Spies: Jiamz Bunz to his best

[Trifna]

For some reason, games tend to include spying in some stereotypical ways. Or it does something, and you don't even know how like you would for diplomacy or else (hey, James Bond hidden magic!).

Brad Wardell wrote that the spying system would be revamped in an upcoming patch. Horray, maybe we get something that makes sense and brings some fun strategy!



Three questions:
- What do you think would be a fun spying system, for a game like GalCiv2?

- Do you want something complex and complete, or simple? Or about like the rest of GalCiv2, simple but with many implications?

- And the poll question: Does it really have a great importance to you at all?

[Sokar20002001]

The spying system is pretty realistic, it does make a lot of sense that you would spend money to build a spy network rather than sending in your own super spies that can steal techs and what not. But as for the cool factor, this system sucks hard. I want my probes from SMAC back.

[EternalSpark]

The spying system is pretty realistic, it does make a lot of sense that you would spend money to build a spy network rather than sending in your own super spies that can steal techs and what not.

I'm not a fan of realism in games, but I agree with this line of reasoning. Look at what the game says is happening when you're increasing your espionage levels - you're bribing people, you're building special spy-drones... hardly the domain of the head guy.

[Stuie]

I like the spy system as is, though it would be nice to have some sort of directives to provide for your intelligence gathering. Something like:

1) Focus on tech stealing
2) Focus on ship locations
3) Focus on diplomatic interactions.
etc.

And then the game would provide a higher level of feedback/results based on your espionage level AND the focus of your intelligence gathering. That would add enough in my opinion. As is, I'm just handing a bag of money to someone and taking whatever they give me.

I would definitely like to see it remain at a global level - I do NOT want to micromanage individual spies.

[Daz]

How about Spying starbases, that actually give you spying bonuses...

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Stuie
I like the spy system as is, though it would be nice to have some sort of directives to provide for your intelligence gathering. Something like:

1) Focus on tech stealing
2) Focus on ship locations
3) Focus on diplomatic interactions.
etc.

And then the game would provide a higher level of feedback/results based on your espionage level AND the focus of your intelligence gathering. That would add enough in my opinion. As is, I'm just handing a bag of money to someone and taking whatever they give me.

I would definitely like to see it remain at a global level - I do NOT want to micromanage individual spies.

My own view is something like this based on an amount put to keep a network (giving you info too), plus sliders for such sectors (using the network's quality as a bonus/handicap).

Hopefully players could get details of what kind of things he does in updates/descriptions, instead of only the abstract "science" or "destabilize" sliders

[MasterDave]

I do not mind a passive spy system as a whole, but there should be some element of randomness to its progress to reflect reality. I find it laughable when my espionage level increases with five empires on exactly the same turn, X number of turns after I originally started spying on those five empires. A minor nitpick, but something that bugs me.