Death To Spies (In BTS)

[Tennyson]

nobody except firaxis knows about spies

and they ain't talking

this confusion is a shambles

I read the civilopedia and played one game of BTS and I haven't really had a problem understanding it.

Just assign 10% of your output to espionage starting around, oh, say, Philosophy, and if in later ages you can see all the other civ's cities, go ahead and turn it off. Use the Espionage screen if you want to allocate your espionage unevenly.

 

[mice]

Krasny , if you don't mind editing the XML then just go to 'unitclassinfos' and set 'max global instances' to '0'. Change it from -1 which is unlimited.

Or set it to any number you want.

 

[Aurelius321]

I don't know if someone mentioned this or not... And I'm too gosh darned lazy to read all this thread so I'll just tack on my piece.

If you put your spy in an enemy city and run a spy mission there will be a choice at the bottom named "Run Counterespionage". That mission makes it more difficult for the enemy to run successful missions and missions cost them %200 of normal costs.

 

[Badesumofu]

In one of my recent games, I discovered how cool Espionage can be. I built the Great Wall (mostly just because I could, stone was nearby) as Philosophical Abe. Before I knew it, I had a Great Spy. Sent him into Mongolia, mapped out the territory, and then infiltrated the capital. Suddenly I was able to investigate all his cities, basically destroy his improvements at will, put his cities into rebellion just as I was about to attack them with Axes thus reducing defence to 0, allowing me to steam-roll Kublai without any Cats.

I covered him in spies first, he couldn't catch any because I had 4k EPs to his 40 or so on me. He never succeded on a mission against me. I cut off all his metals and then sent secondary spies to sit on the tiles for when he rebuilt the mines. Espionage can be pretty nice if you make the effort to get EPs.

I got two more GSs before too long in that game, allowing me to always have a massive EP advantage on my enemies, and fair lead over everyone else (was able to spend all my other EPs on other civs, putting me a little bit ahead of them on EP ratio).

In conclusion, build the Great Wall, you should not have to worry about espionage much at all.

 

[kazapp]

I agree with the original poster:

The Espionage game demands way too much attention.

I appreciate Firaxis wanting to make spies meaningful, but in BtS it's just ridiculous!

What's the meaning of having to waste 10% on the Espionage slider, when every civ just does the same? Or even worse, if the AI sets it even higher.

I far prefer how things were before, when this stupid moneydraining arms race didn't exist. Give me an option to force the slider to 0% permanently for all civs, and I would be happy.

Then, being swamped by Spy units. Yes, it's annoying as hell to suddenly in BtS to be forced into micromanaging these buggers. Why can't settlers come auto-equipped with an automatic stationary free spy unit? If the advice is "have a spy in each of your cities" why do I have to manually place them there?

Or at least implement an auto-move function of spies, so whenever I have built one, it decides for itself where it's best needed, and moves there all by itself?!

So, the new espionage missions are cool and all, but you went overboard with this one, Firaxis, adding a lot of stupid micromanagement chores that, worst of all, can't be turned off as an option!

Make it AN OPTION in the custom game menu and I wouldn't complain, okay?

 

[sveint]

Smiert Spionem

 

[Photi]

cheese anyone?

i don't want to lose all the espy points i collected throughout the game on a failed mission. that would make the game un-fun, even if it does not jive with real life. just kill the spy.

civ is a game and is not real life nor is the game meant to simulate real life, it is merely inspired by real life in a fun and entertaining way given the sometimes nice and sometimes tragic facts of real life.

spies have their function, much more so than in warlords, but i think everyone here just hates to feel like they are swatting flies. spies seem to work best when contained within a larger strategy to weaken your opponent in either an absolute sense, by wreaking havoc on his improvements or buildings, or in a relative sense, by stealing his technology. unfortunately AI's have yet to figure out how to think in grand strategic terms, and so they build spies because they can and they poison water because they can, probably preferring the human over other ai's. they just need to chill out a little.

i thnk it would be nice if you could find out how many technologies were stolen from you over the course of a game, like a spy log of some sort. also, the rules about catching spies are mostly vague. doesnt' the civolpedia just say somehting abt stationing one nearby? it does not say anything about stationing a spy in all of your cities, i think you might just need the unit somewhere to reduce the success everywhere. (pre-security bureau of course). but i could be totally wrong abt that though.

i think firaxis needs to keep playing with the details and mechanics of it all. make espionage too easy, and you might as well be going into world-builder, make it too detailed and only the micro-managers have fun.

given the above complaining however, we can only begin to realize the tragedy of the cold war. africa swarmed with spies in the '80's. kgb, cia, and the mossad f-ing things up everywhere.

