[Vote] (7-14) Spy XP & Leveling Proposals

[Recursive]

Voting Instructions
Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" for every proposal you'd be okay with if it were implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if these proposals weren't implemented. You can vote for any number of options.

All votes are public. If you wish, you can discuss your choice(s) in the thread below. You can change your vote as many times as you want until the poll closes.

VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 14
Discussion Thread: (7-14) Double Spy XP For Completing Missions [Spy Update 2]
Proposer: @Stalker0
Sponsor: @axatin

Proposal Details
This is one of a series of proposed tweaks to the Spy system to polish the new version.

Current: Spies gain XP equal to the Network Point cost of the mission / 50.

Proposal: Make XP = NP Cost / 25 (aka double the current value).

Rationale: Currently spies level up too slowly in the game. Right now a good spy generates ~30 NP per turn, so gains about 1.6 XP per turn (or ~63 turns to level) assuming you spend all of your points on missions. With this change, it will be 2.2 XP per turn (~46 turns to level).



VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 14a
Discussion Thread: (7-14a) Remove Spy Levels
Proposer: @axatin
Sponsor: @axatin

Proposal Details
Main idea:
Remove the level-up mechanic of spies completely.

Rationale:
The number of spies available scales with era. But also the strength of spies increases over time because they level up. Together, this makes espionage too strong in the late game while it's not strong enough in renaissance/industrial.

Every game mechanic should be tied to making strategic decisions, otherwise it just adds unnecessary complexity. Before the espionage rework and in BNW, there was a risk of spies getting killed when performing missions or attempting a coup. So, there was a trade-off: Perform dangerous missions, get high rewards and a lot of XP at the risk of the spy getting killed, or play it safe, just rig elections without taking any risks and get low rewards. In this version, the risk of spies getting killed is removed almost completely, so there's no point in keeping the level-up mechanic.


Details:
1. Spies in city-states gain influence as in the current version (currently doesn't scale with spy rank). Success chances only depend on how long the spy has been staying in the CS during the current election period.

2. The base NP rate for offensive spies is set to 30. The NP reduction for the counter-espionage mission is set to 20. Both are the values for a current level 2 spy.

3. In the current version, the calculation for the number of votes that can be traded when a diplomat is active is:
- 20% of the starting votes (at least 1) for a rank 1 diplomat
- 25% of the starting votes (at least 1) for a rank 2 diplomat
- 33% of the starting votes (at least 1) for a rank 3 diplomat

It is changed to:
- 20% of the starting votes whenever a diplomat is active
- additional 5% for reaching the thresholds 200NP, 500NP, 800NP
- minimum value of 1 in all cases

4. England's ability "All spies act one level higher" is replaced by "Spies in foreign cities are 25% stronger", which means they generate +25% NP (+25% to the NP generation after taking into account city security), +25% votes to determine rigging success chances and +25% influence when rigging an election successfully.

5. Bletchley park loses "all spies are leveled up". Instead, the bonus to city security in all cities is increased to +20 (currently +10).

6. Without spy levels, there's no need to distinguish between spies being imprisoned and spies being killed. Therefore, imprisoning spies is replaced with killing them. The "chase down foreign spies" counterspy mission (identify all spies, kill all caught spies, gain 50x counterspy level science when killing a spy) is removed. This mission is currently already weak and would become even weaker, and it's misleading because people are led to believe they can stop spy actions with it. Also, the UI shouldn't be lying about identification chances.

Based on an idea by @Stalker0 in this thread



VP Congress: Session 7, Proposal 14b
Discussion Thread: (7-14b) Remove Spy XP
Proposer: @azum4roll
Sponsor: @axatin

Proposal Details
Proposal:

• Spy XP is disabled. The only way of leveling up spies is by being England or building Bletchley Park.
  • I don't know what happens currently when Bletchley Park is lost, but either way, change the behaviour to instantly downgrade all spies by 1 rank.
• Base NP rate for spies/diplomats is set to 30 (same as original proposal)
• Number of tradeable votes is changed to be the same as the original proposal
• England's UA stays the same
• Bletchley Park stays the same
• The "Chase Spies" mission is still removed as there's no point killing spies
  • As a result, all counterspies are always visible to other players

What +1 Spy Rank does:
1. +10 NP per turn when stationed in a foreign city
2. Extra -10 NP per turn on foreign spies when performing the "Establish Network" mission
3. Extra +10% City Strike Strength to the city when performing the "Strengthen Defense" mission
4. +1 vote per turn when stationed in a City State

Rationale:
Changing it this way wouldn't require a big change to both England and Bletchley Park. Plus the ranks and their effects are already shown on the UI.

 

[rkkn]

while removing spy xp only is simpler than removing levels entirely, and simpler = better, it's weird to have the UI talk about spy levels when levels are just not available to most players, so it feels like an incomplete change to me

 

[azum4roll]

while removing spy xp only is simpler than removing levels entirely, and simpler = better, it's weird to have the UI talk about spy levels when levels are just not available to most players, so it feels like an incomplete change to me

Spy level is a vanilla concept, so players should be familiar with the fact that higher level = better spy. How much they're better is also clearly shown on the UI.

