Espionage symbol question

[Todd Hawks]

How much you spend per turn has nothing to do with it. Just try it out and change the weights vs a civ with a symbol to zero and you will notice that the symbol is still there.

The spy symbol shows up if you have currently more points vs. that civ than the civ vs. you.

I'm not sure why the cost can be higher than 100% even when you have more points but I suspect that the cost increases with each mission conducted.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

This is exactly the problem I'm seeing. InFlux5 said (correctly I think) that the first number is how many points they have and the second is how many you have. It looks like jonpfl has more EPs than the Romans so why does it cost over 100% to conduct missions against them? It should be the other way around, no?

I have a theory why the cost is above 100% although he has more points than the Romans.

I had a game where I wanted to attack Darius and had no Catapults, so I trained a spy to incite a revolt.
Now I had much less points against Darius than he had against me, so I concentrated my espionage spending on him and set the espionage slider to 100%. Soon I had much more points but the cost was still above 100% (but it was less than before).

I think this was because he had more points for most of the time and the cost takes a while to adjust, maybe to prevent people maxing espionage spending over three or four turns to gain an instant advantage.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

I have a theory why the cost is above 100% although he has more points than the Romans.

I had a game where I wanted to attack Darius and had no Catapults, so I trained a spy to incite a revolt.
Now I had much less points against Darius than he had against me, so I concentrated my espionage spending on him and set the espionage slider to 100%. Soon I had much more points but the cost was still above 100% (but it was less than before).

I think this was because he had more points for most of the time and the cost takes a while to adjust, maybe to prevent people maxing espionage spending over three or four turns to gain an instant advantage.

In my example of the same problem, I always had more points than the other civ. Civ's that had more points than me also cost less than 100%. It's almost like it's completely backwards. Unless I'm reading the ratio the wrong way. Could this big a bug be in there?

 

[jpboia]

Civ's that had more points than me also cost less than 100%. It's almost like it's completely backwards. Unless I'm reading the ratio the wrong way.

_alphaBeta_,

The ratio is not related to the "extra cost" (percentage) of the missions - this percentage is connected to the total amount of espionage points invested by the players in every other civs (not the amount actually spent, but the spent + saved for later use). If you have more invested points in every other civs (spent + saved) than the opponent, your percentage will be less than 100% (cheaper) and vice-versa.

I don't know yet if there are more factors that influence the "extra cost".

The raw cost of the missions is affected by the ratio between the two civs and the amount they have invested in each other.

Example:
- Civ A: Total invested (spent + saved) points in the game towards all civs: 100; Total saved points towards Civ B: 20
- Civ B: Total invested (spent + saved) points in the game towards all civs: 80; Total saved points towards Civ A: 30

Raw cost analysis: The raw cost of Civ A missions against Civ B will be higher than the opposite, because ratio = 30/20 (Civ B has more points saved towards Civ A). If the amount of points of Civ B was higher, the ratio would be e.g. 40/20 and the raw cost for Civ A would be even higher.

Cost modifier analysis: Civ A will have a negative modifier on the raw cost of it's missions (<100%, lower cost) because it has more points invested towards all civs than Civ B (100 vs. 80). Civ B will have a positive modifier (>100%, higher cost).

 

[InFlux5]

How much you spend per turn has nothing to do with it.

This is correct. It's just the amount of EPs you have at that time.

I did misspeak in my original post. The second number is your amount of EPs. So for the ratio X/Y, X = rival civ's EPs, Y = your EPs. This is the part I initially found confusing as for some reason it seems more intuitive to me to have X stand for your points.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

_alphaBeta_,

The ratio is not related to the "extra cost" (percentage) of the missions - this percentage is connected to the total amount of espionage points invested by the players in every other civs (not the amount actually spent, but the spent + saved for later use). If you have more invested points in every other civs (spent + saved) than the opponent, your percentage will be less than 100% (cheaper) and vice-versa.

I don't know yet if there are more factors that influence the "extra cost".

The raw cost of the missions is affected by the ratio between the two civs and the amount they have invested in each other.

Example:
- Civ A: Total invested (spent + saved) points in the game towards all civs: 100; Total saved points towards Civ B: 20
- Civ B: Total invested (spent + saved) points in the game towards all civs: 80; Total saved points towards Civ A: 30

Raw cost analysis: The raw cost of Civ A missions against Civ B will be higher than the opposite, because ratio = 30/20 (Civ B has more points saved towards Civ A). If the amount of points of Civ B was higher, the ratio would be e.g. 40/20 and the raw cost for Civ A would be even higher.

Cost modifier analysis: Civ A will have a negative modifier on the raw cost of it's missions (<100%, lower cost) because it has more points invested towards all civs than Civ B (100 vs. 80). Civ B will have a positive modifier (>100%, higher cost).

Hmm, interesting. They should have done a much better job explaining this in the manual. I didn't think total points in all civs had anything to do with it. The cost is still influenced by the ratio though, but the manual made it sound like that's the percentage.