Dips too powerful?

[splangy]

do you beleive diplomats are to powerful?

personally, i do, i dont remember any time in history that a ity was bought.

[TechWins]

I think they are fine as is. Maybe a few changes possibly but no major revampment. I don't really use them too often anyways so it doesn't matter too much to me.

[Alex 14]

They shouldn't be abel to plant nukes without an extra cost.

[Wittlich]

Actually, it's rather difficult to decide if the dips are too powerful or not without actually playing CIV3 first...

[fittstim]

I use more dips and spies in a game than any other unit. They have good movement, can establish embassies, can steal techs, can destroy upgrades, and bribe units and cities.

Having said that, I recognize that they are powerful and cheaply purchased. But I think the diplomat isn't too powerful because of the one time use limitation. Also there is almost no chance (maybe no chance at all) for a dip to steal a tech without causing your civ to get into a war.

However, the spy is an extremely powerful unit. Perhaps only the stealth fighter is more powerful and that costs a lot of shields to produce (80). A spy only costs 30.

[shade]

I love spies and dips,although i have the impression there odds sometimes are different for Human and AI.
Maybe the tasks of spies should be split up in 2 or 3 different units(spy(ambassy,steal tech,..),terrorist(nuke,bombing things,..),assasin(guess)).

Shade

[Provost Harrison]

Well at least it isn't CtP with the ridiculous Slavers, Corporate Branches, Lawyers and Nanowarriors or whatever they were called...

Diplomats look like sugar plump fairies in comparison...

[Father Beast]

with the proliferation of those other units, CTP did do something good about dips.

In CTP a dip could only view a city or establish embassy. could not steal tech or bribe. I think the same limitations should apply. get rid of the dang diploblitz strat.

Spies are also overpowered. my horde of spies can reduce a city to a worthless pile of junk in a couple of turns. buying cities is absurd, planting nukes should require a cost, etc.

[loinburger]

I'd say that dips/spies should be kept the same, but that cities should be able to build an improvement (CIA headquarters or something along those lines) that increases the cost/reduces the chance that a dip/spy action will succeed, and that also makes units produced in that city more expensive/difficult to bribe. Allow for another unit available later in the game (Counter-Terrorist or something) that is fairly weak on offense and defense and has a movement of 1 but which significantly reduces the chance that an enemy spy action will succeed; the upkeep cost of the CT would be prohibitively high, though, so it would be inefficient to put one in every city.

[KrazyHorse]

I like Technophile's suggestion of the specifically counter-espionage unit. Maybe a city improvement would do the trick, like a courthouse but much more efficient and limited to this use only.

[Inverse Icarus]

in civ 2 if u build a courthouse the bribing cost doubled.

and if u placed a diplomat or spy in your city (fortified), it can block attacks (including bribe)

[SerapisIV]

With the exception of city-bribing, I don't think dips/spys were over-powered. City-bribing though is unrealistic, especially in the modern age. I do hope that they keep the SMAC innovation of framing other Civs/leaders

[jsw363]

City-bribing is totally unrealistic and not really fun in terms of gameplay.

Framing other civ leaders is great! I definitely hope that that's included.

I don't like the idea of having to place a spy in every cityto defend agasint attacks. Seems a bit excessive. I hope there's a wonder to do this for me (like in CTP).

Spies are great units when used well, but I don't think that they should be as powerful as they have been in the past. I think splitting the spy's functions into a terrorist (who causes destruction and mayhem) and a spy (who is focused on reconnisance). Thatway no one unit would be too powerful. I would like more options for the terrorist though. Simply destroying buildings and poisoning people isn't enough. I want more options....

[Sabre2th]

I don't like the idea of having to place a spy in every cityto defend agasint attacks. Seems a bit excessive. I hope there's a wonder to do this for me (like in CTP).

I've often thought about this since I gave up dumb ol' CtP2.

This could make a great minor wonder for civ3, but it might also unbalance things. It's really hard to say. It's too late to add this to the main game anyway (unless it's already in )

About spies and terrorists: I don't think I would mind too much if they were split up, but it could just add another non-functional unit for some. Also - when you start splitting units like this, you run the risk of CtP syndrome where you have 6 different units that all end up being relatively useless.

[Kc7mxo]

What do you mean city bribing is unrealistic? Its very realistic, and historically accurate.

Throughout history leaders have bribed cities to surrender, bribed people within the city to open the gates, bribed troop divisions to mutiny, . . . . you get the picture.

In the era of "nobility" it was just as common. I bribe your duke to forswear you and join me by offering him land and/or gold. Bing bang boom. U lose.

The problem in civ is that you don't have empires of a hundred cities, a thousand towns, and ten thousand villages. You have empires of 20-80 cities. Having another empire bribe was is like canada buying off the governor of north dakota and expecting the dakotans to be happy with that. Possible, but unlikely.


What about just taking away their extra movement point?

[jsw363]

Kc7mxo-

Don't mean to sound idiotic, but could you provide an historical example of the kind of city bribing that goes on in civ? (meaning not a general paying off one guy to open the gates, which is not what happens in civ, but a civ buying off an entire city where the people are happy with the change)

I think that your comment about bribing nobility with the promise of titles, lands etc. is more closely related to the bribing of a unit, which I think IS historically accurate.

About your Canada example... City buying is much more like Canada buying Chicago than ND. Don't think that this is too likely, though civ allows it.

[hetairoi22]

I still think bribing cities is unrealistic.

'nother Idea
Maybe a defensless city you are about to capture could pay you not to conquer it? And maybe you can only bribe cities with a REALLY high corruption rate (=12)?

