(CONFIRMED) Marathon/Espionage Bug

[OTAKUjbski]

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...

8 for 8/12/24 seemed pretty darn close to properly scaled to me, and 8 seemed powerful enough to stagnate a large city or kill a pop or two of a small city or one caught with no food reserves.

6 for 6 seems a little weak at Normal but is downright laughable at Marathon. I feel sorry for anybody playing on Quick now.

 

[Roland Johansen]

My guess is that since the cost don't scale either, you can perform the mission thrice as often on Marathon as you gain three times as many espionage points on that speed setting. I guess that that is supposed to balance it. It's not the perfect balancing thing according to me, but it isn't as bad as you might think at first sight. The biggest problems is the extra micromanagement, the extra spies needed and the extra chances to get caught and thus the extra diplomatic penalties.

Edit: Maybe the difference in strength between the missions could use its own thread. Most seem to agree that unhappiness is a far bigger problem than unhealthiness in most cases. (I'm one of them.)

 

[seasnake]

^^ Agree this statement. The Unhappiness is the major struggle, most of my cities on Epic have shrugged off the current amount of trouble poison can bring without slowing down too much.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

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.

Just to pick up on this bit RJ, you can't repeat the mission, until the last one has worn off, so I think you could only poison the same city every 7 turns, even with unlimited spies. Unless Firaxis are changing the equation to 6 every turn for 6 turns with no declining counter, thats still only 36. If its as it is now, i.e. 6, then 5, then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1, most cities will probably be growing after the 2nd turn of poisoning. Small cities in large empires with many health resources won't be effected at all. Even repeating every 7 turns, won't really have any effect in the long run, I'd suspect most cities would still v slowly grow.

As an earlier poster said, if the ai likes to use it EPs on what will become virtually pointless missions, thats quite an advantage over a human who won't bother, apart from maybe extremely particular circumstances.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Just to pick up on this bit RJ, you can't repeat the mission, until the last one has worn off, so I think you could only poison the same city every 7 turns, even with unlimited spies. Unless Firaxis are changing the equation to 6 every turn for 6 turns with no declining counter, thats still only 36. If its as it is now, i.e. 6, then 5, then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1, most cities will probably be growing after the 2nd turn of poisoning. Small cities in large empires with many health resources won't be effected at all. Even repeating every 7 turns, won't really have any effect in the long run, I'd suspect most cities would still v slowly grow.

As an earlier poster said, if the ai likes to use it EPs on what will become virtually pointless missions, thats quite an advantage over a human who won't bother, apart from maybe extremely particular circumstances.

If the mission cannot harm a city because it has a too high food surplus or a too high health surplus, then that is equal among game speeds. If the mission isn't causing harm because of the food storage, then you should compare 3 consecutive marathon missions with 1 normal speed mission. You do have the spy points for the missions at marathon speed as you have 3 times as many turns to gain the spy points.

If you think the mission is too weak in general on all game speeds, then maybe you're right. But on the other hand, you shouldn't use the mission on a city with a good health surplus that is still growing.

It is probably fair to worry about the AI. As I see it, 3 consecutive poison water supply mission at marathon speed equal one poison water supply mission at normal speed and without additional AI coding, I don't think the AI will do 3 consecutive poison water supply missions on marathon speed. That requires planning and the AI doesn't really plan a lot. Normally its decisions are about what is best in the present situation.
Even a human player who is planning this might fail as the second mission that was supposed to be consecutive might fail and thus there might be a few turns for the city to recover from the previous mission.

We actually shouldn't mix up the poison water supply and ferment unhappiness missions. I guess that a 6 strength ferment unhappiness mission is about as strong as an 8 strength poison water supply mission in most situations.

By the way, in general (independent of game speed) these two missions are at its strongest when they are performed multiple consecutive times against the same city. This is because when the city is low on food storage after the first mission has succeeded, then it is most vulnerable to another mission. So maybe the AI should try to get the most out of these missions by repeatedly hitting the same city. That would also help any weakness that the AI might have with the marathon version of the mission.

