Espionage - The Secret War of Intelligence

[antisocialgeek]

How much do you invest in espionage? I find it very helpful when planning attacks. Does anyone actually make significant use of this feature and do you think there should be more to the espionage feature? One think I would like to be able to do (should be able to do) is follow the enemies research (i.e. research funding etc.) so as to adjust my science settings. Also, I find it especially hard to expose enemy moles. I always get caught and I find no benefit either way. The only reasonable thing is finding troop positions (which lasts only one turn and doesn't give you enough chance to position your troops) and investigate city (which there is no excitement to whatsoever). Investigate city comes in handy when you want to pick a city(ies) you would like to attack due to its lack in defense. Are there any ways in which you combine actual game play with espionage?

 

[Woody]

There are only two time that i get any benifit from it. One, once you have a spy planted you can see the total size and compisition of their army from the military advisors screen. This can tell me if my forces are large enough and/or modern enough to launch an all out assault. The second thing that I use it for is that there are times when I think I have killed the last city but the game does not tell me that I did. I will go to investigate city just to see where they hid out the last city or two that I have missed.

 

[antisocialgeek]

According to the Civilization 3: Instruction Manual you're supposed to be able to Plant Disease. I have not seen this yet in the game. Did they leave this out on purpose or simply forgot? What happened? I'm not a sicko but I looked forward to this.

 

[Galitus]

The plant disease feature was purposely taken out due to the Sept. 11 attacks. Firaxis decided having such a terrorist spy feature would not be politically correct.

 

[Sanaz]

I would love to see espionage much more useful and reasonably priced (and available, in varying levels, from much earlier times). I use it for the same reasons mentioned - to see the exact troop locations before launching an attack with a finite goal (after explorers have given me a good idea that I can reach it), and even after this first turn we can see the total troop counts by unit (not by city). Also, it's good to explore the progress on a wonder being built in a city when you investigate - again, espionage comes too late for most of the important wonders though. I don't remember - is a spy needed to track space race progress, or is an embassy enough? I've used that too. There are other espionage specific threads with more ideas - just search for "espionage" in the title only, and you'll get two pages of hits.

And it's been mentioned that the best use is for starting wars because missions fail so often, so opinions definitely vary on this topic.

 

[Frodo Bolson]

Oh, but warfare IS pollitically correct? Razing down conquered cities IS pollitically correct? Aren't you being just a bit paranoid?

 

[mydisease]

Let's not forget enslaving enemy civilians and their families for thousands of years and forcing them to cut down all your jungles and forests for free. Or civs selling their own citizens into slavery for a few gold.

 

[damunzy]

Some things sound worse then others...let's not turn this into a debate, ok?

 

[akinkhoo]

[blue]"The plant disease feature was purposely taken out due to the Sept. 11 attacks. Firaxis decided having such a terrorist spy feature would not be politically correct."[/blue]

911 incident shouldn't have anything to do with games.....
after all game is design to get us away from the real word

I can't believe that stupid osama is SO POWERFUL
that games are being edited for HIS ACTIONS.....
what happened to the "get on with our life" routine....

I see people selling osama action figure.... yet they are allowed?
something is very very wrong with the human mind

 

[bobgote]

Osama so powerful that he has changed the american video game forever! The diabolical fiend! I wonder if that was his driving motive? Oh yeah, apart from the whole US dodgy foreign policy issue.

But seriously, a plant disease function would be pretty cool. Hopefully they'll eventually come to their senses and put it in. Intelligence agencies did sponsor terrorism after all, and underground resistance etc. I do think that the espionage function does need to be improved. Maybe if it was just cheaper, especially for a communist government. We could get a whole KGB thing happening. Maybe assassination of great leaders or something ( I don't know how it would work, it's just an idea)

 

[Maple]

Originally posted by akinkhoo
[blue]"The plant disease feature was purposely taken out due to the Sept. 11 attacks. Firaxis decided having such a terrorist spy feature would not be politically correct."[/blue]

911 incident shouldn't have anything to do with games.....
after all game is design to get us away from the real word

I can't believe that stupid osama is SO POWERFUL
that games are being edited for HIS ACTIONS.....
what happened to the "get on with our life" routine....

