Espionage Screen

[MidKnight Lament]

Urban Ranger - Good summary. I think it's important that we try to keep focused on the main things that an Espionage Screen would do, without getting too far into the nitty gritty of the numbers.

Having said that...

Harel - Thanks for another thorough examination of the possibilities. There's lots of good ideas in there. If possible however, it might be best if we nailed things down to what we considered the most important functions. Firaxis aren't going to implement anything that's too complicated.

Whilst a lot of these are good ideas, I was thinking more along the lines of spies 'acquiring' this knowledge based on their location and funding, rather than having 29 different 'actions'. Of course, some of them would be actions, such as bribing a city, or assasinating a leader.

Perhaps we should make a list of what a spy would be able to 'learn', and what things in that list would require an 'action'. Remembering of course that these actions would be initiated in the Espionage Screen rather than the normal map (in the spirit of the idea).

That's what I'm thinking anyway. What do you think?

- MKL

[This message has been edited by MidKnight Lament (edited March 17, 2000).]

[Urban Ranger]

Harel,

Since I am all for the creation of a Special Forces unit in Civ3, I feel that part of intelligence operations in your list really are "war-time operations" that can be only performed by the Special Forces unit.

MKL,

I was thinking about converting cities to your side. It occurred to me that this should be a lengthy operation with a very low chance of succeeding. A player should never be able to bribe an enemy city outright. What should happen should be the player must conduct a series of operations designed to fan separatist flames and to cultivate loyalty to your country. It should be after a number of turns before a player is given the option of trying to "bribe" the city, which to me is just a military uprising. However, success is not automatic, as the people you have been funding could acutally be more sympathetic to yet another country, or in some cases, want independence.

I reckon adding garrisons to a city does not reduce the chance of success, as there well maybe separatists in the armed forces. However, counterintelligence will put a damper on such operations, even completely shutting them down.

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audentes fortuna juvat
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited March 17, 2000).]

[Theben]

Oho, so it's your summary now, is it? Perhaps we should check to see who suggested what?

I know, you summarized it and yes it was a good one (except you reduced my suggestion to replace spy units with spy missions to one freaking sentence! ) It's just the way it comes across that looks so...arrogant.

Just use a little forethought next time. To others: don't let this list discourage you! More ideas are always welcome!
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Theben
Co-Moderator of the Civ3 Forums

[ajbera]

In a similar vein as 3.27 (Killing a National Leader), if the target city has any specialist citizens, they can also be targeted for assassination. Rather than losing an entire population point when the specialist is murdered, that citizen is automatically turned into an unhappy citizen for a turn or two (after this time it can be moved or made a specialist again). There are additional results dependent on the type of specialist. Assassinated entertainers cause an additional (temporary) point of unhappiness (possibly enough to encourage riots), murdered scientists cause a loss in current scientific research (lose 20% of current research on next discovery), and slain taxmen cause a loss of revenue (or something appropriate). This would simulate the effects of the killing of a singular important, high-profile citizen without incurring the unrealistic loss of a population point from the city where the terrorist attack took place.

[Sirotnikov]

In SMAC once you infiltrated enemy datalinks, you got full information about every detail of that nation for the rest of the game.

although I would like to have access to all of those things, but it's just too easy (or is it cause I was playing citizen level?).
Rules should be:

-You may have only some part of the info. You can choose what area or randomly let the spy decide.

-you lose the spy unit. it has to stay in the city and continue infiltrating

-you have access to info for some time, until your spy is discovered. the longer your spy stays the bigger the chance of discovery. or maybe after say 15 years the spy is so well nested, that his chance of discovery will get lower each year.

-spys will die: meaning after 40 - 70 years you lose the unit.

-if enemy has his psys in infiltrated city, chances of discovery are higher

-on dicovery of enemy spy (with your spy unit) you can choose what do do with him:
*a. assasination - will get rid of him for good, but may cause attitude of his nation becoming hostile. and if spy was high ranked it may cause incident (high level "diplomat" or "ambassador" killed)
b. deportation - sent him back to his civ. causes origin nation ingrity down.

c. double crossing - this thing is way cool. you pay him, so he gives disinformation to his nation and gives you information. but if his nation will increase how much they pay him, they might buy his loyalty back. and then you might do the same again.

*d. disinformation - for this turn, the spy gets wrong info and sends it to his nation.

e. trade for your captured spies. (idea needs work)

* marked things can only be done by another spy unit attacking the enemy spy.


Also I didn't like that in SMAC you couldn't sabotage units. only bribe them. I want to sabotage without any diplomatic penalty (unless discovered. discovery has low chance since in open field).

comments?

[The Mad Viking]

"Excuse me, how much do you want for your city?"

"Pardon?"

"I want to buy it - all the people, all the buildings, you know, fully loaded."

