Spy detection

[KrikkitTwo]

Poked around a bit more, the Cost of a Mission is determined by Multiplying all the modifiers NOT by adding them

so a +50% and a -50% dont cancel out they are

1.5 x 0.5=0.75 cost modifier

(The two "Your State Religion present" modifiers are an exception -15% if it is not their state religion is Added to the -25% if it is your holy city.. before being multiplied)

so overall
x0.8 Open borders (and a Trade route)

My state religion present = 0.85 if its not their state relgion, 0.75 if I have the holy city, 0.6 if its not their state religion AND I have the holy city

x0.75 for equal culture (0.5 if their culture/mine=0: 1 if my culture/thiers=0)

x1.5 for Security Bureau

x(1+Distance to capital/Max Distance)

x0.5 Spy fortification

x 2 to 0.5 based on total espionage spending Ever against anyone


That last bit is key, it means

Espionage points 'In the bank' v. a specific civ only do ONE(two) things
1. Give you passive benefits
2. Stop other civs from getting passive benefits v. you

They do not help you defend against rival spies or change the costs of your missions.

So if you are not interested in Active Espionage missions, send your spy spending against whoever you want to see, because that's all they are good for.

If you want to defend against Rival spies or increase the cost of their missions, then spend all your EPs on counter espionage.

Otherwise it doesn't matter who your EPs are against, or if you have spent them

Actually, EP that you generate before you meet anyone go into the 'Espionage points' genrated Ever

So if your civ has been isolated for 100 turns your Palace would still give you 400 EPs in the 'Espionage points ever'
so Those Espionage points would still act to help
lower the cost for your spies
increase your spies chance of survival+success
and do the opposite for any enemy spies

of course you could never spend those 400 EP, and they wouldn't help you with looking at anyone.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Interesting, Krikkitone.

x 2 to 0.5 based on total espionage spending Ever against anyone


That last bit is key, it means

Espionage points 'In the bank' v. a specific civ only do ONE(two) things
1. Give you passive benefits
2. Stop other civs from getting passive benefits v. you

They do not help you defend against rival spies or change the costs of your missions.

So if you are not interested in Active Espionage missions, send your spy spending against whoever you want to see, because that's all they are good for.

If you want to defend against Rival spies or increase the cost of their missions, then spend all your EPs on counter espionage.

Otherwise it doesn't matter who your EPs are against, or if you have spent them

Actually, EP that you generate before you meet anyone go into the 'Espionage points' genrated Ever

So if your civ has been isolated for 100 turns your Palace would still give you 400 EPs in the 'Espionage points ever'
so Those Espionage points would still act to help
lower the cost for your spies
increase your spies chance of survival+success
and do the opposite for any enemy spies

of course you could never spend those 400 EP, and they wouldn't help you with looking at anyone.

If I understand this correctly, then this especially strengthens an espionage economy. For an espionage economy, this modifier is likely to be close to 0.5 (is it calculated as (A+2B)/(2A+B) ? ), however many of your espionage points you have spend on missions.

x0.75 for equal culture (0.5 if their culture/mine=0: 1 if my culture/thiers=0)

x(1+Distance to capital/Max Distance)

My state religion present = 0.85 if its not their state relgion, 0.75 if I have the holy city, 0.6 if its not their state religion AND I have the holy city

x0.5 Spy fortification

These modifiers make it attractive to spy against a neighbouring civilisation. You are more likely to have some culture in their border cities, the distance penalty is small, you are more likely to have the same religion and if you have the holy city, then that is a nice bonus. And finally, when your spy is bumbed out of their country, then you'll have it back in there in a short while so it isn't that bad to wait for the fortification bonus.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

A spy has no range of detecting other spies, is this correct? The check runs only for the present occupied tile?

Since the Security Bureau is in the city, it only checks for enemy spies currently on the city tile, not also the city's cultural borders?

Yes, that's correct. Spies don't appear to have a range. They can only aid in detection of the tile they're sitting in. Same goes for the Security Bureau.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Interesting, Krikkitone.



If I understand this correctly, then this especially strengthens an espionage economy. For an espionage economy, this modifier is likely to be close to 0.5 (is it calculated as (A+2B)/(2A+B) ? ), however many of your espionage points you have spend on missions.
.