I see people selling osama action figure.... yet they are allowed?
something is very very wrong with the human mind

I heard once that if we let Osama change our lives then we have let Osama win.:skull:

 

[sgrig]

In my last game, I found the "Steal enemy plans" mission very useful. I had a huge army and in order to destroy a civ in one turn it was very helpful to know where all the enemy units are so that attacks could be planned more efficiently. Thanks to this I destroyed two civs in one turn!

 

[TheDS]

What I would like to see is when i reveal an enemy unit, it should stay on the map, even when my guy moves away from it. No espionage required. Just simple thinking ability. Empire did this. It wasn't hard for units to disappear when they moved next turn. Heck, didn't the other Civ games do this?

I once had a guy taking a trip on the railroad through French territory. Along the route, he saw a French unit sitting on the tracks, blocking his way. No problem, So he takes a different route, and finds that route blocked too. But since he was out of sight of the first unit, he went back that way. The guy is still there. He goes back. the other guy is still there.

The game was stuck in a FRICKIN LOOP because some one didn't want to do something as simple as letting me see what I've seen. Yes, the only way out was a 3-finger salute.... But I haven't seen that happen in 1.21f.... yet....

 

[LaRo]

Firaxis should bring back "plant desease" in the next patch.

I am bored of changed movie's scenarios and games because of the "politically correct."

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Galitus
The plant disease feature was purposely taken out due to the Sept. 11 attacks. Firaxis decided having such a terrorist spy feature would not be politically correct.

Yea, but one unit razing and destroying an entire city of millions - and not leaving so much as a pollution tile of dead corpses - is OK to Firaxis. What a farce.

 

[bobgote]

Originally posted by Zouave


Yea, but one unit razing and destroying an entire city of millions - and not leaving so much as a pollution tile of dead corpses - is OK to Firaxis. What a farce.

lol, lets have a dead body tile.

And to sgrig, how much did it all cost? It's all well and good for a democracy with no science concerns, but for a communism, cash isn't something you have to share freely (lol!) I still think they should make a discount for communism what do you guys think, surely there has to be an upside to communism?

 

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by bobgote
Osama so powerful that he has changed the american video game forever! The diabolical fiend! I wonder if that was his driving motive? Oh yeah, apart from the whole US dodgy foreign policy issue.

But seriously, a plant disease function would be pretty cool. Hopefully they'll eventually come to their senses and put it in. Intelligence agencies did sponsor terrorism after all, and underground resistance etc. I do think that the espionage function does need to be improved. Maybe if it was just cheaper, especially for a communist government. We could get a whole KGB thing happening. Maybe assassination of great leaders or something ( I don't know how it would work, it's just an idea)

I would be pretty interested in also seeing a CIA function where you could force an enemy in democracy to go into despotism for 20 turns or so.

 

[PreTzeL_22]

In my last game, I found the "Steal enemy plans" mission very useful. I had a huge army and in order to destroy a civ in one turn it was very helpful to know where all the enemy units are so that attacks could be planned more efficiently. Thanks to this I destroyed two civs in one turn!

By the time you get the Intelligence Agency, "Steal Plans" is pretty useless. Mainly because in the later game it doesn't really matter that much where the enemy has stationed his units, because they can zip to the other side of their empire in less than a turn using railroads.

It's a bit said now that I think about it: In the modern ages there is no chance of achieving surprise thanks to railroads and airports. Not even with helicopters and paratroopers.

Sigh. Damn railroads.

 

[bobgote]

Originally posted by punkbass2000


I would be pretty interested in also seeing a CIA function where you could force an enemy in democracy to go into despotism for 20 turns or so.

Ouch. Maybe not a good idea. Imagine them doing it to you. 20 turns. all your cities would lose 2 population and you'd have no production. Maybe if it just sent one city into rioting it would be better (and more realistic).

 

[louiethelesbo]

Originally posted by LaRo
Firaxis should bring back "plant desease" in the next patch.

I am bored of changed movie's scenarios and games because of the "politically correct."

I don't think giving plants diseases will help unless you are trying to starve a city by killing all the apple trees.