Stalker0's Espionage Proposal - Draft 2.1

[Stalker0]

UPDATED - Version 2.1
Changelog

• Simplified Identification. It is now a static 20% base chance modified by your security. Killing a spy atuomatically identifies it.
• Removed the bonus from CS coups for diplomats (scales too aggressively on larger maps)
• Removed "Copy Schematics" mission. Initial feedback was lukewarm.
• Spy Mission reset timer changed from 15 to 20 (this is the same as the coup timer, and the intention was for them to be in sync).

Alright so trying to get this ready for the congress. I am trying to merge the various proposals into a more unified whole, so taking what I think are the best parts of each one.

HIGH LEVEL OVERVIEW

• Spy Setup and Travel times standardized.
• A spy's default "passive" mission in a city now works exactly like a CS rigging (effectively we are merging the mechanics). The rigging occurs every 15 turns as it does now. The winner of each "rigging", known as a Steal Research mission, will steal a portion of that city's science.
• A spy's active missions now work like coups. There is a % chance of success, on a success you gain that missions benefit, and on a loss the spy is killed.
• Security is a more consistent modifier primarily based on counterspies and security buildings. Security protects you against both the passive science steals and reduces the chance that active missions activate.
  • The Civilian Security modifier is a random variable, that serves as a simple way to add variation to your security levels. This makes the system more engaging, as sometimes you might find an especially vulnerable city to go after, or find that the city you were planning to do your next mission on has beefed up security a bit.
• Diplomats are now a "spy quarterback". They work as they have before, but they also passively improve your other spies working in CS or in their target civ. Diplomats gain more XP than normal, and get XP when their fellow spies complete missions. This makes the diplomat a useful tool to level up a spy, or if you want to push on a certain civ or you need every bit of success chance for a specific city or CS you can manage.
• Counterspy missions are removed, in favor of a more general improvement to the city. They participate in the passive "riggings" and gain science/culture when they succeed. They also accumulate XP at a MUCH faster rate than normal spies, making them a useful tool as training ground for new spies.
• The Spy missions have been completely revamped.
• All complex formulas have been removed in favor of straightforward, simple to understand mechanics.
• Influence levels with a civ has been adjusted. Now lower levels of influence don't affect spies, but popular and influential levels can give very solid benefits to the spy game.

Number of Spies: Unchanged
Travel Time:

• 1 turn to go to your own cities
• 2 turns to go to a foreign city/CS.

Setup Time:

• 4 turns base
• -1 per Spy Rank
• -1 if you are Popular or higher with the Civ.
• Minimum 0 turns.

Surveillance (Passive "CS Rigging" Mission)
While stationed in a city, you gain the following

• Gain vision of the city.
• Every 15 turns (the same schedule as CS rigging), a Research Steal occurs. The winning spy (determined in the same manner as CS rigging), gains a bonus:
  • Foreign Spy: Steal (50 - City Security)% of Science Per Turn generated by the city for the last 15 turns.
    • Ex: A security 20 city has generated 50 SPT for the last 15 turns (a total of 750). The spy would steal (50 - 20) = 30% of 750, or 225 science.
  • Counterspy: Gain 50 culture and science, era scaling (this bonus occurs even if there are no foreign spies in the city).

Spy Missions (Active "Coup" Missions)
While a spy is on surveillance, you can activate it to do spy missions (similar to the Coup button for a CS). Pressing the "Coup" button brings up a list of missions (similar to current version).

• Mission effect happens immediately (no delay)
• Missions no longer have level requirements. All missions are possible at any spy level.
• All missions have a base 20% Identification (max 100).
  • If this is triggered, the city owner knows you committed the act, and the spy returns to the hideout (or is killed if the mission fails).
  • Otherwise, the spy remains in the city after a successful mission. The city owner knows a mission has occurred but does not know who performed the act.
  • If a spy is killed, identification = 100%
• All missions have a success% (min 0).
  • If you fail the mission, the mission benefits are not obtained, and the spy is killed.
• Once a mission has been attempted in the city, no other missions can take place for 15 turns (same as Coups).
• Many missions have durations, these can be further adjusted by various policies, buildings, etc.

