(Rising Tide) Affinity Covert Operations

[GenEngineer]

Just realized something. In vanilla BE, the affinity covert operations (sabotage, worm strike, dirt bomb) were all unlocked as part of the Affinity perk system. In the new wheel shown, they aren't mentioned. Does anyone know how these will be implemented in Rising tide? Is there anything keeping them from being used at the start of the game (besides intrigue levels)? Asking since we now have 2 factions that are going to be espionage heavy.

 

[Red Menace]

I've been that wondering myself, since Victory wonders also aren't in the wheel (at least that we've seen so far) I can only think they have maybe some secondary system?

what did sabotage do? I've never been able to do any affinity missions.

 

[Verviedi]

Sabotage pillages all improvements within 4 tiles of the target city, I think. I've never managed to get any affinity ops either.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I did the worm drum thing once. It turned out to be a double edged sword because the worms came onto my territory and killed some of my units too.

 

[GenEngineer]

They're not the best operations, I'll grant, but I'm still curious to see how/if they'll be implemented with the new changes to affinity.

 

[VCrakeV]

Maybe they'll be made more accessible (because one of them is outright gimmicky and rubbish, and they can't be done at all with the slightest effort from the enemy).

 

[BevHeartMuncher]

I know they nerfed anti-spy buildings so that it only stops coups (unless ARC is attempting it), so now affinity ops can always be done unless they have a wonder or an All-Seer. So ops should be at least somewhat more accessible and harder to counter.

 

[Ryika]

In vanilla BE, the affinity covert operations (sabotage, worm strike, dirt bomb) were all unlocked as part of the Affinity perk system.

No, they're not - at least mechanically. There is a separate Table for Affinity-Requirements for Covert Operations that is handled by the Covert Ops Systems itself, there is no "unlock"-mechanism in the Affinity-Perk system - they're not connected with the actual affinity perks. The only reason why it shows up in the tooltips of the Affinity-Perk system is that the tooltip-system itself specifically goes through the Covert Ops to catch that information.

The new Affinity Wheel however is a lot slimmer, so it's an easy guess that they got rid of the extra information - it's available in the tooltips of the Covert Ops anyway.
I see no reason to assume that anything else was changed about the Affinity Covert Ops.

 

[Sunergy]

I did the worm drum thing once. It turned out to be a double edged sword because the worms came onto my territory and killed some of my units too.

It seems like this would be considerably less double edged after Rising Tide, since a high level Harmony player could leash worms that came into their own territory and add them to their military. I'm genuinely curious about the feasibility of just using the ability as a way to get a cluster of high level leashing targets. It's hardly a god tier strategy, but as far as covert ops go it might be decent.

 

[Red Menace]

Sabotage pillages all improvements within 4 tiles of the target city, I think. I've never managed to get any affinity ops either.

that sounds awesome. I've seen the Dirty bombs effects it actually devastated a capital reduced its pop by about 67/75% too bad it doesn't have an animation.

No, they're not - at least mechanically. There is a separate Table for Affinity-Requirements for Covert Operations that is handled by the Covert Ops Systems itself, there is no "unlock"-mechanism in the Affinity-Perk system - they're not connected with the actual affinity perks. The only reason why it shows up in the tooltips of the Affinity-Perk system is that the tooltip-system itself specifically goes through the Covert Ops to catch that information.

The new Affinity Wheel however is a lot slimmer, so it's an easy guess that they got rid of the extra information - it's available in the tooltips of the Covert Ops anyway.
I see no reason to assume that anything else was changed about the Affinity Covert Ops.

would that also explain why the Victory wonders aren't on the wheel? or they didn't include it for the demo versions.

 

[Ryika]

would that also explain why the Victory wonders aren't on the wheel? or they didn't include it for the demo versions.

Yes, it's exactly the same system for the Victory Wonders.

 

[Red Menace]

Yes, it's exactly the same system for the Victory Wonders.

That's good to know, not sure how it makes me feel about the way the affinity VCs were "Rebalanced" for hybrids, I was hoping they used the quest system so you complete goals than reach a certain affinity to continue through the quest, but it seems even more unlikely now.

 

[Ryika]

Well, it doesn't mean that they've not made these changes, it just means that the fact that it's gone from the tooltip doesn't mean that they have to have made any changes to the actual system.

But the devs have done a lot of work to make sure that everyone knows that the victory conditions didn't really get that many changes, so I'd not be too hopeful.