Yes the formula is right

In a succession game with a thief economy, they had a modifier of -39% (0.61)
If you have double the other you would get at least 0.8

Yes assuming some simple things, Open Borders, Stationary spy bonus then even if you have the Same EP with someone, that is 1/2 way around the world, a 1000 Flask tech will cost
1500 base EP
*1.5 Distance
*0.8 OB
*0.5 Spy
=900 EP

Of course that means your spy has to survive 5 turns in the enemy territory.. if they take the basic defensive measures (spy/SB in city), and match your EP, that means
(12.5+15)*10%=3.75% of being detected =96.25% survival per turn
~82% chance of survival

so essentially that cheapness is a trade off for lower success/survival rate

I think it is still too low. Either spies need to be more easily detected say double, or the fortify bonus needs to be smaller (+5% per turn)...or the overall cost of something like steal tech needs to be beefed up.

It should only be cheaper than researching if you have fairly special spy bonuses

 

[Roland Johansen]

It should only be cheaper than researching if you have fairly special spy bonuses

I wouldn't mind if the culture or religion bonuses combined with the standard bonuses were able to make it an efficient way to steal technologies. You can't get a technology advantage, a beeline advantage with a pure spy economy and it does result in diplomatic penalties so there are disadvantages.

How much is the basic cost of stealing a technology? Isn't it a bit higher than the normal research cost? I haven't experimented with it a lot yet and I don't like to read succession games (maybe skim through them a bit to get the general idea when it's really something new). I'd rather play myself and find out good strategies myself.

When comparing technology stealing with researching in other threads, I noticed that the ones who were saying that stealing was too cheap usually forgot to mention all the factors. Things like the bonus for researching technologies already known to others or the bonus for researching technologies with several known prerequisites were simply forgotten in the comparison. It can easily be true that technology stealing is too cheap, but I haven't seen a really good analysis that took into account all the factors and I don't have enough knowledge about the formulas in the SDK to do it myself. Maybe I should learn to read the code.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

^ its 1.5 times as much EP as Research

You are right about the other bonuses probably about 50% there

I do agree that culture/religion + standard should make it efficient

The reward of +10%

 

[eewallace]

For some reason, I had thought that having a spy specialist in a city was part of the equation for catching spies in a city. Doesn't look like that is the case, though, if I'm understanding what is writen above.

 

[Porphyrius]

Great posts Bhruic and Krikkitone and a very informative thread overall.
I just adore digging into excact game mechanics.

I am not convinced that tech stealing is easy and abusable though.

Aside from always being catching up and thus getting no free techs or great people as well as rarely fielding superior quality troops, the game treats beakers more favorably than spy points.
For one theres tech discounts for extra known prequisites and other civs knowing tech allready.

Plus i mean, all the way till constitution(jails) produced beakers are amplified progressively by what ends up accounting for +75% scince. Spy points are aided by +25% (castles or nationalism) and only after late medieval era.

Things get more even afterwards but beakers still get an edge. Every city does receive a small amount of spy points from buildings but oxford/libs+unis+obs maontain an edge all the way till communism in boosting the greater amount of beakers from . Nationalism vs Representation is a more tough call depending on specific choices regarding the economy.

All that considered the spy points come ahead only in Scotland vs Academy which might be good enough on small maps sparsely populated with civilizations. But arent we all tempted to use GSpies to infiltrate around late medieval-early renaissance.

And at late eras where the distance closes theres Security Bureaus to worry about. 1.5X cost is no small issue.



For me espinage remains a sidekick. Yes, theres a great sweetspot to exploit around late medieval-early renaissance. And yes one can "create" circumstances where a city is just great to steal techs from (messing with religions or culture, having a target AI's city very close to capital).

But mostly one is better off choosing beakers and reserving stealing to certain critical techs, just like he does with most other forms of active espionage.

 

[Bhruic]

I couldn't disagree more.

Specifically, it is much easier to ensure that the cost of stealing a tech is much less than the cost to research it. Costs as low as 1/3rd aren't too difficult to manage.

While you may not be the first to research something, you almost always get it within a few turns of someone researching it. So you might lack tech depth, but that is more than offset with tech breadth.

While the default building situation is that you'll get more bonuses for buildings, the lower costs of stealing more than makes up for that. And the hammers needed for spies can easily be gained by the hammers being saved from not needing to build the various +research buildings.

