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

[darkace77450]

Also they need to rethink the promotions to be trees rather than just randomly applied single promotions.

I too find the random promotions for spies and apostles annoying. I think a standard promotion tree for spies with one side affecting the theft of technology (protection of your, theft of theirs, disrupting rocketry, etc) and the other affecting stuff related to demagoguery (recruiting partisans, sinking loyalty, removing envoys at city-states, etc) would work well.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Now, after R&F, the game feels more complete and the real potential of it's approach is apparent.

After R&F the base game feels more complete. There are some huge bugs effecting R&F games which might take several patches to address. Assuming Firaxis+2K will release more content for Civ VI (DLC and/or an expansion) we can expect them to continue to update it.

The espionage system is one that I actually like in Civ VI. It's not perfect but I wouldn't want to add anything that adds more micro or grind to the game. The envoy system isn't bad and it's a huge improvement over City-States in Civ V. Leave them be.

IMO the Governors, Ages and Emergencies systems need to be simplified or re-done. Ages need to be more dramatic. Emergences need to be nerfed (while un-nerfing trade in R&F). Governors simplified/nerfed. It seems like Firaxis added systems in order to sell an expansion. I'm slowly liking Loyalty but it too is in need of major adjustment and balance esp. for TSL maps, which are pretty impossible to play RN. Even the largest maps.

 

[kaspergm]

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.

I disagree. Civ6 was infinitely more polished and finished on release than Civ5 - which was virtually unplayable upon initial release. In contrast, Civ6 not only had more content, but it played mostly stable and without critical bugs.

On a side note, looking back at the history of the game, the "even number" civs have always been the ones with the fewer radical changes. Civ2 was very much a refinement of Civ1, Civ4 was very much a refinement of Civ3, and Civ6 is VERY much a refinement of Civ5, staying true to almost all game elements. In contrast, Civ5 was in many ways a completely different game from Civ4.

 

[Xur]

I dont think the solution is feature creep like yet another district... if anything we need less districts. I'd much rather have spies be an abstract concept that required gold and was done 100% in an interface menu - no units, no districts. Make counterespionage global within your borders.

 

[eleven11]

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.

Yeah I've noticed that if I'm whooping the AI it doesn't matter how leveled my spies are or what policies I have enforced... they will go nuts on my infrastructure... cheaters!

 

[Zuizgond]

Counterspies should cover the whole city they are assigned to and all its tiles.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I dont think the solution is feature creep like yet another district... if anything we need less districts. I'd much rather have spies be an abstract concept that required gold and was done 100% in an interface menu - no units, no districts. Make counterespionage global within your borders.

That sounds boring.

Yeah I've noticed that if I'm whooping the AI it doesn't matter how leveled my spies are or what policies I have enforced... they will go nuts on my infrastructure... cheaters!

I've never seen an enemy spy succeed when you have a defensive spy in position. I assume it's possible, but I've never had it happen. Generally counterspying is the best way to level up your spies before sending them on offensive missions, because a raw recruit can typically gain a few experience levels through successful counterspying.

Counterspies should cover the whole city they are assigned to and all its tiles.

That would nerf concentrated cities. Part of the fun of building interconnected districts for me is setting it up so that a single spy can cover multiple Commerical Hubs and your Spaceport.

 

[Xur]

That sounds boring.

It's just cluttering up the map, and you never actually use the unit. When playing wide, you either have to accept that players/AI got free range or place all your spies on counterespionage.

If the game has a unit and graphics for a spy, then why not let us move it around on a seperate layer like missionaries. Either that, or drop it entirely and go for the menu system. It's a weird hybrid now that is anything but fun.

 

[Victoria]

Spies are only optional so you do not have to play with them which I quite like.

The intelligence agency gives a free extra spy (250 production worth!) and also with an extra level, the building could be better but TBH its pretty good.and OP as France as their scouts will then start on lvl3 ability.

