(CONFIRMED) Marathon/Espionage Bug

[Roland Johansen]

Sorry about this bug.

The patch will simply remove game speed scaling from those two espionage missions. They will always result in 6 unhappy/unhealthy for 6 turns.

Good to hear that a patch is in the making and that it will address this problem.

Doesn't the cost of this mission scale with game speed (I really don't know)? If the cost does scale with game speed, then the effect should also scale. If the cost doesn't scale with game speed, then it would probably still cost you more spies to repeatedly perform the mission in slower game speeds but that isn't a big problem as production of units is relatively cheap at slower game speeds.

 

[Keith_C]

The normal value is 8 for normal. I would go for 7 for epic (muliplied by 1.5 that is 10) and 4 or 5 for marathon (multiplied by 3 that is 12 or 15).

Cheers - I always play on Epic speed so I'll go with 7. So I change the bits for iPoisonWaterCounter and iCityUnhappinessCounter both from 8 to 7, right?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Cheers - I always play on Epic speed so I'll go with 7. So I change the bits for iPoisonWaterCounter and iCityUnhappinessCounter both from 8 to 7, right?

Yes, that would make them about equal in strength to the normal speed strength.

 

[Keith_C]

Cheers kindly!

 

[Saluki]

Wrong forum. Ignore.

 

[ori]

Just FYI. Found this in the bug forums posted this morning.

Yes and in this thread of all things

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Sorry about this bug.

The patch will simply remove game speed scaling from those two espionage missions. They will always result in 6 unhappy/unhealthy for 6 turns.

No I don't want to start something else here, but even though 24 for 24 turns was just completely wrong, 6 for 6 turns, even on marathon? That makes it so weak its almost pointless in doing.....

I assume the unhappiness will also be scaled the same, so 6 for 6 turns, is quite a lot more effective, which already makes the missions imbalanced (they cost the same atm)with regard to the proposed official changes.

Reeeaaaaaaaly sorry to bring this up, but thought I had to............

Sorry again, I'll go and hide back in the cupboard...

 

[DrJambo]

Sorry about this bug.

The patch will simply remove game speed scaling from those two espionage missions. They will always result in 6 unhappy/unhealthy for 6 turns

Yes, 6 for all speeds would be far too weak overall. Ideally it would scale with city size, so that the mission doesn't destroy cities in the early game and yet will cause some angst in the mid-late game. Otherwise, if it's a fixed number, we'll have an option that is too powerful in the early game and too weak in the late game.

Also, the Spread Culture option needs to be massively reduced in cost, just so it makes an appearance in the game from time to time. There's no point in having an option that's never used because it's too expensive...

 

[alexman]

Of course the cost will not scale with game speed either

 

[alexman]

I'm not sure about spread culture. This mission increases your own culture in that city by a fixed percentage. The greater your culture in that city, the greater the effect, but the higher the cost.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hey, Alexman, thanks for your reaction on this issue. This bug and the high cost of the combination of inflation and corporation upkeep are probably the most discussed issues in the Beyond the Sword subforum. I think many people in this forum would appreciate some kind of reaction of Firaxis on that second issue. I posted a bug report on the inflation-corporation issue, but opinions seem to be divided on the issue so you probably have to be subtle in any reaction on the issue. You know your way around with formulas, so you should be able to give a insightful reaction on the issue.

 

[DrJambo]

alexman,

But is spread culture so much better than steal tech? Will it be ever be used by human or AI? It takes so long to save up for steal tech, it's hard to imagine people will go for spread culture at its current value.

 

[Todd Hawks]

I think 6 on all game speeds is fine. Sure, it's weak, but considering it's a weapon you can use during peace time with an invisible unit and without any kind of counter available, I think it shouldn't be any stronger anyway.

DrJambo: Maybe it's just me but I never see spy missions as valid long term strategy. So there is always the chance that I want to spread culture (e.g. if I want to flip a city on the edge) and even if it's only worthwhile once every 10 games, it's still nice to have it. On the contrary, having a mission that can be used effectively all the time makes Civ into some kind of spy shuffling game and at least I don't want that.

 

[DrJambo]

In one screenshot I saw steal tech at ~11,000 EPs and spread culture at ~46,000. Is it really the same power as stealing 4 tech?

Regarding espionage, it still has to be useful otherwise why have it? Poisoning the water or fomenting unhappiness for 6 turns won't impact on anything, period. I know because the default 12 turns at Epic doesn't do much to mid/late game cities. If it's useless the human simply won't use it and will use the points elsewhere. As the AI happily spends resource on EPs to perform these missions, making them relatively useless will only hurt the AI as humans quickly realise what's worth it and what's not. Just because you don't take much interest in espionage doesn't mean it should be dumbed down.

 

[Roland Johansen]

In one screenshot I saw steal tech at ~11,000 EPs and spread culture at ~46,000. Is it really the same power as stealing 4 tech?

Alexman says that it adds a percentage culture to a tile and the cost is relative to the culture added. So you probably want to use the mission in a city with little culture which is under little cultural pressure. If there is already significant culture on the tile, then it is too expensive.

Still, 46.000 cost seems excessive. Maybe the cost factor relative to the culture that it provides is still too high, I don't know. It should not be an economical effective way to get culture in the foreign city otherwise it would be a too effective way to win the cultural battle. It could become more effective than just normally improving the culture in the tile by winning the cultural battle.

Regarding espionage, it still has to be useful otherwise why have it? Poisoning the water or fomenting unhappiness for 6 turns won't impact on anything, period. I know because the default 12 turns at Epic doesn't do much to mid/late game cities. If it's useless the human simply won't use it and will use the points elsewhere. As the AI happily spends resource on EPs to perform these missions, making them relatively useless will only hurt the AI as humans quickly realise what's worth it and what's not. Just because you don't take much interest in espionage doesn't mean it should be dumbed down.

The cost is relatively low at epic/marathon level, so you should be able to perform the mission multiple times to get the desired effect.

 

[DrJambo]

I'd rather more expense and more power, since this means less micromanagement. Putting spies into boats and sending them multiple times half-way round the globe for a measely -6 each time is hardly worth the bother.

 

[marioflag]

Sorry about this bug.

The patch will simply remove game speed scaling from those two espionage missions. They will always result in 6 unhappy/unhealthy for 6 turns.

On Marathon and Epic speed if both missions will have this effect they will become worthless.Wouldn't be better 8 unhappy/unhealthy for 8 turns and increasing a bit espionage cost?
With these settings i fear that Poison Water will just make city growth slower or consume some food stored an only in exceptional case kill 1 population.
Foment Unhappiness would be a bit more effective but if they will cost the same as in 3.02 they will not be used except for roleplay.

 

[vilemerchant]

Suits me, I think the idea of using spies to forment happiness and poison water is a fairly worthless addition to the game anyway. Much better to dial it back to an irrelevent addition rather than a game-breaking one.

 

[Zoolooman]

Regarding espionage, it still has to be useful otherwise why have it? Poisoning the water or fomenting unhappiness for 6 turns won't impact on anything, period.

Try doing these during a long war.

 

[marioflag]

Suits me, I think the idea of using spies to forment happiness and poison water is a fairly worthless addition to the game anyway. Much better to dial it back to an irrelevent addition rather than a game-breaking one.

There is a difference, these missions now are bugged, that solution doesn't seem really optimal for slower speed, granted that it's balanced for normal speed and perhaps OP on quick speed.