"Oh that! Let's see, we're on special this week, that'll be 2,371 gold."

"Ooh, what a deal. That includes Women's Suffrage, right?"

I'd like to strongly support all those suggesting that bribing a city is far too easy. As suggested, it should be a multiple step process, with different options and strategies, that could end up costing you a lot of money and some reputation and still fail.

There are really two distinct functions - intel / counterintel and "special ops".

Assassination should be somehow limited or difficult, IMHO. Poisoning water, sabotaging military units, planting nukes etc. (The 007 stuff) involve a different sort of personnel than intel gathering. This could be represented on the screen as a separate budget. Reputation hits for getting caught should cause severe trade penalties but only for a couple of turns, depending on the severity. And briefcase nukes don't blow up the city and the surrounding squares! Even one huge nuke couldn't do that - what is it a briefcase MRV?

[The diplomat]

I completely agree that bribing a city is way too easy in civ2. Instead of directly bribing a city, I suggest that the spy bribe only a discontent citizen (or several discontent citizens if there are any) The home city would not know that some of the discontent citizens had switched sides unless there was a spy that caught your spy in the act. Then the discontent citizens that had been bribed would automatically over the next turns attempt small sabotage and would try to recruit other discontent citizens (if more citizens became discontent there would be a certain chance that they would join the secret rebellion) When the number of the rebellion citizens reach at least half the total population, the city would go into open revolt and the rebellion would take over the city. The city would then become affiliated with your civ. I suggest, that there be a turn limit. Say if within 40 turns, the city has not revolted, the rebels would tell you that they have given up and returned to normal life. I would also suggest that the rebels be given a name. It would make the game more interesting. Also, the player of a totalitarian civ that thinks that enemy spies have started a secret rebellion, would have a "purge" button where the player would select a discontent citizen and eliminate it as an extreme way to try to end the rebellion(like nerve stapling but more final).
I think this model is much more fun and balanced than the civ2 way of bribing a city.
This model introduces a new and interesting concept of secret rebellion groups in cities.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[MidKnight Lament]

Ooh, lots of good ideas in here. Particularly Grumbold's thought on trying to categorise the spy's options. We need to come up with a relatively simple model. That doesn't mean that there can't be many choices, but it has to be reasonably straight-forward and easy to use. Categories could be a good way of doing that.

- MKL

[Grumbold]

A properly developed spy screen could be much better than manipulating spy units. You fund it out of your budget and can then influence its sphere of operations. Certain information should be cheap and easy to obtain - the size and layout of an enemy country should be easy to discover if it indulges in trade. A democracy should be permanently - only the size and exact consistency of its military would be risky to establish.

Bribing cities has always struck me as purest nonsense. Inciting revolt is perfectly legitimate, but you should then wait to see if the breakaway element appeals to you for military intervention. Agreeing would effectively be a declaration of war - and the breakaway state may be less than pleased if you go about absorbing it rather than withdrawing them once it has established its independance.

To keep the number of operations to a minimum, all similar attacks should be labelled under one heading. For example low intensity low risk incitement to revolt would effectively be low profile funding of existing dissidents in the nation. Low budget high risk operations would equate to assassinations. High budget high risk would equate to mass arming of pseudo terrorist organisations. High budget low risk could be interpreted as flooding drugs into the country.

The higher the risk of an operation, the greater chance that counterintelligence will discover your actions. They may then have the opportunity to subvert your operatives, falsify information or perhaps even turn the tables and steal your tech or incite revolt in your country (democracies being particularly prone to scandal when caught up to no good.) The higher the budget involved in an operation the more effective and harder to counter it would be.
[This message has been edited by Grumbold (edited March 20, 2000).]

[Grumbold]

I'll have a stab at expanding my suggestion into a features list. While individual mission types would benefit from specific criteria I will stick to just a risk slider and resource slider (the latter would be as a percentage of the overall intel budget.) Ideally these sliders would colour code so green=minimal risk/well funded through to red=suicidal/woefully underfunded. If your overall budget was too small a hard mission type could stay in the red for resources even at 100% allocation.

1. General espionage
Rationale: When you start setting up a spy network you can't specify the job they will manage to obtain or which members of the opposition they will manage to convert, blackmail, seduce e.t.c. All you can do is aspire to improve your intelligence network and choose whether to send in more agents or attempt more high profile targets. Low risk = civilian intel and outdated tech, medium risk = civilian tech and more detailed city info, high risk = military dispositions, extreme risk = latest military tech. The bigger the budget the more items of info you get each turn (most would just be map updates, city info and civilian unit locations etc which need not be announced unless you dialled the reporting level up to max.) A sudden drop in financing could see your foreign agents casting around for a new employer...

