Spy rework suggestions here -->

[Stalker0]

1. Base is +20, and spy ranks increase this by 25% per rank..

So just to show a ballpark, as you showed 396 in one screenshot I'll just use 400 for ease.

Level 1 Spy (20 SP): 20 turns
Level 2 Spy (25 SP): 16 turns
Level 3 Spy (30 SP): 14 turns

That's a decent progression, again I'm a fan of less scaling for spies to limit the impact of spy death, but this is in the ballpark. How does spy leveling work in this system?

 

[Gazebo]

So just to show a ballpark, as you showed 396 in one screenshot I'll just use 400 for ease.

Level 1 Spy (20 SP): 20 turns
Level 2 Spy (25 SP): 16 turns
Level 3 Spy (30 SP): 14 turns

That's a decent progression, again I'm a fan of less scaling for spies to limit the impact of spy death, but this is in the ballpark. How does spy leveling work in this system?

You level after you finish a Spy Event. Chance to level as diplomat from getting intrigue, and you level if you coup or kill a spy.

G

 

[Gazebo]

So just to show a ballpark, as you showed 396 in one screenshot I'll just use 400 for ease.

Level 1 Spy (20 SP): 20 turns
Level 2 Spy (25 SP): 16 turns
Level 3 Spy (30 SP): 14 turns

That's a decent progression, again I'm a fan of less scaling for spies to limit the impact of spy death, but this is in the ballpark. How does spy leveling work in this system?

Also, keep in mind that the 'goal' amount varies based on the city's Security Level. Rank 10 = 1000, Rank 1 = 100. So some events will be very quick!

G

 

[Recursive]

I'm very interested/excited to see how this mechanic will play out in practice.

 

[Stalker0]

Also, keep in mind that the 'goal' amount varies based on the city's Security Level. Rank 10 = 1000, Rank 1 = 100. So some events will be very quick!

G

gotcha, so their will be incentives to drop into vulnerable cities and do small jobs to gain xp...that seems a solid choice

 

[Gazebo]

Yep. Right now I'm rebuilding AI logic for spy placement. It was...special.
G

 

[Stalker0]

So I think there is one conceptual flaw in the new system that we could consider. A big lever of the system is turn times, how many turns will a given mission take.

Ultimately though there are too many things that impacts, from the bonuses of certain buildings like the National Intelligence Agency, to CS quests, to the amount of tedium for the player. Now we could try to tweak and shift and prod and get the turn times just right...but I think that's barking up the wrong tree.

The CS rigs already has a unique mechanic. The rigs happen every X turn, and they all occur at the same time. Simple and consistent. Why not have spy actions do the same? Why not just add Spy events into that rig cycle?


So in this model, spy actions trigger when the CS elections occur. All spy missions have the same length, though the risk of spy death and detection do vary. The yields are made appropriate for this timeframe. The player deals with their spies all at the same time, and then doesn't worry about them again until the next cycle, providing a nice steady rhythm to the game.

Then security reduces the mission benefits, as well as increases the chance of spy death and detection. I can get a lot of gold out of a vulnerable Security 1 city, but Fort Knox is just going to be tricky. In general the player is incentivized to put spies in low security cities (which just thematically makes sense, you would always want to investigate the vulnerable places), but on occasion will want to brave those high security cities for a production disruption of a wonder, or a city defense disruption, that kind of thing.

This provides a solid baseline, we know how often players will get spy bonuses over 50 turns, and so we can adjust the yields very easily to create proper scaling. This further allows us to adjust the NIA and CS quests to easily accommodate the new model.

While highly variable turn times can look interesting in theory, in just one play through I am already seeing the problems. I think removing that as a lever, and focusing on other areas to adjust, will make for a superior system.

 

[Stalker0]

So the counterpoint to my argument will likely be: "But spies should be more dynamic, it doesn't make sense that they all trigger at the same time".

To address that counterpoint:

• Civ mechanics are for the most part static. When I build a market, we don't randomly determine how much gold its going to produce. A GP bulb doesn't generate a random amount of yields. TRs finish in a set and consistent amount of time. Yet with real world logic, they absolutely would vary. No market is identical to another, no great engineer operated just like another. But Civ is a game, and a part of that game is consistency....and to my mind Spies are no more special than anything else in the game. They should offer a consistent strategic lever that the player chooses how to use, but do not need to be highly variable. The fact that they have a chance of dieing already makes them much more variable than most Civ mechanics.
• "Realistically" it doesn't make sense that all City States have their elections at the same time, but it works. Again, its a game, we suspend this disbelief to give us a nice mechanic to work with. Why should spies be different...why should spies using one aspect of the system have radically different timing mechanics, why not provide more consistency.

So I say....no spies aren't special snowflakes. Let them conform to a consistent timing mechanic. The player has plenty of choices to make with them, from where to put them, to what mission to use with them.....plenty of options already. No need to muddy the waters even further.

 

[InkAxis]

Yeah, I agree.
Currently there are too many levers, there's turn timers, detection chance, kill chance, yield amount, security level, and each one affects the other in ways that just seem opaque.

 

[pineappledan]

And yet, there aren't enough levers, lol.

My question is how do we restore balance and efficacy to buildings and features that just had their toys taken away?

Motherland Calls and Bletchley Park are both major offensive spy wonders, with big modifiers increasing the probability of certain spy actions. What will those wonders do instead?

And on the defense side, the Wat had 2 additional blocks over the base constabulary and St Mark's used to block EVERYTHING, effectively making Venice's capital immune to espionage. So I'm interested to see how St. Mark's will be reconstituted, or if Venice just got hard nerfed without anyone noticing or discussing it.

 

[InkAxis]

I just thought of something that would make it more clear. You could have different levels of length.
So you would have quick missions taking 5 turns, medium missions take 15 turns and long missions taking 25 turns. This would be simpler to understand and each defensive building could simply increase the level by one for that mission, and decrease the yields.

 

[Gazebo]

I just thought of something that would make it more clear. You could have different levels of length.
So you would have quick missions taking 5 turns, medium missions take 15 turns and long missions taking 25 turns. This would be simpler to understand and each defensive building could simply increase the level by one for that mission, and decrease the yields.

minimum length for missions is probably a good idea.

G

 

[InkAxis]

minimum length for missions is probably a good idea.

G

And how would buildings work in this context? Would they decrease the yields, increase the minimum turn length or something else? Or are we getting rid of the idea of buildings affecting spies?

 

[pineappledan]

Or are we getting rid of the idea of buildings affecting spies?

That would be a hell of a thing if we were still to have Bletchley Park as a wonder.

If this is using the Events system, I think the easiest option is to have wonders unlock new spy missions. It would be harder to make them augment certain mission outcomes

I don't really get how wonders like Great Firewall work in this new paradigm. Does GF give a constant per turn amount of Spy Resistance in all cities per turn? Or does is give a % increase to the generation of spy resistance?

For Bletchley Park, since the wonder was historically what helped Britain crack the Enigma code and give Britain information on enemy troop movements, I was thinking that Bletchley Park could somehow boost the vision that your spies give while in enemy cities
For Motherland Calls, I think you could give the wonder back some really "hurtful" spy missions. It could unlock stuff like classic assassination or missions to destroy buildings in target cities.