Issue with Espionage system on Vox Populi

[Wilkinson123321]

Hi,

I have an issue with the Espionage system on Vox Populi, hopfully someone can help out or tell me where I'm going wrong.

I'm playing as England on the Earth map and my capital city is constantly having its production set back to zero every 5 turns by an enemy spy, this means I'm not able to build anything in my capital city at all (since everything except a Work Boat requires more than 5 turns to produce).

I have a Level 3 spy in the city running a counter-intelligence network (+50), walls, a castle and zero unhappiness. I've also built 2 Public Works. The city's Spy Resistence is 110. Can anyone tell me what the modifiers are to increase the resistence of cities to enemy spies and is there a way to modify the game myself to alter this dynamic? IE - lowering the chance enemy spies successfully sabotage production

Cheers.

Moderator Action: Moved to VP forum. leif

 

[Sgtslick]

Yeah this - production from spies is kind of ridiculous.. Especially before you can build constabulary. It seems like ALL the AI's plonk a spy in the players' capital to run this dog move. Also the fact that it gives -production to treasure fleet, and that it still succeeds even if you kill the rat fuks, makes this feel like your playing some multiplayer game vs 14 year olds or something lol

 

[Milae]

Game settings? But yea multiple people have complained about this so maybe it is bugged somehow

 

[Sgtslick]

Maybe the timer is bugged because it seems to happen a lot. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't every few turns. What settings could possibly make a difference, just curious. I guess game speed. Im just playing normal speed.

 

[Patee]

IMHO numbers and frequency of this type of event is overtuned.
Been playing with spies off since those changes.
I feel this has too big impact on a game.

 

[Sgtslick]

I was just playing some more and I could do the same thing to other civs. Disrupt production: 5 turns. Which is just broken. Its kind of useless against AI on harder difficulties though since they all have everything already. If steal gold is 30 turns then I feel this should be 15-20 turns.

 

[Hokiefan00]

Agree. It's annoying and overpowered.

However, you can edit any of the missions in \Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\(2) Community Balance Overhaul\Balance Changes\Espionage\PrimaryEspionageEvents.xml for things like mission length, spy level, chance of detection, chance of kill, etc.

 

[Zanteogo]

Having same issues. You can be constantly set back and never be able to produce anything.

Defensive spies hardly ever catch enemy spy. When you do, it's not a massive deal because new spies max level fast, plus other AI's will just stick their own max spies to replace and repeat the cycle.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

However, you can edit any of the missions in \Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\(2) Community Balance Overhaul\Balance Changes\Espionage\PrimaryEspionageEvents.xml for things like mission length, spy level, chance of detection, chance of kill, etc

This is true (and great for those who would like to do this) but then you have to replace this file every time Vox is updated. Just pointing that out for those making the changes.

 

[Wilkinson123321]

Agree. It's annoying and overpowered.

However, you can edit any of the missions in \Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\(2) Community Balance Overhaul\Balance Changes\Espionage\PrimaryEspionageEvents.xml for things like mission length, spy level, chance of detection, chance of kill, etc.

Thanks, this was the kind of thing I was looking for.

 

[Wilkinson123321]

I ended up turning espionage off completely, I'll be having a play around with the XML file though as spy missions are clearly overpowered, especially the production loss mission.

 

[Rekk]

If anyone can suggest some appropriate, concrete settings for espionage, that would go some way into fixing the problem

 

[ridjack]

If anyone can suggest some appropriate, concrete settings for espionage, that would go some way into fixing the problem

We've had many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many suggestions to fix this.

That being said, my favorite suggestion is the classic: Get rid of the reworked spy system. I'm sorry, I'm sure several people put a lot of work into it and that is of course appreciated... but it's awful. The old spy system simply did not need a rework. It was simple, a bit boring, but impactful and, most importantly, it did its job. I think I'm a bit in the minority because I hated the new system from day one, but my opinion on that hasn't waivered since.

I really wish y'all would just throw in the towel on this one. It really is game-breaking.

 

[Sgtslick]

That being said, my favorite suggestion is the classic: Get rid of the reworked spy system.

