[R&F] Do spies and envoys need a rethink?

[acluewithout]

I love the planned changes to diplomacy. But, if firaxis are adding these new features, do you think spies and envoys also need a re-think?

My beef: why are spies like traders, i.e. build them with production / number is limited by ‘capacity’, but unlike traders you can only increase capacity by acquiring certain civics (not through districts, governments, great people). No matter how big your empire gets, or how wealthy, productive or advanced, or how many other civs are in the game, or how much I invest in districts or buildings, I can only get +1 spy capacity by getting certain very specific civics or techs (and, therefore, my total capacity tops out at the same for every other civ).

Likewise, why do city states have an entirely different resource system? – i.e. envoys; and why can’t I use that ‘resource’ for anything else?

Relatedly, won’t having governor ‘titles’ just add yet another ad hoc / hyper-specific resource to track / earn, which doesn’t connect with anything else in the game?

If we're going to have governors and all the rest, then this is what I’d like to see.

1. Civs earn ‘influence’ based on, I don’t know, faith and gold per turn, and whatever else (alliances, good deeds, great merchant boosts, government district).

2. After you unlock certain civics, you can spend influence to buy governors (max 7), upgrade / promote existing governors, buy envoys (which can be sent to both city states or civs), buy a magistrate, or flat out buy a spy unit (i.e. instead of using production or gold).

3. Governors work just as firaxis have proposed, and spies and envoys in city states work as they do now. Envoys placed in other civs give you improved visibility, improved relations, and more effective alliance bonuses – and you can also get additional benefits re: that civ by using certain diplomatic cards (like % per envoy to religious conversion or tourism). Magistrates improve loyalty in a minor way and buff counter-spies.

4. Spy capacity depends on total envoys placed in other civs and total magistrates – but not one-to-one. e.g., your first envoy / magistrate gives you +1 spy capacity, then your third gives another +1, then your seventh gives another +1 (or whatever).

5. Related tweaks: city state quests give you bonus influence, not envoys. You can still get additional envoys and spy capacity from civics / techs, but these are just meant to be a ‘bonus’.

[Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place.]

 

[kaspergm]

Spies desperately need an espionage-related district. Stuff like start promotions, faster build time, passive counter-espionage aoe, etc. Also they need to rethink the promotions to be trees rather than just randomly applied single promotions. It's a huge step forward compared to Civ5, but they're not quite there yet.

 

[Morningcalm]

Spies should be able to sabotage individual improvements as well (like farms) IMO--as they could in Civ IV if I recall. It's annoying to find that AIs who haven't made any districts can't be sabotaged in any way (except for recruiting partisans, but that's only if there's high discontent apparently).

 

[Art Morte]

Spies are powerful and I wouldn't increase their capacity. I'm more or less fine with how spies work in the game, would change many other things before fiddling with them. The same applies to envoys, imo. The system isn't perfect, but it's quite all right.

Spies desperately need an espionage-related district.

I don't think it would be worthwhile to have an espionage district. There are already policy cards that reduce build time and give other bonuses to spies.

 

[Josephias]

I was excited when we saw goverment district at first, thinking it would focus in a mix of the good ol' corthouse/police station trees to handle loyalty and support other diplomacy/espionage features, so it was a boomer it was a single city capitol-only district.

Maybe in the future the idea can be extended to work as intended now in your capitol, but be able to manage more "standard" administrative centers around your empire.

Diplomatic-espionage capital is an idea to play around with: cIV BtS and BERT offered different implementations that show it could work (altough I think the idea in BERT could have been polished much more). Maybe for next expansion, CiVI: World Congress

 

[darkace77450]

Spies desperately need an espionage-related district. Stuff like start promotions, faster build time, passive counter-espionage aoe, etc. Also they need to rethink the promotions to be trees rather than just randomly applied single promotions. It's a huge step forward compared to Civ5, but they're not quite there yet.

Agreed. A district that whose buildings grants promotions to spies built within the city and whose specialists increase passive counterespionage (with the 3rd tier building granting an AOE similar to the Factor, Power Plant, and Stadium), would be a great addition to the game. I'm also in favor of standardized promotion or a pool of promotions instead of the random ones we're giving.

Other changes I'd like to see:
- give us the ability to set counterespionage to auto-repeat in the Spy menu
- have the AI build more Commercial Hubs so that we can safely level our spies
- add spy missions for Holy Sites (increase religious pressure) and City States (remove envoys)
- add a new promotion that has a chance to flip captured spies to our control

 

[Archon_Wing]

Spies currently are also really good, or really crappy and I think that is a bit annoying.

Missions like Siphon Funds are way too strong with no counterplay besides not building a commercial hub in your wealthiest cities (how intuitive ), wasting a spy on a single area which oftentimes fails to work anyways or simply going to them and siphoning their funds. What's even sillier is I think they don't scale by map size? There's even the stupid "recruit partisans" which only happens if the build a neighborhood; of which I rarely ever do myself. In the end this makes 2 builds that are already incredibly marginal already into liabilities.

