Espionage Options Extremely Disappointing!!

[Atahualpa]

Blow up buildings should be in.

As we have seen last month this IS possible and realistic too.


But no, since now such a terrible act has committed NOBODY must mention it anytime again. And everybody must not show anything that could be related to this tragedy.
This will become the same **** political correctness has become.


Sincerely,
ata

[Dimension]

OMG.

I can't believe how many pathetic people actually said, "YES! That's great that they took out tech stealing! It's so unfair!"

There is not a single legitimate reason to complain about spies stealing techs. If you are in the tech lead, it's because you have focused more on research than anyone else. The more focused you are on research, the less adequate your defense is. If you have inadequate defense, you should be punished.

I mean seriously, excuse me if I can't stop laughing at how ignorant it is to say spies are overpowered. LOOK AT THE SPY. It's not a battleship with 50 defense. It's a pathetic little spy that dies horribly to any other unit. Taking out tech stealing would be awful, because it's the only hope for someone who has bad luck and needs to play catch-up. If the enemy has tanks, you're not going to build enough spearmen to stop them. You have to get your own tanks. A spy is such a cheap unit to build. If you're in the tech lead you have no excuse for not being able to have a few spies on defense at your ports and borders.

And thank God that bombers can destroy improvements now that spies can't. Civ2 and SMAC are both ridiculously skewed in favor of an expansionist builder strategy focusing on research. Sure, it would be nice if you couldn't skip entire generations of technology when you steal it, but people keep bringing that up, and it certainly isn't the biggest realism issue I can think of. What about in Civ2 when a plane takes one turn to fly to its destination one one turn to fly back? Did the plane have two years of fuel? What about all the OCC players? Does that make any sense at all for that to be possible?

If there was ever any argument that spies were overpowered, it was in SMAC when you could make Probe Foils (spy boats) very early in the game. SMAC also had the option to "infiltrate datalinks," which gives you an embassy and lets you see what every enemy city is producing for the rest of the game. There was also a secret project (wonder) that gave you free inflitration of every enemy civlilzation. Even that could be dealt with easily. You just had to build your own spies and infiltrate everybody to even the field, and even if they were using spy boats, you could defend with regular spies which were cheaper to make. Defense in general was also tougher in SMAC, because railroads (mag tubes) showed up much later in the game. Still the game wasn't unbalanced, and most people would tell you that spying was one of the most fun aspects of SMAC.

Spies are much weaker in Civ3. They can't blow up improvements. They can't plant nuclear devices or poison the water supply. Someone's not going to overwhelm you with spies, because if you declare war, they can't use your railroads.

I only wish they had made nukes in Civ3 work like they did in SMAC. Nukes didn't just kill units and cause a population decrease--they obliterated the city and turned the entire radius into a lake.

If anything was too powerful in Civ2, it was diplomacy. I know it's changed a lot in Civ3, and I certainly hope it isn't nearly as useful. Let's say Genghis Khan rides up to your back door, and your civilization is much weaker. If you show him how to make gunpowder and explain your research on iron working, do you think he will become "worshipful" and go away, thanking you for the info?

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Dimension

I can't believe how many pathetic people actually said, "YES! That's great that they took out tech stealing! It's so unfair!"
...
I mean seriously, excuse me if I can't stop laughing at how ignorant it is to say spies are overpowered. LOOK AT THE SPY. It's not a battleship with 50 defense. It's a pathetic little spy that dies horribly to any other unit.
...
If anything was too powerful in Civ2, it was diplomacy. I know it's changed a lot in Civ3, and I certainly hope it isn't nearly as useful. Let's say Genghis Khan rides up to your back door, and your civilization is much weaker. If you show him how to make gunpowder and explain your research on iron working, do you think he will become "worshipful" and go away, thanking you for the info?

I want to read more posts such as this one!

[Dogbert]

I like it as it is.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK,
My feeling on the whole "steal tech" issue is that, though I'm glad it's in, I had hoped that it would work differently.
What I hoped for was that, if you announce you want to steal tech from a more advanced Civ, then you would gain a massive boost to your current research!
For example, if you are currently researching metallurgy, and it normally takes 20 turns-then stealing this technology from a more advanced Civ might give you 10 "free turns" worth of research!!
The number of "free turns" you'd get would depend on the tech type, eg. military/economic advances would give you the greater bonus, wheras cultural/theoretical advances (like Philosphy or Free Artistry) might only get you 2-3 extra turns along (representing the more "nebulous" nature of such advances). Having Scientific method should give you a greater "free turn" bonus for any tech stolen, to represent your Civs ability to more accurately reverse engineer any stolen research!
As for poison water supply (Bioterrorism), should definitely be in, as it will now be a more balanced weapon with the introduction of hospitals!
Additionally, sabotaging existing improvements and planting nuclear devices sould most definitely BE IN!!!!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.