 

[Photi]

deleted by poster

 

[Photi]

deleted etc probably a better way to do this

 

[Monkeyfinger]

i think firaxis needs to keep playing with the details and mechanics of it all. make espionage too easy, and you might as well be going into world-builder, make it too detailed and only the micro-managers have fun.

Err on the second side of that scale, and add in the often mentioned option to totally disable espionage.

I like espionage in BtS, can use it well, and think the micromanagement involved with it is not excessive, but I realize that not everyone will think that way, and that they should have the right to get rid of an option they think sucks.

 

[Uberness]

Losing points on a failed mission would be just pure unfun, it's bad enough to fail to steal engineering on 72% odds once, but to have it happen 5 times in a row, and also need to wait 30 turns between trying again? makes it much to dependant on luck and anyone would only ever use cheap missions.


A option to remove spys from the game would be bad also, you would lose builders specialists units great people and all that.

The only thing they need to do about it is either increase the cost of a mission to destroy a town by 25 per level of the town, or random how many levels of a town a spy can destroy.

And also to fix the speed diffience so it's -8 health/unhappy on all speeds, since -5 for 5 turns is alittle weak on quick.

 

[vodobas]

I'm still unsure if the presence of one of your spies in a city increases the difficulty of an opponent running a mission there. Does anyone know this for sure, and if so, how does it change the success percentage. Are 2 friendly spies defending better than one?

 

[NickAragua]

spies are a big problem in BTS
i had taken all reasonable precautions, namely building securiy bureaux and stationing a spy in each of my cities

i really can't be arsed with sending spies every 10 turns to an AI city on counter espionarge missions, cos i'm lazy and hate stupid micromanagement, i play Civ to have fun, not as a second job

So, you're willing to take the time to put a spy into each of your cities but not to send one stupid spy over to the nearest enemy city and do a counter-espionage? That's like saying you can't be bothered to upgrade your longbowmen!

Generally speaking, the only AIs who use spies a lot on you are ones that you have land borders/share a continent with. So you should only be worried about sending spies over to civs that are on your main continent.

 

[Quagga]

I agree that it seems to be your neighbors that spy the most. I'm guessing that close targets are more appealing or that the target search routine tends to not get them very far from their origins.

That being the case, I usually concentrate my espionage spend on my neighbors, regardless of their friendly/furious status.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Of course there's a reason. What do you think EPs represent?

In real life, sending twenty spies into the same city to do a job isn't exactly inconspicuous. It only raises the difficulty of the mission. If one is caught, the rest are compromised. represents the resources necessary to insert an agent, keep them safe, and pull off the mission.

What, did you think the spy just goes into the city and says "Hey, you guys, rebel!" No, it takes resources--Success or failure regardless.

That's the real life argument... he's saying there is no good Gameplay reason for failed missions to cost resources (other than the hammers of the spy) [and Gameplay trumps realism when in conflict]

I could see a slight increase in the cost... or better yet a decreased chance of success... as the result of a failed mission.

In any case I haven't seen any problems, perhaps the OP is
1. Very far ahead in power/score
or
2. not building all the necessary spy stuff... he only mentioned Security Bureaus and Spies, was he also building Courthouses, Jails, and Intelligence Centers? a high EP rating of your own helps


As a side note: it would really be nice if someone could work out the mechanics for calculating the 'chance of success' for a spy mission? anyone have time to poke into the python+XML?

 

[mangadrive]

In case you hadnt noticed its labeled spies but its really Terrorism to some effect. You can choose to participate or not, but much like war you will have to prevent yourself from it. Its the perfect system. You can be gung-ho about it and use it to your war-minded advantage or simply thwart everyone elses, but in some form you *will* be participating Its evident in the real-world Civ today and been around forever. It has to be in the game. To ask for it not be is asking the game to be less realistic IMO. If you could uncheck it, then you could uncheck Corps and you would'nt really be playing the expansion. I'm gunna take a wild guess and say most that arent' in favor don't enjoy the Random Events either. Well. I'm gunna agree on that and the quests are silly diversions at times, but logically a hurricane really can mess up your coast. Rats in the granary? That sounds more like a planning error to me.

