[GS] All My Spies fled the same empire every few turns?
- Thread starter dkmoo12
- Start date
You're still losing on the amount of missions the spies could do. And I play with max amount of AI possible so the chances of this happening are too high. Nah, workaround not good enough for me sadly.
Achiever111
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2020
- Messages
- 1
This just happened to me this weekend. Fortunately, I had just saved, and using some auto-saves I went back to try to figure out what happened. Here are the highlights:
* I had ~ 6 active spies. One was counter-spying, one was in transit to Country A, three were in Country A (with whom I'm at war) and one was in Country B (denounced me).
* It seems the "magic" event was when Countries A & B formed an alliance. I got the message that my spy in the capital of Country A fled because a new empire was in power. That said, ALL of my spies in Country A and my spy in Country B were back in my capital when it was my turn.
* I went back a few turns and replayed it, but took my spy out of the capital of Country A before the alliance occurred -- but when the alliance was formed, all of my spies in Countries A & B fled (the "alert" only mentioned one again, but all fled) went back to my capital.
* So, it seems the alliance between A & B triggered this event, but I'm really not sure why it would. Again, I'm at war with one and was denounced by the other. (No history of either war or friendship with Country B.)
I have not played forward from this. Kinda sucks, especially since I've got Owls and Intelligence Agency.
If anyone can explain why this is happening (other than that it is a bug), please let me know!
Oh, and BTW, I started this game before the October update, but as soon as the update came out, its rules took effect. (I can't spy on my allies; no option to send them to allied cities.)
And in the FWIW category: This is deity, random small map, quick speed, random civs. (I'm Trajan. Country A is Hungary and B is Kongo.)
I suppose I'm lucky that in 7 months this is the first real bug I've come across.
Civ on!
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2011
- Messages
- 1,128
Well we can only be speculative but from what I gathered , I'd dare say it is coded like this " for each spy in target country , if alliance event remove spy" except the guy who coded the thing did not distinguish 'alliance event' from ' alliance event with spy country'. Therefore everytime a civ allies with anyone , it removes all the spies in its territory
neat boost to alliance I guess :crazy:Me as well.
I'm not certain, I've read a dev diary for World of Warcraft once where they explained how a change in one area of the game broke something in totally unrelated area first coded loooong time ago. It was ridiculous, you wouldn't even think to test it. It's crazy how interconnected and complex things get when you layer change upon change in the code.
btw where do they announce hotfixes like this? how would I know that the bug is gone?
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I can confirm this happens in multiplayer games. If you get hit once by the bug, you get it for the rest of the game. In multiplayer team games, the bug hits all the spies on one team at the same time. If the target player makes an alliance with anybody, all spies operating in his land gets sent back. We extensively use spies in multiplayer, and the bug is such that it can actually effect the outcome of a game; not being able to get the diplomatic visibility bonus, can't sabotage a spaceport, not being able to steal gold to finance an upgrade push.
Feral_Midget
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2020
- Messages
- 1
I'm seeing this too. I play the vanilla, original, straight out-of-the-box game with no mods whatsoever, no add-on packs except the Aztecs. There are no disasters in my game. At late stage of the game I'm usually enemies with everybody, and I never have alliances, so that's not causing it. I've noticed it generally happens to a certain player, i.e., there's one player I can't spy on, but on the others I can. I think the spy flees when he finishes the "Gain Sources" mission.
iammaxhailme
Emperor
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2015
- Messages
- 1,999
I'm having this bug as well. I have lots of mods (nothing that should effect spies though) and all official content. I am repeatedly having all my spies flee from Georgia (multiple different cities) at the same time. I am using gain sources + foment unrest. I'm not doing any partisans missions. Georgia is angry with me but not at war, however she is both allied and at war with some other AIs, so maybe that effects it?
I've been getting this for a few games lately. All in new games after last patch, no mods.
While I haven't looked in any .log files, the 2 times it's happened it was with a Civ that was mad at me. It appears to have occurred when that Civ made an alliance with another Civ, but not me or any of my allies. (Looking in the Gossip tab.)
My guess is that whenever any alliance is formed in the Civ with the spy, that "new power condition" is triggered. This makes it nearly impossible to stop that Civ from winning a Science victory as I can't Disrupt their rocketry.
While I haven't looked in any .log files, the 2 times it's happened it was with a Civ that was mad at me. It appears to have occurred when that Civ made an alliance with another Civ, but not me or any of my allies. (Looking in the Gossip tab.)
My guess is that whenever any alliance is formed in the Civ with the spy, that "new power condition" is triggered. This makes it nearly impossible to stop that Civ from winning a Science victory as I can't Disrupt their rocketry.
Scaramanga
Brickhead
I’ve experienced on the switch and I think it had to do with the target entering or renewing an alliance.
I agree. In my game it happened when my target civ finished alliance with another civ.
Note 1: none of the civs have alliance/friendship with me or any of my allies/friends
Note 2: all the spies in different cities of the target civ returned
Note 3: it happened even when I cancelled all missions that were 1 turn left
Leonard693
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2020
- Messages
- 2
This is a game breaker for me. I rely at Emperor or above on being able to use spies to sabotage the AI's race to science victory. Being randomly thrown out of cities makes the whole thing a lot more difficult than it needs to be.
bonfireg
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2020
- Messages
- 43
It's not random, it's simply any time the AI civilization's relationship status changes with another civilization (yours, another AI, it doesn't seem to matter) spies are being kicked out of cities now. It could be going from unfriendly to neutral, or from declared friends to just friendly, any relationship change seems to trigger it. It is absolutely a bug introduced with the October 2020 update.
Scaramanga
Brickhead
It makes me feel slightly better that this must also happen to the AI in my and my allies’ cities.
FXS is not known for hotfixes, and it's usually only when a serious issue causes the game to not load properly. I can only think of three instances in four years. In any event, a new update will be out on the 19th. Whether they make further adjustments/fixes to the spy mechanic is unknown, but if they feel it is not an immediate concern, it could be months before anything is done.
tedhebert
Emperor
Honestly, if they don't decide to classify this as important, there's a serious problem somewhere in the decision chain. This is really game breaking. I'm a strong supporter of FXS, but the amount and importance of the bugs they've introduced in the last 2 patches are simply unacceptable
