Stealing technogies good idea?

[apocalypse105]

I was reading some info and saw some shreenshots and I was wondering if i am the only one who is a little bit cautious about the spies be able to steal technogies.

Is there any info about this ? How much time they can do it and how much time they need to recover after doing it?


It seems that by adding a lot of new technologies and the fact that you're only able to sign reserach agreements if you have A DOF
It seems the time it takes to progress through the tech tree is droped down wich is a good thing.

However if you are able to steel a lot o technologies wouldn't this affect the speed the game progresses in a bad way just like great scientist currently are?

What do you guys thinx ?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm sure the ability is tempered by several factors, not the least of which is the difficulty to the spy and how long it takes to build up "Potential" for the mission. You may want to get your spy triggering coups and rigging elections to get it levelled up before you attempt to use it to steal tech. There are also buildings like the police station which apparently resist tech stealing. Not to mention the Great Firewall.

 

[Ajuga]

You most likely can't steal any technologies you can't research yet.

 

[apocalypse105]

Still I am wondering what if you can do it a lot of times fast

 

[Gintoki89]

I doubt it. It's one of the most powerful things that we've heard that a spy can do, and given that every spy action except coups has taken a number of turns, I could easily see tech stealing taking a LOT of turns. It may also be easier to discover than other actions, meaning a high risk high reward setup.

 

[claestw]

Wasn't there tech stealing in Civ 4? I didn't play that version but I remember reading a play story where the player redirected his science investments almost entirely into espionage, and was able to maintain tech parity with AI in this way. Can't remember how he won, though.

It would open up interesting possibilities. For example, aiming for cultural victory means you could invest in espionage for the sole purpose of keeping up military tech parity so you won't face invasion by a more advanced army, but you'll also never be able to achieve a tech advantage. Although that may only be doable with a slider system, not in Civ 5 where population = everything.

 

[GenjiKhan]

Seems to be a very nice idea,because such tool won't be useful for those who have tech leading in the game,which instead,can use spies for other things . What I'm wondering now is how late social policies(Order/Autocracy/Freedom) will affect espionage .

 

[Serutan]

In Civ 3, a failed tech steal often meant a DOW against you. Wouldn't be surprised if that risk
isn't here, too.

 

[Rolaran]

Tech stealing was central in Alpha Centauri as well as I recall; the University faction got a bonus to science but a penalty to espionage meaning they generally had the best tech but couldn't keep up any protection worth beans. But getting caught trying to do it was pretty much a guaranteed war.

 

[nokmirt]

I do not feel it should be easy to steal tech. The reason I like the idea is that more DoFs will be signed for RAs, splitting the playing field into into groups of civs, sharing friendships. Also, the human player will not be so afraid to sign them anymore, because of potential diplo penalties that could result. This diversifies allegiances within diplomacy, which is in a large part what the game needs.

In the current game signing DoFs is not a smart thing to do in the diplomatic scheme of things. I am glad to see that changed, so it becomes beneficial to sign them. For more than just the purpose of signing RAs. Hopefully this leads to more longer lasting relationships between civs. At the same time, forms up more than just two main groups of civs, potentially against each other. On larger maps diplomacy should be quite interesting.