Spies

[Red Scorpion]

Originally posted by albiedamned
There's nothing funnier then a spy coming across the border towards my idle army when I have scouts - they all see her and open fire at once since there are no other targets!

Too true. I had the Chat come up with warning about spies constantly in same place, (where I'd set the rally-point for all my Scholar/Minutemen ). When I got there to check, I could only see her dead body, as they'd opened fire on her, after half a dozen or so warnings, if I saw it was in the same place I'd just ignore it.

The most Comical Spy-Event was when she 'bribed' & converted on of my DECOYS!

Originally posted by Vesayen I ALWAYS send 5 or 6 scouts with my army from med-evil on(for sniping)-if you see spies, pause and just take em out with snipers.

You can't 'snipe' spies unfortunately, (as far as I'm aware ), the scout/commando approaches her & kills her with a 'Throwing-Knife'.

[niDe]

I think that the time it takes a Spy to bribe a unit should just be increased.

This would make it easier to eliminate the Spies because you could find them before they finished their bribe.

Making Scouts auto-CounterIntelligence is a bad idea.

CI kills the Spy pretty much instantly and costs only 500 craft.
In the later stages of the game Scouts can have up to 2000 craft, meaning one Scout could kill 4 Spies very quickly and that would overpower them.

Basically it would mean the end for Spies, which add a nice tactical feature to combat, as a useful unit.

Increasing Spy bribe time IS the answer, not giving Scouts auto-CI.

[albiedamned]

I don't think it would mean the end for spies. If your opponent didn't have scouts, then the spies would still be effective. And if the opponent did have scouts and you wanted to use a spy strategy, you would have to try to kill his scouts first.

[Leaper]

Maybe this topic won't die as quickly as usual, which is good. I am enjoying the different ideas being put forth here. And, yes, I should clarify regarding my earlier rant. Spies, in general, are fantastic units, and serve to add alot to the game. It is in the heat of battle when they get real irritating, real fast.

The idea of autocast: I thought about this also. If done, we would really need to come up with a way to make this not become too powerful a counter. Idea is cool, but I'm not sure that's the answer.

Inceasing the time it takes to bribe: Not a bad idea at all. Not sure if this is the best answer, but it may certainly go a long way to helping the issue.

Increased Priority of Spies: My initial idea when I thought about this problem when the game was first released. I'm not sure if it's the best answer either, as multiple spies could still cause lots of damage to you.

Have it cost money to bribe: Definately the single best idea, as the skill IS called "Bribe" . How to implement it though.... tough one! Money means alot more in the earlier part of the game than at the end, when it is coming in hand over fist most of the time. How would you deal with that.... not sure. But, in my opinion, a very creative and 'makes alot of sense' type of solution.

Great thread, with very little hostility.... amazing!

~ Leaper

[Nacht]

Originally posted by Leaper
But don't count your chickens on a fix here. There are so many that voice "just bring along scouts", that I think we're stuck with it.

As I remember in the TSN interview the development team said they would seriously rethink the way spies were inplemented in the game.

On a sidenote: why are spies in civgames always female? Do developers think of women as so much more sneakier than men?

[Leaper]

It's great to hear they are looking into it. Let's hope!

Regarding females.... it's all about seduction my friend.... all us guys are suckers for good ol' female seduction!

As for being seduced by a man.... ya' know, I am probably much better off not even going there!

[Carch]

I agree that spies are a pain, but how can you NOT see them when they're spewing coins all over the place?

I stopped having a problem with spies when I stopped mixing my cavalry and artillery all in one formation. Infantry mixed with scouts and NOTHING ELSE in one group will kill spies very quickly.

I agree with the cost ramping idea for bribery, though. Getting hit by a dozen spies at once would put a crimp in anyone's attack.

[Lazarous]

The reason i thought spies were not that great initially was that I believed bribe DID cost resources. It seemed logical enough at the time . At any rate, one of the reasons bribe is so powerful is that it gives the bribing player effectively double the resources that the defending player used to create the unit - the briber gets the unit, but at the same time takes it away from the enemy. From a pure resource standpoint, bribing is by FAR the most cost effective solution to making an army. As such, I was considering the possibility that bribing simply took a % of the units base cost to function. For example, a 60 food/60 wood unit would cost the briber 20 food/20 wood to convert...or whatever % would seem most balanced. This % would increase with each unit bribed, just like creating a unit. As such, bribing would eventually cost MORE than making the unit, which is as it should be...but it would maintain the utility of spies early on as a rush breaker.

Personally, i feel the higher targetting priority is enough to make spies non-lethal but still usable. As someone noted, scouts die fast if they're directly targetted (or even if they're in the AOE of artillery fire in later ages). Further,the most efffective bribe units i've seen are cavalry, which up to industrial era generally leave the safety of the scouts sight radius to attack...and thus become succeptible to spies in the rear of a formation.

A close second to this would be an auto-counterintel setting...but i'd balance this with an auto-bribe setting to spies as well.

Laz

[Hendrik]

Personally I think the entire point of using spies/stopping them is to increase the level of micromanagement required in a battle. A player with superior resources and/or tech can generally win a battle with a small amount of micromanagement, unless spies are used by the enemy. A weaker play can force the stronger play to spend more time watching his army and less time working on his economy or building units.

I generally use spies defensively and don't bring them along with attacking armies, but I will have to give using them offensively a try.

One note: pressing the select scout key twice will select all of your scouts, and it only takes one right click to instantly kill an enemy spy for 500 craft. In the later ages scouts cloak when they are not using abilities... meaning that if your enemy is going to kill your scouts, he has to have scouts of his own. The "scouts are easy to kill" argument goes both ways.

If you are having problems with scouts then use more air units, helicopters have all the functionality of ground units but are immune to bribe and most ground attackers. Of course this does not apply until the industrial age, but it isn't too difficult to reduce your army's vulnerability to spies with minimal micromanagement.

[Lazarous]

There are a bunch of interface goodies that allow a player to barely watch their economy at all and still keep it near maxed. Add that you can hotkey production buildings as well as infinite queues, and i generally spend most of my time watching the battles without any significant loss of resources. Microing battles isn't the problem, the problem is that when a mass of spies comes after you and the enemy has already picked off most - it doesn't even have to be all - of your scouts, you're doomed. Even if you try to micro your army to attack the spies, they'll take over units so quickly that you're not going to be able to stop them all (by micro i mean focus fire on the various spies as they appear). To my knowledge, counterintel has a timer just like bribe.

Further, most of your suggestions are only really applicable in industrial+, and it has been my experience that an agressive spy user will finish the game well before then, or at least have built up an overwhelming advantage and no longer have to rely on their spies.

Laz

[Red Scorpion]

Originally posted by Leaper
Regarding females.... it's all about seduction my friend.... all us guys are suckers for good ol' female seduction!

Too true. The real trouble starts when we marry them.

Originally posted by Lazarous
...but i'd balance this with an auto-bribe setting to spies as well.

They do if part of your normal army, & you target army (
or raiding squad ) on a specific unit. Unfortunately the unit's dead or nearly dead by the time you bribe.