SPIES... Good or Bad for game balance

[drake]

In a game where war is prevelant, and people like to have fun, surrendering should only happen after atleast one attempt at david bringing down goliath.

I think the most fun game I ever played (mainly because of the end result ), was the one with Suas, Epik and Sun. Suas and Epik were much more advanced in science than sun and I, and Suas's empire was gargantuan. But us underdogs duked em out right anyway and it was tons of fun. Sun was launching nukes as fast as he could make them and I was slowly eating Suas's resources away with my tanks and howitzers, funded by my Fundy govt.

The year before Suas's ship was to land, a spy infiltrated America, and nuked the crap out of his cap. Ship returned. Several turns later Epik launched his ship, and my ground units were able to sack his capital as well.........without the use of a spy I would have had no chance to make these things happen and goliath would have won. And how boring and predictable that wouldve been....spies give the outclassed civ atleast a small shot, so I say bless the little bastards!

[Deity Dude]

if nothing else they should be called terrorists instead of spies

[Smash]

If you're ahead they suck.
If you're behind they rule.

Unfortunately most games never come close to seeing what can be done with them.Being the "leader" means nothing when the lovely ladies are about

[atawa]

Originally posted by Smash
If you're ahead they suck.
If you're behind they rule.

Unfortunately most games never come close to seeing what can be done with them.Being the "leader" means nothing when the lovely ladies are about

They are quite good when you're ahead actualy.

Just make sure peole cant steal it on the turn you invent espionage.
Then start sending out the hordes

[War4ever]

I think the whole point here is that spies just ruin the game , kinda like howies and nukes......

nothing worse than your size 24 city being reduced to 1 when a few spies poison the water supply....

if your going to limit nukes in a game for gameplay balance...i firmly believe the spy should be eliminated as well....

howies i can live with.....but spies move three spaces ignore ZOC and , well are pretty much going to wreak havoc... on both sides of the coin...

your whole civ can be ruined without firing a shot....seems silly to me...

but we still play with them and your right, when your behind , it seems like the only even upper....especially with the repeated tech stealing abilities

[rah]

It makes it too easy to catch up. You can have played your best game ever, and it doesn't count for anything.

Of course the easiest solution is to eliminate or so totaly devasted your opponents prior so they'll refuse to continue.

RAH

[War4ever]

the topic of spies really does need to be adressed one way or another for Rah rules..... although spies are not in every game, fast players and an early start = spies....

with intra kd trading , its not unlikely to reach these little monsters...but if were not curbing them, then i will continue to build nukes and launch them

[rah]

If we get enough players discussing this in the RAH rules thread. We can probably come to an agreement.

[War4ever]

well thats what the spy thread is all about .......to talk about it, it doesn't matter where we do it ..so long as others in the forum voice theri opinion, then we can do a poll and Democracy rules

[rah]

Heck, I like to see some of other regulars check in here and voice their opinion. Like Barono, Markus, Passout, FF, Berz, Smartfart, etc.

[markusf]

If there is no water between you and the other guy, the one with the most spies wins. First you destroy all improvements then you posion all cities down to size one. If you come at someone with 40 spies and they don't have any spy defenders they are toast.
spy = poor mans nuke

[rah]

So what's your opinion about whether they should be in the game or not?

Rich

[markusf]

Originally posted by rah
So what's your opinion about whether they should be in the game or not?

Rich

depends on if i am winning or not

The spy nuke should be banned but other then that they are ok..., but franky you got a far bigger problem with howies/artillery.

[War4ever]

the poison water should be banned too...howies should have mp reduced to 1 then you can't drop and roll

[ravagon]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
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.

1. I don't think you can do this without changing the units slot. If you do change the slot it will become identical to a diplo save for the obvious differences in the unit parameters in the rules.txt entry.

2. If nukes are out anyway then you can just disable nuc fission (IIRC) and they won't ever have the option.
Tech tree will still have to be reconnected though

3.
(a) How about raising the cost to a hundred or so? Make their "masters" much more circumspect about throwing them away unless they happen to be evil commies or something.
Reduce the movement to 2 as well - same as dips.

(b) Can't be done without changing the units role ie: its no longer a spy/diplo.


Wrt howitzers - how about boosting the attack a couple of points and then dropping the "walls" flag? Or the other way around - reduce its attack strength a couple of points.
Though this would make the infamous mountain cities basically invincible without reducing the terrain defensive bonus a bit ... ... actually I probably don't really want to bring that up again do I?