Spies!

[Gazebo]

See, I was the victim of the sabotage event I mentioned above, but far from being angry I was really glad to see this feature back in the game-in some form or other. In that same turn one of my spies was able to kill a Danish spy & gain an extra level-so swings & roundabouts I guess ;-).

BTW, just checking. Are we meant to get 3 spies from the get-go, or is that a bug?

Aussie.

Depends on how many city states there are. You get an additional spy per era based on the # of city states (the current value is 15% of the total # of city-states, so 12 CSs = 1.8 spies, or 1 extra spy, whereas 16CSs = 2.4 spies, or 2 extra spies). You can adjust this value (search for BALANCE_SPY_TO_MINOR_RATIO) in the MinorBonuses.sql file in the CBP.
G

 

[Crimson13]

So this is a bit of a necro, sorry about that.

One thing that I thought of as I was looking at my Great Works is that the only way to get other civs GW's was to either conquer the city that had them or swap one for another. What I think would be interesting is if, as Aussie Lurker thought about, spies could steal a GW. Since it's such an important thing I believe if it could be done it would be at Special Agent level only and a rare event. If not than it's a very rare event that increases the likelihood of it happening if you level up your spy.

 

[Funak]

So this is a bit of a necro, sorry about that.

One thing that I thought of as I was looking at my Great Works is that the only way to get other civs GW's was to either conquer the city that had them or swap one for another. What I think would be interesting is if, as Aussie Lurker thought about, spies could steal a GW. Since it's such an important thing I believe if it could be done it would be at Special Agent level only and a rare event. If not than it's a very rare event that increases the likelihood of it happening if you level up your spy.

How about letting spies steal cities while we are at it? Or units? Or why not give spies the ability to burn wonders to the ground, or cities even?

Here's a good one, how about a really rare event where your spy assassinate an enemy leader, making that civ instantly lose the game?

 

[WileyNg]

So this is a bit of a necro, sorry about that.

One thing that I thought of as I was looking at my Great Works is that the only way to get other civs GW's was to either conquer the city that had them or swap one for another. What I think would be interesting is if, as Aussie Lurker thought about, spies could steal a GW. Since it's such an important thing I believe if it could be done it would be at Special Agent level only and a rare event. If not than it's a very rare event that increases the likelihood of it happening if you level up your spy.

I think spies can steal great works only after you have built the Hollywood wonder .





Nah just kidding. Great idea. Let's see how Gazebo think.

 

[Deluxe]

Btw, implementing a spy management like the one in BE is doable, or not at all ? I enjoyed it way more than the Civ 5 vanilla one, and if the CP system is a bit better I don't really like all this randomness (you don't chose what you spy does, you don't know what he is going to do, etc). I don't find the system more interesting than the vanilla one, to say the truth, the only difference being random "events" popping once in a while. Imo, this is not really enhancing the gameplay. To do so, spying must be more pro active, and I think they managed to keep it simple in BE.

 

[Finarvi]

New feautures are good but if I don't have control what spy does, it's not very interactive.

I should have choice if I want to sabotage city or just steal technology (for example if I want to conquer city later then I might want to only steal technologies and see what's happening inside).

 

[WileyNg]

New feautures are good but if I don't have control what spy does, it's not very interactive.

I should have choice if I want to sabotage city or just steal technology (for example if I want to conquer city later then I might want to only steal technologies and see what's happening inside).

seconded

 

[Funak]

I really don't like adding any more power to the spies, because the AI already have a huge advantage with them (their dead spies seems to respawn the same turn, as I've killed 4 spies from the same civ 3 turns in a row).
You also don't really have any tool to stop the AI from spyspamming you. I had a city with policestation courthouse and a level 3 spy guarding it stay in resistance from enemy spies maybe 25 turns in a 30 turn period. Sure, most of the time you catch them, but if 9 other civs all have a spy in your capital quite a few are still going to make it through.

Sure you can ask the AI to stop spying, but just as with asking them to stop spreading their religion or stop settling cities close to you they are either just going to get mad, or agree to stop and still keep doing it.

 

[ldvhl]

I am super interested in this mod and if it's going through further development.

 

[Estebanium]

I don't know what you think, but in my opinion the Spy-Feature is a bit boring. It doesn't feel like a feature, it feels more like a menu which you will open only if you can not steal a technology from other Civs or if you want to change the location of a spy..
So for me, I open the menu only each 40th to 60th turn, most time the icon for the spy menu remains unused..

I would like to see a further developed idea of what Gazebo did with the spy events, but convert it to something more controllable to the player.