Spy Mission List

Mission	Prereq	Base Success Chance%	Effect
Rob Treasury	Can only have one of these active per civ.	70	Steal GPT = 10% of Civ's current GPT for the next 15 turns.
Forge Artifact	City must contain 1+ great work	50	Gain a great work (permanent). Target city suffers -25% tourism for the next 15 turns.
Kidnap Specialists		40	Capital gains 5% progress towards all GP. Target city -1 to all specialist yields for 15 turns.
Bribe Delegation		50	Gain a free diplomat unit in your capital. Gain 1 vote in WC, target city owner loses 1 vote (min 0). Effect ends after the next WC.
Steal Technology	Industrial Era or greater. Target civ must have a technology you do not possess. Can only be performed in the capital	30	Gain 1 technology possessed by the target civ.
Incite Revolutionaries		40	Gain a free military unit (treat as free unit from vassal) at your capital. 1 Barbarian Unit (era scaling) appears around the city. Target City's happiness becomes 0 until there are no barbarian units within 3 tiles of the city.
Sabotage City		40	Target city becomes blockaded for 5 turns, and takes damage = 20% of total city health. City Garrison takes 10 damage.
Infiltrate Government	Target City must be the capital	70	You gain vision of all cities for the Target civ. Cities for target civ suffers -15 security against your spies. Effects last for 15 turns.

City Security
Each city has a security rate between 0 and 50 (max 50), increments of 5. This rating does the following:

• The passive steal of a spy is reduced by the security rating. Example: A city with security 20 would only lose (50-20) = 30% of its SPT.
• The identification% of an active mission is increased by the security rating.
• The success% of an active mission is reduced by the security rating.

Security Modifiers

• Before Renaissance Era: +20 (mainly effects England)
• City is Unhappy: -10
• Constabulary: +10
• Police Station: +15
• Counterspy: +15
• Capital: +10
• Empiricism Policy: +10
• Military Base: +10
• Civilian Security: After every Research Steal, a random modifier between -15 and +15 (increments of 5) is added to each city. This modifier is NOT cumulative, and is reset after each period. Example: Normally Paris has a security of 20. However, after the last tech steal, a random value of -10 was rolled. For the next 15 turns (until the next research steal) it has a security of 10. Then in the next research steal, the random value was +15 (which replaces the previous modifier). Paris now has a security of 35 for the next 15 turns.

Mission Success Modifiers
The following modifiers are used to determine the final success rate for the Active Mission. Note that this number shows the true % of success, there is no hidden adjustments to the %.

• +Base Success Rate for the Mission
• +15% per Spy Rank (aka rank 0 = 0, rank 1 = 15, rank 2 = 30)
• -Security Rating (Ex: 20 security = -20%)
• 20% for every Research Steal the spy takes part in the city (whether successful or not).
  • Bonus is removed if spy leaves the city.
• +10% if city follows your religion.
• +10% if you are popular with target civ, an additional +10% if you are influential.
• +10% if you have a diplomat with that civ.

Mission Identification Modifiers

• +Base 20%
• +Security

Spy Rank, XP, and Death
A base Spy has rank 0, and increases by 1 rank for each level. Spies gains a rank for every 100 xp (unchanged). Max rank is 2 barring special buildings or abilities.

Note: Currently excess XP is lost when a spy gains a rank. In this version that is no longer the case.

• 15 XP for each CS Rigging or Research Steal participated in (on average 1 XP per turn).
  • Your diplomat for that civ also receives 5 XP.
• 2 XP per turn for diplomats and counterspies when they are setup in a city. (this combined with the research steal xp means counterspies get effectively 3 xp per turn most of the time).
• Uncovering Intrigue: 25 XP
• Successfully completing an active mission: 50 XP.
  • Your diplomat for that civ also receives 15 XP.
• Successfully completing a coup: 50 XP
  • All diplomats receive 10 XP.
• If your counterspy is present in a city where a spy is killed: 50 XP.

A Spy's Rank effects the following:

• +15% active mission success rate per rank
• -15% active mission identification rate per rank.
• Provides "rigging votes" = (Rank +1) * (Rank + 1) for CS riggings and Research Steals. See the section below on CS Rigging Mechanics. This is unchanged from current version.
• -1 setup time per rank.

