Revamping: Espionage and Diplomacy PART 2

[amphreded]

continued from Part 1

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Summary:

• Spy and diplomat to be separate units, not switchable unit.
• Acquiring new spy and diplomat is no longer dependent on era, but rather the number of all cities and city-states you have discovered.
• Change so that espionage/diplomacy units are no longer obtained for free, but needed to be hard build from a city - spy with constabulary, diplomat with a department of foreign affairs, and ambassador with ministry of foreign affairs.
• Add ambassador, whom can only be installed in other civilization's capital cities as a "chief diplomat".
• Can stack multiple diplomats or spies into a single cities or city-states.
• Diplomat and ambassadors to have more varied effects.
• Each ambassador and diplomat stationed in another civilization's capital city allows you to trade for one additional world congress proposal (currently having a diplomat in a capital allows you to trade for both proposal).
• Instead of having 2 proposals per world congress, there is more proposals per session.
• Diplomats can be installed in city-states to gain influence.
• Spy can be used in many extra ways, both in foreign cities, city-states, and your own.
• Spy can stay in the cities of civilizations and city-states you are at war with, but with greater risk involved in most cases.
• Spy in another civilization's city can go on different missions: steal technology, steal information, sabotage city's production, create confusion in war time, create cultural propaganda, create religious propaganda, terrorize, or rescue captive units.
• Spy in your own cities can go on different missions: feed false information to enemy spy (for example, give an impression we have a superior army), create extra surveillance that increase chance to kill or capture enemy spy, or do patrols which reduce enemy's spying effectiveness.
• Spy in city-states can go on different missions: rig an election, steal resource, or prevent other civilization's influence.
• Spy cooperation, teaming up spies to complete a mission faster, or to minimize risk.
• Change to spy leveling up system, introducing "half level". Spy now has up to 5 levels. Spy is capable of losing level in certain situations.
• Anti-spying buildings such as constabulary and police station to have more effects. For example, police station allows you to build prison, which holds more captives.
• New system of [Capture and Ransom] where spies, ambassadors, diplomats, civilian units can be taken captive. Spies can get interrogated for information.
• Captured diplomats, ambassadors, spies, and civilians can trigger new negotiation screen where civilizations can use them as ransoms to extort money, technology, votes, amongst others. Allied civilizations can help another out by negotiating for captive release.

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Cap Number for Diplomats and Spies

Diplomats and Spies' Limit Number

• Unlike ambassadors, the number of diplomats and spies are not the same as the number of other major civilizations. The maximum number for diplomats and spies that you can have is XX% the number of cities you have found that are not in your empire, including city-states (standard map). XX% is 15% for Renaissance, Industrial 20%, Modern 25%, Atomic 30%, Information 33%. For example, in Industrial era the number of all other civilizations' cities and city-states you have found so far is 28. 20% of 28 is 5.6, rounded down to 5. According to this formula, you can have up to 5 spies and 5 diplomats in your empire (they are separate now). This might sound like a lot of diplomats and spies, but since each diplomat and spy will have weaker effects/specialized effects comparing to the current BNW, I believe it can be fine tuned for the right balance.
• Having the number of diplomats and spies based off the number all discovered cities will place extra importance to scouting and exploration.
• While you can build many diplomats, ambassadors, and spies right off the renaissance, it might actually be better to only build the necessary ones and save up hammers for other crucial productions.
• Though the number of % increases per era, it's worth mentioning that with newer era, more cities would be plopped around the world, thus pushing the threshold. Late industrial era and early modern era will most likely see new settlements since resources like coal, oil, and aluminum start to appear on the map.
• This will create an interesting decision for tall vs wide. Tall empire minimizes its own city numbers, lowering other civilizations' number of diplomats and spies, as well as able to install various kind of counterintelligence in few cities tall player owns. Wide empire enjoys other benefits such as deploying relatively few diplomats to be able to view all of the tall empire's cities, focus multiple spies into a tall player's capital city, or take advantage of multiple constabularies in multiple cities to hamper unhappiness created by public opinion.
• Regarding how city-razing would affect the availability of diplomats and spies: would a reduced number of cities mean a reduced number of number of diplomats and spies you can build? What about the diplomats and spies that have already been hard built before the number of cities have been reduced? I do not have a concrete solution to this problem yet, but whenever a city has been razed, it should affect the total number of diplomats and spies you can recruit. Perhaps whenever you have more diplomats and/or spies than your allotted limit, you would get a penalty for their effectiveness like how a deficient strategic resource would affect units that require them. Another solution is for the game to prompt you to give up one of your spy and/or diplomat as soon as you have finished with their current task. If anyone has a good idea, please share.