Other differences between the game speeds and the new spy missions as described by alexman:
- At marathon speed you might be able to harm a vulnerable city significantly with 2 consecutive missions and a third mission would be superfluous. On normal speed, the same result would be reached by a single mission in this situation and that would thus be relatively more expensive.
- At marathon speed, you have more time to move your workers to the city that was attacked in order to change tile improvements and reduce the damage from the consecutive missions.
- You might place a spy in a city that was attacked by one of these missions and that would thus make it easier to protect your cities against serious harm at marathon speed. You will only suffer serious harm at marathon speed when multiple consecutive missions succeed.

I don't think the missions are perfectly scaled by removing their differences and making the marathon speed mission relatively cheaper, but it is also not a horrible scaling method. If the AI can deal with it, then I think the scaling method is about as good as the -6 health for 3 turns, -5 health for 3 turns, etc. type of scaling suggested earlier.

By the way, I've been arguing a lot about marathon speed in the various posts in this thread, but I don't even play at that speed setting. I'm an epic speed player. Just arguing for a better game in general, I guess. Marathon speed is just the most deviant speed setting and thus suffers the most from any errors in game speed scaling.

 

[klokwerk]

I rarely play on marathon either, especially since now BtS is slower than Warlords on the late game. Epic seems to me like semi-marathon now.

 

[Bhruic]

Personally, my "fix" would this would be to leave the time scaling the way it is now, but to make the value capped at the population of the city. So if you are poisoning a size 10 city, the max unhealthiness the mission can cause is 10. But if you are hitting a size 24 city, it could get hammered with the full 24. That sort of additional scaling seems appropriate because of the increased food storage the larger cities get - they are better able to "absorb" the poisoning.

Bh

 

[Roland Johansen]

Personally, my "fix" would this would be to leave the time scaling the way it is now, but to make the value capped at the population of the city. So if you are poisoning a size 10 city, the max unhealthiness the mission can cause is 10. But if you are hitting a size 24 city, it could get hammered with the full 24. That sort of additional scaling seems appropriate because of the increased food storage the larger cities get - they are better able to "absorb" the poisoning.

Bh

The problem with this reasoning is that a food poisoning of strength 20 is much much worse than twice as bad as a food poisoning of strength 10. I also don't think that players would like to see their big cities losing 7 or so population to one food poisoning (a strength 20 food poisoning would do such a thing). So while it might be realistic in the real world that a big city suffers more, as a game mechanic, I think it is undesirable.

It's also more difficult to use the same real life reasoning to let the ferment unhappiness mission scale in this way.

 

[Bhruic]

I'd have to disagree, and I have some experience with the issue. The main reason that poisoning can be such a problem is because of the city size loss issue. That is, when a city drops a size because of negative food intake, it starts with 0 food at the next level. That's the reason that poisoning causes so much damage, because once the damage starts, it's very difficult to stop. But take a size 20 city that has an almost full granary, hit it with the current version of the poisoning mission, and it's very unlikely it'll drop 1 size.

The solution here, in my mind, is to cause any city with a granary to, when it drops a size, start with half the food necessary to the next level (much like the current increase system). This would virtually eliminate the problem, as the stored food would be a buffer against the poison, making it cause much less damage.

(It would also be nice for when you take over an enemy city so that it doesn't decrease in size dramatically post-capture, but that's an aside)

Bh

 

[Roland Johansen]

Even if you don't take the fact that the strength 20 food poisoning is far more likely to hit the 0 food border into account, then still the 20 food poisoning is far more than twice as powerful than the 10 food poisoning.

If you would have an unlimited amount of food (very large city, completely filled storage is close), then the 20 food poisoning would destroy 210 food (sum of 1 till 20) while the 10 food poisoning would destroy 55 food (sum of 1 till 10). It's really not linear, it's almost quadratic.

When the bottom of the food storage is reached, then the 20 strength food poisoning will have far more turns of damage left to reduce the population.

Also, a size 20 city doesn't have a food storage that is twice as large as a size 10 city. It's only 50% larger.

I do think that the rule change so that any city that loses a population point would receive a half filled food storage is interesting. It would make the effect of these missions far less dependent on the actual food storage at the moment of poisoning.