When a Spy fails an active mission, they are killed. A new spy is recruited at the minimum rank after (5 - rank of killed spy) turns. Example: If a rank 1 spy was killed, the next spy would come in after 4 turns.

• This mechanic exists to ensure people are not spam killing Rank 0 spies, but softens the blow slightly when a high rank spy is killed by giving them a new spy a little quicker.

Counterspies
When you place a counterspy in a city, you gain the following benefits:

• +15 Security
• When you win a Research Steal, gain 50 culture and science (era scaling).
• City gains +10% CS, +10% RCS, and +2 happiness.
• Gains 2 XP for every turn they are stationed (+15 XP for every research steal they participate in).
• Gains bonus XP when they complete research steals/kill enemy spies.

Counterspies provide numerous benefits to a city, both in its security and its base defenses. In addition, they can gain up to 3x the base xp of a normal spy, making them excellent for training your spies up to higher ranks.

Diplomats

• Maintains all current benefits.
• +10% success / -10% identification to all your spies against the cities of that civ.
• Gains 2 XP for every turn they are stationed.
• Gains bonus XP when your other spies perform successful missions/research steals.

The diplomat is now the "quarterback" of the spy game. He gains a faster base XP than normal spies, and gives your other spies a bonus success for missions in that same civ or against CS. As he is constantly "assisting" his fellow spies, he gains XP when they perform their missions.


General Updates (Civs/Policies/Buildings)

• Constabulary: +10 security (replaces spy mission duration modifier)
• Police Station: +15 security (replaces spy mission duration modifier)
• Covert Action: -1 setup time for all spies/diplomats (replaces spy mission duration reduced by 2 for spies). Spies can travel to any city in 1 turn.
• Double Agents: Counterspy security bonus is doubled (replaces spies are twice as likely to capture spies). Counterspies and spies in CS have 0 setup time (replaces spy mission duration reduced by 1, increased by 1 in foreign cities).
• Shadow Networks: -1 turn to Spy recruitment when a spy is killed. (replaces -1 spy mission duration).
• Police State: The civilian security modifier for each city becomes positive if its currently negative (replaces -2 spy duration).
• National Intelligence Agency: -1 turn to Spy recruitment when a spy is killed. (replace 15% spy resistance, spy mission adjustments). Gain +100 gold/science (era scaling) when completing a spy mission now includes research steal missions in foreign cities.
• Foreign Service: remove spy mission duration adjustment.
• Bletchley Park: -30% duration to active enemy spy missions in your cities (replaces spy resistance and spy mission duration modifiers).
• England: +10 security in all cities, spies start with a free rank, starts with a spy (replaces spy resistances, +10% stronger spies).
• White Tower: +25 Gold and Science in this city for each successful Research Steal or Spy Mission, scaling with era
• Empiricism: +10 security in all cities (replaces 34% spy resistance).

CS Rigging / Steal Research Example
Note: There are no new mechanics introduced here, this is purely an example of how the current system works (which is adopted by the new Steal Research mission).

Overview: Each turn each spy in a city receives "votes" based on its spy rank: = (Rank + 1) * (Rank + 1). Once the rigging period has ended, all the votes are totaled. And then each spy has a % chance to win the rigging based on their vote total compared to all votes in teh city. Then the votes are reset to 0.

Example: Imagine we have a Rank 0 spy that has been in the CS for the full 15 duration. We have a rank 1 spy that has been in the CS for 10 turns, and a rank 2 spy (a counterspy) that has been in the CS for only 4 turns. Lets assume the City has a Security Rating of 25 (10 for a constabulary, and 15 for the counterspy).

Rank 0 Spy = (0 + 1) * (0 + 1) = 1 vote per turn. 1 * 15 turns = 15.

Rank 1 Spy = (1 + 1) * (1+1) = 4 votes per turn. 4 * 10 turns = 40.

Rank 2 Spy = (2 + 1) * (2 + 1) = 9 votes per turn. 9 * 4 turns = 36.

So our total votes = 91.