Having NP modifiers that stack multiplicatively with another NP modifier is simply weird, and England should have better counterspies than others.

 

[rkkn]

yes. but if you're going to make a mechanic unavailable, the whole thing should be removed

 

[azum4roll]

It's not unavailable. You can build the Bletchley Park as any civ.

At the end, it's impossible to put all those effects on the limited text space of England UA.

 

[pineappledan]

@azum4roll's proposal seems the most elegant to me.

Whether or not spy levels are a significant part of every playthrough, we have a UI element for them so we may as well use them. Employing them for England and Bletchley park looks like a good use of the pieces we have.

 

[Stalker0]

Whether or not spy levels are a significant part of every playthrough, we have a UI element for them so we may as well use them.

This is the best example of why yield inflation exists I have ever seen

We have a thing, so we should keep using that thing... even if we don't need that thing.

Now if people love spy levels that's fine. but keeping them around when they aren't needed, just because we have some legacy UI that uses it, is a terrible rationale imo.

 

[pineappledan]

What a weird remark.

This proposal gives us the choice of two 90% similar options to strip down a mechanic of extraneous parts. The main difference is one has UI support and one doesn’t. And you want to pick the one with no UI support because something something yield inflation?

 

[Stalker0]

What a weird remark.

This proposal gives us the choice of two 90% similar options to strip down a mechanic of extraneous parts. The main difference is one has UI support and one doesn’t. And you want to pick the one with no UI support because something something yield inflation?

I'm picking the one that needs no UI support because its simpler, removes extraneous mechanics. If we are never willing to remove anything, than yes that leads to yield inflation.

 

[azum4roll]

removes extraneous mechanics

Removes so much that English counterspies have zero bonus, and the spies introduce yet another multiplicative modifier.

 

[Stalker0]

Removes so much that English counterspies have zero bonus, and the spies introduce yet another multiplicative modifier.

English spies get PLENTY of bonuses in this proposal, they don't need some special counterspy bonus to feel good about their espionage power.

Lets also not forget that diplomat vote trading might actually be more useful now, because after I settle my diplomat for a time I can trade for several votes, as opposed to now where I need to use my most powerful spies on the hope that my opponent will vote trade with me. I think that is a massive improvement.

 

[azum4roll]

Lets also not forget that diplomat vote trading might actually be more useful now,

That part's identical on both proposals?

Any "modifier" in the game is implicitly stacked additively. We should never add multiplicative ones, like the NP here.

 

[Stalker0]

Any "modifier" in the game is implicitly stacked additively. We should never add multiplicative ones, like the NP here.

On this part I would agree, I don't see any reason this needed to be multiplicative, and it is a strike against that version.

 

[Stalker0]

So thinking about it more, Azum while I do like axatin's proposal better, I do agree with you that the third proposal is still a reasonable change that addresses the main scaling concern we have now. So I'm going to vote for both.

 

[azum4roll]

If additive it would be different from the current flat +NP bonus they have, which gets modified by security.

 

[Rompersenor]

Every game mechanic should be tied to making strategic decisions, otherwise it just adds unnecessary complexity. Before the espionage rework and in BNW, there was a risk of spies getting killed when performing missions or attempting a coup. So, there was a trade-off: Perform dangerous missions, get high rewards and a lot of XP at the risk of the spy getting killed, or play it safe, just rig elections without taking any risks and get low rewards. In this version, the risk of spies getting killed is removed almost completely, so there's no point in keeping the level-up mechanic.

I do not understand the rationale behind 14a. The strategic decisions allowed by having spies with different levels is making priorities in assigning the spies, not spy deaths (I have only one lvl 3 spy, do I need mission somewhere quick? Or should I rather defend my capital more?). It is quite cool currently. No need to oversimplify the game.

 

[hokath]

Agree that it gives more choice. The unfortunate dynamic is that the spies level up at the same time you are getting more spies, which makes espionage harder to make relevant early in the game. That's how I'm thinking about it.

 

[azum4roll]

Looks like the remove level proposal is going to pass. Is it still possible to mod levels back into the game?

 

[axatin]

Looks like the remove level proposal is going to pass. Is it still possible to mod levels back into the game?

The implementation will be that internally, spy ranks will still exist, they are needed for Community Patch. In VP, all methods of gaining XP will be turned off by setting the corresponding define to 0 (ESPIONAGE_XP_PER_TURN_COUNTERSPY etc.). I will change the UI to not show spy ranks unless one of the define values is non-zero, so if any modder wants to have the leveling system back, they can do so by changing the defines.

 

[Recursive]

The implementation will be that internally, spy ranks will still exist, they are needed for Community Patch. In VP, all methods of gaining XP will be turned off by setting the corresponding define to 0 (ESPIONAGE_XP_PER_TURN_COUNTERSPY etc.). I will change the UI to not show spy ranks unless one of the define values is non-zero, so if any modder wants to have the leveling system back, they can do so by changing the defines.

To the bolded part: A better idea, change the text key for Recruit to Special Agent. Then you don't need to mess with the UI and all spies have cooler names.