Espionage

[Ision]

Gentlemen,

Has an thought been given to the 'cost' of espionage missions? IMO they are far and away too expensive. I have seen AIs attempt to use spy missions, especialy as Commie govs in the late game.

Perhaps a quick look at this aspect of the game is in order.

Ision

[ZargonX]

I would agree that a reduction is costs is probably needed. The trick is finding the right range of price so it doesn't become too easy for the human player to abuse, but still within the realm of possibility for the AI.

[Nor Me]

It's only two months since you started the last thread on this and that didn't go anywhere.

Stealing tech is frequently worth it in the modern age, even for non-Communist civs. There seems little reason to change the cost of that. If the AI is using it as a Communist civ late in the game then it's likely to be gaining from it.

The AI doesn't gain from investigate city or steal plans. the price of Investigate City is competive and while Steal Plans is expensive, I've used it in the past when money has little other use. I've seen the AI steal plans and would imagine that making that cheaper might mean that they'd waste money on it more often. It might make sense to make it much more expensive so they'd never be able to afford it. But that would be taking a feature out of the game for minimal gain.

Instigate propaganda, sabotage production and expose enemy spy are things I know less about. At the moment they are only marginally useful to the player beacause they are so expensive. If they were cheaper, they might be useful to the player or AI. I still can't see the AI getting a bigger advantage than the player out of them.

Ision, do you have any actual proposals?

Has anyone seen the AI use any spy mission effectively or have evidence that they might be using one effectively, other than steal tech?

[Strollen]

I know I played a number of games (PTW I believe) with cost of espionage missions cut in 1/2. I don't remember the AI ever using any except for steal tech. IIR, the stealing tech came only during C3C games that had the double GPT bug because generally the AI is broke in most game.

So as far as helping the AI out, I'd say that reducing the cost of espionage missions doesn't do anything. However, the other purpose of AU mods is to give the players more strategic options.
At the current cost system it is almost always cheaper to trade for techs than to steal them. So stealing techs is almost never done, and the other espionage missions are even more over priced. The sole exception being plant spy.

I'd like to see an AU mod do something to make espionage a more important part of the game.