Spies. Are they a tad too powerful? a bit unbalanced?

[balsr]

Spying seems a very important part of moo3, which is fine, but at times they seem a bit too powerful.

I was playing as the humans(i know, i know - humans=easy prey for spies). But still...

At one point i was at war with the meklar and the sakkra and had treaties with the klackon and the trilarians.

I began to have 2 to 3 techs stolen, half a dozen buildings blown up; trade routes, production lines sabatoged, people intimidated, scientists and others assasinated, and three to four spies caught and killed, including those of my so called allies; just about every turn.

It was insane.

I thought, enough was enough. Recruited and maintained as counter spies atleast one of every kind.

Inserted and maintained in enemy territory atleast two scientific spies.

I soon had my spies stealing techs, sabatoging assasinating and pretty much turning their research on its head. Had economic and social sciences research cranked up, stole and traded for the others.

30 turns later, spy activity in my empire had all but stopped except for the occasional capture and execution of spies.

Thank god i did not have the evon for my neighbours.

[vmxa1]

Spying has always been over powerd in Moo1/Moo2 and now Moo3. I hate it and was so happy when Aaron agreed and did make it so you could disable it in SEIV.

[aiin]

How can you disable spies? I find it completely abstract and utterly worthless. I mean when i have 30 planets who cares about some building on craplar III.

[drsparnum]

Spying

I try to maintain 2 of each spy defensively at all times and that seems to have stopped what used to be a big problem. I can't always have it because people leave/retire but I try. In addition, it may take a disproportionately large amount of your (the players) time but it isn't taking that much of your empire's money. Compared to how much you spend on research and military and buidlings it is insignificant - so just maintain these spies and don't think your empire is killing itself to maintain spy defense.

I personally like that spies are good. Spying is fun. It also gives another potentially viable way to defeat someone increasing strategic options. It also means that if one race is good at spying and one good at military both are roughly equally good (not true in other games like this). That may not be realistic - but I think it makes for a better game.

[Yodasplat]

Just a question: if I keep the spies at home sitting idle, this it mean that they are automatically performing counterintelligence within my frontiers?

[aiin]

dunno the manual is vague on that point. I think raising oppression does work though.

[balsr]

@ Yodasplat: yes they do.
if you have a couple of them; you see from time to time messages like how an assasination attempt was stopped etc.

@ aiin: Having a couple of buildings blown up once in a while, one does not even notice it, or overly worried about it.

But as i mentioned in my example, having a bunch of your leaders assasinated, research being pushed back anywhere between 2 to 15 turns, half a dozen planets going into unrest can put a hole in your pocket, especially when you are in a multi front war.

I am new to the moo universe, but historically have ignored spying/espionage in these type of games.

but now i seem to have to do it, if only to keep my enemies off my back. The A.I. just swamps you with spies.

[asleepathewheel]

Yeah, the spies can be a bit much.

Though it seems once I've unleashed mine on my enemy, they stop coming in.

The should really calm the assasination down, I can never seem to keep a leader around for more than a handful of turns.

[Spectrex]

Yes, spying does seem a bit overpowered, although it could just be that the computer goes overboard and sends 20 spies at a time or something....

It seems like they didn't put enough time into it. You can't issue any orders to spies after they've been inserted (or can you?). There's no option to have your spies simply gather intelligence or "sleep", they always have to go around blowing things up. This makes it hard to spy on allies if you just want to steal their techs or gather intelligence on them without hurting their development.

Spying should have to be a significant investment of your empire's resources, not just an afterthought...

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Yodasplat
Just a question: if I keep the spies at home sitting idle, this it mean that they are automatically performing counterintelligence within my frontiers?

I do not have the answer, but I am dubious of it.
I was trying to find out how counter intel is handled, but it seems automatic. I see spies getting caught and killed, but I have yet to build any spies. I was looking for a place to make some for defense, but I do not see anything but agents to send to other races?

[JonahFalcon]

Leaders are very temporary anyway. They die after 30-40 turns anyway.

[Arnelos]

Geesh. The espionage model in this game ROCKS. It is, thusfar, my favorite part of the game. The enemy spies are annoying, sure. But then you have your own spies.

The espionage part of the game is the one part of the game I can honestly say that thusfar I actually ENJOY.

Then again... I always liked playing the Darloks in MoO1 because I thought MoO1's espionage model was awesome. MoO2's espionage model had much to be desired in my opinoin and unfortunately MoO3 takes on SOME of those problems, but it improves so much on both MoO and MoO2 that you won't see me really complaining.

I'm so happy they brought back social espionage. That was always my favorite form of covert attack in original MoO and I really missed it in MoO2

[balsr]

@ Arnelos: Have to admit, it was very satisfying to steal a whole bunch of techs, sabatoge and impede scientific research, and assasinate leaders. One game i just sent in spies to really ruin my enemy (a meklar race), steal a bunch of tech and traded them to my ally, and a while later my ally(a klackon race) just pretty much walked over them. I didnt have to do much, except intercept an occasional lone ship, in terms of combat to wipe them out.

If only they would
1) clear up doubts on counter espionage
2) more control on spy missions(what they can actually do)

i would be more than satisfied.

@ vmxa1: i am not sure on that either.
One thing though, if i had spies idling around, my sitrep has reports like how my counter-espionage spies found some tech stolen, prevented sabotage etc. Otherwise it is only so and so spy killed, questioned etc.

@ JonahFalcon: One game i had 2 leaders who(i can almost swear) lasted about 50 turns. one was a human who gave me trade and diplo advantages; the other a evon who gave me spy bonuses. They were great for my empire.

I found that if you have leaders of races that you have no diplo contact with; they last a long time(had an ithukul leader for about 25 turns till i came in contact with them - i know!!?. must have be high on something)

Leaders from enemy races don't last long; the ones from your allies even lesser.

[Craig P.]

Defensive spies are a virtual boost to the oppressometer without the associated unrest.

[Mellian]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Spying has always been over powerd in Moo1/Moo2 and now Moo3. I hate it and was so happy when Aaron agreed and did make it so you could disable it in SEIV.

i always thought spies in Moo2 sucked to much.

-Mellian