I think spies individually should be weaker, but you should be able to have more of them. And counterspying should have a much larger area of effect, not limited to a city. They also ought to bring back some ones from older games, like spread propaganda and religion as welll as messing with city states.

I'd also suggest to remove siphon funds and instead have it plunder commercial hub buildings and a trade route, as well as recruit partisans being possible in any city with unhappiness.

 

[leandrombraz]

One idea I had for envoys is to attach them to diplomacy instead of being a resource you generate/unlock. Certain diplomatic actions give you envoys while other actions make you lose envoys. I think this would work with World Congress and a Diplomatic victory that use mainly CSs like in Civ V to choose a world leader, using envoys instead of gold to influence CSs. The victory would be truly diplomatic if diplomacy is your source of envoys and would make it impossible to win diplomatic if you're anything but diplomatic (AKA warmonger).They would need to add more things you can do that are seem as a diplomatic actions, things you can do that benefit other leaders but give you envoys and maybe yet another quest like system to solve some global problems, like global warming in late game.

 

[UWHabs]

I broadly agree with OP. Civ is starting to turn into something like Paradox, with endless different counters and buckets, many of which have single uses. I don't know how it could work exactly, but there's definitely some consolidation needed between great people, envoys, spies, loyalty and governors.

I agree and disagree. I do like how there's more things to focus on and worry about, much better than the olden days of just having basically a single counter for money vs science, for example. But I agree that it's getting a bit diluted.

Maybe a cool way to simplify things a lot would be that instead of having so many counters, things simplified into, say, 5 buckets. Science/Culture/Faith/Gold would work essentially the same as they do now, but the 5th bucket would essentially be a catch-all "government" bucket. How that would work would be that over time, you accumulate points into that bucket, like you do currently for envoys. However, instead of simply getting 1 or more envoys when it fills up, basically it would unlock you one spot that you can use for any of the following:
-grant you a new spy
-grant a new governor
-level up a governor
-get more envoys

I would mostly remove the free envoys and spies from the civics/tech trees, but simply have each one increase in cost as you move further down. Basically, that way, you would actually have more freedom in how to play the game. If you don't care about city-state envoys, you can ignore them and put all the effort into having better governors. Or if you want to play a very spy-heavy game, you have to live with less governors, or less envoys. It would certainly add an extra strategic element, although obviously then becomes more complicated in how to balance.

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

I actually like the ability to get envoys from researching certain civics. It adds something a little more engaging to the system.

 

[empresskiova]

The “catch-all” bucket could be called “administration” since that’s basically what it is.

I like the idea of it, but balancing it would be a nightmare. A player who focuses on Envoys would find all of their progress screwed by someone who beats up city states a bit later in the game. Focusing on spies would eventually be pointless; even as Catherine I doubt anybody builds all their spies. Heck, I don’t think you could find decent uses for them by end game. I can’t wager on Governers yet, since we don’t “know” how effective they are gonna be.

For right now, I think it will be simpler to create alternative and additional uses for the systems in place. Envoys could be a trading commodity, like someone said in a thread far far away. Spies should get new missions to help spy players be competitive. Maybe missions against encampments? “Cut Communication” could destroy a random military unit for example (or make them into a “Barbarian”). Redirect a trade route’s earnings to your closest city with the “Harbor Mutiny” missions. “Start a Cult” could even be used to drain a large portion of all Religious Influence in a city with a Holy Site... while being especially ineffective when an Inquisitor is there or if its the Holy City.

 

[God of Kings]

I'm in favour of an Intelligence District for espionage and counterespionage.

 

[Sostratus]

Spies desperately need an espionage-related district.

I'm in favour of an Intelligence District for espionage and counterespionage.

I was excited when we saw government district at first, thinking it would focus in a mix of the good ol' courthouse/police station trees to handle loyalty and support other diplomacy/espionage features

With the wonders of a Government District, there's no reason it couldn't have a building like a "Spy HQ" or what have you that allows one to access these abilities. Of course, the policies around them are currently pretty bad, mostly because diplo slots aren't worth much compared to oh, say- economic slots. The rule of 3 buildings to a district doesn't really have to be true for this one of a kind district- and heck, maybe we even have some extra fun by creating trees for those different government buildings. So you might start by building your spy enclave, and then later you can build an "Intelligence Agency" over it, giving it a more modern look and new bonuses.

A player who focuses on Envoys would find all of their progress screwed by someone who beats up city states a bit later in the game.

What I think the envoy system is lacking is the ability to, at certain points in the game, unbind all your non-quest envoys and redistribute them. It really sucks that you can be a dozen envoys into a key CS a continent away, and then their neighbor just decides to seize them. And you only get 6 for liberation! Personally, I'd prefer if CS had extra quests so that if you meet one later, they'll keep offering until you have secured some threshold of quest envoys (like, 3. To be fair to the people who did them all game.) Bundle that with the non-quest envoys fleeing upon CS capture.

