New Spy System Feedback

Just FYI, is your concern with tech stealing out of the gate England....or do you just not want tech stealing around Renaissance?

As far as National Wonders,

Printing Press seems reasonable. Makes sense flavorwise, it fits for when spies get going....often not the strongest tech so gives a little more incentive to go for it quickly.

Runner up would be the Hermitage. I don't think its as good a choice but if you want something a little later, but not MUCH later, it fits the bill.

TBH I find the necessity of a 'catch-up' mechanic a bit...blegh and unappealing/avoidable. I don't think spies should be a rubberband, I think it is bad play.

I keep forgetting spies are a thing you need to assign now over and over again. In the old system you only had to do so in spare circumstances like a diplomat fleeing war, city swapping ownership and a spy dying.

It would really help me if assigning a spy would become one of the mandatory end turn actions like vote on world congress or move this unit. Otherwise, it would help me if a mission end would directly open the spy screen again or something. I keep catching myself that there is a (1) or a (2) in the top right indicating spies are not doing anything and it's a real feelsbad.

Also sidenote the dialogue menu has twice the option for poisoning well? Poisoning water supply might be a more futureproof description btw as this doesn't fit modern era for instance.

Twice? Not sure what you mean.

And yeah, I could make spies block end turn, probably. Github post?

G
 
TBH I find the necessity of a 'catch-up' mechanic a bit...blegh and unappealing/avoidable. I don't think spies should be a rubberband, I think it is bad play.

Then high level AIs are definately going to need a science bonus nerf. Only the most science heavy civs can hope to keep up without those rubberbands.
 
I think, if tech steal is moved to an earlier building, say a national wonder, and I increase the scaling on the other yield abilities, I think that would sort out spies.

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That is a good idea that should at least make them more viable & interesting, though i am not one of these who think you should be stealing techs to victory, but just make it possible to gain some teech if way behind.

To be fair I am not a fan of espionage in general, whether your recent changes, previous changes, or basic vanilla. I remember when they were introduced to Gods & Kings, & being very unimpressed, though in the minority on this. In previous game gave up on spying & just made them all diplomats where they could stay & give me information every now & again, then forget about them. Seems a waste really, though your suggestion about using a national wonder above might help.
 
I find the entire thing just irritating now. (22 civs 42 city states). I’ve found that even if you behind or the clear cut powerhouse others ease to poison your population, disrupt, production, pillage tiles, ransack, cities, steal science, gold, the works ever ending. There literally hasn’t been a turn where some foreign spy hasn’t completed a mission in my city ( a top level spy stationed in it as well as all spy related building including the GREAT FIREWALL, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, Bletechery Park, over 6 completed public works, and all spy related policies). This really seemed to get out of control right around the time we all entered the modern era. There is no counter play or an effective counter play to this new spy system. How is it that with all of the above they still easily conduct missions in a capital with the great firewall? Where before that was a city you could remove a spy from completely and task to something else. Like I said I’ve got every policy, wonder, building, stationed spy, public works repeat you name it. This new spy system is just over the top disruptive and too easy for the AI to massacre the player.
 
I'm still learning the new system but I have to say I don't like the options available. Stalker has done a good job of explaining the science issues.

I'm still just not sure what to do in general though. I can't tell if I should target high or low security cities. I feel like I have to do a few crap missions I don't really care about to level up the spy, and he sometimes dies during them, which feels awful, so I just stick to CS.
 
I'm still learning the new system but I have to say I don't like the options available. Stalker has done a good job of explaining the science issues.

I'm still just not sure what to do in general though. I can't tell if I should target high or low security cities. I feel like I have to do a few crap missions I don't really care about to level up the spy, and he sometimes dies during them, which feels awful, so I just stick to CS.

Low security cities are low risk to spies, which is what i had been using. Beware though, as capitals sometimes look low risk but once they have been spied on go high, & you suddenly find your spy is at far more risk than you originally thought, which is irritating.
 
Either boost the yields gain and the risk being killed or lower the bonuses Ais get. Spies are no where useful as they were.

Anyway I have long abandoned the trials for peaceful play going for full domination every game with tech trading on so I can pull my vassals in line with my war tech.
 
Either boost the yields gain and the risk being killed or lower the bonuses Ais get. Spies are no where useful as they were.

Anyway I have long abandoned the trials for peaceful play going for full domination every game with tech trading on so I can pull my vassals in line with my war tech.

Culture victories in particular seem strange, as in two previous games Poland & Brazil cruised to CV as the rest of the world had a love in with them. Mongols was even Brazil's neighbour & did nothing, whilst a very big William, also his neighbour, kept denouncing them but refused to go to war despite having biggest army.. Stupidely went tradition as America & went nowhere. Seems weird to going traditon with America at all, which doesn't make sense, but its abilities encourage it.

Deciding war is the only way myself, & espionage off. Shame really, as can understand changes to espionage as previously it was really exploited, but at the moment in limbo. Liked Gazebo's suggestion about changing a national wonder to improve stealing tech.
 
I see that most of the people think that spying supposed to be a catch-up mechanics. So if you are 10 techs behind - then spies should give you tech after tech.

I don't think that is the case. But I do think you want to or need the catch-up to keep the game interesting. Otherwise it's fall behind, tits up, game over. Not that it should just keep dropping free techs in your lap over and over again as if you played England, a or a few, patches ago.

The difference here is that nobody is catching up. Not even the other AI. So instead you have a system that is basically once in the lead you are always in the lead and there is never going to be any catching up unless someone comes over and kills you. Which becomes more and more unlikely every passing turn due to your enormous tech advantage.

Naturally there will be no catch-up if you only get little extra yields and the leader also get similar little extra yields. If anything if you are far behind shouldn't you steal more, as in getting better yields, when stealing from someone more advanced then what the more advanced would get from stealing from those less fortunate? What do they get out of the equation?

