SPIES... Good or Bad for game balance

[War4ever]

hey Ming started the thread didn't he

i was paying attention

fine..Steam Engine...your rules after all

fine with pyramids too

[rah]

Those were just my opinions and not meant to be final. I hope it didn't sound that way.

I would like to wait to see what others think.

RAH

[War4ever]

agreed...but seeing as You, Ming and I are the three regulars for this group i figured our votes counted for more....

everyone else just sort of fills in

[rah]

As the sacred holder of "RAH RULES", that last statement from WAR4 does not reflect the opinions of management. All the regular's opinions are important.

RAH
Take that!

[War4ever]

typical upper management.....can't handle the controversy supplied by its workers

[rah]

That's why I get paid the big BUCKS.
Sensitive to the needs of all the little people

RAH

[War4ever]

lol...fair enough, i need to run...take this blond hair dye out ......good chatting with you...lets implement those changes into rah rules and don't go on the river boat ...but if you do....good luck

[-Jrabbit]

I know I'm not a MP regular, but the issue of spies and game balance is of interest to me. (Probably because they're a great crutch for an inexperienced player like me )

Looking at the incredible upgrade in abilities you get compared to dips (WAY out of proportion to any other incremental unit change in the game), the question is not "Good or bad for game balance" but rather "Obviously bad -- so what do we do about it?"

If I could redesign them, I'd do 3 things --

1. Make them disappear like dips when used (except for Investigate City/Establish Embassy free, which seems fair enough).
2. Eliminate suitcase nuke. This is just stupid and unfair.
3. One of the following
(a) Raise the cost (40? 50?) or
(b) Charge the home city 1-2 GP per turn for upkeep.

[StrategicKingMi]

Best way to defend against them, is not to allow them close to your citys in the first place.
In battles where each player has a different cont, you can do this by destroying any city in range of your cont long before espinage is created and in other areas by bypassing possible targets of destroyers/cruisers that are usually unstacked and searching for transports or double stacked ships.
Or use rules.txt to increase thier cost to like 80 -100 gold which is equivelent to thier value.

[deity]

They are very powerfull but I like them.
It's a strategic choice and a good part of the overall game balance.

[rah]

Originally posted by StrategicKingMi
Best way to defend against them, is not to allow them close to your citys in the first place.
In battles where each player has a different cont, you can do this by destroying any city in range of your cont long before espinage is created and in other areas by bypassing possible targets of destroyers/cruisers that are usually unstacked and searching for transports or double stacked ships.
Or use rules.txt to increase thier cost to like 80 -100 gold which is equivelent to thier value.

Well that's the rub. When we play, a 39-49 map with large continents means you're all on the same darn continent, and you're not that far from each other. So keeping their cities far from yours usually isn't very realistic. Also on that small of a map, some of your cities are near the coast, and while a good navy helps defend that, it's not a guarentee. By the time espionage comes, the borders are a bit blurry.

Even 80-100 gold may be undervalued for a vet spy, considering the same spy may be able to destroy over a 1000 shields of an enemies production and gain you 3 or 4 caravans worth of tech bonus.

RAH

[Chris 62]

God, I loathe the little monsters.

They are a disaster, I'll never understand the rationel for their addition to the game, they should be banished forever into the void.

A word of caution, you can muck around with them change their abilites, but it does strange things to the Civ-2 MGE engine, in some scenarios were they are altered and removed diplomancy is impossible (I know this sounds odd, but it happens), and I have seen it where the Diplo/spy will not funtion (you attempt to move it into an enemy city, but the spy subscreen will not activate).

As for play balence, I think it destroys the hard work of good players, is a cheap fix for the weaker player, and an EXTREMLY unfair advantge to the strong player.

The damn things force you to sometimes stay in democracy when you'd rather go fundy and whip some bum's backside.

In one HOTW game 2 of my diplos destroyed an attacking army of 17 Crusaders (I bribed two, and ol Ozzy had several nice stacks ready to be crushed nearby), a totally nonsense result considering I only had 28 units at turn's start and was the victim of a sneak attack.

You can house rule them to no city bribe, but for me personally, they suck, and I can easily live without them.

[Caesar the Great]

well... most of my games usually don't last long enough to see espionage... but even in early games as soon as players get writing it almost becomes diplomat wars, stacking units to prevent bribes, building cities on rough terrain so opponents can't steal techs etc

on the other hand i've generally been fond of wars of attrition...

but on the other hand stealing multiple techs from the same city doesn't really seem right, and suitcase nukes are a bit too powerful... but if their cost was raised and say they expired by laser?

[drake]

Yes, but Chris, when an insurmountable lead is achieved by ones opponent, how else is the small, weak and underdeveloped player supposed to catch up with the big dog? Fighting dirty is the only way.

Hmm....sounds familiar doesnt it? (ME)

[Chris 62]

Abject surrender.

If your that far behind, it can't all be terrain or luck, the player had something to do with it.

Hate those little devils.