They made an entire Diplomatic policy card slot and it's the worst of the 3. I pray they put the new loyalty and governor cards in there. I would tweak Merch Repub and Democracy to have one fewer Wildcard and one extra diplo slot, to make those governments have a niche beyond "we can have more econ cards ergo -> way better"

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Having a common "influence" resource that could be used to buy envoys, spies and governors/upgrades would be useful.

 

[TomKQT]

It's annoying to find that AIs who haven't made any districts can't be sabotaged in any way (except for recruiting partisans, but that's only if there's high discontent apparently).

I agree, you must wait until the late stages of the game to be even able to choose where to put your spies offensively.
You are however not right about the partisans thing - that's quite the hardest target, because this requires the neighbourhood district in the AI city - and they really don't build a lot of them...

 

[acluewithout]

Thank you for the responses. All of them are very thoughtful.
I’m a little more sanguine on this topic having learnt Governor titles will come through the civics tree – so titles are awarded largely the same way as envoys and spy capacity, meaning we’re not really getting a whole new resource to grapple with. Having titles come from the civics tree is also a soft buff for culture heavy civs / strategies, which I like.

But. Regardless. I would still like some way to increase spy capacity which doesn’t solely depend on the civics tree, even if that meant spies were made a little weaker. Maybe a great scientist or a great admiral could give a +1 capacity?

And I’d also like to be able to do ‘something else’ with envoys than just put them into CSs (e.g. place them into other civs). And I’d like to be able to re-allocate envoys occasionally – perhaps when you change governments, or if you pay a hefty chunk of money to ‘unlock’ envoys, so it's not something you could do often.

 

[masda_gib]

+1 or a common 'Influence' pool to buy spies/envoys/govenors.
It would have to self-balance though so that you can't easily buy just envoys or just spies. Make each spy/envoy a bit more expensive than the last of their type, for example.

 

[Tuvok694]

In my opinion enemy spies are waaaay too strong and my own defensive spies are too weak no matter what promotions I give them.
I always put spies on industrial zone, spaceport and city center in my capital and (if possible) in adjacent districts as well. Nevertheless I always get my gouvernor neutralised and my spaceport pillaged. This is so annoying.

 

[isau]

I think Spies could use a re-design using some systems borrowed (stolen?) from the game Invisible Inc. That game has a fascinating system of "locks" that are placed on objects that you have to defeat in order for a spy to conduct missions against them. Unlocking them requires you to use "programs" (and occasionally spy unit abilities) that affect a varying area of effect, number of "levels" of the lock, and so on. I think it would work fantastically in Civ. Perhaps the "programs" available to use against enemies are based on which government buildings you have constructed, for example.

What this would also do would allow the person defending against spies know that they are vulnerable to attack before it actually happens. They could take active steps to prevent something bad from happening before it actually does. Only if the enemy busts through the locks do negative effects start to occur. This would largely eliminate the need for chance-based spy effects and make it more determinative.

 

[Ever Adrift]

I largely agree regarding spies; while better than any of the previous games they still aren't fully developed. They are also not central enough for them to build a major re-working in the presumably next and final expansion. Maybe something small in a patch perhaps. I don't mind envoys as much, they feel more fluid and natural to me. The spy system needs to be fully removed from the counter-espionage system - you ought not have to choose to use your few, expensive, rare spies to protect a few districts.

They provide decent - sometimes great - benefits. The loss of envoys and the eating away of city-states may be intended, but it does take away from some potential customizability. I do think the envoy and spy systems could be really improved by being integrated (likely in an expansion or Civ 7). Envoys could exist for both city-states and civilizations, develop diplomatic influence over time... and/or integrate the actual diplomatic system with spying and counter-espionage. I don't know, I'm not the best at solving these problems.

I do feel like Civ VI has been treated more like a cash-cow than previous games - much to its (initial) detriment. Vanilla initially felt like a beta version of a game - it took the DLCs and a couple patches before it felt as polished as it should have been upon release. There is virtually no interaction between developers and the community. Unacceptable, game-breaking problems (e.g. the starting location bug that existed for more than a patch) go on and on, despite being apparent easy fixes.

Now, after R&F, the game feels more complete and the real potential of it's approach is apparent. I actually really like it; with mods it has become much more enjoyable still. But mods shouldn't be required, and basic hot-fixes shouldn't be an issue for a beloved franchise like this. I'd like them to spend more resources and time on developing a really large, full expansion to flesh out the diplomatic, espionage, counter-espionage and envoy system along with a myriad of other issues (end-game; more victory types such as economic or diplomatic; era speed; map customizability). I'd like to see them show real interest in the community and actually update the game more rather than simply offer DLCs. I worry that the 'prestige' tied to the Civ franchise may end up being its ruin - the developers seem increasingly content to churn out the game, expansion and DLCs than providing quicker, more complete patches to problems that arguably should have been caught before release. At this point, I hope that at least one more good expansion and a decent, committed mod community can still make this the best Civ so far.