Espionage

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What representation will Civ5 have for spies, underhand diplomacy, intelligence-gathering, stealing of secrets, bribery of units, exploding bombs in cities, and so on?

Please don't tell me that espionage has been REMOVED. :(
 
Sorry to tell you, but everything they've said so far tells us that-like religion-it *has* been removed.
Frankly, I hope that this is so that they can spend the months between now & the release of the first XP to bring out a super-fun espionage system-either that or some smart modder might find a way to mod it in!
I concur though that a Civ game without espionage will be missing something that I consider very important!

Aussie.
 
Sorry to tell you, but everything they've said so far tells us that-like religion-it *has* been removed.
Frankly, I hope that this is so that they can spend the months between now & the release of the first XP to bring out a super-fun espionage system-either that or some smart modder might find a way to mod it in!
I concur though that a Civ game without espionage will be missing something that I consider very important!

Aussie.
So you weren't a fan of Civ4 or Warlords then? :p
 
So you weren't a fan of Civ4 or Warlords then? :p

LOL, it wasn't great, but at least it had some kind of spy activity. You're kind of right, though, in that Civ4 didn't reach its true pinnacle until BtS was released :)!

Aussie.
 
LOL, it wasn't great, but at least it had some kind of spy activity. You're kind of right, though, in that Civ4 didn't reach its true pinnacle until BtS was released :)!

Aussie.
I just hope that if they do add Espionage back in, they do it completely differently from how it was handled in BtS. I basically almost never used it because I'm always unwilling to dip into my research or coffers.
 
THANK THE LORD (if one existed but one doesn't this is obviously a fact because Religion is out of ciV :P) that espionage is out, I completely ignored it in BtS didnt like it one bit, hated the fact that tech was stolen from me or my food was poisoned, load of BS, if I didn't like BtS more in general than warlords I would of never played it, infact for quite a while I simply stuck too Warlords. Great thats its out of ciV.

Also on another note I haven't mentioned (or did I :P) Religion is out, while I don't think this mechanic was rubbish like I think Espionage was, ciV is looking to be less annoying with the removal with the Okay even if annoying Religion Mechanic. And well ciV will be my ideal Civilization, my Civ's will grow up not being religious nutters before I can turn to Free-Religion though personally I would have prefered a Atheist mode in Civ4 where you start hating all people with Religion for the hell of it, and you get 1 unhappy face for each religion in a city, but 1 happy face for each religion not in the city, religion can't be spread to your cities and any religions already in the city will have a chance of disbanding. Ah well that would of been a good edition to civ4. But its irrelevant now we come to ciV and we are all natural Athiests, halelua! Praise the non-lord. Civilization finally has a step in the direction of a future for humanity which isn't all about Worshiping Imaginary Friends.

Not saying Espionage can't work as a Mechanic, just that in BtS I didn't like it and just ignored it and did just fine in games. Though I never actually bothered to turn it off which was in the options, I just could ignore it so I did.
Now for Espionage to work, you have to be cruel to be fair, for Espionage to work, you have to make it so that If someone ignores it, it will really mess up your game, such as Cities rebelling or w.e. Perhaps I will like the Espionage mechanic if it gets a re-haul in a future expansion on ciV, perhaps not, time will tell.
 
espionage never really worked in civ4, so, since they apparently couldnt figure out a way to make it work, i'm glad they left it out altogether.

religion on the other hand, i dont get why it was left out...
 
it's true that some game systems, like religion and espionage, have been removed

http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/107/1075587p1.html

However, that doesn't mean the espionage will not appear. It may appear in very different form, the same as religion.

While there aren't any official comments, I could imagine some arguments against the BtS espionage:

1. Tech stealing fits tech trading mechanics from Civ4, and doesn't fit Civ5 "research and collaborate".

2. Spending commerce on espionage is no-go with the sliders removal.

3. All form of sabotage barely fit "AI act as human" concept.

But still some info features could exist (map, army, city, research). The easiest way is invisible spy units, which could scout the map and investigate city/research by just spending money without any risks or diplomatic penalties.
 
I loved the espionage system in CivIV because it gave you a whole different way to play. It may not be able to work the same with their new game, but I hope they bring it back in some form because to me it's one of my favorite mechanics in the game.
 
it was essentially broken?
 
What representation will Civ5 have for spies, underhand diplomacy, intelligence-gathering, stealing of secrets, bribery of units, exploding bombs in cities, and so on?

Please don't tell me that espionage has been REMOVED. :(

espionage isn't included in vanilla, they are considering trying out espionage mechanics when they design an expansion.

--

rofl very true AriochIV, espionage pretty much sucked bum.
 
I only read every fifth line or so, to judge whether you're trying to annoy us on purpose with this wall of text.

My conclusion is YES! :D

I put in paragraphs, I didnt preview it so I didn't realise it looked too much like a wall, im usually good putting in paragraphs and punctuation. I guess I didnt realise how long it got as my point dragged on.

To re-iterate, basically I said religion wouldn't be in an ideal Civilization so its good that it is out even though as a mechanic although annoying it wasn't bad. Espionage on the other hand could be done correctly, to do so would need the developer to cruely punish anybody who simply ignores the espionage side of things like I usually do if they are put into the game, this would make it effective even if un-like-able. Bts's Espionage system was niether like-able or effective, it was just bad and annoying. It could be done to a standard where it would be worth putting it into a game, but it would need a major overhaul in my opinion to be worth putting in.
 
I hope they'll at least have spies. I mean, they had them in vanilla Civ4, right? A little earlier would be nice too.

Other than that, I don't really see any of the espionage features as necessary.
 
I think the only time I used espionage in BTS was to cause revolts right before I attacked a city, so IMO, not really much of a loss. It granted some nice passive bonuses too, but it was usually too costly. The AI never really seemed to use it much either (except for Sitting Bull, everyone's favorite water poisoner).
 
I won't miss them too much, they ended up being a bit pesky when dealing with certain AIs. As mentioned, having your water poisoned or even improvements destroyed all the time even when doing your best to counter got a little bit old. If they do make a return, I'd rather see them come back at more of a cost, and have missions have more of a chance to fail. It just seemed way too easy to pull off espionage missions.

Another thing that would make me appreciate spies in Civ more is if their capture would slightly degrade relations with all other civs. I would think that if one Civ was notorious for using espionage to hurt, kill, etc. during times of peace that it'd bother just about everyone else on the planet.
 
espionage was part of the reason I never got bts, and I hope they never add it. That being said, I remember it being hinted at that it may be added later. I imagine they probably don't have too many of the add-ons being planned already, but it certainly hasn't been ruled out yet.
 
No I didn't know. There were a few other reasons I never got it though. But sure, if it's something released singly and not as an xpac with a bunch of civs I want, or if I can turn it off, then I'm fine with it. I may hate it, but no need to deny those who disagree.
 
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