concerns about espionage

[apocalypse105]

Hello

in this video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRowgFVMAKo
firaxis was talking about that spies can now steal great works. at minute 5:58 it starts talking about it.

I really had some concerns about it. In gods and king they implented tech stealing really interesting at immortal and deity but on emperor or below its just a annoyance because the AI will steal all your techs i've had a expensive tech stolen just when it was researched when i had a LV 3 spy here is my original post about this :

Stealing techs wouldn't be so bad if you could counter it with youre own spies but you dont. it seems like counter espionage doesnt work. i've had lv 3 spies who kept failing to kill a enemy spy.
The enemy spies are at a advantage because its more likly they succeed and if they do they get promoted so its harder to kill them... while defensive spies dont do a good job they often dont kill enemy spies.

So yeah now i have the same concerns about stealing great works.. Your defensive spies even at high levels just fail missarable killing enemy spies and most AI succeed and steal youre great works...

Hopefully they make the percent of catching a enemy spy 100% so you have 50% succeeding in stealing a great work either the enemy has a spy or not to defend.

To be honest i've never been a big fan of espionage in civ 4 and civ 5 because there wasn't a good defensive espionage system it favored the people who are behind.

youre spies on counter espionage aren't efficient they dont catch enemy spies even at high levels its annoying. and you can't level them up a lot because they wont catch a lot of spies and the enemy gets more upgraded spies because of succeeding

 

[stealth_nsk]

It looks like they have a system close to BE intrigue system. To perform really damaging operations on another civ city, you need to grow your presence there. You could counter this with spies and, probably, other methods.

The key thing in this system is - there's no randomness or misinformation. If there's not enough spy presence in your cities you can't be targeted by high-level actions. And if you see the presence increasing and do nothing - it's clearly your fault.

However, that's speculations based on small pieces of info and BE game mechanics. We don't know for sure how it works. For example, we don't see space for espionage buildings.

 

[apocalypse105]

It looks like they have a system close to BE intrigue system. To perform really damaging operations on another civ city, you need to grow your presence there. You could counter this with spies and, probably, other methods.

The key thing in this system is - there's no randomness or misinformation. If there's not enough spy presence in your cities you can't be targeted by high-level actions. And if you see the presence increasing and do nothing - it's clearly your fault.

However, that's speculations based on small pieces of info and BE game mechanics. We don't know for sure how it works. For example, we don't see space for espionage buildings.

I"m allready glad they it isn't the same mechanic as civ 5 where you just send youre spy and steal stuff... and hope that youre counter espionage spy catch them

 

[stealth_nsk]

I"m allready glad they it isn't the same mechanic as civ 5 where you just send youre spy and steal stuff... and hope that youre counter espionage spy catch them

That's just a speculation, though. We've seen visibility rating, but can't say for sure whether it works like CivBE intrigue or not.

Actually after looking at this image I'm afraid it's just percentages again:

Spoiler :

 

[Plus Ultra]

They'll probably explain how counterintelligence works soon enough.

 

[Suho1004]

I am not a big fan of the way espionage works in Civ 5. In my most recent game, despite having a counterspy, I had eight techs in a row stolen from me over the span of maybe 30 turns. I might be exaggerating here, as I did not keep exact count, but it really did seem like I was getting a tech stolen every three or four turns, all why my counterspy sat there and did nothing.

Ultimately espionage in Civ 5 is a rubber-band mechanic designed to prevent AI civs from falling too far behind, and it is very frustrating.

 

[Aldor]

I am not a big fan of the way espionage works in Civ 5. In my most recent game, despite having a counterspy, I had eight techs in a row stolen from me over the span of maybe 30 turns. I might be exaggerating here, as I did not keep exact count, but it really did seem like I was getting a tech stolen every three or four turns, all why my counterspy sat there and did nothing.

Ultimately espionage in Civ 5 is a rubber-band mechanic designed to prevent AI civs from falling too far behind, and it is very frustrating.

Police station and its predecessor (forgot what it's called) help a bit by slowing down the enemy (and thereby increasing your spy's chance to catch them). But its still extremely frustrating to have your latest, just researched tech stolen away from under you...I hope that we won't see something like this with great works in Civ6.

 

[Martinus]

Sorry but is any information in the OP other than the fact that they can steal great works anything else than pure speculation? It seems to be presented as facts but unless you played the game how do you know all this?