Suggestion:

The Spy
Each spy gets the ability to pursue one of the following actions:

• Harm the output of the city's culture
• Steal Gold from the city
• Raise the unhappiness of a city
• Sabotage the current project of a city
• And all other events implemented by Gazebo..

The action could be chosen by an additional button in the spy menu. So you would choose a city for your spy first and then you could choose the action of your spy.

Based on the output of the specified city, it could be more or less likely that the chosen event will happen. The produced culture for example could influence the probability for a success of harming the city's culture. The success of the spy is limited by those building that you can already build (Police Station etc..).

Counter-Espionage:
Because enemy spies can now choose what they want to do, the counterspy will get this ability, too. So you could then choose against what type of spy you would like to protect the city. For a better understanding what the player should choose, the spy could give a feedback after some passed turns by choosing the "Analysis" Option. When some rounds have passed, the spy will give the player a report in which he recommends a specific counter action for this city.

For example you got the information that this city is exposed to hostile cultural attacks..
After you chose for instance the cultural defense, the probability of a cultural sabotage for hostile spies will decrease.

Summary:
You will get a more personal and more controllable spy system. By connecting the probabilities of those pickable actions with the situation of the selected city, one can influence the result of what a player will choose and the enemy will protect this city with a spy. This will not mean that you also could choose another action for your spy with a fewer probability, but by only being able to choose one counter action for the stationed spy in his own city you could have more success with an action with a lower probability..

I hope you got an idea of what I have in mind. Please share your opinion to this system. I am open to other suggestions or alterations. It is just a basic idea..

 

[Gazebo]

I'm fine with making spy stuff more controllable, but I'm utterly terrible with LUA (particularly LUA from scratch), so you'll need to see about wrangling up someone to write the code for the new 'buttons' and hooking them into the dll.

G

 

[Estebanium]

I'm fine with making spy stuff more controllable, but I'm utterly terrible with LUA (particularly LUA from scratch), so you'll need to see about wrangling up someone to write the code for the new 'buttons' and hooking them into the dll.

G

I have no idea of lua, so I would be glad if someone would pick up the idea and write it into code.

 

[Finarvi]

I don't know what you think, but in my opinion the Spy-Feature is a bit boring. It doesn't feel like a feature, it feels more like a menu which you will open only if you can not steal a technology from other Civs or if you want to change the location of a spy..
So for me, I open the menu only each 40th to 60th turn, most time the icon for the spy menu remains unused..

I would like to see a further developed idea of what Gazebo did with the spy events, but convert it to something more controllable to the player.

Suggestion:

The Spy
Each spy gets the ability to pursue one of the following actions:

• Harm the output of the city's culture
• Steal Gold from the city
• Raise the unhappiness of a city
• Sabotage the current project of a city
• And all other events implemented by Gazebo..

The action could be chosen by an additional button in the spy menu. So you would choose a city for your spy first and then you could choose the action of your spy.

Based on the output of the specified city, it could be more or less likely that the chosen event will happen. The produced culture for example could influence the probability for a success of harming the city's culture. The success of the spy is limited by those building that you can already build (Police Station etc..).

Counter-Espionage:
Because enemy spies can now choose what they want to do, the counterspy will get this ability, too. So you could then choose against what type of spy you would like to protect the city. For a better understanding what the player should choose, the spy could give a feedback after some passed turns by choosing the "Analysis" Option. When some rounds have passed, the spy will give the player a report in which he recommends a specific counter action for this city.

For example you got the information that this city is exposed to hostile cultural attacks..
After you chose for instance the cultural defense, the probability of a cultural sabotage for hostile spies will decrease.

Summary:
You will get a more personal and more controllable spy system. By connecting the probabilities of those pickable actions with the situation of the selected city, one can influence the result of what a player will choose and the enemy will protect this city with a spy. This will not mean that you also could choose another action for your spy with a fewer probability, but by only being able to choose one counter action for the stationed spy in his own city you could have more success with an action with a lower probability..

I hope you got an idea of what I have in mind. Please share your opinion to this system. I am open to other suggestions or alterations. It is just a basic idea..

Not bad but quite complicated in my opinion. I would give only few roles for spies and each would include few random actions and one stronger action after delay if spy survive:

1. Saboteur: Chance to kill . Eventualy delay current production.
2. Thief: Chance to steal . Evetualy steal technolgy.
3. Instigator: Chance to inrease . Eventualy make city resist.
4. Manipulator (only available in city states ): No changes here.
5. Diplomat (only available in other players' capitals): No changes here.
6. Counter agent (only available in your cities): No changes here.

With limited options it will be easier to make decisions but each will affect gameplay differently. Thief is best to get advantages for yourself. Saboteur is good if you're leading in technologies or you want to weaken strong enemy. Instigator is good to weaken strong enemy or too prepare for conquering city.

