Espionage?

[kolpo]

Slover said this about espionage:

Originally posted by Solver
Espionage, I would say - it's not horribly useless, but I just feel it's underwhelming and not really excited.

I am an optimist, though, and view it as something to improve in the expansion .

Source: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...ge#post4068021

and this

Originally posted by Solver
Spies certainly don't cause unhappiness. Factors affecting their success? No idea.

The reason I have said that espionage is underwhelming is that I didn't find Spies crucial to my late game efforts. I found tham a convenient source of reconnaissance, but not an invaluable asset to wars. Thus, I almost never built and used Spies, which is why I can't say that much about them.

Source: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...ge#post4078580

[JonahFalcon]

Originally posted by lockstep
Yep. And BTW, SMAC's AI was quite capable in using spies ('probe teams').

Too well. Damned annoying.

[Sirotnikov]

If you remember I posted a really long espionage revamp suggestion.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3631507

I know it is a bit... erm... much. I really like the fact that the spy is back, but I thnk that the espionage screen put to use together with the unit would be excellent.

This, and I want to suggest that spies should really take a more valuable asset position in the late game, both uring peace and war. It is both more fun, and frankly, more realistic.

[Stormhound]

Originally posted by MarkG
hey Stormhound! it's good to see all the all apolytoners returning home

It's not so much that I've been away, as I've had little time and even less to say. I no longer find the game development process so fascinating as I once did, and to be on the fan side of it is nearly excruciating. So by and large, I stay out of it and just check for updates now and again.

I'm looking forward to Civ4 because the Civx and MOx games have been hands down my favorites for many years (heck, I even dug out my old MOM copy and played a couple of games recently). Going to be having some fun soon...

[kolpo]

I think that espionage is an extremely hard thing to balance. Having the ability to simply buy cities, like in civ2, is absurd and completely overpowered. It was even more absurd when you could keep good relations with empires who you where buying(trying to buy all their cities with spies).

It was also absurd that you could use nuclear terrorism against civilizations and still maintain peace

But if you remove those 2 options becomes spying suddenly a weak and even irrelavant thing. I think that spies should not win wars on their own(like in civ2) nor be irrelavant(like in civ3). But actually doing this is extremely hard and a nightmare to balance.

[Bane]

Good point!

[Verenti]

If Russia planted a nuclear bomb in America and left no trace that it the had anything to do with it (usually this would involve a forgery of evidence), Why would America blame Russia?

Example: Sum of All Fears. German Ultra-Nationalists plant a bomb and USA almost nukes Russia

[GeoModder]

In any case, America would bomb something in return, that's for sure.

[Guynemer]

Blame Canada.

[Sirotnikov]

That's not a good thing to do.

Israel is frowned upon alot, since Mossad abuses Canadian passports

[GeoModder]

They'll get used to it, as Belgian passports have done.

[Trifna]

Hopefully someday my dream spy-system will come true: build a network of spy teams, and act from it

[tuckson]

Originally posted by kolpo
I think that espionage is an extremely hard thing to balance. Having the ability to simply buy cities, like in civ2, is absurd and completely overpowered. It was even more absurd when you could keep good relations with empires who you where buying(trying to buy all their cities with spies).

It was also absurd that you could use nuclear terrorism against civilizations and still maintain peace

But if you remove those 2 options becomes spying suddenly a weak and even irrelavant thing. I think that spies should not win wars on their own(like in civ2) nor be irrelavant(like in civ3). But actually doing this is extremely hard and a nightmare to balance.

Actually, I nearly never used the spy to buy cities or plant nuclear devices. What I very often did and liked was stealing techs and sabotage production. these are the only thing I needed spies for (OK, and a city investigation now and then, however this proved pretty useless if you saw a city without walls and only 2 defenders resisting your attacks turn after turn ).

Originally posted by GeoModder
In any case, America would bomb something in return, that's for sure.

At this moment, Iran would probably the most likely.

[animaster]

The chanse to steal techs was a good way for slow builders to do the research. Offcourse if detected the consequenses may be eventfull.

[Spocko]

So far, I've used spies (naming them Samantha, Deborah, Veronica... just because I can) to destroy tile improvements. I've noticed that they don't seem to gain experience, and that there are no promotions availablef or them, as far as I can tell.

They have a "level" associated with them, I'm hoping that they gain abilities as they gain levels, assuming they gain levels by surviving their own exploits.

So far, I've had two "detained" - maybe a mod could make a prisoner exchange possible? It would be good to recover a detained spy, bring them home to Scotland Yard, and then learn more about the "enemy" Civ via debriefing. Hmmm... I'll add that to my list of mod quests.