2. General counter-espionage
Attempting to deprive the opposition of key information, locate, eliminate or subvert their agents. Funding level is all important, the risk level could be used to run high gambit 'stings' to expose enemy agents. Failure would weaken your overall security level as your agents become known to the opposition but success could wreak havoc on the enemies network and improve your own chances against them. Again, don't cut their paychecks to drastically or you could be in trouble. Some of these guys have had access to your own secret reports for years!

3. Industrial sabotage
An attempt to weaken industrial output (shields) in the target nation. The smaller the output the harder it will be to make a noticable difference. A target city around which efforts should be centered may be needed (stop that Wonder!) but mainly affects at a national level. A sudden outbreak of strikes will cause mass witch hunts for foreign donations to union officials.

4. Economic sabotage
An attempt to weaken the economy (trade arrows) in the target nation. Otherwise identical to 3.

5. Rabble rousing
This covers all forms of terror attacks on the civilian population. From low budget high risk missions like lone gunman assassinations to high budget low risk operations like covertly funding every lunatic organisation that moves. A city that riots or revolts near your border may give you the opportunity for annexation.

6. Military sabotage
Attempts to reduce the military effectiveness of the target nation. Pick a city to focus your effort upon. At low risk long stationed border units near your country may offer to switch sides. medium risk may see military garrisons become damaged or have their morale drop. With high risk a particularly enterprising spy may manage to sneak open the town gates or blow up the magazine just as you launch your assault. More about emulating a Troy than a Jherico.

7. Things for a diplomat unit to do
The espionage screen should not be used to establish embassies or provoke diplomatic negotiations. Save that stuff for the guy trudging round the map in a top hat. Since he's feeling a bit underpowered now, perhaps his role could be merged with that of the explorer.

That keeps it down to six main options but with plenty of room for diversification within 3-6 if the developers were able to devote resources on them. One or two traditional civ espionage missions I have ignored. The destroy improvement mission always was dubious - most buildings represent multiple sites and only one would be affected. Repairs would rarely take weeks let alone years. This was usually done for the resulting side effects (weaker defense, rioting) and those can be untertaken directly. Equally, attempts to kill large numbers of the enemy by stealth are ignored. There are very few historical examples of this being done without the assistance of large numbers of troops. It is more the province of Hollywood style terrorist organisations. Governments tend to stick to (threatening to) use nukes, chemicals and biologicals on the battlefield. An area inadequately modelled in previous Civ games IMO.

[MidKnight Lament]

Love it. Very tidy work Grumbold.

The only thing I'm unsure about is the role of the diplomat, but that's getting into the territory of diplomacy models anyway.

I think the general idea of spies slowly getting information is great, and much more realistic. And counter-intelligence could be both fun and sometimes frustrating (if the AI knows how to use it properly). Imagine the fun you could have in a multi-player game handing out the wrong info to your enemies!

- MKL

[Urban Ranger]

I think we can add more to counterintelligence. Things like disinformation or recruiting enemy agents to be your double agents.

[MidKnight Lament]

Urban Ranger - You're right, I just haven't been bothered to do it myself. Particularly as some other people were doing such a fantastic job. i think Grumbold was just summarising there though. If you want to write something a little more detailed though, I'd be happy to see it.

- MKL

[Ubergeek]

Bribing cities makes perfect sense in an ancient and medieval context -- history is replete with instances of governors, mayors, poohbahs and what have you turning over the keys of their cities to the enemy in exchange for a tidy sum. This is especially true if one considers "Bribing a city" to be a shorthand way of describing a number of things such as a propaganda campaign, a smear campaign against the ruling government, well-placed bribes to a number of individuals, the formation of close cultural and mercantile connections, etc. In the early turns of Civ, where each turn represents several years, all of this makes perfect sense and ought not to confound anyone. As I say, this sort of thing happened quite a bit in the pre-modern era.

On the other hand, it's pretty tough to visualize, say, Spain paying the Mayor of Minsk a wheelbarrow full of euros and suddenly having a foothold in Belarus. The whole thing looks silly when viewed in a modern context.

Therefore, my suggestions would be as follows:
1: The bribery mechanism would remain intact until the modern age, although prices should go up. As it stands, it's way too easy to simply buyan enemy empire outright. Perhaps some modifications could be made to make the action less certain and more dangerous.

2: In the modern era, bribery of cities should take on a less concrete aspect. Perhaps you'd receive a portion of the city's economic and resource output, complete and continuously-updated info on improvements in the city's radius, increased unhappiness in the city, and continuous information on all units the city supports (or that the city built, if we do away with support from a single city) no matter where they are on the map. Since that is less useful than simply grabbing the whole city outright, the price for that should drop.

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Better living through tyranny

[MidKnight Lament]

Perhaps it should be linked to early forms of government rather than eras. What do you think?

- MKL