Finally, you may be "tempted" to use the GS to infiltrate, but succumbing to that temptation just means you are following a sub-optimal strategy. Purposefully not choosing the best use of the GS doesn't mean that espionage doesn't work, it means you aren't using it properly. It's very easy to get a few Scotland Yards in the early game, and applied correctly to your biggest commerce cities, that'll more than offset the loss from libraries/academies.

I have to ask at this point if you've actually tried the strategy? I have, and I'm convinced that it's a very powerful alternative to straight research - assuming you do it on an appropriate difficulty level. Doing it on Noble isn't going to help much if you'd "normally" completely outtech the AI anyway. But if you're playing on Emperor+, and the AI is going to outtech you anyway, it can be extremely advantageous.

Bh

 

[Roland Johansen]

The chance of success for a spy mission is an almost identical formula. In fact, it is an identical formula, although it's for the chance to be detected, not the chance to be successful.

If you recall in my first post, I list "ESPIONAGE_SPY_NO_INTRUDE_INTERCEPT_MOD" and "ESPIONAGE_SPY_INTERCEPT_MOD" as being 10 and 25, respectively? But the actual values in GlobalDefines.xml is -90 and -75, I just handled the fact it does 100 + X (where X is the -90 or -75) by short cutting it.

So the formula is identical, just replace the -90 or -75 with the difficulty modifier (DM) for that particular mission.

The percentage chance of being detected while performing a mission is:
(((EISM * REP) + EIC + EICM + EIRM) * (100 + DM)) / 100

The dividing by 100 is just to get it into percentage form. The chance of being successful, therefore, is:
100 - ((((EISM * REP) + EIC + EICM + EIRM) * (100 + DM)) / 100)

Bh

I looked up those difficulty modifiers so that people don't need to do so for themselves. They are stored in the file CIV4EspionageMissionInfo.xml

The values are as follows:
Destroy Improvement: 0
Destroy Building: 10
Destroy Project: 25
Destroy Production: 0
Steal Treasury: 25
Insert Culture: 0
Poison Water: -50
City Unhappiness: -50
City Revolt: 0
Steal Tech: 25
Switch Civic: 50
Switch Religion: 50
Counterespionage: -100

The basic chance that your spy is caught during a mission is a value between 0% and 25%. This chance is dependent on the total amount of espionage points produced by you and your target civilisation.
An enemy spy or the security bureau present in the tile of your spy increases the chance of being caught by 15%.
A counterespionage mission performed against you increases the chance of being caught by 20%.
When one of your spies has just moved or is on the same tile as another one of your spies, then it has a 15% increased chance of being caught. You thus usually will want to wait at least one turn after arriving on a tile and having multiple spies on a single tile adversely affects your chance of a successful mission. (There is also a cost reduction for waiting on a tile for up to five turns.)
These chances are summed up meaning, the chance of being caught during a mission is a value between 0% and 75%.

These percentages are then multiplied by the mission modifier which is equal to (100 + difficulty modifier)/100. This means that the Counterespionage mission will always succeed and that the Poison water supply mission and the foment unhappiness mission only have halve the basic chance to fail. However, the switch civic and switch religion missions have a 1.5 times as high chance to fail, a value between 0% and 1.5*75=112,5%. Thus when your opponent has defended itself in an excellent way, then these missions will often fail. Usually, there will be a few cities which are vulnerable enough to be targeted by these missions successfully.

I hope this helps those who have troubles with the earlier mentioned formulas. (Also see post 5 for the chance to be captured while residing in a tile, doing nothing.)

 

[floppymoose]

About it being easy to get "a few" great spies in the early game... what counts as early? I find it hard to get more than two great spies. At the moment I am using on for Scotland Yard, and one added to the city that has the Yard.

At the moment I am playing on Prince and doing a hybrid strategy of using commerce mostly for RP, and buildings, Great Spy, and specialist spies for EP. I've been researching along paths that my opponents aren't, and then backfilling the other techs through theft. One of the tech leaders has a nearby city that has my religion, so it's been working pretty well.

Can you give me some specifics on how you get more than two Great Spies? By the time I have two at most, and often only one, I need to make a Prophet to get the Shrine income (and it seems you want a religion if you are stealing tech). And since I'm also researching, I don't want to wait too long to get a Great Scientist for an Academy. I guess the that would be skipped in a "pure" spy economy.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Since people are adding lots of useful information to this thread, could someone find out how the cost of the various missions is calculated? I have a feeling that the cost of the switch civics and switch religion missions is way too cheap. In the sense that the cost is a lot cheaper than the amount of commerce and production and such that the opponent will lose during the various turns of anarchy to switch to the civics that you wanted and to switch back.