Maybe a poorly defended city could capitulate instead of loosing pop points by being attacked?

You could be able to make a city a FREE CITY. It would be under no ones control but had to pay you taxes? You had to defend it though so it wouldn't join its old owner civ.

I know this is a little beside the point, but...

You should have to pay a spy to nuke a city, because of the danger.

[Inverse Icarus]

if u took away a dips movement point (made it only 1) they would be worthless unless comming off a boat.

no one would trust an AI diplo sitting next to their city, even an allied one.

[SerapisIV]

I like the idea of undefended cities getting the opportunity to surrender or be bribed (cheaply). Surrendering should be a feature out of the players control (random), as a city's populace would decide what to do, not the gov't once there are no more defenders.

About bribing full cities, I don't know of any examples, most importantly since the industrial age and especially since the rise of "nationalism" (I say nationalism only because its a known game concept in Civ3). I say cut out city-bribing at the very least in the industrial/modern ages.

[Ecthy]

I think they should do more about cold war things than only give some percent-ish propability of success..... maybe some nice features, including extremely cruel ways of killing foreign agents to scare the enemy

[Father Beast]

THE WAY THINGS OUGHT TO BE:

Dips can only establish embassies or view cities, each at cost of themselves.

Spies can do these, plus steal tech, bribe units, plant nukes (for a reasonably high cost, say half what it would take to buy a missle).

spies can NOT bribe cities, or destroy improvements. forget it.

that's my opinion.

[Earwicker]

I agree that spies should not be able to buy cities. Eliminating this would prevent one of the most-exploited and most-annoying AI cheats.

Nuke-planting is an interesting and sometimes-necessary tactic; however, I also feel that this vastly overpowers the spy unit. It provides an attack against which there is no defense except for the odds of success (which, in my experience, aren't that bad). At the expense of three or four 30-shield units, you knock out an entire city's garrison, SDI or no.

Sabotage should only work against items under production, not buildings.

[Inverse Icarus]

yea. i'll never forget that game where the vikings bribed 3 of my cities, all above 12, in one turn.

maybe they made 6000+ gold that turn.

[Inverse Icarus]

but back on track, i believe that bribing cities is wrong.

perhaps this could be replaced with a "lower culture" option.

perhaps destorying buildings will do enough of that.

so basically, you ruin a city's infastructure, and they get low culture, and your enroaching culture absorbs the city.

this would limit "bribing" to cities you are close to, and force you to maintain a strong culture on the front.

but who would want a city without all the temples / markets

[SerapisIV]

Hmmm, never thought about the culture impact on city bribing. Maybe if a Civ's culture far surpasses anothers a city could be bribed. Maybe even bribed with excess luxury resources? Any further thoughts?

[Timeline]

Well, I would like to set you guys straight on a few things . First of all, you bribe UNITS, not cities. You INCITE REVOLT in cities, much different than buying/bribing.

Don't mean to sound idiotic, but could you provide an historical example of the kind of city bribing that goes on in civ? (meaning not a general paying off one guy to open the gates, which is not what happens in civ, but a civ buying off an entire city where the people are happy with the change) -jsw

Second, I have an example for ya jsw. Ever hear of the Bay of Pigs? Now, I don’t know what your personal opinion on this event is, but the U.S. basically tried to incite a revolt. They paid money (aka gold) to arm the revolutionaries and arranged for them to overthrow Castro. Now, I acknowledge they failed. I think the CIA knew they never had a chance without US military support, but the point is it happens even in modern times.

Okay, I put in my 2 cents worth, please continue.

[Colon™]

I think the entire approach towards intelligence in the civ series should be changed round and be based on that of MOO, which was more realistic and enjoyable. (note, I’m talking about the MOO1 intelligence model, that of MOO2 was slightly different)
In MOO you didn’t had intelligence units of any kind, instead you had the option in the “races” screen to spend a certain amount of credits (money) on each race to build a spy network, which could be give the order to hide, perform espionage or to sabotage. The latter of the three included the options to destroy factories, planetary defences or to stir the planet into rebellion. (no “bribe” option though)
Next to spending credits to build a spy network you also could allocate credits to reinforce your domestic security, ie counterintelligence. The better your security, the more chance you had to destroy alien spy networks.

This is a much better model for several reasons. The approach is more concise yet more enclosed: instead of juggling with individual diplos, there’s one screen from which you handle all your intelligence dealings, allocate resources etc, you could check the status of the race in question (eg for their tech) before allocating your resources which is a lot more practical.
It’s also more realistic and compelling, it took time to see the results of your spy networks to start with, it was possible to let alien planets rebel but only after multiple missions were assigned to the planet in question. You had the feeling of fighting spy wars, whenever an alien race sabotaged you ran to your races screen (metaphorically speaking) to jack up your security funding as well as your spy network funding to counter strike.
Intelligence is also intertwined with foreign affairs and diplomacy and MOO gave you that feeling while civ doesn’t.

[Ralf]

The spy-activities should be dealt with through a screen, instead of moving around a spy-unit.

[Inverse Icarus]

ralf, are you suggesting a sorft of advisor for diplomatic / spy activities?

such as, you pay 100 gold for to steal a tech, and in a few turns it tells you if u were successful?

[Kassiopeia]

Having played both MoO 1 and it's poor copy BotF, I agree with Colon. That is the best way so far that I have seen, considering intelligence activities. The Intelligence Service should have limited freedom over it's work, and you should only tell it, should it just spy, sabotage or do counter-intelligence.