Espionage & Assymetrical Warfare

[Kuciwalker]

The point is, it makes more sense to abstract it, and have a certain % chance the person is caught.

[Shogun Gunner]

I would rather have a unit that needs to be coordinated with other friendly units, have a chance of being caught/intercepted, and if caught - the enemy is not sure what the mission of the unit was.

If someone launched this attack against me, especially in MP, I would like to have at least one chance to evaluate the situation, decide on what type of countermeasures, etc. I don't want it left to the computer for a simple calculation of probability.

[Kuciwalker]

So you want to go to the utter unrealism of building a transport to send your spy to the other county? Of having the spy take up an ENTIRE TILE?

[Fosse]

Getting rid of untis doesn't mean leaving everything to the random number generator. GalCiv has both active and passive espionage, so that you are pitting what you are willing to spend on counter-espionage against what the other guy is willing to spend on espionage. That is essentially the same as using units (how much production are you willing to put into "guard spies" vs. how much they will spend on "attack spies."), except it reduces micromanagement and puts you in a position to feel like you are really running a country.

Instead of building dozens of spies and sending them on their ways tile by tile, you invest in intelligence and give directives. Civ 3 spies were awful. Just terrible. The idea to abstract them was good, the implementation was a killer. Civ 4 can have great spies, abstracted, and with enormously better implementation than in Civ 3.

[Shogun Gunner]

Interesting point Fosse. Perhaps that is my aversion to abstraction. I liked the spy actions in Civ2 better than Civ3. In Civ3, I never use the spy functions...its too expensive and easier to accomplish military goals via other methods. An the AI is so quick to declare war when you drop a spy in his capital.

Regarding a unit or not, it is nice to have a tangible presence on the battlefield -- especially in enemy territory. As far as a "whole" square, well they need to sit somewhere, but no, they wouldn't take up the whole square.

Regarding transport - yes if it is a unit, it would be a little silly to have an entire unit of transports to take one guy -- maybe a team of spies -- to enemy territory. I agree with you there skywalker.

[Fosse]

I remember in the List for Civ 3 somebody said we should assign "bulk" values to all units. So you don't get ships that can carry eight tanks but not nine spies.

That is a good idea whether or not spy units are in. But if there are spy units, clearly they would have a very small "bulk" rating.

[wrylachlan]

Not sure whether I'd like a spy to be a unit or abstraction, but if it was a unit -

Make it an amphibious unit with the same ocean movement as your fastest transport. This would model the fact that it's on board a civilian transport.

As for the 1 per tile thing, we're talking in another thread about submarines, and how they should be able to "go under" enemy units. Once that mechanism is in place, spies should work exactly the same. If you can't see the spy it can occupie the same tile as an enemy.

Obviously there needs to be some resolution of what happens when you discover a spy or sub in the same tile as your units. The specifics can be worked out, but the bottom line is that its possible.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Make it an amphibious unit with the same ocean movement as your fastest transport. This would model the fact that it's on board a civilian transport.

As for the 1 per tile thing, we're talking in another thread about submarines, and how they should be able to "go under" enemy units. Once that mechanism is in place, spies should work exactly the same. If you can't see the spy it can occupie the same tile as an enemy.

Obviously there needs to be some resolution of what happens when you discover a spy or sub in the same tile as your units. The specifics can be worked out, but the bottom line is that its possible.

for the first paragraph
for the second paragraph
for the third paragraph

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
for the first paragraph
for the second paragraph
for the third paragraph

As a corollary, to make it more realistic, during wartime, the spy unit appears as a transport when on the ocean. After all, you can't really expect a civilian transport from another civ to be able to get through your forces unmolested.

One of the problems with having the spy as a unit is how do you differentiate potential spying activities with "just passing through"? If America wants to spy on Russia, it sends a spy unit by plane to allied Germany. Before the spy can get to Russia, the Germans "discover" it. Does your relationship with Germany sour? Even though the spy was meant for Russia and just passing through?

My solution to this problem is that if a friendly nation sees a spy, there is no problem. BUT... they keep track of that spy. If you try to USE that spy, his attempt allways fails and you get a reputation hit. If an enemy nation sees a spy they kill it on sight, or maybe capture it to trade it back in exchange for one of theirs.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by skywalker
So you want to go to the utter unrealism of building a transport to send your spy to the other county? Of having the spy take up an ENTIRE TILE?

Yes - its certainly not any more unreal than infinite rail movement.

Nothing like making the player actually have to go to the trouble to pre-plan for an event either...

[Kuciwalker]

Yes - its certainly not any more unreal than infinite rail movement.

Which you know I don't support

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by skywalker

Yes - its certainly not any more unreal than infinite rail movement.

Which you know I don't support

Actually, I should of used the concept of sending a units into battle one at a time as the only way to resolve conflicts as my example of unrealism...

...but I digress

[Merp]

One of the good things about Assymetric units over abstractions is that as a unit it more easily becomes part of your turn to think about such things. Espionage and the like abstracted into separate screens makes it too easy to forget, IMO.

I'm a big fan of incorporating leaders and personalities more into Civ4. As part of this, maybe we could increase the distinction between leaders/personalities and normal units. ie. Leaders and personalities don't follow the normal rules for military units, be it visibility, hidden nationality, immunity to ZOC. In this way a spy for example could travel on the enemies trade network unmolested, use his airports, travel faster, coexist in tiles shared by the enemy, etc.

Another aspect of this could be that while units can't be bribed, unit leaders and ministers / advisors can. Furthermore a caught spy could be turned and become a double agent.

One gimmick in regards to visibility of assymetric units or personalities is that after they make their attack, they become visible. I can imagine it would be great fun trying to get that spec ops team out of the country after it has assassinated a leader and the whole country's military is gunning for them :

[DarkCloud]

One of the good things about Assymetric units over abstractions is that as a unit it more easily becomes part of your turn to think about such things. Espionage and the like abstracted into separate screens makes it too easy to forget, IMO.

I agree Merp. I prefer units to absractions... although I do agree with the other that abstractions *could* be done in a realitively nice manner- I still think that units would be more in keeping with the civ spirit.

as for the comment about them taking up an entire tile- that's really just a stupid quibble- you can put more than 1 unit in any one tile... the tile-taking up is just a representation [and perhaps the spy represents a cadre of trained units... didja ever think of that? ]

However, this leads me to a suggestion about the map that civ uses... Perhaps, if many things are changed, then this map might be the best way for civ to go...

Civ could possible adopt a map like Shogun: Total War or Medieval: Total War in which the units are placed on sections of the national provinces. Therefore, instead of hexes or squares- the provinces can fluctuate in size as the culture of both a civ and of a city grow... Provinces could grow up around cities and have farms, etc. grow within them.

It would be a radical altering of civ- but one that would probably be necessary for aesthetic reasons if civ were to go 3D (oh horror) and to have a spherical globe

Just a suggestion

[DarkCloud]

and fosse's idea about bulk ratings for units would also serve the idea of a spy unit being less massive than armor, etc.

I would however, have to argue against the amphibious unit idea- I would rather have the spy transported by a transport and let off- just because it would seem strange to have the spy 'gliding across water' unless of course the graphical image were to change when it goes into water... and seemingly model a civilian cruiser carrying a spy unit... that would make sense.