It also seems from the limited information that I get from the xml-files and in-game values that the switch religion and switch civics missions are equally expensive while the switch civics mission will result in a lot more turns of anarchy when you force a multiple civics change on the opponent.

So my question is not about the various modifiers that are applied to the cost of a mission like Krikkitone showed in post 21; my question is about the basic costs of missions. I have a good idea about how some of them are calculated by looking in the xml-file CIV4EspionageMissionInfo.xml, but it doesn't store the formulas, only (some of) the modifiers.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Passive Missions
Base Factor * (100+How much they have against you)

Demographics=0.3
City Visibility=1.2
Investigate=2
See Research=0.75

Destroy improvement
75 * Game speed factor

Destroy building/Project/Production
6 * hammer cost

Steal gold
3* gold to steal [gold available to steal is Total Gold* pop of this city/total pop]

Insert Culture
3* culture to insert (5% of Total culture for the tile)

Poison Water/Unhapiness
120

City Revolt
500

Steal Tech
1.5 * cost of tech

Switch civic/religion
600 * game speed factor

Counter espionage
100* game speed factor


One note, missions that target cities are eligible for bonuses

Spoiler :

nt CvPlayer::getEspionageMissionBaseCost(EspionageMissionTypes eMission, PlayerTypes eTargetPlayer, const CvPlot* pPlot, int iExtraData, const CvUnit* pSpyUnit) const
{
CvEspionageMissionInfo& kMission = GC.getEspionageMissionInfo(eMission);
int iBaseMissionCost = kMission.getCost();

// -1 means this mission is disabled
if (iBaseMissionCost == -1)
{
return -1;
}

CvCity* pCity = NULL;
if (NULL != pPlot)
{
pCity = pPlot->getPlotCity();
}

if (kMission.isSelectPlot())
{
if (NULL == pPlot)
{
return -1;
}

if (!pPlot->isRevealed(getTeam(), false))
{
return -1;
}
}

if (NULL == pCity && kMission.isTargetsCity())
{
return -1;
}

int iMissionCost = -1;

if (kMission.getStealTreasuryTypes() > 0)
{
// Steal Treasury
int iNumTotalGold = (GET_PLAYER(eTargetPlayer).getGold() * kMission.getStealTreasuryTypes()) / 100;

if (NULL != pCity)
{
iNumTotalGold *= pCity->getPopulation();
iNumTotalGold /= std::max(1, GET_PLAYER(eTargetPlayer).getTotalPopulation());
}

if (iNumTotalGold > 0)
{
iMissionCost = (iBaseMissionCost * iNumTotalGold) / 100;
}
}
else if (kMission.getBuyTechCostFactor() > 0)
{
// Buy (Steal) Tech
TechTypes eTech = (TechTypes)iExtraData;
int iProdCost = MAX_INT;

if (NO_TECH == eTech)
{
for (int iTech = 0; iTech < GC.getNumTechInfos(); ++iTech)
{
if (canStealTech(eTargetPlayer, (TechTypes)iTech))
{
int iCost = GET_TEAM(getTeam()).getResearchCost((TechTypes)iTech);
if (iCost < iProdCost)
{
iProdCost = iCost;
eTech = (TechTypes)iTech;
}
}
}
}
else
{
iProdCost = GET_TEAM(getTeam()).getResearchCost(eTech);
}

if (NO_TECH != eTech)
{
if (canStealTech(eTargetPlayer, eTech))
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + ((100 + kMission.getBuyTechCostFactor()) * iProdCost) / 100;
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getSwitchCivicCostFactor() > 0)
{
// Switch Civics
CivicTypes eCivic = (CivicTypes)iExtraData;

if (NO_CIVIC == eCivic)
{
for (int iCivic = 0; iCivic < GC.getNumCivicInfos(); ++iCivic)
{
if (canForceCivics(eTargetPlayer, (CivicTypes)iCivic))
{
eCivic = (CivicTypes)iCivic;
break;
}
}
}

