Couple thoughts on patch

[Indiansmoke]

Overall, I think the patch looks great. There are some things I really like.

However, a couple of things concern me:

1) Spies now only reduce towns to villages, etc. instead of completely wiping them out. A number of people have been advocating this change on these forums. However, tell me this: Who will actually do this!!! Who in their right mind is going to march a spy all the way into rival territory, spend espionage points, take the town down to a village, have their spy go all the way back to their capital, and then march their spy all the way back again? If opposing civs are running emancipation, the situation gets even worse as regrowth is faster. It would take you a lot of spies to have any impact whatsoever to an opponent's economy. My thoughts: I think if people considered this overpowered (I did not) then the cost should have been increased. Now I can't see myself ever using this feature..

I half agree, totally worthless in later stages of the game, not so at the beginning though, where reducing a hamlet to cottage might be worth it.

2) AI will now build MORE UNITS early on and be more aggressive. While in theory I like this because it will provide more of a challenge, I am worried about the impact on the AI economy. Spending less on espionage, and being more likely to steal tech, will help out, but a number of us have been worried about the AI building more units than it can manage already and if it's building more that could only compound the problem.

Thoughts?

ps., glad to see corporate inflation is fixed. that will help a lot.

Their economy and teching problems are not comming from building more units that they can handle. If you look at the list of changes/fixes, there were problems with city governor, gp selection, workers, wonder prioritizing, esp spending etc. All these fixes should improve AI teching considerably.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Here's a crazy thought... why not just eliminate the "return to capital" and let spies keep running around until they are caught. Make the stationary spy discount reset to 0 after each mission, and also maybe increase the getting caught chance to balance it.

That does seem to be a good idea, it avoids MM.

Also spies should have a 'Cover' function where they stay inactive until they have the 50% Stationary spy bonus. (so I can put a spy in place and then tell them to cover and they won't bother me until they are ready to act.)

 

[playshogi]

Returning the spy to your capital is the worst part about the new spy system. They should bring back the embassy, where the spy returns to your embassy in the target's capital. (Assuming it just has to return somewhere). I've tried to embrace the spy system, but I just can't, and I especially don't like having to rebuild my pasture after a spy (or random event) destroys it. Why don't they just bring back pollution from Civ3 while they're at it?

 

[BYC]

Having spies return to the capital really turns me off on using spies for missions. I use them in key positions for spying, but rarely ever use them to perform any mission. Either getting rid of that part, or having a % chance of success and return, sucess and stay, or fail might be the best way to do it.

Having AI spam more units seems like a really bad idea. Depending on the situation, I can easily rush them or go into build mode and out tech them.

 

[Hawaiian]

That does seem to be a good idea, it avoids MM.

Also spies should have a 'Cover' function where they stay inactive until they have the 50% Stationary spy bonus. (so I can put a spy in place and then tell them to cover and they won't bother me until they are ready to act.)

Hey, that "cover" idea sounds great!

And further, I think they should remove the "return to capital" function and just make spies national units that have some limit to how many you can have at a time.

 

[futurehermit]

Hey, that "cover" idea sounds great!

And further, I think they should remove the "return to capital" function and just make spies national units that have some limit to how many you can have at a time.

The thing is though if you limit the # of spies you can have that will still make tedious the destruction of towns.

I think the best solution is still to simply increase the cost of destroying towns. It's a very simple change and makes it so that if you want to use this function, you have to divert enough of your economy (either slider or specialists) to espionage.

Thus, it has the net effect of increasing the use of espionage (new feature = good thing) if you put into practice this function.

As it stands post-patch this function will be less-used meaning less use of espionage (new feature = bad thing).