Why did you castrate the Spys?

[snoopy369]

Spies aren't that much fun in Civ4... but they're not game-unbalancing. That's fine by me.

Civ is not about spies. It's an empire building TBS. Spies are not even secondary... they're a tertiary element of the game. However, they're an element that has the potential to destroy the game, if they're not very, very carefully balanced.

I'd rather them leave spies out entirely, than include them with unbalancing aspects to them (like Civ2).

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by yin26
That's exactly why the feature was taken out, I believe. The AI's absolute best hope of beating a good player is the Space Race. Also, the builder strategy would be a lot less appealing if warmongers were running all over the map picking up techs that they knew they could ignore to focus on military only.

I agree with this. As it is you can keep up in tech if you are warmongering, but it's not automatic so you always risk having to fight against advanced units if you don't consolidate your empire and make something of it.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Spies aren't that much fun in Civ4... but they're not game-unbalancing. That's fine by me.

Civ is not about spies. It's an empire building TBS. Spies are not even secondary... they're a tertiary element of the game. However, they're an element that has the potential to destroy the game, if they're not very, very carefully balanced.

I'd rather them leave spies out entirely, than include them with unbalancing aspects to them (like Civ2).

Hmm that's rather unambitious. There are lots of elements to the game (civics, buildings and units) that don't get used or are underused. Lets just leave them as they are because it's hard to make them worthwhile without losing what we have?

[Ming]

I would agree that the spies were totally unbalancing in Civ 2. It was silly the power they had. But as in many things, the solution was to go way too far in the other direction. Now, you need to get a late science, build a wonder, to be able to field a small number of units with limited capabilities... There must be some medium ground here

[Rancidlunchmeat]

I think the middle ground is pretty clear...

Leave their abilities they way they are but make them available much, much earlier.

I see lots of people discussing giving them more powers and making them available earlier to be more useful.

Just by making them available earlier, they'd become more useful.

[snoopy369]

My point is simply that spies are an unimportant aspect to the game; and that given the resources available (time and people), if it's not possible to perfectly balance spies, i'd rather leave them out.

Anyhow, I think that it'd be hard to make spies 'powerful enough' without making them unbalancing. Look at what people here are requesting...

Basically, spies are a tool for taking excess money and doing things with it. That's one of the crucial reasons spies are very hard to balance... because there are nearly always ways to get way too much money (whether that be through caravan spamming, or cottage-spamming) such that, if you allow spies to do *anything* useful, it's quite simply unbalancing and way too easy to exploit.

Quite frankly, if Sid had never included spies/diplomats in Civ (1), would we even be having this discussion? No. Spies aren't an important part of the game; what they are, is something people remember having 'fun' with in Civ2, largely because you could completely dominate (and thus destroy) the game with them. Spies aren't conducive to a good, challenging, well balanced game; they're fun to play with, nothing more.

Add into that, the fact that the AI can't really use spies well ... and I doubt could ever be made to use them well. It uses the current Civ4 one reasonably, particularly because it is basically just a pillaging unit (something the AI does anyway). However, give it the ability to conquer cities or destroy buildings, and there's simply no way the AI would really use it properly. It might use spies some, you could certainly program it to do so; but the time it would take to make the AI use spies even poorly would be time much better used improving the more important parts of the AI, like military strategy/tactics, and city building

Adding an element to the game that the AI can't use properly is generally a poor idea... because it shifts the game towards the player, requiring a complementary re-balance of the rest of the game ... which would then require players to use spies, or make the game that much harder for the players.

That said, there's no reason why spies couldn't easily be modded into the game for those people who would like to use them

[yin26]

Again, my problem is we get TONS of info for free as it is. Let the player work for that information a bit!

[DrSpike]

Yup.

Hardly a game killer.

[Son of David]

It sounds to me like a lot of you expert players don't play into the modern age a lot.

I use spies in practically every game where it's 'close' in terms of research, space ship etc into the late game; and for me this is almost every game!

Literally every end-game for me just turns into 'who can build spaceship parts the fastest'. The tech race goes completely out of control. I'd love to be able to use my spies to sabotage and steal enemy research. I don't particularly care if this is 'unbalancing'.

The modern age, it seems, has been neglected in this forthcoming expansion pack. Although this is okay because Firaxis have put so much attention into the ancient age.

[Xorbon]

I remember taking over entire empires with (only) diplomats/spies in Civs 1 and 2. Sometimes without even starting a war. As fun as that was, I'd rather do without that ability. It's like the Civ 1 artillery blitz - too unbalanced in favour of the human player.

[DrSpike]

Well I don't see anyone arguing that spies should be implemented as they were in Civ2. In fact I see a lot of people arguing the exact opposite.....................

[Xorbon]

I know. I was just reminiscing about the good old days.