if (NO_CIVIC != eCivic)
{
if (canForceCivics(eTargetPlayer, eCivic))
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + (kMission.getSwitchCivicCostFactor() * GC.getGameSpeedInfo(GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getAnarchyPercent()) / 10000;
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getSwitchReligionCostFactor() > 0)
{
// Switch Religions
ReligionTypes eReligion = (ReligionTypes)iExtraData;

if (NO_RELIGION == eReligion)
{
for (int iReligion = 0; iReligion < GC.getNumReligionInfos(); ++iReligion)
{
if (canForceReligion(eTargetPlayer, (ReligionTypes)iReligion))
{
eReligion = (ReligionTypes)iReligion;
break;
}
}
}

if (NO_RELIGION != eReligion)
{
if (canForceReligion(eTargetPlayer, eReligion))
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + (kMission.getSwitchReligionCostFactor() * GC.getGameSpeedInfo(GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getAnarchyPercent()) / 10000;
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getDestroyUnitCostFactor() > 0)
{
// Destroys Unit
CvUnit* pUnit = GET_PLAYER(eTargetPlayer).getUnit(iExtraData);
int iCost = MAX_INT;

if (NULL == pUnit)
{
if (NULL != pPlot)
{
CLLNode<IDInfo>* pUnitNode = pPlot->headUnitNode();

while (pUnitNode != NULL)
{
CvUnit* pLoopUnit = ::getUnit(pUnitNode->m_data);
pUnitNode = pPlot->nextUnitNode(pUnitNode);

if (canSpyDestroyUnit(eTargetPlayer, *pLoopUnit))
{
int iValue = getProductionNeeded(pLoopUnit->getUnitType());
if (iValue < iCost)
{
iCost = iValue;
pUnit = pLoopUnit;
}
}
}

}
}
else
{
iCost = getProductionNeeded(pUnit->getUnitType());
}

if (NULL != pUnit)
{
if (canSpyDestroyUnit(eTargetPlayer, *pUnit))
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + ((100 + kMission.getDestroyUnitCostFactor()) * iCost) / 100;
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getDestroyProjectCostFactor() > 0)
{
ProjectTypes eProject = (ProjectTypes) iExtraData;
int iCost = MAX_INT;

if (NO_PROJECT == eProject)
{
for (int iProject = 0; iProject < GC.getNumProjectInfos(); ++iProject)
{
if (canSpyDestroyProject(eTargetPlayer, (ProjectTypes)iProject))
{
int iValue = getProductionNeeded((ProjectTypes)iProject);

if (iValue < iCost)
{
iCost = iValue;
eProject = (ProjectTypes)iProject;
}
}
}
}
else
{
iCost = getProductionNeeded(eProject);
}

if (NO_PROJECT != eProject)
{
if (canSpyDestroyProject(eTargetPlayer, eProject))
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + ((100 + kMission.getDestroyProjectCostFactor()) * iCost) / 100;
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getDestroyProductionCostFactor() > 0)
{
FAssert(NULL != pCity);
if (NULL != pCity)
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + ((100 + kMission.getDestroyProductionCostFactor()) * pCity->getProduction()) / 100;
}
}
else if (kMission.getBuyUnitCostFactor() > 0)
{
// Buy Unit
CvUnit* pUnit = GET_PLAYER(eTargetPlayer).getUnit(iExtraData);
int iCost = MAX_INT;

if (NULL == pUnit)
{
if (NULL != pPlot)
{
CLLNode<IDInfo>* pUnitNode = pPlot->headUnitNode();

while (pUnitNode != NULL)
{
CvUnit* pLoopUnit = ::getUnit(pUnitNode->m_data);
pUnitNode = pPlot->nextUnitNode(pUnitNode);

if (canSpyBribeUnit(eTargetPlayer, *pLoopUnit))
{
int iValue = getProductionNeeded(pLoopUnit->getUnitType());
if (iValue < iCost)
{
iCost = iValue;
pUnit = pLoopUnit;
}
}
}