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Capture and Ransom

Capture and Ransom: Preface

• A civilization can capture a civilian unit such as great person, worker, spy and diplomat from another civilization and hold them captive for interrogation, negotiation, release, or kill.
• To hold a unit captive, there must be at least one available captive slot in the empire.
• Constabulary is the first building that provides you with one captive slot. Police station allows 2 more captive slots, prison 4, and Alcatraz Island world wonder additional 4.
• A spy has a chance to be captured when he's found out by the other civilization. A spy living in any city or city-state that has been captured also has a chance to be captured by the invading civilization. If he has not been found out or captured, he can continue to spy in that city or city-state.
• A diplomat or ambassador has a chance to be captured when their city or city-state of residence has been taken over by another civilization.
• If another civilization takes over the city with the captives, he also receives the captives within the city. He can either interrogate, negotiate, kill or release the captives, which will have different diplomatic consequences.
• Having spies in the same city or city-state as the ambassador and diplomats will allow ambassador and diplomats to have better chance at escaping the city without getting caught. Steal Information spy gives extra boost to escape chance for all units.
• A captive can be killed off or released freely any time.
• After being held captive, a spy's level will gradually decrease.
• A captive spy of level 1 will eventually die if he's not rescued or given back to his empire.
• Diplomats, ambassadors and other civilian units will eventually die if been taken captive for too long.
• For each captive unit in your empire, -1 gold.

Capture and Ransom: Negotiations and Interrogations

• If your empire does not have an available captive slot, you can only make negotiations the first turn you have captured civilian units.
• You can only interrogate units if you hold them captive to extort information. You can interrogate them first, then decide to do whatever later, though the longer you hold units captive, the bigger diplomatic hit.
• Negotiations for returning captured units are broader: you don't need diplomats or ambassadors to do world congress proposal vote trades, you can extort technology from them, etc.
• Each unit has different negotiation value: ambassador is valued higher than diplomat, higher level spy is valued higher than a low ranking one, and such.

Capture and Ransom: Interrogations Efficiency

• A high level spy can withhold information better than a lower ranking spy, allowing him to keep silent for longer turns. A high level spy can also withhold his identity for longer, not allowing the civilization to know which empire the spy is from - delaying or avoiding a diplomatic hit. Eventually a spy will die. A spy starting off with a high level has a high chance of keeping secret until he perishes during captivity.
• An ambassador is better at keeping silent than a diplomat
• The extorted information is more reliable than information received otherwise.
• Police station gives extra 25% to interrogation in the city.

Capture and Ransom: a Diplomatic Game

• Friendly and Allied AIs can negotiate the release of your units. You can do the same to gain diplomatic influence. AIs helping you this way will feel that you owe them, and expect you to help them in return. Freeing captive units of other civilizations will earn you influence with city-states and you will also receive diplomatic boosts from other civilizations.
• If you hold captive the units of another civilization you are not at war with, they will get angry at you, demanding for free release. Interrogating or killing off these units will upset not only the civilization where the units are from, but other civilizations that are friendly or peaceful with that civilization. For civilizations at war or hostile against the civilization where the units are from, they might look away or even glad you have bullied their enemy. Your own empire will get unhappy if you kill off innocent civilian units or hold them captive.

Capture and Ransom: Killing a Captive vs Letting the Captive Die over Time

• Killing a captive, especially diplomats or ambassadors will generate unhappiness in the empire for a duration. Killing a captive from an innocent civilization will generate negative tourism and religion influence for a duration.
• Civilization with a diplomat, ambassador, or spy killed off will have -1 max number of respective unit for 10 turns. For example, your spy cap is at 10, and currently you have 2 spies held captive while there are 8 others active. Your enemy civilization kills off 2 spies, now your spy cap is at 8 for 10 turns. Thus you cannot hard build a new spy for another 10 turns.
• Killing off captive units is a sure way that they won't get rescued.
• Killing off captive units save maintenance gold (each captive units cost 1 gold per turn)
• Killing off captive units will have diplomatic repercussions, especially with other civilizations that are friendly or allied with the civilization of the units you just killed off.
• Eventually all captive units will pass away in their captivity. This can take long especially for higher level spies, however letting captive die this way generate less diplomatic repercussions as well as creating less unhappiness for the empire.
• Keeping captive units until they die over time can be costly since they cost 1 gold per turn.

Capture and Ransom: Unhappiness

• When your ambassador is held captive in another civilization, -1 happiness to your empire.
• If your ambassador is held captive for longer than 10 turns, -1 happiness becomes -2 happiness instead.
• When your diplomat is held captive for over 10 turns, -1 happiness to your empire.
• If your ambassador is killed off when you had the chance to negotiate him back, -3 happiness for 30 turns.
• If your diplomat is killed off when you had the chance to negotiate him back, -2 happiness for 30 turns.

Capture and Ransom: Rescuing Captive Units

• You can rescue your units in different ways if the other civilization won't return the units to you easily.
• Gain back units through trade negotiations (aka ransom). Will be mostly one-sided against hostile enemy. They might be willing to give back your high level spy for 3 luxury resources and 20 gold per turn.
• Gain back units by capturing the city. You will gain all the captives inside the city. During war, captive units cannot be relocated to another city if your military is near.
• Gain back units by using Rescue Agent spies. High risk but can end up being beneficial: gaining back your units at no cost, leveling up your spies, and you can specify exactly which units you want to rescue.