Espionage - why not?

[berni19]

I made a poll to this feature to make sure that this item is really not wanted by community.
My opinion is that with better idea, mechanic and implementation of it, the espionage connected with diplomacy and science should rock like never before.
But as it is now, perhaps at the end the authors of this game concept has different approach and higher goals especially in "game satisfaction" factor, which at the end really matters - we will see.

 

[GeoModder]

I bet it will make a reappearance in 2 expansions or so.

 

[Ddude97]

Espionage was terrible, no way to implement it well, don't think it should ever come back

 

[SeptimusOctopus]

Didn't vanilla civ4 have basically no espionage? I haven't played it since warlords came out, and I haven't played that since BTS came out, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I seem to remember spies only becoming available at nationhood or so.

Hopefully they'll make a nice expansion with spies and intelligence spending again. I did rather enjoy the espionage action in bts.

 

[berni19]

i agree with you..but imagine that espionage would be done in a way that you receive a report between game turns regarding your rival ( he is backstabbin you, he will attack you in the next 20 turns - just it was in the histrory) and this reports could be valid or could not be valid - double agents and depending your goverment politics ( in communism high loyalty is more present so reports could be more valid..), imagine revealing of "enigma machine" code placed at your desks when losing a war at sea....for me this could be dreams come true...but i know we are different and so on..

 

[Scramble]

I didn't mind espionage in civ4, but it required strong micromanagment and consumed a lot of time and effort... the AI was pretty much always way way better at it, due to the level of attention required to make it work properly.

 

[Minmaster]

probably holding it back for a future expansion. just like religion.

 

[Kruelgor]

Considering that espionage is a very real part of national affairs, I voted 'yes'.

 

[SeismoGraf]

Espionage had some fun aspects. But having to pay attention to an army of spies on top of the regular one, seems a bit too much. I'd say it depends on the concrete implementation.

 

[krunsh]

I there was an option for: Could be in this game, but not like in civ 4... I would have voted.

I don't think it's needed, and I would not want any of it if it's anywhere near what cif 4 did with espionnage. But there could be way to make it fun so it's not an absolute ''no, no, never''

 

[thungrim]

There's never been a satisfying espionage dynamic in any of the Civ games. Not to say it can't be done, it just ain't been done yet. I think the major difficulty is making AI's that are duplicitous, or making the AI understand human duplicity.

 

[Ahriman]

Because its boring, because historically it never had much impact (unless you count allied ww2 SigInt, but even then all that does in game terms is recon intelligence), and because the AI is never good at using it effectively.

I don't think I have ever seen any strategy game with a decent espionage system.

 

[krunsh]

I think total war does it well, it's all about knowing more about the ennemy nation wich is something realy useful in this game. Plus you can sabotage building and army supply, or assassinate generals and other agents.

I think the spy in civ rev were sometime fun to use, destroying the defense of a city was sometime very important... And stealing a great person is always funny in a multiplayer game.

But still, it was juste one more military unit so I say it's realy not needed in civ 5. Maybe paying a bit of gold to uncover some information about a civ for a turn could work... But yeah, not needed realy.

 

[Zhahz]

Finally, a poll with an option I can pick straight up! Good work.

Had to pick "no, never, please no" because IMO, espionage doesn't fit the level of abstraction found in Civ it doesn't add anything useful to the game. It's more of a novelty and hassle.

At least, I have never liked how espionage has ever been done in Civ. I have always found espionage in civ to be a nuisance and not fun. I disable it in Civ IV.

If espionage makes a comeback in Civ 5 (via expansion, kinda like in Civ IV) I hope they do it very differently and/or continue to have the ability to disable it.

GalCiv2 has a tolerable espionage system. You pretty much have to invest in espionage, and it can be useful, or you can be purely defensive without a lot of hassle. It has options and potential without being obnoxious or intruding on more core gameplay.

 

[Semmel]

I hate espionage. I really hate it. Im actually running a game with 18 civs on a huge "earth" map script, its 1400 AD, I have founded 10 Cities in the new world and I still have 4 espionage points per turn. Courthouses are not worth the candle, so I went directly to communism. And this is just one example of my games. Espionage is just a nuisance for me. I ignore it as far as possible. The only thing it does to me is, it hides the demographics of the AI which is annoying, nothing more. The espionage missions are so minor most of the time, that I dont care about them. I am glad they took espionage out for Civ5.

 

[Kruelgor]

Espionage should give you a host of things.

1. Some science points if the target nation is more advanced. (I would not have it award fully completed technologies).

2. Advanced notice or forewarning that the target nation may declare war against your country soon. Maybe a 3 to 5 turn warning.

3. Ability to corrupt advisors of target nation which increases chances of certain kinds of diplomacy to succeed.

 

[automator]

Espionage is just annoying. I like the "passive" aspects of CIVs espionage ... getting the demographics, territory view, research goals. But having to build an army of spies to stay in my borders and send them out to keep parity with the enemy made for a big yawn.

 

[SJSerio]

They should have worked in Espionage... too many people complained about it though!

 

[Stalker0]

I would love to see Espionage in the game but I think Civs main problem with it is that the system in Civ IV used espionage as "bombs" instead of a smooth part of the gameplay.


For example, in Civ IV I wanted to steal a tech with espionage. I had to build spies and build up spy points and then drop a spy onto a city and then wait 5 turns (if I wanted the tech at any reasonable price) and hope my spy wasn't caught and then suddenly BAM I have a whole new badass tech. Or...I just wasted a bunch of resources for little gain depending on how many spies it took and whether I got the tech before I could have researched it anyway, etc.

However, what if espionage worked this way. For every spy I had an opponent city I got a certain amount of beakers towards my current tech....as long as my opponent has the tech I am researching.

Now espionage is a gradual part of the game. I build spy and micromanage them to get a long term increase in my science.

Or another one. What if I could put spys on "propaganda missions". Such that for every spy in an opponents cities would increase their unhappiness by X. And as long as they are there the happiness penalty remains.


To me, these kinds of changes would make espionage easy enough to use so regular players would take some time with it...but strong enough that vets would micromanage it for victory.

 

[parabellum9x19]

after playing enough BTS, no i never want to see espionage ever again. at best you could frustrate and delay the inevitable, at worst you'd just negatively influence Diplo without a good enough return. too much micro...no thanks.