 

[marioflag]

If the mission cannot harm a city because it has a too high food surplus or a too high health surplus, then that is equal among game speeds. If the mission isn't causing harm because of the food storage, then you should compare 3 consecutive marathon missions with 1 normal speed mission. You do have the spy points for the missions at marathon speed as you have 3 times as many turns to gain the spy points.

If you think the mission is too weak in general on all game speeds, then maybe you're right. But on the other hand, you shouldn't use the mission on a city with a good health surplus that is still growing.

It is probably fair to worry about the AI. As I see it, 3 consecutive poison water supply mission at marathon speed equal one poison water supply mission at normal speed and without additional AI coding, I don't think the AI will do 3 consecutive poison water supply missions on marathon speed. That requires planning and the AI doesn't really plan a lot. Normally its decisions are about what is best in the present situation.
Even a human player who is planning this might fail as the second mission that was supposed to be consecutive might fail and thus there might be a few turns for the city to recover from the previous mission.

We actually shouldn't mix up the poison water supply and ferment unhappiness missions. I guess that a 6 strength ferment unhappiness mission is about as strong as an 8 strength poison water supply mission in most situations.

By the way, in general (independent of game speed) these two missions are at its strongest when they are performed multiple consecutive times against the same city. This is because when the city is low on food storage after the first mission has succeeded, then it is most vulnerable to another mission. So maybe the AI should try to get the most out of these missions by repeatedly hitting the same city. That would also help any weakness that the AI might have with the marathon version of the mission.

Other differences between the game speeds and the new spy missions as described by alexman:
- At marathon speed you might be able to harm a vulnerable city significantly with 2 consecutive missions and a third mission would be superfluous. On normal speed, the same result would be reached by a single mission in this situation and that would thus be relatively more expensive.
- At marathon speed, you have more time to move your workers to the city that was attacked in order to change tile improvements and reduce the damage from the consecutive missions.
- You might place a spy in a city that was attacked by one of these missions and that would thus make it easier to protect your cities against serious harm at marathon speed. You will only suffer serious harm at marathon speed when multiple consecutive missions succeed.

I don't think the missions are perfectly scaled by removing their differences and making the marathon speed mission relatively cheaper, but it is also not a horrible scaling method. If the AI can deal with it, then I think the scaling method is about as good as the -6 health for 3 turns, -5 health for 3 turns, etc. type of scaling suggested earlier.

By the way, I've been arguing a lot about marathon speed in the various posts in this thread, but I don't even play at that speed setting. I'm an epic speed player. Just arguing for a better game in general, I guess. Marathon speed is just the most deviant speed setting and thus suffers the most from any errors in game speed scaling.

I have actually modded XML so that Poison Water is 16 unhealthy faces for 16 turns and Foment Unhappiness 12 unhappy faces for 12 turns and it seems to be balanced; losing 1 or 2 population isn't that bad in terms of game balance.With the actual setting even repeating poison water 2-3 times wouldn't probably result in a loss of population.Poison Water will be a mission which purpose will be to destroy some food storage, foment unhappiness in the best case wll destroy some food storage and decrease a bit production.
If it will function as it is now after the first/second turn a city is poisoned there are also great chances that you will just slow city growth.Personally if this bug should be fixed another solution is really needed otherwise the espionage missions will remain useless.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I have actually modded XML so that Poison Water is 16 unhealthy faces for 16 turns and Foment Unhappiness 12 unhappy faces for 12 turns and it seems to be balanced; losing 1 or 2 population isn't that bad in terms of game balance.With the actual setting even repeating poison water 2-3 times wouldn't probably result in a loss of population.Poison Water will be a mission which purpose will be to destroy some food storage, foment unhappiness in the best case wll destroy some food storage and decrease a bit production.
If it will function as it is now after the first/second turn a city is poisoned there are also great chances that you will just slow city growth.Personally if this bug should be fixed another solution is really needed otherwise the espionage missions will remain useless.

16 for 16 turns is still rather a lot to me, that would completely obliterate a size 7 city in a lot of cases..Its very hard to balance, specifically because of the "state of the granary" fact, which is all important in this mission. The callous part of me thinks Alexman and co looked at it in exactly the same way, deciided the same (dare I say couldn't be bothered to write new code for epic and marathon), and what we'll get is what we'll get.....