The other is (or was) putting tech stealing behind Bletchley Park. That is very late in the game, if you get it with already having finished Rationalism and getting extra free science everywhere you don't really need tech stealing. It was also then limited to one civ in every game that could even do it and you need a level 3 spy to run it so it's not going to be anything that you run over and over again. A spies lifespan just isn't that long anymore. Printing press or one of the other diplomatic national wonders might make more sense.

Spies sort of went from being useful to being not being very useful at the moment, you sort of run them just to keep the gap or even pace of the gap but they will not actually help you. But I give that a portion of that might be me and it takes some time getting used to it. I also forget to send the spies from time to time but I'm fairly good at remembering to send them.

I'm not claiming good knowledge of the system as of yet but it seems that your best route is running the low star cities. The thing is between you clicking it and it being executed someone else might have run a spy mission on the same city kicking the rating up a notch. At least I think that is what is happening.

I think, if tech steal is moved to an earlier building, say a national wonder, and I increase the scaling on the other yield abilities, I think that would sort out spies.G

I think that could be a step in the right direction. At least worth testing. Does the yield scale, or can it be made to, depending on the tech difference? As in those far behind get more from stealing from someone that is ahead compared to one that is ahead gaining from stealing from someone that is beneath them? Timers and risks appear to increase with the difference in tech levels at least.
 
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TBH I find the necessity of a 'catch-up' mechanic a bit...blegh and unappealing/avoidable. I don't think spies should be a rubberband, I think it is bad play
Then what do you think of reducing AI bonuses? In either case the yields for spying should increase but you also need to either increase the science rubber band or decrease AI bonuses
 
Can't comment overall on the new spy system yet (haven't really used it against over civs, just for city states), but the "poison the food supply" feels overtuned. It would usually put food production into the negative, and very easily led to some cities losing population multiple turns in a row. Counter espionage is a bit unintuitive, because enemies still succeed fairly often even with level 3 agents doing counter espionage and with constabulary. The police station and military base are available a lot later in the tech tree, so before then cities are basically like sitting ducks—or at least it feels like that. p
 
Can't comment overall on the new spy system yet (haven't really used it against over civs, just for city states), but the "poison the food supply" feels overtuned. It would usually put food production into the negative, and very easily led to some cities losing population multiple turns in a row. Counter espionage is a bit unintuitive, because enemies still succeed fairly often even with level 3 agents doing counter espionage and with constabulary. The police station and military base are available a lot later in the tech tree, so before then cities are basically like sitting ducks—or at least it feels like that. p

exactly. There’s no way to STOP spies. Someone’s always completing an objective against you every single turn in the late game. I’ve counted I’ve completed the public works now 15 times and no effect on spy stealing. On top of every wonder, building as stated before. I never have issues with anything in VP for years until now. I’d just like the ability to revert to vanilla spy system, not that that system was great but this is not the move. How does a capital city with all the spy buildings ( police station etc) NIA and the great firewall which states 99% effective, a level 3 spy and 15 public works completes get spy missions conducted on it every 10 turns? It leaves blockade status to get its food poised right after then all the tiles pillaged 5 turns later.
 
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I will also echo that it doesn't feel like spy buildings and counterspies really do much in terms of stopping spies. The only thing that helps is after a mission completes, the security bump in a city is real, and it dramatically increases the time another mission in the same city would take. However, I find security drops very quickly....often I can just go for a quick Security 1 mission, and by the time its done, that Security 10 city is right back down into low security and ready for another mission.
 
Can missions actually fail? I know the spy can die, it happens quite a lot. But even if you die with their dying breath the spy still appear to carry off the heist or action in question and I get the reward. But if the spy dies it's back to level 1 again. That seems to be the only drawback to failure, minus whatever diplomatic hit there is for getting caught. But can you actually fail the mission as in not get any reward at all? I'm not sure. I don't think it has ever happened to me at least.
 
I will also echo that it doesn't feel like spy buildings and counterspies really do much in terms of stopping spies. The only thing that helps is after a mission completes, the security bump in a city is real, and it dramatically increases the time another mission in the same city would take. However, I find security drops very quickly....often I can just go for a quick Security 1 mission, and by the time its done, that Security 10 city is right back down into low security and ready for another mission.


I’m going to slow down security drop in the next version, there’s a quirk in it right now. Also there’s a carrot issue with leveling which reverses the model (it’s harder to level on high security cities when it should be the opposite).

G
 
What about the fact that buildings, spies, and wonders do nothing to slow down the rate? 99% effective doesn’t put a dent in the ability of other to conduct missions.
 
I’m going to slow down security drop in the next version, there’s a quirk in it right now. Also there’s a carrot issue with leveling which reverses the model (it’s harder to level on high security cities when it should be the opposite).

G

See I actually think one of the niches for low level security should be leveling. I think it makes sense to do a few “easy” missions, build up your confidence and skills...and then go for the big guys.

frankly level is so important to what missions you can do. I like the idea we discussed in the brainstorm of just having the spy level after each mission.
 
What about the fact that buildings, spies, and wonders do nothing to slow down the rate? 99% effective doesn’t put a dent in the ability of other to conduct missions.

They do slow down the rate - city potential simply decreases too quickly right now.

G
 
Can we have the world wonders directly increase the duration needed for missions instead of altering the security level? They're world wonders after all. Should be strong.

Alternatively increase the base number of stars so a city with the Great Firewall can't drop below 2.5 stars, for example.
 
Alternatively increase the base number of stars so a city with the Great Firewall can't drop below 2.5 stars, for example.

Not a bad idea, though honestly even half a star of security changes the length of missions a good bit.
 
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