Spies & war-time coups

[Tekamthi]

I'm playing an older version of CBP, trying to get through a huge/marathon game I started months ago. I know the trend around here is to start new games to overcome bugs etc., but I haven't encountered anything game-breaking, and I'd really rather see this one through as-is before catching up to the latest CBP release (I don't have a lot of game-time available to be restarting often).

Late game now, I'm at war with one of the other major powers, and we've each got substantial numbers of city-state allies which we've been fighting over for ages (first through clandestine espionage & diplo stuff, now through outright war). Along with overall CBP changes, this has created a great dynamic to the intrigue here.. however, it seems that we can both still stage coups in each others' allies while at war? (I seem to recall coups were blocked with warring CS in vanilla?). And super-easily too. ie ALL 10 or so of my allies, some of which I had over 300 influence in, have been coup'd in the ~10 turns of war we've had now. I've done the same back to my enemy's 6 or 7 allies. I'm curious, is this an intended change that persists in the latest version of CBP?

Regardless if it is working-as-intended or not, this aspect is the first thing I've encountered that is neither a fun gameplay mechanism, nor very realistic. I wouldn't mind a war-time coup as an incredibly low %, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Does anyone know if it would be possible to tweak a 1 to a 0 in a mod file somewhere to block coups with warring CS again? I'll probably save-scum back to the beginning of the war if so...

 

[PapaRockett]

I don't have an answer to the question but I just want to agree that the ability to coup a CS from a civ that has ~300 influence with them is a bit silly. I'd like to see that feature disappear. However I think this might make Austria's UA a bit pointless

 

[Tekamthi]

Its just the ease at which it happens that really gets me... and during war-time especially.

In hindsight I woulda preferred to have no allies at all.. spent hundreds of turns and tons of resources on developing some of those CS, some of which I've traded with for millenia, provided their entire military, and defended and/or liberated from my current war adversary -- and yet some diphorsehocky spy from their previous and current invader on the other side of the world shows up and 5 turns later can persuade them I'm the bad guy? Seems to miss the 'B' in 'CBP'

 

[CrazyG]

Coups are really strong and you can get really high probabilities fairly easily. Maybe war should lower the chance? In theory a wartime government would be more cautious of these kind of things.

Right now the best way to secure a CS is to use a coup because it blocks others from getting a coup

 

[Tekamthi]

I suppose its possible that the enemy has high influence in these too.. like maybe he had over 200 prior to war in my 300+ cities.. doesn't seem that far-fetched. If it was just one or two then fine.. but to lose every ally, which are w/in my borders mostly (and vice versa for his, though his haven't been developed the same way mine were). Its just too easy. I'll probably never bother with CS allies again

 

[Strigvir]

Coups have 20 turns cooldown. The only useful solution would be if blobbing a Great Diplomat could add/refresh the coup cooldown in a city so it couldn't be taken instantly by a spy. Also parking a spy in a CS reduces the chances of successful coups by other spies.

 

[bigcat88]

The best way to solve this problem - conquer all nearly CS(and get tasty monopolies). Or use world congress mod - to set influence after capture it.
Cause it's too high price to use spy for coups...

 

[Dawnpromise]

Doesn't having a spy of your own in the city-state reduce coup success?

 

[Tekamthi]

Doesn't having a spy of your own in the city-state reduce coup success?

Couldn't tell ya, though this would make sense intuitively.. from my game, the 2 CSs I had spies in were the last to coup, so maybe... the effect was ultimately negligible though

If this is indeed still how coups works in latest CBP, I wonder if any of the following changes might be possible w/o too much code-rework... I'd only want one of these to apply for a CS a civ is at war with.. the coup effect as-is is fine for peace-time, and worked great as a factor that led to war (not so great for the ensuing CS coup chaos though...). Numbered in order of my pref (OR options):

1. War with a CS greatly reduces coup chance with that CS
2. Block coups altogether if civ is at war with this CS
3. Change coup effect when civ is at war with this CS to same effect as peace-time election rigging (ie manual election rig chance, could still be powerful under right circumstance/timing... really high influence might be diminished, even significantly, but should still prevail)
4. Change coup effect when civ is at war with this CS to convert one CS unit randomly (ie civ 2 bribing of enemy units.. this option seems like most fun actually, but not sure if it could be coded)
5. Eliminate/reduce coup cooldown (probably will make the instability I dislike with current coups even worse, but at least an equal counter option would then exist.. could maybe only be no cooldown for prev. ally, though i'm sure this would complicate any code change)

Does anyone (Gazebo et al?) know where I'd look if I wanted to accomplish any of these.. I'm def not up to speed on civ mod development, but have some background in other mods & coding projects.. might get lucky w/ my own fork here.

