Cost of spying

[Tiberius]

I'm sorry if this was addressed before, but it shocked me in my weekend game:

I was playing with the egyptians and I was slightly behind the greeks in the science race. At some point they discovered the Radio and since we were anyway in kind of "annoyed" relations and I also had a spy, I thought "why not steal them?" I activated my spy and I saw that the "safe" stealing would have been 2800 gold (I don't remember the other options). I don't know what made me suspicious, but I didn't steal it and instead I talked with the greeks and asked them for a price: it was 2900 gold!!!
How absurd is that? What's the point in stealing, then?

[statusperfect]

Thre is no point in spying. The system is flawed but will be improved in PTW.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by statusperfect
... but will be improved in PTW.

Do you know this for sure??

[NeoStar]

Re: Cost of spying

Stealing is rarely used in Civ3. I have never seen the AI do this (unlike in Civ2 where they did this often ) but I haven't heard of these 'improvements' set for PTW.

I'd be happy to make it a unit again so the cost would be lower because of the difficulty of getting it to an enemy city.

[The Pioneer]

I second taht NeoStar, I haven't used Spies at all in Civ 3. In Civ 2 Spies became leathal instruments for my cause that sometimes threw the game of balance. That's whay I'd recommend some modding into the current system (i.e. make it a unit, cheaper options, etc.)

Statusperfect where did you hear that? Are you sure?

So long....

[Tiberius]

I know that stealing is very rarely used in Civ3; I myself have (almost) used it now for the first time!

Anyway, the whole espionage system in Civ3 is very weak. I bought maybe 3 or 4 cities, stoled the enemy's troops placement plans twice or so and I think that's all. Other than that I used my embasies only to investigate cities.

I'd be happy to make it a unit again

I concur.

[statusperfect]

At civ3.com.

...and a streamlined espionage interface allow for more efficient management.

More efficient mangement they say. For spying. If they make the spy system better maybe we'll use those spies?

[Tiberius]

You're right! I found it here. It says:

Updated interface improvements like auto bombard, rally points, stacked movement and a streamlined espionage interface allow for more efficient management.

I wonder what does this mean

[Tiberius]

BTW, what are these "rally points" ?

[vulture]

Originally posted by Tiberius
BTW, what are these "rally points" ?

When a unit is built, you can make it go automatically to a rally point (i.e. the square where you have all your tanks stacked f'rinstance). Hopefully it will have some other functionality as well. But it's just a way of speeding up the interface by reducing the number of moves you have to do by hand.

[Dutch]

Just once - that I know about - did an AI Civ attempt to steal a tech from me. That covert operation was twarted by my excellent agents, though. In Civ II, when such things occured, I could usually opt for a declaration of war. But I have never tried to steal techs in Civ III myself. I find it easier to bargain for it.

[Tiberius]

I knew what rally points are, from Warcraft3, for example. I just didn't imagine that they'll have the same meaning in civ3!
Interesting. I wonder if I will really use this feature. Probably in wars.

[WarpStorm]

Lower the price some (by at least half, more for steal tech) and you'll see the computer use lots of them. Set it so that it's cheaper to steal than to buy and you'll see lots of action (which will cause even more wars). It really makes this part of the game more interesting.

[vulture]

Re: Cost of spying

Originally posted by Tiberius

I was playing with the egyptians and I was slightly behind the greeks in the science race. At some point they discovered the Radio and since we were anyway in kind of "annoyed" relations and I also had a spy, I thought "why not steal them?" I activated my spy and I saw that the "safe" stealing would have been 2800 gold (I don't remember the other options). I don't know what made me suspicious, but I didn't steal it and instead I talked with the greeks and asked them for a price: it was 2900 gold!!!
How absurd is that? What's the point in stealing, then?

From the point of view of the cost to you, there isn't any point (unless stealing the tech is going to have a 97% chance of success or more in the example you give, which is never going to happen, obviously). The simplest analysis is that if you have a certain chance of succesfully stealing the plans (call the chance 'x') then the cost below which stealing becomes profitable is the cost of the tech to buy multiplied by x. So if you have a 60% chance of stealing Radio, it would be worth it if the cost was 0.6 * 2900 = 1740 gold.

First problem: we don't know what the probabilities involved are. Second problem: This ignored the negative effects of being caught stealing techs, wihch at the least will worsen relations and may drive up the price of the tech. And may get you involved in a war. The 'cost' of that in terms of gold is very subjective, and no doubt changes in different game situations.

One argument in favour of stealing rather than buying is that if you buy the tech, Greece gets 2900 gold, while if you steal it they get nothing. Denying your main opponent 2900 gold (which will let him run at a higher science rate for a few turns, or let him rush buy a quite a few universities that he hasn't finished yet) is always a good thing. Especially at the beginning of the modern age, when upgrading lots of infantry to MI is just around the corner (I spent 2020 gold in one turn upgrading in a game yesterday, and that was Leonardo's to halve the cost....) and there are research labs to be built. If you are planning on slapping Alexander around with tanks in a little while, not giving him that much gold is definitely a worthwhile consideration.

[Blake]

Streamlined means simpler and with less features, in Furaxis speek. How they are going to make the current espionage system less featurefull is beyond me . Prehaps they'll just remove everything except the investigate city because thats pretty much all people use espionage for. It'd streamline the process.