 

[Bhruic]

Even if you don't take the fact that the strength 20 food poisoning is far more likely to hit the 0 food border into account, then still the 20 food poisoning is far more than twice as powerful than the 10 food poisoning.

If you would have an unlimited amount of food (very large city, completely filled storage is close), then the 20 food poisoning would destroy 210 food (sum of 1 till 20) while the 10 food poisoning would destroy 55 food (sum of 1 till 10). It's really not linear, it's almost quadratic.

That's certainly true, but I don't see that as a flaw, so much as a strategical issue. It makes sense that you'd want to go after your enemies large cities, and it makes sense that you'd be able to do more damage to them than to a smaller city. Consider that the exact reverse is true for some of the other spy missions - destroying a building for example. A large city might be able to rebuild the building in only a few turns, while a small city might take over 10x that long. Having missions that negatively affect cities more depending on their size doesn't strike me as a problem, as long as the negative effect isn't out of proportion - which for me is only a factor with the "low food" situation.

I do think that the rule change so that any city that loses a population point would receive a half filled food storage is interesting. It would make the effect of these missions far less dependent on the actual food storage at the moment of poisoning.

Exactly. Let's assume that we've got a size 20 city that gets hit with the 20/24 poison, and is going to lose 210 food. Let's assume it has 0 food to start, and otherwise has a 4 food surplus production. Over the 24 turns, it's going to produce 96 food, so it's going to lose a total of 114 food. On the first turn, it drops to size 19. Now, with the base game, it'd still have 0 food, and continue losing size. It takes 174 food to go from 19->20, so instead the city would have 87 food. It's going to lose 114 food, so that's not quite enough, and it'll drop to size 18. But at that point, it'll still have food from the granary. Total size loss is 2 sizes - and that's at a theoretical worst-case scenario where the city has 0 food to start with. I find a drop of 2 city sizes to be pretty minor for a city that size, but still serious enough that it's worth performing the mission.

Bh

 

[Roland Johansen]

I have actually modded XML so that Poison Water is 16 unhealthy faces for 16 turns and Foment Unhappiness 12 unhappy faces for 12 turns and it seems to be balanced; losing 1 or 2 population isn't that bad in terms of game balance.With the actual setting even repeating poison water 2-3 times wouldn't probably result in a loss of population.Poison Water will be a mission which purpose will be to destroy some food storage, foment unhappiness in the best case wll destroy some food storage and decrease a bit production.
If it will function as it is now after the first/second turn a city is poisoned there are also great chances that you will just slow city growth.Personally if this bug should be fixed another solution is really needed otherwise the espionage missions will remain useless.

Those missions seem pretty harsh to me, but of course that depends on what speed setting you're playing.

I can see that the missions that Firaxis is going to implement aren't going to be very damaging. But you should of course apply them to cities that don't have a lot of health and happiness to spare to get maximum effectiveness. And you should apply them repeatedly at the slower speed settings where you have more espionage points to get maximum effect.

Luckily we can still mod it if we don't like it. The present solution is not perfect, but it will at least not destroy the multiplayer version of civ4 where the standard rules are used. You can better have a mission that is too weak than one that is too strong. I guess that that is close to what Drewbledsoe said.

That's certainly true, but I don't see that as a flaw, so much as a strategical issue. It makes sense that you'd want to go after your enemies large cities, and it makes sense that you'd be able to do more damage to them than to a smaller city. Consider that the exact reverse is true for some of the other spy missions - destroying a building for example. A large city might be able to rebuild the building in only a few turns, while a small city might take over 10x that long. Having missions that negatively affect cities more depending on their size doesn't strike me as a problem, as long as the negative effect isn't out of proportion - which for me is only a factor with the "low food" situation.

Ok, that's a case of personal preference. I wouldn't like a mission whose severity increases with the size of the city and you do.