Anyway thanks as always to the devs and community for a great mod! Having more fun with civ 5 now than I did through any of Firaxis's DLC

 

[Enginseer]

The best way to solve this problem - conquer all nearly CS(and get tasty monopolies). Or use world congress mod - to set influence after capture it.
Cause it's too high price to use spy for coups...

World Congress Reformation FYI and it allows you to setup a Sphere of Influence, Open Doors, or increased influence when you conquer the city-state(if it was never conquered, you can never liberate it and have to force a sphere of influence from now on through the puppet option!)

 

[emdash]

Coups are really strong and you can get really high probabilities fairly easily. Maybe war should lower the chance? In theory a wartime government would be more cautious of these kind of things.

Right now the best way to secure a CS is to use a coup because it blocks others from getting a coup

yea I think you should be able to coup highly 'secured' CS, but the probs should be a lot lower. You are still kinda holding your breath when you click the button at 80 or whatever (cuz your spy dies, right?), but I've never had a spy die and I've done a traveling coup show with one high rank spy.

I think coups should be way lower even out of war. Perhaps highest should be closer to 50, and that's optimal situation. And yea as you said the cooldown isn't really a way to make coups not happen cuz once you coup them, you get a cooldown as well as the fact the cpu probably leaves, so they'd have to travel back as well.

That and perhaps if you coup during wartime, you would have to deal w/ a barb event because you'd think there would be some sort of an uprising.

Edit: and speaking of cheesy stuff, haha, I think wardeccing going into the world congress so that the cpu can't steal your cs as the last moment is cheesy, but I do it.

 

[Strigvir]

Any lower than 80% and coups will be useless.

 

[CrazyG]

I have to strongly disagree that coups would be useless at below 80% success. Its a 20 turn cooldown but only in that CS, if he dies just throw him at a different one. Spies are replaced instantly and cost nothing. Even at around 40% I find it worthwhile to throw spies at CS, you get so many by the end especially if you took social policies which gave extra spies.

The time to attempt a coup is really short compared to the time to steal a tech or great work. Its not like I will ever flip that city state with 1,000 AI influence using diplomats.

 

[Tekamthi]

World Congress Reformation FYI and it allows you to setup a Sphere of Influence, Open Doors, or increased influence when you conquer the city-state(if it was never conquered, you can never liberate it and have to force a sphere of influence from now on through the puppet option!)

Love this idea.. I'd be satisfied with something along these lines instead of coup changes.

Is there a peaceful way to access the influence change? ie accumulate 500+ influence (or some high threshold) = sphere of influence? anyway I found the thread in your sig.. will post some thoughts there once I've had a chance to try it out.

 

[Enginseer]

Love this idea.. I'd be satisfied with something along these lines instead of coup changes.

Is there a peaceful way to access the influence change? ie accumulate 500+ influence (or some high threshold) = sphere of influence? anyway I found the thread in your sig.. will post some thoughts there once I've had a chance to try it out.

Can't teach the AI that more influence = Sphere of Influence so no.

It's easier to teach the AI that they can conquer the city-state to either expand their empires or keep them in a cage of influence.

 

[Lifariz]

So it's normal for spies to be annoying even during wartime? In a not wartime sense. It would be nice if spies change or get a wartime version of their activities with increased risk....

I've had an ideal game on marathon where I had an entire small continent without coastal chains to other continents and a city state on raging barbarians for myself as Japan so I went overboard on it... At 1k A.D. I decided that it's time to meet the locals. I had thousands of gold on reserve and a really large and experienced(ranged) navy(removed the barb xp cap lel) and yet Rome kept stealing my gold and science. In the end I put him down and razed every non-capital city on the map out of rage. Took a few days on that...

Point is, does the AI really think players won't fight back when they send their spies? The AI seem to keep defying players(especially when you request them to stop spying on you) even with an invasion force rightup their capital.

 

[tu_79]

Rome is quite aggressive, you know?
Also, spies can steal more money the more money you have.
I think your spies are chased away when you are at war, but I might be wrong. Perhaps it's just your diplomats.

If you ask them to stop spying and they don't agree, you get mad at them, but nothing else happens. If they promised to not spy on you and break their promise, they get a diplomatic penalty with every known civ, for oath breakers.