[vanilla] Some spy suggestions

[Kougar7]

I may be a harsh critic so it's only fair to offer some potential solutions to the problems I see. I'm sure a lot of things were already planned for expansions too. Notes are from playing on v .38

Spies​

Some possible mission additions:

• Spies should be able to sabotage airports and entertainment districts. This plays into military and rebel spawning agendas.
• Spies could steal or borrow a limited, temporary supply of a strategic resource from another Civ. (how this impacts the other Civ is a separate question)
• Spies can attempt a very unlikely chance of jailbreaking fellow spies from a player. (Might be imba, maybe ultra-low chance of success and high chance of capture to offset?)

Spies on defense need a tickbox for permanently staying on defense. In my last game I had spy raids on my city every single turn, so every single turn I was required to manually reassign them on defense!

Spies on diplomatic visibility also need a continue mission tickbox. 6-8 turns is far too frequent for reassigning the mission.

Spies should no longer get promotions if they can't actually be promoted, would also cut down on the notification spam.

Might be worth adding a graphic to the captured spies screen so the player can identify which are 3-star promoted (ie high value) units in order to make better informed trade/release risk decisions.

Finally, when selecting a spy the default screen should be its mission assignment, not the switch city screen. The vast majority of players will be keeping spies at the same mission rather than hot-swapping between cities so it makes no sense to have the move-to city-select panel open automatically.

 

[Namaspamus]

Agree with most except for the ressources. And it's true the whole spying UI feels a bit confused

 

[Hythian]

One that I would like, which is almost more of a Civ balance then espionage change, is to give Catherine of France one free spy when they first become available. Extra spy slots for her isn't a great bonus when she has to burn production before being able to use her benefit. Getting a free spy to start with I think would help her out a little bit.

I'd also like a Steal Vision or Steal Trade Map option so I could see where the enemies cities are at. Not sure if that would be unbalanced or not, just being able to see city locations but not stats would be nice.

Steal Diplomatic Correspondence for some bonus points towards Envoy earnings maybe?

 

[Kougar7]

The vision balance is a tricky thing... being able to hide many of my cities behind others prevents the AI from finding them and hence sending spies to them, doubly-so against humans. Especially since the AI does so little exploration anymore on the bigger maps, or at least until well into midgame.

Spies are pretty powerful, if one gets an early success & promotion it can wreck a player that is not close to getting the diplomatic service ability. So I don't think I agree with the free spy... I'm not sure.

I do like the envoy / diplomacy angle, there needs to be more options for spies there.

 

[Hythian]

The vision balance is a tricky thing... being able to hide many of my cities behind others prevents the AI from finding them and hence sending spies to them, doubly-so against humans. Especially since the AI does so little exploration anymore on the bigger maps, or at least until well into midgame.

Yeah, the more I think about it the more I have to agree that the "Map Theft" would be too powerful. Maybe if it exposed 1 random city (that you spy isn't already in) for 5 turns, instead of their entire map, it might be more balanced but I am still not entirely sure.

Spies are pretty powerful, if one gets an early success & promotion it can wreck a player that is not close to getting the diplomatic service ability. So I don't think I agree with the free spy... I'm not sure.

That is a France specific thing that I would like to see. France tends to be relatively mediocre (not bad, but not great) when people are ranking / tier listing the Civs right now. I think letting France get their first spy ten or so turns earlier, without needing to wait to build their first one or chop trees to speed it, makes sense given their Espionage focus and could help make them a bit more effective instead of being near the bottom of the list.

I do like the envoy / diplomacy angle, there needs to be more options for spies there.

Yeah, I like the ideas with Espionage and the basic setup that is there. But it does feel like it could use some fleshing out and a bit more development to it.

Something I've been pondering is the idea of a Great Diplomat / Spy GP type. Just not sure where the points would come from or how that would work. Maybe a City Center building that only generated GPP when a citizen was assigned to it as I don't think we really need another District type out there.

Potential for a Diplo/Spy GPP would be as another way to get Envoys, Spy promotions, increase a type of spy success / defense rate, etc.

Basically I'd like something a bit more built into the rest of the game to add depth to the Espionage part of the game. Right now it feels lightly tacked on, where it can affect other aspects of the game (some more tourism from GWs, steal a bit of gold, snag a tech boost) but nothing else in the game (aside from, what 2/3 government cards?) has any effect upon the Espionage element.

 

[Kougar7]

Yeah, the more I think about it the more I have to agree that the "Map Theft" would be too powerful. Maybe if it exposed 1 random city (that you spy isn't already in) for 5 turns, instead of their entire map, it might be more balanced but I am still not entirely sure.

Civ VI is like V in that you have to find the city with units, simply having vision of it in previously explored areas does not give you access to that AI / player. Similarly if you research Satellites you do not gain access to the remaining city-states, you still must send units to them first.

There are two kinds of vision, one kind once gained gives a player permanent trade/spy access to the city. The other will show the city on explored land but provides zero access. The latter might work for what you're proposing.

 

[Hythian]

There are two kinds of vision, one kind once gained gives a player permanent trade/spy access to the city. The other will show the city on explored land but provides zero access. The latter might work for what you're proposing.

That is it exactly. Basically similar to the diplomatic vision you get when you meet a civ and exchange capital locations. You get a peek at the cities state at that point in time, but no actual access to it via Trade or anything else until you send a unit over there. More of a hint "Hey, look over here to find the city!" then an all-access pass to it.