Exactly. Let's assume that we've got a size 20 city that gets hit with the 20/24 poison, and is going to lose 210 food. Let's assume it has 0 food to start, and otherwise has a 4 food surplus production. Over the 24 turns, it's going to produce 96 food, so it's going to lose a total of 114 food. On the first turn, it drops to size 19. Now, with the base game, it'd still have 0 food, and continue losing size. It takes 174 food to go from 19->20, so instead the city would have 87 food. It's going to lose 114 food, so that's not quite enough, and it'll drop to size 18. But at that point, it'll still have food from the granary. Total size loss is 2 sizes - and that's at a theoretical worst-case scenario where the city has 0 food to start with. I find a drop of 2 city sizes to be pretty minor for a city that size, but still serious enough that it's worth performing the mission.

Bh

20/24 mission?

However, I did understand the ramifications and I would at least like them in case of these missions. It would make them less dependent on the state of the granary. It would of course make city starving more difficult in general. For instance, city starving by blockading coastal tiles would be less useful. I'm not saying that that would be a problem to me personally, but there are a few players who like the fact that ships can really hurt a city by just blockading it.

I would like such a rule change. You'd have to cheapen these 2 spy missions or make them more effective to balance things. I would probably prefer a different balance than you, but we all have our preferences and can't all be pleased at the same time. It's a tough job to make a good game.

 

[Bhruic]

Ok, that's a case of personal preference. I wouldn't like a mission whose severity increases with the size of the city and you do.

Well, it's not that I like having my cities hammered. I just think that if the missions have no real tangible effect then they become effectively useless - so why even have them in the game?

20/24 mission?

Sorry, shorthand. I meant 20 unhealthiness, 24 turns.

For instance, city starving by blockading coastal tiles would be less useful. I'm not saying that that would be a problem to me personally, but there are a few players who like the fact that ships can really hurt a city by just blockading it.

True, that would be more difficult. I'd consider that offset by not having my captured cities drop to size 2 because they can only work 1-2 tiles right after I take them over. But I agree that it wouldn't make everyone happy.

I would like such a rule change. You'd have to cheapen these 2 spy missions or make them more effective to balance things. I would probably prefer a different balance than you, but we all have our preferences and can't all be pleased at the same time. It's a tough job to make a good game.

Oh, absolutely. I've done a lot of modding on some other games, and even with only a few people in the discussion, coming up with a consensus can be very challenging. I don't really care what Firaxis decides here, as long as it's moddable. It's too bad they didn't include the whole spy system in the dll so it could be truly modded, but I guess that's asking a little much.

Bh

 

[marioflag]

16 for 16 turns is still rather a lot to me, that would completely obliterate a size 7 city in a lot of cases..Its very hard to balance, specifically because of the "state of the granary" fact, which is all important in this mission. The callous part of me thinks Alexman and co looked at it in exactly the same way, deciided the same (dare I say couldn't be bothered to write new code for epic and marathon), and what we'll get is what we'll get.....

Those missions seem pretty harsh to me, but of course that depends on what speed setting you're playing.

I can see that the missions that Firaxis is going to implement aren't going to be very damaging. But you should of course apply them to cities that don't have a lot of health and happiness to spare to get maximum effectiveness. And you should apply them repeatedly at the slower speed settings where you have more espionage points to get maximum effect.

About the "state of granary" it's correct, but i can say that foment unhappiness at 12 unhappy for 12 turns was more powerful than 15 (it wasn't 16) unhealthy per 15 turns.Actually in big cities sometimes i get only food stored destroyed ,other times in smaller cities i got 2 population destroyed, which at Marathon Speed and 360 EP cost as standard it's not that overpowered.You should consider that 6 unhealthy for 6 turns will not be even 3 times less effective than 15 unhealthy faces for 15 turns because it's possible that even if you try 3 times Poison Water food stored will not be destroyed unlike at my settings you have this situation happening everytime.
Another thing which should be considered is that repeating a mission 3 times means also that you have to see 3 times if this mission will be successful, which means that cost/effectiveness is lower.
I would also emphasize that Poison Water is a lot less effective compared to foment unhappiness at 6/6 than it would be if both are at 12/12, so it's the case to rebalance costs and to make foment unhappiness more costly.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Well, it's not that I like having my cities hammered. I just think that if the missions have no real tangible effect then they become effectively useless - so why even have them in the game?