}
}
else
{
iCost = getProductionNeeded(pUnit->getUnitType());
}


if (NULL != pUnit)
{
if (canSpyBribeUnit(eTargetPlayer, *pUnit))
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + ((100 + kMission.getBuyUnitCostFactor()) * iCost) / 100;
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getDestroyBuildingCostFactor() > 0)
{
BuildingTypes eBuilding = (BuildingTypes) iExtraData;
int iCost = MAX_INT;

if (NO_BUILDING == eBuilding)
{
for (int iBuilding = 0; iBuilding < GC.getNumBuildingInfos(); ++iBuilding)
{
if (canSpyDestroyBuilding(eTargetPlayer, (BuildingTypes)iBuilding))
{
int iValue = getProductionNeeded((BuildingTypes)iBuilding);

if (iValue < iCost)
{
iCost = iValue;
eBuilding = (BuildingTypes)iBuilding;
}
}
}
}
else
{
iCost = getProductionNeeded(eBuilding);
}

if (NO_BUILDING != eBuilding)
{
if (NULL != pCity && pCity->getNumRealBuilding(eBuilding) > 0)
{
if (canSpyDestroyBuilding(eTargetPlayer, eBuilding))
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + ((100 + kMission.getDestroyBuildingCostFactor()) * iCost) / 100;
}
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getBuyCityCostFactor() > 0)
{
// Buy City
if (NULL != pCity)
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + (kMission.getBuyCityCostFactor() * GC.getGameSpeedInfo(GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getGrowthPercent()) / 10000;
}
}
else if (kMission.getCityInsertCultureCostFactor() > 0)
{
// Insert Culture into City
if (NULL != pPlot && pPlot->getCulture(getID()) > 0)
{
int iCultureAmount = kMission.getCityInsertCultureAmountFactor() * pCity->countTotalCultureTimes100();
iCultureAmount /= 10000;
iCultureAmount = std::max(1, iCultureAmount);
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost + (kMission.getCityInsertCultureCostFactor() * iCultureAmount) / 100;
}
}
else if (kMission.isDestroyImprovement())
{
if (NULL != pPlot && !pPlot->isCity())
{
if (pPlot->getImprovementType() != NO_IMPROVEMENT || pPlot->getRouteType() != NO_ROUTE)
{
iMissionCost = (iBaseMissionCost * GC.getGameSpeedInfo(GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getBuildPercent()) / 100;
}
}
}
else if (kMission.getCityPoisonWaterCounter() > 0)
{
FAssert(NULL != pCity);
// Cannot poison a city's water supply if it's already poisoned (value is negative when active)
if (NULL != pCity && pCity->getEspionageHealthCounter() <= 0)
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost;
}
}

// Make city unhappy
else if (kMission.getCityUnhappinessCounter() > 0)
{
FAssert(NULL != pCity);
// Cannot make a city unhappy if you've already done it (value is negative when active)
if (NULL != pCity && pCity->getEspionageHappinessCounter() <= 0)
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost;
}
}

// Make city Revolt
else if (kMission.getCityRevoltCounter() > 0)
{
FAssert(NULL != pCity);
// Cannot make a city revolt if it's already revolting
if (NULL != pCity && pCity->getOccupationTimer() == 0)
{
iMissionCost = iBaseMissionCost;
}
}
else if (kMission.getCounterespionageMod() > 0)
{
if (GET_TEAM(getTeam()).getCounterespionageTurnsLeftAgainstTeam(GET_PLAYER(eTargetPlayer).getTeam()) <= 0)
{
iMissionCost = (iBaseMissionCost * GC.getGameSpeedInfo(GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getResearchPercent()) / 100;
}
}
else if (kMission.getPlayerAnarchyCounter() > 0)
{
// Player anarchy timer: can't add more turns of anarchy to player already in the midst of it
if (!GET_PLAYER(eTargetPlayer).isAnarchy())
{
iMissionCost = (iBaseMissionCost * GC.getGameSpeedInfo(GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getAnarchyPercent()) / 100;
}
}
else if (kMission.isPassive())
{
iMissionCost = (iBaseMissionCost * (100 + GET_TEAM(GET_PLAYER(eTargetPlayer).getTeam()).getEspionagePointsAgainstTeam(getTeam()))) / 100;
}
else
{
iMissionCost = (iBaseMissionCost * GC.getGameSpeedInfo(GC.getGameINLINE().getGameSpeedType()).getResearchPercent()) / 100;
}

if (iMissionCost < 0)
{
return -1;
}

return iMissionCost;
}

 

[KMadCandy]

I have a feeling that the cost of the switch civics and switch religion missions is way too cheap. In the sense that the cost is a lot cheaper than the amount of commerce and production and such that the opponent will lose during the various turns of anarchy to switch to the civics that you wanted and to switch back.

i think it's not that bad as far as anarchy. from investigating cities when i've switched their civics, it looks like just anarchy-free insta-switch, like they're spiritual. i'm guessing that the 5-turn waiting period still applies, since i've never seen them switch back right away, but nobody's switched my civics for me to be sure. if they're not spiritual they do get anarchy when they switch back of course.