At the time of rigging, here is the % chance each of our 3 spies have to win the mission:

Rank 0 Spy: 15 / 91 = ~16.5% (if this spy wins, it would steal science equal to 50 - 25 (security) = 25% of the total science that city has generated for the last 15 turns)
Rank 1 Spy: 40 / 91 = ~44.0% (if this spy wins, it would steal science equal to 50 - 25 (security) = 25% of the total science that city has generated for the last 15 turns)
Rank 2 Spy: 36 / 91 = ~39.5% (as a counterspy, if it wins the mission it will get 50 science and culture, era scaling, rather than a science steal).

 

[Recursive]

1) What about the Dominant influence level?
2) Think it'd be cool for England (only) to have Rank 3 spies, and remove the city security bonus. It's a UA so it should feel powerful and be fun.
3) Why don't Counterspies with higher ranks increase security more? Adding this would also give room to remove the city security bonus from England.
4) Why don't Very/Super Unhappy decrease security more?

Might want to explain the coup formula, since you covered everything else, even though it's unchanged.

I like the ideas in this overall. Simplifies it nicely.

 

[azum4roll]

Points not in any particular order

• Again, if you do the success rate formula like this, it's possible to achieve 100% success and 0% identification the instant a spy has set up in the city (and it stays 100% because the duration doesn't reset).
• You can deduce whether there's a counterspy in the city through security (without even having to send a spy there). They're supposed to act undercover!
• Since you aren't changing the number of spies, you probably want to scale diplomat bonuses with map size. You aren't getting +25% bonus until the end game with normal CS numbers, but you can achieve that in Renaissance with 20+ CS.
• In my opinion, current diplomats are fine and do not need a change/tie to spies, as it takes away from their original purpose to unlock vote trading.
• The reason I made all tactical missions impactful but with a fairly low success rate is that it always feels bad if you lose your spy over something tame like stealing gold, but it's obviously worse if it has 100% success rate instead (90% and 100% chance makes a HUGE difference). These fit better as passive missions.
• There's really not much stopping you from spamming "coups" either. Level 1 spies are disposable but can already perform any mission.
• I've mentioned this on Discord, but counterspy benefits should tie to successful acts against foreign spies, not giving passive yields just by idling.

 

[Stalker0]

1) What about the Dominant influence level?

--Unneeded, we don't need everything to scale with every level, that just creates scaling problems. Popular and influential are the key levels in the game.

2) Think it'd be cool for England (only) to have Rank 3 spies, and remove the city security bonus. It's a UA so it should feel powerful and be fun.

England still gets their +1 spy levels, that hasn't changed.

3) Why don't Counterspies with higher ranks increase security more? Adding this would also give room to remove the city security bonus from England.

Creates too much scaling for security, and counterspy rank already HEAVILY reduces foreign spies from stealing science (they literally get 4x stronger at rank 1, and go to 9x at rank 2). Part of my vision is that counterspies as they level would start "hitting the pavement" for other missions, and your new recruits become new counterspies.

4) Why don't Very/Super Unhappy decrease security more?

It felt like too much feels bad to me, as sometimes its impossible to keep your civ happy all the time. I figured on an individual city was a bit more controllable. But I think its a reasonable tweak if people want it

 

[Stalker0]

Points not in any particular order

• Again, if you do the success rate formula like this, it's possible to achieve 100% success and 0% identification the instant a spy has set up in the city (and it stays 100% because the duration doesn't reset).

--Its true for some missions if your security is low. I guess is that a problem or does that mean you should be beefing up your security? I recognize that your formula might better balance this but its also extremely complicated. Perhaps there is a middle ground here.

• You can deduce whether there's a counterspy in the city through security (without even having to send a spy there). They're supposed to act undercover!

--I HATE UIs that lie to me, I will never push for that mechanic to be honest. To me a counterspy is undercover because it doesn't get killed by the foreign spy, not because of some secret UI element. An heck you see it in spy movies all the time. The agent has heard about some "legendary spy hunter" in the city but doesn't have any hard intel on them, and so has to proceed cautiously....but still has a mission to perform.

• Since you aren't changing the number of spies, you probably want to scale diplomat bonuses with map size. You aren't getting +25% bonus until the end game with normal CS numbers, but you can achieve that in Renaissance with 20+ CS.