I don't think I would ask to make it any more simple than it already is. I would make the option of having it become more complex. Espi-tech allowing you to even further reak havoc on unspecting, unprotected nations and actually be able to win an Intellegence battle. Knowledge is power right? All of a sudden your key structures start disappearing. I think you would get interested in preventing yourself towards it really quick and have a lot more to be frustrated about. Sneak a spy into the UN and sway votes anyone? I also don't think the social unrest is really taken to the extreme it could be. For example your if water was poisoned, your people are gunna expect answers. They are'nt gunna sit and go 'gee I wonder what happened'. You'd have to come up with some excuse or use it as your basis for challenging the opposition and war weariness or not, they would be in favor at first. Just one of the many many things , this game borderline approaches but impossible to take it to full scale levels. I think its a great addition and love having it.

 

[jray]

I'm still unsure if the presence of one of your spies in a city increases the difficulty of an opponent running a mission there. Does anyone know this for sure, and if so, how does it change the success percentage. Are 2 friendly spies defending better than one?

I saw a post on this somewhere here (sorry, don't have a link) that did a thorough study of the effect of #spies sitting in your own city on probability of sabotage. There was a significant increasing benefit as #spies increased. I think they studied between 0 and 10 spies.

 

[Atwork]

I like the idea of espionage being a powerful force in civ. However, I do not enjoy the micromanagement required in commanding, literally, many dozens of spies. I have between 2 and 3 in every city, one in every fort, and one on every major resource. What fun is it to have 40+ spies scattered all over the place not doing anything but hoping that someone else’s spy lands on yours? Who wants to micromanage 40+ spies? There are just too many damn spies!

A fewer number of more powerful spies with more options would make espionage much more lively. Similar to how military units get upgraded into to elite fighting units, spies should gain experience and abilities that allow them to become elite weapons in the world of espionage. To counter, powerful security agents that also earn experience and special abilities in finding, detaining, and interrogating the spies, should be an important aspect of a nation’s security apparatus. Agents and spies alike should become very adept at either conducting espionage or thwarting it. More buildings geared at security and espionage would be nice.

I also like the idea of having at least some missions take a number of turns to complete, so that my agents have time to find the spy and thwart him. However, if a spy is good, then I want him to finish the job quick.

Finally, spies need to move a long more quickly. Some of the old tedium of using workers in past civ games was lessened by allowing workers to move twice – same principle applies to spies. Spies need to get in and out quick! In saying this, I should also mention that I dislike that spies return to the capital after successful missions. It is lame to have to load them back on to a ship again and do everything I’ve already done countless times, AGAIN! Good spies stay embedded, bad spies get caught and detained or killed. That’s how it should be.

In the end, a reasonable number of spies would be something like 1 spy per civ, although a player could choose to attack 1 civ with all his spies if he wanted. Thus, a player would have 18 spies if you started the game with 18 civs. Also, a player could have something like one domestic agent for every 4 cities to protect the homeland with. These above suggestions are just some of the changes that I think would make using spies for fun and less tedious, but retain the idea of espionage being an integral aspect of civ.

 

[Aurelius321]

I do not believe that placing spies in each of your cities will help you one damned bit. Having spies lingering around your empire doesn't help you. Have a couple spies right inside your territory and every 10 turns or so run a counterespionage mission against some peeps around you. If you keep your Esp points up you'll be fine.

Plus running Esp missions help you. Want to get that Cultural Defense down to 0%? Run Unhappiness or Revolt, wanna keep that culture powerhouse city from winning? Constantly spam -8 unhealthiness.

It's different than before, and people don't like different. I do feel like it adds an element to the game that was missing before.

I do have friends run some missions against me... Then again I run some against friends so... It balances

 

[Atwork]

I have been wanting a major revamping of espionage in Civ since Civ1. Besides, new and different is good only when the additions are good. I personally think that the addition of a revamped espionage system is good, but this still does not negate the need for vast improvement. Anyways, having spies scattered about does increase the likelihood of catching other spies and if I am wrong please inform me. On the other hand, running counterespionage merely increases the cost of a specific civ using spies against you. Likewise, having more EP's than your rival predominantly affects the cost of espionage. Lastly, nobody is saying that spies are not useful or that it is not possible to hurt your rival as badly as he hurts you using spies. All I am saying, is that espionage would be better if it were less tedious. Others may want to do away with espionage all together -- that is their wish, not mine. I just want the best Civ possible which includes the best espionage system possible!