Nah I think that's a bit drastic. Just need to tweak the numbers some more. They are better off erring on the side of caution with new changes. Making them on the weaker side and slowly bump them up, rather than super powerful right out of the blocks.

 

[ridjack]

Just want to point out that the new espionage system is going to be a year old next month, and it hasn't had an enjoyable iteration yet.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/new-beta-version-april-29th-4-29.669790/

 

[Amask]

At the very least the numerous bugs in it should be fixed.
I haven't submitted any reports because I assumed everyone is aware. It's been around for a long time, and there were many discussions about it.
Just a few off the top of my head:
- steal science missions randomly give a different amount compared to what the tooltip says. Had it say 3600 and received 3600. Another time had it say 3600 but received 8000. I checked what I actually received, because the notification is also wrong.
- vision is al kinds of bugged. I sent the first two spies on disrupt production missions. One gave me vision, one didn't.
- vision sometimes remains after you move spy out, sometimes doesn't
- the numbers don't make any sense. You can have negative spy defense modifiers that exceed 100%, yet spy defense is still a positive number.

Additionally, it's impossible to tell if something is working correctly if we don't know how it's supposed to work to begin with.
What are mission yields based on? Are they updated mid-mission if the situation changes?
What is duration based on?

 

[ridjack]

At the very least the numerous bugs in it should be fixed.
I haven't submitted any reports because I assumed everyone is aware. It's been around for a long time, and there were many discussions about it.
Just a few off the top of my head:
- steal science missions randomly give a different amount compared to what the tooltip says. Had it say 3600 and received 3600. Another time had it say 3600 but received 8000. I checked what I actually received, because the notification is also wrong.
- vision is al kinds of bugged. I sent the first two spies on disrupt production missions. One gave me vision, one didn't.
- vision sometimes remains after you move spy out, sometimes doesn't
- the numbers don't make any sense. You can have negative spy defense modifiers that exceed 100%, yet spy defense is still a positive number.

Additionally, it's impossible to tell if something is working correctly if we don't know how it's supposed to work to begin with.
What are mission yields based on? Are they updated mid-mission if the situation changes?
What is duration based on?

Part of the issue is that it's often hard to even know what's technically a bug, what's intended but not explained, or if a certain mechanic is just so terrible that it FEELS like a bug even when it's working 100% as it should be.

 

[looorg]

The issue of the very short run time on the sabotage or disruption of production have been mentioned as an issue previously but not changed. So I guess it's intended to be like that. You can sort of work around it. If you know when it happened, you know when it's happening next time. Just have a second unit in the queue. When you know or assume it's sabotage time just switch places of things in the queue. The disruption will hit another building or unit that you don't care for. Next turn or the turn after the sabotage if you miscalculated just swap/rearrange the queue of the city again. It's tedious but since it doesn't appear to be getting changed this is what one have to resort to if you want to play with espionage.

 

[ridjack]

The issue of the very short run time on the sabotage or disruption of production have been mentioned as an issue previously but not changed. So I guess it's intended to be like that. You can sort of work around it. If you know when it happened, you know when it's happening next time. Just have a second unit in the queue. When you know or assume it's sabotage time just switch places of things in the queue. The disruption will hit another building or unit that you don't care for. Next turn or the turn after the sabotage if you miscalculated just swap/rearrange the queue of the city again. It's tedious but since it doesn't appear to be getting changed this is what one have to resort to if you want to play with espionage.

I've instead resorted to keeping IGE ready to go and using the "Rush Production" to finish things after a sabotage. Espionage is too entwined into the game's systems for me to feel comfortable disabling it entirely, but I'm also sick of this ruining my Tradition games. So until it gets changed, I guess I'm cheating.

 

[looorg]

I've instead resorted to keeping IGE ready to go and using the "Rush Production" to finish things after a sabotage. Espionage is too entwined into the game's systems for me to feel comfortable disabling it entirely, but I'm also sick of this ruining my Tradition games. So until it gets changed, I guess I'm cheating.

I'm used to the new espionage system and on most levels I think I like it better now then the old one. It's just that one action that can more or less "stunlock" you capital that is so annoying and there really is not much you can do about it besides these little tweaks. Dislodging the spy doing it is or doesn't really appear to be a viable option.