--A good point. I may drop that mechanic and just keep the one that doesn't scale nearly as much.

• In my opinion, current diplomats are fine and do not need a change/tie to spies, as it takes away from their original purpose to unlock vote trading.

--Eh, most of our discussions people have found diplomats pretty watered down, I rarely see people think a diplomat is worth giving up spy benefits for. With this version, the two work together, sure 2 spies might give you more bang for your buck, but a diplomat helps your other spies out in that key city you really want to do a mission in, and the diplomat now levels quickly so it might be a good spy later down the road.

• The reason I made all tactical missions impactful but with a fairly low success rate is that it always feels bad if you lose your spy over something tame like stealing gold, but it's obviously worse if it has 100% success rate instead (90% and 100% chance makes a HUGE difference). These fit better as passive missions.

--I do think the action mission list could certainly use the most review. I am all for dropping or tweaking some of the missions if we don't think they make sense. I include a gold steal because everyone seems to want a gold steal.

• There's really not much stopping you from spamming "coups" either. Level 1 spies are disposable but can already perform any mission.

Its the same stuff as today for CS coups. 5 turns to get a new spy, you have to redeploy the spy in a city and set it up, 15 turns minimum before you can coup in the same city regardless.

Its an interesting math excessive though to see if just level 1 coup spam is superior in results to leave a spy in a city and level up a bit. I might need to run some models to check.

• I've mentioned this on Discord, but counterspy benefits should tie to successful acts against foreign spies, not giving passive yields just by idling.

I wanted to ensure the counterspy always feels useful even if its just sitting around with no foreign spies. This version gives your city a nice benefit, the counterspy gets a lot of xp, and it still gets some yields (not as much as if it was out steal science, but a decent amount). And of course if it does kill a spy it gets a big load of XP.

At the end of the day I wanted to make counterspies useful without creating all these other subsystems that we have seen in the various proposals to that. There is so much unnecessary complexity to me. This version creates a counterspy that gives some nice benefits while leveling the spy quickly so its ready for prime time out in the world.

 

[Stalker0]

--Its true for some missions if your security is low. I guess is that a problem or does that mean you should be beefing up your security? I recognize that your formula might better balance this but its also extremely complicated. Perhaps there is a middle ground here.

So I was thinking about this point some more, and I were to compare my formula to yours, the most fundamental difference is:

In my formula, rank provides a benefit "straight up". In your formula, it only improves the rate at which the mission improves after each rig cycle.

and I can probably get behind that, with a simplier version than what you did.

Perhaps we start at Base Rate X. And then after each rig cycle it increases by 15 + 10 per rank, or something like that. So a high rank spy can ratchet up the success rate quite a bit, but it still takes a cycle or two to hit the big numbers

 

[azum4roll]

--I HATE UIs that lie to me, I will never push for that mechanic to be honest. To me a counterspy is undercover because it doesn't get killed by the foreign spy, not because of some secret UI element. An heck you see it in spy movies all the time. The agent has heard about some "legendary spy hunter" in the city but doesn't have any hard intel on them, and so has to proceed cautiously....but still has a mission to perform.

Check my draft. Counterspy is NOT factored in security level (the stars), but affects the success rate of tactical missions, which is shown on the UI, which requires your spy to be in the city.

Eh, most of our discussions people have found diplomats pretty watered down, I rarely see people think a diplomat is worth giving up spy benefits for. With this version, the two work together, sure 2 spies might give you more bang for your buck, but a diplomat helps your other spies out in that key city you really want to do a mission in, and the diplomat now levels quickly so it might be a good spy later down the road.

You want to trade votes with your friends, but you want to spy on your enemies.

I include a gold steal because everyone seems to want a gold steal.

Yet I see no reason why you can't include it in "rigs".

Its the same stuff as today for CS coups. 5 turns to get a new spy, you have to redeploy the spy in a city and set it up, 15 turns minimum before you can coup in the same city regardless.

Don't forget failed coups set your influence to -60, AND success rate heavily depends on influence difference. Failing this merely gives a diplomatic penalty, which doesn't matter if you already hate each other.