 

[Red Menace]

Well, it doesn't mean that they've not made these changes, it just means that the fact that it's gone from the tooltip doesn't mean that they have to have made any changes to the actual system.

But the devs have done a lot of work to make sure that everyone knows that the victory conditions didn't really get that many changes, so I'd not be too hopeful.

well whatever "changes" they may have made they certainly don't want anyone to know what they are, probably going to stay that way until release, I have lost a lot of faith but I still hope they integrated the Victory Wonders into the quest system. seriously what is it for if not for this?

 

[Gorbles]

Maybe they'll be made more accessible (because one of them is outright gimmicky and rubbish, and they can't be done at all with the slightest effort from the enemy).

They already did this in one of the patches (one of the most recent, I think).

 

[Promethian]

Sabotage and Dirty Bomb I see as quite devastating.

Imagine having all your tile improvements wiped out in a city. Say its a city that has a lot of strategic resources. You are no longer adding those resources to your total. If you go in the negative, units that use strategic resources gradually are disbanded. Say its a city you built a lot of academies around, not any more. Sabotage means many turns of reduced city output as you rebuild all your tiles.

Dirty Bomb halves a city's population. Think about that. A population 10 city becomes 5. That is a major set back. Lose a trade route slot. Lose 5 tiles of output. Lose 5 science per turn. It takes quite a few turns to build a city's population up so Dirty Bomb is a huge loss.

Both these ops can be used to severely slow down a civ's advancement.

 

[Ryika]

Sabotage and Dirty Bomb I see as quite devastating.

Imagine having all your tile improvements wiped out in a city. Say its a city that has a lot of strategic resources. You are no longer adding those resources to your total. If you go in the negative, units that use strategic resources gradually are disbanded. Say its a city you built a lot of academies around, not any more. Sabotage means many turns of reduced city output as you rebuild all your tiles.

Dirty Bomb halves a city's population. Think about that. A population 10 city becomes 5. That is a major set back. Lose a trade route slot. Lose 5 tiles of output. Lose 5 science per turn. It takes quite a few turns to build a city's population up so Dirty Bomb is a huge loss.

Both these ops can be used to severely slow down a civ's advancement.

Well, the problem in Singleplayer is simple: No matter how good it is at staggering an enemy, if it doesn't directly benefit YOU, then you've spent your time sabotaging 1 opponent, while (up to) 6 opponents get ahead. You could have just used Siphon Science to ahead yourself.

The only situation where it would be good to sabotage an opponent is when there is one Runaway-Civ that you just can't keep up with - which... generally never happens. And if it happens, then it's doubtful that such an Operation really allows you to make up much ground, given how snowbally the whole game is.

 

[ShaggyCan]

I have actually asked here, and on the CiV youtube channel about covert ops changes in BERT and have never gotten any answers. They have never talked about covert ops in any of the BERT playthroughs, and the devs don't seem to ever go after it in their games, which is kinda disturbing. If the people that make the game don't seem to have much use for it.....

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Sabotage and Dirty Bomb I see as quite devastating.

Imagine having all your tile improvements wiped out in a city. Say its a city that has a lot of strategic resources. You are no longer adding those resources to your total. If you go in the negative, units that use strategic resources gradually are disbanded. Say its a city you built a lot of academies around, not any more. Sabotage means many turns of reduced city output as you rebuild all your tiles.

Dirty Bomb halves a city's population. Think about that. A population 10 city becomes 5. That is a major set back. Lose a trade route slot. Lose 5 tiles of output. Lose 5 science per turn. It takes quite a few turns to build a city's population up so Dirty Bomb is a huge loss.

Both these ops can be used to severely slow down a civ's advancement.

Side note: i don't believe negative resources disbands uniys, just gives them a combat penalty.

As for the point someone else made of never wanting to hurt someone v helpyouself
2 times
1. You are at war with them
2. They are about to win, you are a strong candidate for second place.

 

[GenEngineer]

I have actually asked here, and on the CiV youtube channel about covert ops changes in BERT and have never gotten any answers. They have never talked about covert ops in any of the BERT playthroughs, and the devs don't seem to ever go after it in their games, which is kinda disturbing. If the people that make the game don't seem to have much use for it.....

In fairness, in order for the streams to show the covert ops system they'd actually have to show late enough in the game to research computing, instead of the first 50 or so turns.