 

[Estebanium]

Not bad but quite complicated in my opinion. I would give only few roles for spies and each would include few random actions and one stronger action after delay if spy survive:

1. Saboteur: Chance to kill . Eventualy delay current production.
2. Thief: Chance to steal . Evetualy steal technolgy.
3. Instigator: Chance to inrease . Eventualy make city resist.
4. Manipulator (only available in city states ): No changes here.
5. Diplomat (only available in other players' capitals): No changes here.
6. Counter agent (only available in your cities): No changes here.

With limited options it will be easier to make decisions but each will affect gameplay differently. Thief is best to get advantages for yourself. Saboteur is good if you're leading in technologies or you want to weaken strong enemy. Instigator is good to weaken strong enemy or too prepare for conquering city.

I like your selection of actions, it will give you a wide range of possibilities. I also like the idea of having a role for your spy and an additional stronger action if your spy survive. However I would like to have those actions also for your counter-intelligence spy.

The Counter-Intelligence:
So you suggested that counter-intelligence should be like in the vanilla game, by just defending spy actions of hostile spies. This would mean that only your enemy who stationed a spy in your city for instance, would profit from a wider range of possibilities for his spy. The enemy could decide that because of your wonder in progress, his spy should try to sabotage your production. You on the other hand would have only the option to deploy a spy in this city to defend your progress.

So why won't we say that you could also select an action for your spy, by choosing one of the actions you posted above, but this time by selecting Sabotage for your counter-intelligence it would mean: reduction of hostile spy actions like in the vanilla game, plus a reduction of the possibility for being successful of delaying your production.

So you would say to your spy: "Hey watch out for enemy spies and keep an eye on hostile spies who want to sabotage our production." This would then also work for those other written actions, like Thief, Instigator, Manipulator etc.. So you will always have the bonus agains hostile spy actions, plus a reduction for the special ability of a hostile spy. This would make the spy system more interesting, because when you select "Keep an eye on Saboteurs" and your enemy chose a different action for his spy (because he is not interested in your wonder, but your gold), you can be successful against a spy action in general but not against his special ability.

To spin this idea a bit further:
By entering the spy menu, the displayed potential of a hostile city is being influenced by the following factors: Is a hostile spy deployed in this city? If yes, what is his chosen action? If similar to your action, the potential will be reduced. This would make the spy system more challenging by a more hide and seek like system. In my oppinion it would be fair enough for both sides, for the active spy and for the counter-intelligence.

The concept art:
This is what I have in mind, I made it with Paint, because I currently have no other program for this.



An additional button has found it's way into the spy menu, where you can select the action for your spy. Either by pressing the button and choosing the action in a new appearing window, or by having a dropdown menu instead of this button, you could choose the action for your spy.

It would be helpful to have a mouse-over descriptions for the different actions by showing just the text of what Finarvi wrote:

1. Saboteur: Chance to kill . Eventualy delay current production.
2. Thief: Chance to steal . Evetualy steal technolgy.
3. Instigator: Chance to inrease . Eventualy make city resist.
4. Manipulator (only available in city states ): No changes here.
5. Diplomat (only available in other players' capitals): No changes here.
6. Counter agent (only available in your cities): No changes here.

The text will slightly differ from having an active or a counter-intelligence spy. The potential to the right side will be influenced by having an enemy spy in the foreign city and additionally if he also chose the same action for his spy. This would mean on the one hand, that you could possibly find out what action a may existing spy has selected, but on the other hand each time you change your action there will be a delay like in the vanilla game..

So what do you think? Btw. I am not able to press anything of my idea into code or into the dll, so I hope that there would be some guy who could do this instead of me..

 

[WileyNg]

I like your selection of actions, it will give you a wide range of possibilities. I also like the idea of having a role for your spy and an additional stronger action if your spy survive. However I would like to have those actions also for your counter-intelligence spy.

The Counter-Intelligence:
So you suggested that counter-intelligence should be like in the vanilla game, by just defending spy actions of hostile spies. This would mean that only your enemy who stationed a spy in your city for instance, would profit from a wider range of possibilities for his spy. The enemy could decide that because of your wonder in progress, his spy should try to sabotage your production. You on the other hand would have only the option to deploy a spy in this city to defend your progress.

So why won't we say that you could also select an action for your spy, by choosing one of the actions you posted above, but this time by selecting Sabotage for your counter-intelligence it would mean: reduction of hostile spy actions like in the vanilla game, plus a reduction of the possibility for being successful of delaying your production.