I wanted to ensure the counterspy always feels useful even if its just sitting around with no foreign spies. This version gives your city a nice benefit, the counterspy gets a lot of xp, and it still gets some yields (not as much as if it was out steal science, but a decent amount). And of course if it does kill a spy it gets a big load of XP.

At the end of the day I wanted to make counterspies useful without creating all these other subsystems that we have seen in the various proposals to that. There is so much unnecessary complexity to me. This version creates a counterspy that gives some nice benefits while leveling the spy quickly so its ready for prime time out in the world.

It's exactly what I DON'T like with the current counterspies. They just passively give happiness, defense, yields etc. if you forgo active spying. Sounds similar to Sakoku Japan?

So I was thinking about this point some more, and I were to compare my formula to yours, the most fundamental difference is:

In my formula, rank provides a benefit "straight up". In your formula, it only improves the rate at which the mission improves after each rig cycle.

and I can probably get behind that, with a simplier version than what you did.

Perhaps we start at Base Rate X. And then after each rig cycle it increases by 15 + 10 per rank, or something like that. So a high rank spy can ratchet up the success rate quite a bit, but it still takes a cycle or two to hit the big numbers

The formula will never work without exponents.

 

[Stalker0]

Check my draft. Counterspy is NOT factored in security level (the stars), but affects the success rate of tactical missions, which is shown on the UI, which requires your spy to be in the city.

--So we agree then that counterspies are ok to show in the UI then? I mean we are both using them to affect the rate of tactical missions just in different ways.

You want to trade votes with your friends, but you want to spy on your enemies.

--the best diplomatic corpses take what the spies give them to make the best deals

Yet I see no reason why you can't include it in "rigs".

I wanted to keep the rigs as simple as possible, aka just like a rig in a CS does a single thing, a rig in a city also does a single thing. No "list of missions" here. Now I choose science, others might want gold....but I think its important to choose one and stick with it. The mission lists are for coups not rigs.

It's exactly what I DON'T like with the current counterspies. They just passively give happiness, defense, yields etc. if you forgo active spying. Sounds similar to Sakoku Japan?

Its not just foregoing spying though, you are making a choice to go defense over offense. The key benefit in my version though is you get some yields to compensate (not a lot but some) but more importantly, you get a lot of XP, so counterspy is a great way to get your spy in fighting shape.

So its less Sokuku and more ITR vs ETR. ITRs don't get all the sexy things that ETRs do, but sometimes you just need something nice, safe, and steady that gets the job done.

The formula will never work without exponents.

I'm not so sure about that. So if I ignore the special stuff you added in like the tech/policy different or covert action, the exponent is really only the security level.

A look at some excel work differences between your formula and mine, and frankly the difference isn't that great at a good amount of the values. At 50, 75, 90% sucess ranges, our formula both reduce the success change by a similar amount, with mine being a little harsher most of the times. The big difference is at the very highest security values, at those values your system normally tanks the success rate (except weirdly at 100% success, in which case security has no impact at all), where as mine of course works more linearally.

But I don't see any evidence that scaling is so off that a linear formula cannot work.

 

[azum4roll]

--So we agree then that counterspies are ok to show in the UI then? I mean we are both using them to affect the rate of tactical missions just in different ways.

They should show when you've made some engagement, like sending a spy to the city. But in your draft you can already see all counterspies without sending any of your spies.

But I don't see any evidence that scaling is so off that a linear formula cannot work.

It can work if you can keep the initial success rate (when the spy just arrives) far away from 100% and not below 0%. But seeing that base success rate has a 40% variance and security level has 50%, it isn't happening.

 

[Stalker0]

They should show when you've made some engagement, like sending a spy to the city. But in your draft you can already see all counterspies without sending any of your spies.

Keep in mind that there always a variance in a city's security score due to the "civilian security" factor. So a city with a security score of 25 might have a constabulary and a counterspy....or perhaps a constabulary and a 15 bonus from civilian security. Or maybe it has a counterspy and a 10 civilian security bonus, etc.

