2/3/4/5)
Science from Specialists in your own 
Culture from Great Works in your own 
Great Work, or completes an Archaeological dig, and reveals details about the new 
Tourism modifier with the host civDo you think maybe we could/should move some of the Level 3 Spy abilities to be Diplomat abilities (at 20% value)? Themed as "Foreign Policy Initiatives", perhaps. Partly to balance the sides, but also partly because having the Level 3 Gold connection sort of exposes the fact that you're spying on them, but there's no consequences for that anymore. It would make more sense if you were doing it through the legal channels.
I would suggest:
Spies:
EDIT: I guess I didn't really think this through, the Tourism is only the 20% value, so to mirror that you'd have just 20% gold coming in -- there's no reason to have the Luxury for free. That said, the free Luxury might have weird knock-on effects with monopolies? Is that a concern? The wonder notification just feels like nice QOL if the city you're spying on starts it anyway, no need to hide it under a Level 3 global effect.
I would suggest:
Spies:
- Military Brass
- Intelligentsia
- Aristocracy
- Market Agreements
- Tourism Partnerships
- Construction Contracts
EDIT: I guess I didn't really think this through, the Tourism is only the 20% value, so to mirror that you'd have just 20% gold coming in -- there's no reason to have the Luxury for free. That said, the free Luxury might have weird knock-on effects with monopolies? Is that a concern? The wonder notification just feels like nice QOL if the city you're spying on starts it anyway, no need to hide it under a Level 3 global effect.
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do you think the spy ones are stronger? Honestly they seem pretty piddly. the diplomat bonus is WAY stronger for CV play, the only thing that makes it not the strongest period is that any war can boot your diplomat and lose all of the xp.
My general take is that across the board the raw effects are much weaker than anything the current espionage system is providing. That's also by design.
20% Tourism not being "nerfed" along with that shift is maybe something to consider. I guess I keep forgetting that it's "100% of gold from trade routes", "100% of science from specialists"... And yeah, those seem really low. Also sort of confusing, if you look at the city screen and think "I should be getting way more science from this city...".
It's a little bit less of of a concern, but it's also weird that for example spying for science has a big swing if Korea is in the game.
20% Tourism not being "nerfed" along with that shift is maybe something to consider. I guess I keep forgetting that it's "100% of gold from trade routes", "100% of science from specialists"... And yeah, those seem really low. Also sort of confusing, if you look at the city screen and think "I should be getting way more science from this city...".
It's a little bit less of of a concern, but it's also weird that for example spying for science has a big swing if Korea is in the game.
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