 

[dturtle1]

I wouldnt mind a % based system as long as there are mechanics like being able find spies operating in your territory so as you can actively defend against espionage. That we can actively work towards protecting our cities rather than putting spies in our biggest potential cities and just hoping. In Civ5 it is more closer to wack-a-mole and hope you dont miss. Sure i can put a spy in this 5 Star potential City, but what the spy is just down the road in the 5 Star city next door . If i had a Science Lead i generally preferred to just flip city states. On Emperor i sometimes put Spies in my Capital or Science Focused City(If i had one). Otherwise it wasn't worth the effort, especially when you get out-levelled., id rather juts giveaway the tech's as charity

 

[Olleus]

Randomness works fine provided there is a large sample so it averages out.

For example, having % based results in combat is fine, because you'll have lots of battles in a war (or even to kill a single unit), so it will generally balance itself out. In BNW the same thing happens when it comes to city state coups, you can generally expect to have a few happening every 20 turns, so any run of bad luck you have will run out eventually. Tech stealing is different however, you have to invest a spy for a long time (40+ turns I've seen) and the success/failure of a single attempt can change the game. That makes it bad design.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Sorry but is any information in the OP other than the fact that they can steal great works anything else than pure speculation? It seems to be presented as facts but unless you played the game how do you know all this?

What we know:

1. There's a limited number of spies and they are available later in the game.

2. Spies are real units, but based on their movement (1), they seem to be moving liek trader units with attached target, not like "normal" ones.

3. We know the available operations depend on the districts in the target city. If the city has Commercial district, the spy could steal money, if Theater district - spy could steal Great Works.

4. We know spies could provide additional level of access for "gossip" system available in the diplomacy. We don't know what other functions the level of access have.

5. We've seen spy operations requiring time (8 turns, but we don't know the game speed) and having chance of success. We didn't see any indication of spy operations having costs.

6. We know spies have levels.

That's it. The rest is speculation. We don't know anything about counter-spying, for example.

 

[George Abitbol]

Police station and its predecessor (forgot what it's called)

Constabulary? I just realized I never built none of them.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Randomness works fine provided there is a large sample so it averages out.

Which means it doesn't work well with strong effects. And I consider stealing Great Work to be strong enough effect.

 

[apocalypse105]

Police station and its predecessor (forgot what it's called) help a bit by slowing down the enemy (and thereby increasing your spy's chance to catch them). But its still extremely frustrating to have your latest, just researched tech stolen away from under you...I hope that we won't see something like this with great works in Civ6.

Thats exactly my point.. stealing great works are even more game breaking then steeling techs. Because you expand a great artist or musician for it its harder to optain.

olso the police station and constabulary should get a change it should increase the change of YOURE OWN SPY KILLING A ENEMY SPY a certain % more change of killing foreign spies insteed of slowing down the speed they steal techs

Hope they make some serious counter espionage to counter it and hope you can declare war because someone stole a great work and dont get a warmonger penalty

Sorry but is any information in the OP other than the fact that they can steal great works anything else than pure speculation? It seems to be presented as facts but unless you played the game how do you know all this?

they said it was going to be the same mechanic like in civ 5.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Thats exactly my point.. stealing great works are even more game breaking then steeling techs. Because you expand a great artist or musician for it its harder to optain.

olso the police station and constabulary should get a change it should increase the change of YOURE OWN SPY KILLING A ENEMY SPY a certain % more change of killing foreign spies insteed of slowing down the speed they steal techs

Hope they make some serious counter espionage to counter it and hope you can declare war because someone stole a great work and dont get a warmonger penalty

Casus Belli for espionage actions is a very likely thing and is quite good idea. It would be bad if it's the main approach to stop espionage.

they said it was going to be the same mechanic like in civ 5.

I can't remember anything like this.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Casus Belli for espionage actions is a very likely thing and is quite good idea.

That seems reasonable, as long as the spy is caught, of course.

 

[Cerilis]

That seems reasonable, as long as the spy is caught, of course.

I wonder if you can also "frame" other civs like this.
Be it without catching the spy and blaming someone or outright with a spy action that blames someone else.

 

[Acken]

So much stuff we dont know and so much new stuff compared to civ5.

And less than 6 weeks left.

I hope they werent overambitious :/

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

They steal your art, you steal their's.

 

[Cerilis]

They steal your art, you steal their's.

Or pillage their lands and enslave their people. It's all just details...