The ability for a scout to provide +3 combat to all your troops was a brilliant move and intelligence agency gives this to you at around T100, that's not bad but a little late for some.
The ability to kill (not reject but kill) envoys at a CS in huge numbers can be game changing. (e.g. A second science CS is heavily contested and you have Kilwa)

Spies at the moment are OP if you use them right, They are expensive to build and this is where I think they got things around the wrong way. Spies should be cheaper to build but have less chance of success... I mean 90% chance of stealing a great work every time is just silly. I am not sure but believe that counterspies only reduce success levels by their levels so against a lvl8 spy defence is a bit hard... I agree they should be city wide, counterspies need more strength at least until spies are nerfed. I'm just not sure they need it. To get spies working well you do need 1-2 green cards slotted (Machiavellianism and Cryptography) and spies are not cheap... and they DO increase in cost +50 Prod per spy you currently have... I think they start at 250.... loose 2 spies the next one will not be so expensive.

The neighborhood restriction on partisans is just naff, it would be great fun to be able to do it earlier and with every civ, its not OP, just some restriction which was not there for the many rebellions that happened prior to "neighbourhoods"... Its a concept I have struggled with briefly when I started playing and ignored since.

I am 100% happy with spy promotions, they are all on par really, there is no OP one and so why should you tree them? The ability to mix n match is quite nice.

If people are unaware you can cancel a spies action at any time apart from when traveling to a city. This is quite handy once you start using it.

Some spy like abilities in V they could introduce to VI with a UN type solution which was at one stage promised.... I did like "psssst... Fred is going to get you"

I would say more but loose lips.....

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

It's just cluttering up the map, and you never actually use the unit. When playing wide, you either have to accept that players/AI got free range or place all your spies on counterespionage.

If the game has a unit and graphics for a spy, then why not let us move it around on a seperate layer like missionaries. Either that, or drop it entirely and go for the menu system. It's a weird hybrid now that is anything but fun.

I find them fun. If they were going to re-work one of these, I'd prefer it be the missionaries. The religious game plays too much like military conflict. The spy game is at least both interesting and unique as it's currently implemented.

 

[dunkleosteus]

In Civ 6, we lost the relationship bar with city states. While Civ 5's ability to purchase favour with city states was a little broken, I think doing away with the relationship meter was a bad idea, especially because we still use a relationship meter with actual civs.

Instead: Envoys can be sent or recalled to city states. There is a delay when this is done, like deploying a governor. When a city state is defeated, you get most, if not all of your envoys back. Like Civ 5, city state quests increase your current relationship status with a city state. Pissing them off decreases it. Envoys generate positive relationship points per turn. The farther away from "rest" that your relationship is, the more your relationship will decay each turn. This means that per-turn bonuses to relationship will merely change where your relationship should generally hover (ie if you get +7 per turn, your relationship would rest at whichever point would give you -7 per turn, so they would equal out to 0).

If you have at least X (some number) envoys at a city state and have the most influence, you can declare yourself suzerain. Depending on how high your relationship was at the moment you declare, you get Y (some number) turns of guaranteed loyalty (you can't lose the suzerainship). After, you get Z (some number) turns of regular suzerainship. During that time, anyone else could declare themselves suzerain instead if they had a higher relationship. The number of envoys isn't as important when declaring suzerainship, only your relationship score.

Finally, you should be able to send envoys to real civs. Maybe they bring gifts or talk about all the things we have in common or whatever, but they should be there and they should be able to modify your relationships with real civs. I think this will make envoys a lot more interesting, as you have to choose between sending them to city states or to other civs. I think free envoys and other bonuses should be removed or changed to something like "envoys produce twice as much positive relationship per turn".

 

[darkace77450]

One new spy mission I'd like to see added to the game is an interrogation mission that can be performed on spies you've captured to gain extra diplomatic visibility with the spy's nation. This is a thematic mission, and now that diplomatic vision is tied to a combat bonus it makes sense from a mechanical point of view as well.

On a side note, looking back at the history of the game, the "even number" civs have always been the ones with the fewer radical changes. Civ2 was very much a refinement of Civ1, Civ4 was very much a refinement of Civ3, and Civ6 is VERY much a refinement of Civ5, staying true to almost all game elements. In contrast, Civ5 was in many ways a completely different game from Civ4.

I personally consider the "unpacking" of cities into districts a pretty radical change.

Counterspies should cover the whole city they are assigned to and all its tiles.

I like it the way it is since it currently presents us with the choice between maximizing adjacency bonuses and maximizing spy coverage during counterespionage missions.

Generally counterspying is the best way to level up your spies before sending them on offensive missions, because a raw recruit can typically gain a few experience levels through successful counterspying.