Yes, I agree, the mission should be useful. The new missions as stated by alexman (strength 6 missions at all game speeds, costs do not scale) might not be too useful on the slower gamespeeds. But if they're cheap enough compared to the higher spy point income on these speed settings, then they might still be useful if used repeatedly against the same target. But of course, with a maximum damage of 6 health loss, it won't cause a lot of damage to a city. Probably not a lot more than 2-3 citizens even after repeated use.

On the other hand, I don't know if I would like it if these missions could potentially cause city size reduction of 5-7 citizens. For me that would be a bit too much for an espionage mission. But that is personal preference.

The only espionage mission which could have such an effect (in my opinion) would be a mission to plant a nuclear device. Such a mission should carry large diplomatic effects when the spy would be caught.

Sorry, shorthand. I meant 20 unhealthiness, 24 turns.

Uhm?

Have we been talking about completely different missions?

The standard mission as it is in the game now decreases in effect by 1 per turn. What would this mission do? Decrease is effect by 1 per turn for 5 turns and then remain its strength for 1 turn before decreasing further and repeat that cycle. Or maybe 20 unhealthiness without decrease in strength. Ouch, that would hurt a lot. Have we been talking about different things?

 

[Bhruic]

We may have been - my idea was to have the duration locked, but the maximum effect max out at the city size. So on Marathon, the poison mission would always last 24 turns, but the actual poison "damage" would never be greater than the size of the city. In my example, I was using a size 20 city, hence the 20 "damage". The damage would still decrease every turn, scaled to 24 turns (ie, it would lose 20 div 24 every turn, or 1 every turn except turns divisible by 6).

Bh

 

[Roland Johansen]

About the "state of granary" it's correct, but i can say that foment unhappiness at 12 unhappy for 12 turns was more powerful than 15 (it wasn't 16) unhealthy per 15 turns.Actually in big cities sometimes i get only food stored destroyed ,other times in smaller cities i got 2 population destroyed, which at Marathon Speed and 360 EP cost as standard it's not that overpowered.You should consider that 6 unhealthy for 6 turns will not be even 3 times less effective than 15 unhealthy faces for 15 turns because it's possible that even if you try 3 times Poison Water food stored will not be destroyed unlike at my settings you have this situation happening everytime.
Another thing which should be considered is that repeating a mission 3 times means also that you have to see 3 times if this mission will be successful, which means that cost/effectiveness is lower.
I would also emphasize that Poison Water is a lot less effective compared to foment unhappiness at 6/6 than it would be if both are at 12/12, so it's the case to rebalance costs and to make foment unhappiness more costly.

Ah, you're playing at marathon speed. I was assuming normal speed since you were talking about a 16/16 mission (and 16 isn't a multiple of 3). In that case, it was a good scaling. See post 80, where I suggested similar scaling to someone (Keith_C) who asked how to scale these missions at the different game speeds until the patch would arrive. The marathon missions will in general still be a bit more harmful because the city loses population at the same speed as the normal speed city. But I guess you can't get a lot better scaling than this with the limitations of the XML files.

By the way: whether you have to roll a say 75% chance check for one costly mission at 360 EP or three times for a 120 EP mission doesn't make a lot of difference. Yes, it is true that there is a bigger chance that you will fail one of the three missions than that you will fail the one costly mission. But in that case, you should have a backup spy. The estimated cost to get one successful 360EP mission and to get three successful 120 EP mission is equal. The bigger difference is that you need more spies for the cheaper missions and that the attacked city has a chance to take countermeasures against subsequent missions.

I don't think that the suggestion by Alexman is perfect, but it isn't that awful either.

 

[Roland Johansen]

We may have been - my idea was to have the duration locked, but the maximum effect max out at the city size. So on Marathon, the poison mission would always last 24 turns, but the actual poison "damage" would never be greater than the size of the city. In my example, I was using a size 20 city, hence the 20 "damage". The damage would still decrease every turn, scaled to 24 turns (ie, it would lose 20 div 24 every turn, or 1 every turn except turns divisible by 6).

Bh

In that case, we have been talking about different things. Your mission is a bit complicated for starting players to understand. And as said before, I don't like the fact that big cities are hurt more, but that is personal.

How do you suggest the scaling over game speeds should be done? I guess the above mission is the mission at marathon speed setting.