making spies different

[Ahriman]

have had trouble testing it on units which are outside cities, because they keep moving around, and the spy may not move and perform an espionage action in the same turn

That is a very good point, I hadn't thought of that.
This will be true for any ability trying to target moving units, including sabotage type abilities or whatever.
I agree that this makes an entangle-type effect unviable.

 

[Xaos]

Hm, good point. I have not implemented it yet, but what I was planning is that the target unit is destroyed; a unit is built owned by you, which has the same promotions as the destroyed unit; after one turn, your unit is destroyed; and a new unit with the same promotions is created for the target player. So you can give the unit any order, but it is owned by you. So if you use it to attack some third party, that is *you* declaring war on the third party, not the target player.

What you suggest is more interesting, but I am not sure how to give you control over a unit which is owned by the target player.

For facedancers impersonation, I was thinking more along the lines of:

The facedancer replaces a unit in a city. For all intent and purposes that unit remains under the control of the civ that the FD replaced. Until...

The civ with the implanted facedancer tries to use it against you in a battle. then they get a message like "Your <Unit Name> was revealed to be a Facedancer and has turned on you!" then the unit gets deleted from their stack and added to yours. Of course this will probably add the normal diplo penalty "You spy was caught causing trouble".

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Xaos I thought about that too but how do you (as Tleilaxu) keep all those facedancers staight if you impersonated many of them? When it's under the other civ's control, how do you see where they've moved? And there should be a possibility for the other civ to detect that facedancer and revert the change which might be hard to code.

 

[Ahriman]

Can I please get an answer to why you think an impersonator commanding officer can somehow get his soldiers to attack their own House?

This feels like Mind Control, not impersonation.

 

[davidlallen]

Can I please get an answer to why you think an impersonator commanding officer can somehow get his soldiers to attack their own House?

This happens all the time in military novels. "Men, the other unit is controlled by a traitor and they are about to assassinate the Duke! We have to strike now!"

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Or in spy/futuristic TV series like Alias and Spooks.

 

[Ahriman]

An entire regiment, launching a suicidal attack against a city? I dunno, it still feels wrong to me.

But whatever you guys prefer.

 

[Xaos]

Xaos I thought about that too but how do you (as Tleilaxu) keep all those facedancers staight if you impersonated many of them? When it's under the other civ's control, how do you see where they've moved? And there should be a possibility for the other civ to detect that facedancer and revert the change which might be hard to code.

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of you have zero control over your infiltrated FD until the infiltrated civ tries to attack you. You can't track them or anything else. It makes more sense that in order to better blend in, that the FD does not act like a normal spy. i.e. he doesn't 'check in' so to speak. He has a long term mission and thats it. Of course the one who sends the FD on his infiltration will get a message like 'Your facedancer has successfully infiltrated the <Civ Name> base of <Civ City> and replaced a <Unit Name>'. The success rate for this should be low early game and get higher late game. Not sure how the mechanics of this kind of stuff works, be we probably dont want quick and easy victories this way. The ability should come from maybe some late game tech. or maybe a unit promotion?