That's how I did it before R&F, but now the Intelligence Agency affords us the opportunity to level our spies on Siphon Funds or Foment Unrest missions after gaining sources.

I am 100% happy with spy promotions, they are all on par really, there is no OP one and so why should you tree them? The ability to mix n match is quite nice.

Speaking for myself, it's because I dislike RNG determining how I play. For map generation, AI Civs, etc, sure. For promotions? I'd rather be master of my own destiny.

Some spy like abilities in V they could introduce to VI with a UN type solution which was at one stage promised.... I did like "psssst... Fred is going to get you"

Yeah, sharing info with allies is a mechanic I wish they'd kept.

I would say more but loose lips.....

You can't leave us hanging in suspense with this cryptic line.

I find them fun. If they were going to re-work one of these, I'd prefer it be the missionaries. The religious game plays too much like military conflict. The spy game is at least both interesting and unique as it's currently implemented.

I agree with you on about religious combat. Right now it just feels like different flavor of the game's standard combat. I would have preferred Civ5's, but I recognize that that might have been dull for players wanting to pursuit a religious victory.

In Civ 6, we lost the relationship bar with city states. While Civ 5's ability to purchase favour with city states was a little broken, I think doing away with the relationship meter was a bad idea, especially because we still use a relationship meter with actual civs.

I liked the system in Civ5 with the exception of spending gold to purchase influence with city-states. I enjoyed the quests in that iteration so much more than this one. I enjoyed the way spies could rig elections and stage coups. It was fun gifting them units so they could fight proxy wars against my rivals. Using great people as "great diplomats" as Sweden was a lot of fun, too.

 

[acluewithout]

I like the current spy, envoy, governor, alliance and diplomatic systems. Sure, they range from 'great' to 'needs some work', but they're all very solid. And man, do I not want more bloat. Not at all.

But I wish some of these systems integrated with each other a bit better. The current game feels a bit like first or second edition D&D at the moment, with lots of perfectly good sub-systems, but that all work completely differently.

That said, there is better integration now. Spies can reduce envoys and hinder governors; spies, envoys and governors both come (mostly) from civics; there are ways to get extra spies, envoys and governors outside of civics (if you want to lean into those features); and the second tier government buildings really pull things together. But some more integration would be better, so there are less different subsystems, and more ability to trade off one thing for another. I realise it's very subjective what's right though.

If I could have one thing, it would be the ability to assign envoys to Civs as well as CSs; and be able to reassign envoys periodically (e.g. When you change governments). (Or is that two things?)

On spies, man, they really are just so powerful. Optional, expensive, but powerful. I also like the simplicity of how they work. My only gripe is the strategy around them is a little limited. The only real decision points I see are: do I build them? Which Civ to I place them with (which basically boils down to gold versus diplomatic combat bonus versus stopping someone's victory condition)?

There's no strategy with promotions, because they are random and the 'best' ones are known. There's no real decision between attacking or counter spying, usually you only counterspy to level up or if you have a spy with quartermaster promotion (or maybe have Zimbabwe or a space port). There's no strategy about which specific city you place them in, either you pick the obvious city (spaceport) or all the cities are the same ("bother, they all have spaceports").

What would improve spies IMO is this;

1. maybe three spy units, one general one like we have now, one "saboteur" focused on just rocketry and IZ disruption, and a quartermaster that boosts other spies and is better at counter spying;
2. each type of spy uses up one of your spy slots.
3. for the general spy, a normal promotion tree, and you choose the promotions;
4. you need certain promotions to run certain specialised missions (e.g. steal great works);
5. Spies give more visibility if they're in a capital, and have more chance of success if you have more spies in the target civ or in the target's allies (although I guess listening post sort of covers that already).

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I agree with you on about religious combat. Right now it just feels like different flavor of the game's standard combat. I would have preferred Civ5's, but I recognize that that might have been dull for players wanting to pursuit a religious victory.

I liked the system in Civ5 with the exception of spending gold to purchase influence with city-states. I enjoyed the quests in that iteration so much more than this one. I enjoyed the way spies could rig elections and stage coups. It was fun gifting them units so they could fight proxy wars against my rivals. Using great people as "great diplomats" as Sweden was a lot of fun, too.

