espionage

[Civinator]

I think i'll move the tech even earlier to follow on from Printing Press to rationalise the 'propaganda' spy task.

You could enable that option to be a diplomat task, from era 1 of the game, too. I remember in very early phases of CCM1 I set the costs for propaganda so low, that the AI tried to convert nearly all new founded cities of other civs. As this was much too much, I then raised the costs again drastically for that option, always with the thought, that when I have the time for it, I will find a proper solution for the correct propaganda costs. Until now I never made those tests.

 

[Fergei]

So I brought espionage forward to printing press and started a game where I conquered 3x lowish power Civs and tried to avoid confrontation with 3x far larger Civs. I didn't have a single sign of spying against me in a space race victory (16x AIs on a large map).

There must be variables I simply don't understand. I'm thinking my being in Republic & Democracy may have dissuaded the AI from spying, as did my being a distant 4th on score (given they are reportedly coded to hate the score leading Civ?). Or maybe there was so much war globally that the AI had priorities other than the Intelligence Agency. But really, I'm just very confused.

I also seem to have a 100% success of planting spies against Civs when I'm at war with them (which seems completely counter intuitive) whereas neutral Civs have a good chance of spotting me.

I think I'll make the Intelligence Agency much cheaper to build and see if that helps.

 

[Fergei]

So I've settled with making the Intelligence Agency really cheap, Espionage available as an optional tech at the end of the Ancient Era and making pretty much every spy task possible for diplomats. From playing 3 or 4 games I don't think this unbalances the game particularly (although you may want to toggle the cost of different espionage activities). The AI still seems very reluctant to carry out espionage tasks, I average being a victim about once every 50-100 turns (although I don't know if you receive a notification of every AI attempt).

Most importantly it means the human doesn't have a high risk of starting a war simply because I want to plant a spy and conduct espionage. I think it is well worth considering for anyone who, like me, completely disregards espionage in the default settings.

 

[justanick]

The AI still seems very reluctant to carry out espionage tasks, I average being a victim about once every 50-100 turns (although I don't know if you receive a notification of every AI attempt).

Was that at times when AI had plenty gold for financing espionage missions?

 

[Fergei]

Was that at times when AI had plenty gold for financing espionage missions?

Very much so, it was a strangely wealthy game as for long stretches most AI wars were short. There was a lot of wealth for at least 2x AI Civs throughout much of the game. One AI regularly had 2000 gold and I think another was up around 25,000 gold for a long time and I was routinely selling techs for upwards of 30GPT or 2000 gold to about 10x different Civs. I don't know if the AI is reluctant to use espionage or what as I set the espionage costs at around 200 to 1000 a turn for 'safely', although tech stealing is around 1800 for 'safely'. I only suffered 1x successful propoganda and 1x sabotaged production that I can remember and I don't know if I get a pop-up message if someone steals a tech from me.

I assume the AI spend funds on hurrying production? AI finances is not something I've looked at at all really. Maybe they just really prioritise hurrying production when they are wealthy? As I say, its all unknown to me.

I should add I don't make sabotage production available to diplomats, just everything else. Maybe I'll make steal technology spy only also.

 

[tjs282]

I've always had the impression that the AI Civs only hurry production if they need a defender at short notice in a threatened town, and have the funds/ population to do it.

Otherwise, they seem to use gold reserves primarily for trades, then unit-upgrades, and only then, if they still have cash left over, for espionage missions.

 

[Fergei]

Thanks. I agree as that is also my perception. Especially with me using governors (who do not hurry production of their own volition) and seeing the AI also has governor settings in the Tribe/Civilisation section of the editor. Whilst coding in the AI to rush defensive units in during war time makes sense from a gameplay perspective it seems unlikely they would have gone to the effort to code the AI to hurry production of buildings in specific circumstances (how the heck would you specify those circumstances?).

Has anyone ever seen a popup about a tech being stolen from you by the AI? Or indeed to them 'stealing plans'?(although given their attiude to barbarian camps and identifying your most weakly defended city I don't think the AI needs to conduct espionage to know the location of my units).