 

[azum4roll]

Keep in mind that there always a variance in a city's security score due to the "civilian security" factor. So a city with a security score of 25 might have a constabulary and a counterspy....or perhaps a constabulary and a 15 bonus from civilian security. Or maybe it has a counterspy and a 10 civilian security bonus, etc.

Then it's worse - sometimes you know exactly whether there's a counterspy (with some calculations in your head), and sometimes there's a 60% chance there's a counterspy.
Why not show on the UI if you want info to be known? Hiding it sometimes is a not a good mechanic.

 

[Stalker0]

updated to version 2.1, changelog in OP

 

[axatin]

A few thought about this:
- The randomness of the "Steal Research" passive mission isn't optimal. Randomness is only a good mechanic if it's controllable (like in coups where chances can be increased by waiting). Also, it's inconsistent that failing to rig a CS election does not increase rigging chances, but failing to steal science from a major civ does. Players might be confused by this. (This is a minor issue, however.)
- I like it that spy missions can now have a more direct effect on victory. The mission to reduce tourism can delay CV quite a bit, and the mission to steal votes can delay DV. This makes the spy game much more interesting and relevant.
- On the other hand, a very careful balancing is required for these missions. The mission to steal a vote can be done in any city, so when used against a wide player it may well delay their DV by one or two sessions if the coups are planned in advance and timed well. If multiple civs team up and use their spies against the capital of a CV contender, a tourism reduction being in effect every 15 of 20 turns can also delay their victory quite a bit.
- As to the counterspy/security level discussion: It should definitely be avoided that a player can use a detailed knowledge of formulas/modifier values to deduce information that's not directly visible. Counterspies should be shown in the UI if they increase security.

- My biggest problem with this: How to train the AI to use such a system? There are a lot of strategic decisions here (frankly, I wouldn't know myself what's the best way to use it without having played some games). It will be very difficult to teach the AI how to use it, and if they don't use it well then human players will have one more late-game advantage over the AI

 

[azum4roll]

- My biggest problem with this: How to train the AI to use such a system? There are a lot of strategic decisions here (frankly, I wouldn't know myself what's the best way to use it without having played some games). It will be very difficult to teach the AI how to use it, and if they don't use it well then human players will have one more late-game advantage over the AI

What about the current AI? Do they strategically avoid (potentially) crowded places?

 

[Stalker0]

A few thought about this:
- The randomness of the "Steal Research" passive mission isn't optimal.

There seems to be a pretty wide divide in the community on this kind of topic. Some seem to really enjoy a random element, others hate any measure of randomness fiercly.

Ultimately what convinced me to go in this direction is the consistency with the CS rigging mechanic. Merging the two systems more closely provides an elegant design where players are working with similar mechanics however, they choose to use spies.

 

[axatin]

What about the current AI? Do they strategically avoid (potentially) crowded places?

They don‘t go into cities with no available missions (an information cheat btw). Other than that, the main criterion is economic strength of the city. The scoring could use a rework anyway.

 

[Stalker0]

The more I've thought about this, the more I keep feeling like we are fumbling on the dark, trying to create a system that appeals to people with very little insight into what peole actually want out of the system. also this congress is looking packed.

So I've had an idea for a system I'm going to draft up in a bit, that is designed to be very very simple and return more closely to the very original espionage system. That will be a good barometer to measure interest. If people like this it suggest that making espionage complex was just the wrong approach and people just want something simple and easy.

If that's just lambasted than that does suggest complexity and interesting mechanics is the way people want it, and then we can continue to debate the devil from those details.

 

[usadefcon1]

The more I've thought about this, the more I keep feeling like we are fumbling on the dark, trying to create a system that appeals to people with very little insight into what peole actually want out of the system. also this congress is looking packed.

So I've had an idea for a system I'm going to draft up in a bit, that is designed to be very very simple and return more closely to the very original espionage system. That will be a good barometer to measure interest. If people like this it suggest that making espionage complex was just the wrong approach and people just want something simple and easy.

If that's just lambasted than that does suggest complexity and interesting mechanics is the way people want it, and then we can continue to debate the devil from those details.

Active missions is definitely the way to go if the AI can handle it. Or else it's just a spreadsheet

 

[azum4roll]

I don't think anyone dislikes the parity with rig/coup.