So you would say to your spy: "Hey watch out for enemy spies and keep an eye on hostile spies who want to sabotage our production." This would then also work for those other written actions, like Thief, Instigator, Manipulator etc.. So you will always have the bonus agains hostile spy actions, plus a reduction for the special ability of a hostile spy. This would make the spy system more interesting, because when you select "Keep an eye on Saboteurs" and your enemy chose a different action for his spy (because he is not interested in your wonder, but your gold), you can be successful against a spy action in general but not against his special ability.

To spin this idea a bit further:
By entering the spy menu, the displayed potential of a hostile city is being influenced by the following factors: Is a hostile spy deployed in this city? If yes, what is his chosen action? If similar to your action, the potential will be reduced. This would make the spy system more challenging by a more hide and seek like system. In my oppinion it would be fair enough for both sides, for the active spy and for the counter-intelligence.

The concept art:
This is what I have in mind, I made it with Paint, because I currently have no other program for this.

View attachment 389540

An additional button has found it's way into the spy menu, where you can select the action for your spy. Either by pressing the button and choosing the action in a new appearing window, or by having a dropdown menu instead of this button, you could choose the action for your spy.

It would be helpful to have a mouse-over descriptions for the different actions by showing just the text of what Finarvi wrote:

1. Saboteur: Chance to kill . Eventualy delay current production.
2. Thief: Chance to steal . Evetualy steal technolgy.
3. Instigator: Chance to inrease . Eventualy make city resist.
4. Manipulator (only available in city states ): No changes here.
5. Diplomat (only available in other players' capitals): No changes here.
6. Counter agent (only available in your cities): No changes here.

The text will slightly differ from having an active or a counter-intelligence spy. The potential to the right side will be influenced by having an enemy spy in the foreign city and additionally if he also chose the same action for his spy. This would mean on the one hand, that you could possibly find out what action a may existing spy has selected, but on the other hand each time you change your action there will be a delay like in the vanilla game..

So what do you think? Btw. I am not able to press anything of my idea into code or into the dll, so I hope that there would be some guy who could do this instead of me..

Great idea!

 

[Funak]

1. Saboteur: Chance to kill . Eventualy delay current production.
2. Thief: Chance to steal . Evetualy steal technolgy.
3. Instigator: Chance to inrease . Eventualy make city resist.
4. Manipulator (only available in city states ): No changes here.
5. Diplomat (only available in other players' capitals): No changes here.
6. Counter agent (only available in your cities): No changes here.

First of all, am I the only one who thinks assassinated great people is way more powerful than sabotaged buildings? Those two kinda seems to be reversed.

Other than that, no offense but those are some pretty boring roles. You're asking someone to write God know how much code to be able to split your offensive spies into three different ones?
Atleast think of something new to add, something creative, fun and interactive. I personally love the beyond earth spy-system, but this game is not beyond earth, and for that reason I'm completely fine with just keeping the existing system unless someone comes up with something truly groundbreaking.



The only real problem I have with the current system besides the AI seemingly having unlimited spies, is that way too much actually happens when the spyevents trigger.
Explanation: Whenever a spy-event triggers there only seems to be two possible outcomes, either your spy succeed or your spy dies. If it was up to me I would instead make the most common outcome that nothing happens, giving a textpopup like "A unknown spy tried to rob the treasury in Berlin but was stopped and driven off by our counterspy" or "Your spy Anonymous tried to rob the treasury in Berlin, but was stopped by a german counterspy"

 

[Finarvi]

First of all, am I the only one who thinks assassinated great people is way more powerful than sabotaged buildings? Those two kinda seems to be reversed.

I don't feel that assassinating is so powerful. I usually get GP assassinated in cities where it would take long to spawn anyway. Delaying production will be more annoying in this case.

Other than that, no offense but those are some pretty boring roles. You're asking someone to write God know how much code to be able to split your offensive spies into three different ones?
Atleast think of something new to add, something creative, fun and interactive. I personally love the beyond earth spy-system, but this game is not beyond earth, and for that reason I'm completely fine with just keeping the existing system unless someone comes up with something truly groundbreaking.

I don't know what BE system is, sorry. But I think that my idea could be improved, I had no inspiration to come up with new things at the moment, just overall idea.

I just don't want this game to become so complicated that making 1 turn will take an hour

 

[Funak]

I just don't want this game to become so complicated that making 1 turn will take an hour

Another idea could be to have the tech-steal not automaticly trigger, you keep your spy in an enemy city, triggering random events for a bunch of turns and at any point after the first event you could actively tell your spy to try and steal a tech, kinda how city-state coups work, with increased chance based on your spy level and the number of turns he have been in the city..
With such a system one could even have the spy-events trigger at fixed intervals, like the city-state rigged elections. Again, this isn't very active either, and probably more work than it is worth. I'm just suggesting this because it sounds almost like an existing feature (spies in citystates) meaning it could be easier to fix.