It also seems from the limited information that I get from the xml-files and in-game values that the switch religion and switch civics missions are equally expensive while the switch civics mission will result in a lot more turns of anarchy when you force a multiple civics change on the opponent.

you have to pay separately (and risk a new spy) for each civics change tho, there's not a package price. but i do see what you mean.

 

[Welnic]

About it being easy to get "a few" great spies in the early game... what counts as early? I find it hard to get more than two great spies. At the moment I am using on for Scotland Yard, and one added to the city that has the Yard.
...

You should do that in the reverse order, at least if you are getting the GS really early. The 12 EP from settling are worth more than +100% of 4EP from the palace plus 2EP from a courthouse. The second one building Scotland Yard where your first one is settled works well.

As far as switching civics of enemy civs, they do have to wait 5 turns before they can switch back. So if you wait 4 turns and then hit them again, I would guess that they would then have to wait another 5 turns. You could keep doing that until you had changed all 5 civics and then let them endure the 5 civ at once anarchy.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

5 civ at once is the same or less anarchy as 1 civ at a time 5 times

 

[Roland Johansen]

City Revolt
500


Switch civic/religion
600 * game speed factor


One note, missions that target cities are eligible for bonuses

Oh, boy. That is really bad. The switch civic/religion missions doesn't take into account the size of the enemy economy. That is really bad, because the damage that you do is directly related to the size of that economy. The enemy will face a bad civic with permanent negative effects for its economy or it will switch back which will take time in anarchy (except for spiritual civilisations, who said they were nerfed). During turns of anarchy, a civilisation will not earn any commerce or hammers.

In my present game, I noticed that I could perform this mission with several enemies and didn't do so because it seemed far too cheap and this formula confirms it. I earn over 4000 espionage points per turn if I go for 100% espionage. So I can switch the civics of several opponents each turn and they will have to face these bad civics or revert back which results in turns of anarchy. It becomes even worse if you control the Christo Redentor Wonder because then you can get them into really bad civics with low cost to yourself. Knowing the AI, they will switch back to their preferred civics, losing at least a single turn of commerce and hammers during anarchy and in my game that leads to far higher costs for them than the cost of the switch civics mission.

(I'm not a really overpowered civilisation in this game. It's just a huge map in the late stages of the game. You can then earn such amounts of commerce/espionage points.)

The reason that this mission hasn't lead to massive complaints around the forum is because the AI doesn't perform the mission (at least not in my games up to now). Players complain about the poison water supply mission which just hurts one city, but this mission has the potential to ruin your whole empire for a cost that is unrelated to the strength of that empire.

I also noticed that the cost isn't that much higher than the revolt city mission which just puts one city into a single turn of anarchy.

Oh, and before I forget. Thanks for the information Krikkitone. Really useful stuff.

Oh, and also thank you KMadCandy. I didn't know the initial civics/religion switch was without anarchy.

 

[Welnic]

5 civ at once is the same or less anarchy as 1 civ at a time 5 times

Yes, but if you keep hitting them every 4 turns they end up being in the bad civic that you put them in first for 20 turns before they could change back. You could just wait and change them back into the the same bad civic after they fix it, but this way they stay in that same bad civic and you add another and another. You could just keep changing civics so they could never change back.

 

[Bhruic]

You should do that in the reverse order, at least if you are getting the GS really early. The 12 EP from settling are worth more than +100% of 4EP from the palace plus 2EP from a courthouse. The second one building Scotland Yard where your first one is settled works well.

No, that's a horrible choice. You should use both of them for Scotland Yard(s). The idea is that you are going with a spy economy. That means you are cranking your espionage slider, which means your top cities are generating (or should be generating) a lot more than the +12 eps you are going to get from settling. The only time you want to settle a GSpy is if you are not running a spy economy, and just want some extra eps to do a few spy missions.

Bh

 

[KrikkitTwo]

One point on the 'Switch' I believe you can only get then to change to Your Civics, so unless you are spiritual, you can only force them into a 'bad civic' if it is a civic that is bad for them but good for you.