Tourism, spreading religion, and city states are three areas where Civ 6 does seem to have gone backwards compared to Civ 5. Not completely, as there are some improvements, like the variety of ways to generate tourism, not being able to simply bribe city states, and unique suzerain benefits. But overall, tourism is even less integrated with the rest of the game, the religion game is too much like another form of domination victory, and the battle for city state influence is simply much less fun than it was in Civ 5.

I also wonder if they haven't gone too far in avoiding Civ 5's bribing of city states. Gifts are a time honoured way to build relationships. Perhaps there should at least be some opportunities to support city states in return for increased envoys. Gifting military units when the city was under attack seemed like a good idea to me. Possibly you should periodically be allowed to gift them gold, too, which they can use to re-build their military or otherwise buy things, similar to Civ 5's budget crises, but tied to the city state's actual economic situation rather than being a random event.

 

[acluewithout]

Gold and envoys: I think an easy solution would be to let you buy envoys, but with a maximum per city state (eg you can only buy 3), and each additional envoy in total costs you more money. So, eg, you buy four envoys; the first three can go in CS X (that's the maximum 'bought' envoys you can have for that city state) and the last goes into CS Z, and all your envoys after the first are progressively more expensive that the last (meaning the 'fourth' one you place in CS Z is the most expensive).

 

[cvb]

You can't leave us hanging in suspense with this cryptic line.

Well, talking about suspension ...
Such a story can only tell destiny: After this drama of 'nerf & buff England' ... (ok, more nerf than buff) ... a 'solution' is officially announced. Much hope, but also doubt, that "this time they will get it right" ...
... and what happens?! This deciding patch is delayed and delayed and delayed (because of internal issues with resilient bugs).
What next? A replacing new leader for England? Distinct civs also for Wales and Ireland (as in soccer tournaments)??

 

[Ferocitus]

"Do spies and envoys need a rethink?"

Not yet. I'd rather they leave that to a later iteration, after they address
other game aspects, release more DLC's, and (hopefully) another expansion.

 

[roscoepfox]

Be careful what you wish for. Spies could be a real problem if you let the AI have more of them. If you've played Civilization II you'll remember when they were just "diplomats". (They could steal tech though). I had a game in Civ II where I was the first to get nukes. I remember this because it was bizarre. In that version the Carthaginians were incredible bastards/warmongers. Every game I had with them in it they would attack relentlessly and nuke you if they could. They wanted the tech so bad they literally created about a dozen diplomats and sent them to my cities to steal it. You couldn't kill them, you could only "expel" them. Meaning they'd just SEND THEM BACK. It was just plain frustrating yet oddly weird to see that many little guys with top hats (that was their icon) all over the place.

 

[Victoria]

Speaking for myself, it's because I dislike RNG determining how I play

Well you do have a choice of 3 promotions for each spy at any time so its not really determining it, just saying that the spy you trained has a vew skills you could embellish but is not good a industrial espionage. With a spy tree you have 2 choices at a time.

You can't leave us hanging in suspense with this cryptic line.

This is an English/Amercian saying from world war two ... Loose lips sink ships meaning spies will overhear you and your sailor spouse will be torpedoed in the traditional way. Google it and look at images, its even a wiki entry and used a bit in movies.
I said "I would say more but loose lips...." ... there are spies everywhere!

A replacing new leader for England?

Well its coming up for 4 weeks since I have played, I just cannot stop visiting this damn site in my spare time... but if they can do better than a baby buff after nerfing the most significant fun thing I'll give it a shot.

There's no strategy about which specific city you place them in,

Sure there is.
Build Great Zim and place there, or make sure one city has significantly more gold.
Hiding great works works....building 1 big city which has most gold and a theatre with works and a campus and thats normally where they go but stealing science is quite popular now and does seem random. It would be nice if the chance of stealing science was based on the science output much like the gold you get from a commercial hubby. ... didn't V steals benefit from higher pop?

 

[darkace77450]

This is an English/Amercian saying from world war two ... Loose lips sink ships meaning spies will overhear you and your sailor spouse will be torpedoed in the traditional way. Google it and look at images, its even a wiki entry and used a bit in movies.
I said "I would say more but loose lips...." ... there are spies everywhere!

I know what it means, I just thought you were implying you had inside knowledge of changes to come.

It would be nice if the chance of stealing science was based on the science output much like the gold you get from a commercial hubby. ... didn't V steals benefit from higher pop?

That's the way I remember it.