But I know nothing of coding so I wouldn't really presume to know.

 

[Estebanium]

First of all, am I the only one who thinks assassinated great people is way more powerful than sabotaged buildings? Those two kinda seems to be reversed.

Balanced related issues can be discussed yes, but maybe it is too early for it. We should first find a basic for the future spy system..

Other than that, no offense but those are some pretty boring roles. You're asking someone to write God know how much code to be able to split your offensive spies into three different ones?
Atleast think of something new to add, something creative, fun and interactive. I personally love the beyond earth spy-system, but this game is not beyond earth, and for that reason I'm completely fine with just keeping the existing system unless someone comes up with something truly groundbreaking.

I read a wiki about the spy system in BE: Link

It feels a bit like the system what was posted by me and further developed by Finarvi.
Yes you can choose an action for your spy in BE, the success and the requirements are bound to the Intrigue Level, ok. With a higher Rank there will be other more powerful options to the spy, this could be also implemented in our new system..

In my opinion it could be possible to perform more actions like Finarvi posted above, we could orientate us to the BE System and alter their description or the option in general. The question is, if we then would need a Intrigue Level for each City, too? Or could the relevant factor a already existing value? Should we change the system between a hostile and friendly spy? I mean based on what should be the result be calculated? Is it pendent to the spy level only..

My problem with the system of BE is the passive side. So agents conducting counter-intelligence feels a bit boring. You choose this option and after this everything will happen in the background, like the possibility of a hostile action, based on the intrigue level and the spy level itself. All what you then will get is a message or no message during your turns. By giving your home agents the ability for choosing an action too, it will become more personal and more strategic between you and your opponent. Then both are fighting with the same weapon.

If someone have an idea how to revolutionize the spy system, go on! For now I think that it would be the best to create a system which is a bit off the game itself. So no new buildings in cities, but maybe a new source like the intrigue level, but that's only an idea.
It should be complex enough for not just being a one-click-menu but not too overhauling so that it becomes an autonomous game..

The only real problem I have with the current system besides the AI seemingly having unlimited spies, is that way too much actually happens when the spyevents trigger.
Explanation: Whenever a spy-event triggers there only seems to be two possible outcomes, either your spy succeed or your spy dies. If it was up to me I would instead make the most common outcome that nothing happens, giving a textpopup like "A unknown spy tried to rob the treasury in Berlin but was stopped and driven off by our counterspy" or "Your spy Anonymous tried to rob the treasury in Berlin, but was stopped by a german counterspy"

The outcome of an event could be similar to the BE System, where your spy has several options while performing the action like: undetected, detected, killed etc. so what you say goes into the direction of the system of BE and that could be possible for CIV V, too.

 

[Funak]

I read a wiki about the spy system in BE: Link

It feels a bit like the system what was posted by me and further developed by Finarvi.
Yes you can choose an action for your spy in BE, the success and the requirements are bound to the Intrigue Level, ok. With a higher Rank there will be other more powerful options to the spy, this could be also implemented in our new system..

In my opinion it could be possible to perform more actions like Finarvi posted above, we could orientate us to the BE System and alter their description or the option in general. The question is, if we then would need a Intrigue Level for each City, too? Or could the relevant factor a already existing value? Should we change the system between a hostile and friendly spy? I mean based on what should be the result be calculated? Is it pendent to the spy level only..

My problem with the system of BE is the passive side. So agents conducting counter-intelligence feels a bit boring. You choose this option and after this everything will happen in the background, like the possibility of a hostile action, based on the intrigue level and the spy level itself. All what you then will get is a message or no message during your turns. By giving your home agents the ability for choosing an action too, it will become more personal and more strategic between you and your opponent. Then both are fighting with the same weapon.

If someone have an idea how to revolutionize the spy system, go on! For now I think that it would be the best to create a system which is a bit off the game itself. So no new buildings in cities, but maybe a new source like the intrigue level, but that's only an idea.
It should be complex enough for not just being a one-click-menu but not too overhauling so that it becomes an autonomous game..

My whole point behind the statement that civ5 is not beyond earth is because you're punished way more for getting behind in techs in civ5. The current techstealing-system is pretty much required because of how harsh getting behind actually is. I'm sure other catchup-mechanics could be added, but it feels like you're trying to do a full rework on a system that, in its core actually isn't broken. It feels like making things more complicated just for the sake of being complicated.