Spies

[delsolsi]

I was wondering how many of you guys plant spies? When ever I try atleast one or two civ's find them when I try to get them in thier and their attitude goes from graciuos or polite to annoyed. I haven't even tried in my last couple of games because of this.

[spy14]

Reload if you fail, try again the turn after. The complaints will now start saying you shouldnt reload because you got a bad result...

[BeBMan]

Re: Spies

Originally posted by delsolsi
I was wondering how many of you guys plant spies? When ever I try atleast one or two civ's find them when I try to get them in thier and their attitude goes from graciuos or polite to annoyed. I haven't even tried in my last couple of games because of this.

In the worst case, they catch your spies and take it as a reason to declare war, so I rarely use spies - they´re not cost-effective enough...Also, I don´t like the spy menu, the good old civ2 spy units were better IMO

[dexters]

The good old Civ2 spies were overpowered.

I'm glad to see spying abstracted into a management style system where you don't see the spies but can call on their services.

That said, I think a few modifications can be made on spying, including lowering the cost of gathering intelligence. I understand the high cost of actual sabotage, but intelligence gathering need to be cheap enough to be used. And from what I gather, most people choose not to use their spy agency to gather intelligence because of the high cost.

I also think the spy agency should be available 2 to 3 techs sooners. It comes too late in the game.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by dexters
The good old Civ2 spies were overpowered.

Yes I agree, but for me they were also more fun as "real" units - it was more "action" (if you can use that word in a TBS game )

I´d like to see a compromise - on the one hand, a "management style system" like we have now to do certain tasks, on the other some units like special agents or commando units which can execute some special ops like sabotage, covered action during a "cold war" etc. They should be not too powerful to avoid the civ2 style "diplo-armies"...

[delsolsi]

Originally posted by spy14
Reload if you fail, try again the turn after. The complaints will now start saying you shouldnt reload because you got a bad result...

I don't like playing that way.

[alva]

if succesfull there quite usefull...
btw, you can even use as a provocation. let the AI declare war on you. try to have some mpp. this way it can be very usefull

[Coracle]

Espionage with the standard rules is insanely overpriced, and not very effective - unless you want to provoke another civ into declaring war on you so you can conquer them. The AI falls for that one every time.
Exposing an enemy spy is a real waste of time as if there is NO spy there it always causes an incident, which is illogical.

A spy in the enemy capital can tell you about their military. But it's not worth the effort; I can figure out his strength, approximately, in other ways.

Give me back Civ 2 spies, and caravans, instead of the tedious abstractions they've become in Civ 3.

[dexters]

God, Caravans? Civ 2 spies?

Coracle, you've just discredited yourself as an objective critic of Civ III. What you're suggesting is a Civ II expansion game, not Civ III, a game that for better or worse, is expected to play differently and introduce new things.

I hated the Caravans in Civ 2. It was a nightmare to move them around in the late game, let alone keep track of all the optimal trade routes. The overpowered spies and the ease with which anyone can deal a blow against the enemy make Soren's much maligned AI look like Deep Blue.

Keep playing Civ II. If your ideal for Civ III is something like Civilization II, it is a step back and most people here would rather not have anything to do with it.

[W4r_Machine]

There's pretty much a concensus the spies are NOT costeffective. It's easier to buy the tech than to steal it! You can't plant spies all at once cause one of them is bound to discover you.

[dexters]

The consensus is there, some people here just have a rather draconian view of how Firaxis should go about fixing it.

I personally want to push for cheaper intelligence gathering -- that means cheaper and more success in planting spies -- but if they want to keep sabotage missions expensive, i'm all for it. those stuff are too easy to exploit if made cheap.

[W4r_Machine]

Everyting about using spies are expensive. Embassies are cheaper, however lemited it is.

[dnassman]

In Civ2 you could buy cities relatively cheap but in Civ3 you need to launch a propaganda campaign that costs a lot and I haven't found it to work. Might only use spies if I can't get the other civ to declare war on me. Otherwise avoid as no real reason for needing them.

[Mannamagnus]

Is there no way we can edit the cost of espionage missions ourselves?

[vondrack]

Re: Spies

Originally posted by delsolsi
I was wondering how many of you guys plant spies? When ever I try atleast one or two civ's find them when I try to get them in thier and their attitude goes from graciuos or polite to annoyed. I haven't even tried in my last couple of games because of this.

I use spies only when it comes to a close space race, as they are the only safe way of finding how much of the spacecraft the other civ has built so far... I tend to plant them during wars, as they do not lower my already Furious rating then... or am prepared to take the consequences, if the spy gets caught.

But otherwise, I do agree that the mechanics of spying does not appeal to me and I avoid it almost entirely. The spies in Civ2 were very overpowered, that is right, but fun to use... spying in Civ3 is not fun.

I support the idea of lowering the cost of intelligence gathering, while maintaining sabotages expensive. As for propaganda, I do not really know - honestly, I have never tried to get a city using propaganda... as for me, Firaxis could leave this feature out and I would not notice.