Espionage Options Extremely Disappointing!!

[d4rkl0rd]

I disagree. That's what civ /is/ - many subgames within the larger scope, and part of the challenge is ballancing one's focus between them. Developing that dynamic of the game - switching between different abstraction layers - is completely key to keeping the spirit of Civ, imho, and when the subgames are overly simplified, the game as a whole loses.

Maybe they could build in an Espionage Governor (Director of CIA, perhaps, since the game appears to be completely US-centric) to simplify the game for people who tend to get overwhelmed managing the finer complexities of the game? That's how they solved that problem in other domains.


P.S. Please don't criticize The List when you clearly have failed to perceive its purpose.

Originally posted by Steve Clark


As usual, well said, Ralf. I believe the root of much of the pessimism, at least coming from yin, is that Civ3 is not "revolutionary" enough. They want to have 20 games-within-a-game, as evidence by their too-complex List. I think, as you imply, that such things would cause everyone to get bogged down in managing details that take away from abstractly managing a global civ through 6000 years.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
As usual, well said, Ralf. I believe the root of much of the pessimism, at least coming from yin, is that Civ3 is not "revolutionary" enough.

Nonsense.

First of all, Yin has nothing to do with it. This thread was started by me, and Yin has not (yet) commented on it -though I would be interested in his usually well thought out opinion.

Second, I complained about too much change in this case, not too little. The SMAC Espionage system was near perfect, my complaint is they fixed something that wasn´t broken.

Third, the reason why they castrated Espionage is very simple, and has nothing to do with complexity: After 9-11, the destroy building/assassination/poison water supply/suitcase nuke options are not PC any more. Sheer hypocrisy, and nothing else!

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune

Third, the reason why they castrated Espionage is very simple, and has nothing to do with complexity: After 9-11, the destroy building/assassination/poison water supply/suitcase nuke options are not PC any more. Sheer hypocrisy, and nothing else!

LOL at this issue in your sig!

"Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse." IIRC!

[Steve Clark]

Comrade: My post was in reply specifically to Ralf's comments about "game-within-a-game" not in direct response to your thoughts on espionage.

Having said that, I do agree with you in that I had thought the espionage screens would be on par with the excellent diplomatic screens. But then again, isn't espionage a form of diplomacy?

Also, what I said about yin, while not related to this thread per se, was absolutely true.

[Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS]

Hmmm.... I'm not sure how they were missed but aparently, some of the espionage missions were not mentioned in the update. The omitted missions:

Steal Tech (Attempt to steal an advance from an opposing civ)
Investigate City (View what a city is currently producing and what they have already produced (in terms of improvements)).

[Steve Clark]

Mike, Dan's office is about 3 doors down on the left.

[Tventano]

Steal Tech (Attempt to steal an advance from an opposing civ)
Investigate City (View what a city is currently producing and what they have already produced (in terms of improvements)).

Good to hear!

Steal Tech can be quite powerful, but also means that you can never aford to be lazy, anybody can come in and steal your secrets and compete immediately.

I hope Investigate City also informs you what units are present in the city, because that plays an important role in deciding to attack a city or not.

Both methods are good reasons to actually invest something in counter intelligence.

[ajbera]

I wonder if it would be possible to create a suicide bomber terrorist unit? I assume missiles have flags for one-time-only usage...you could try to create a missile unit that can only perform surgical strikes on buildings (units too?) Hopefully, missile units can't be intercepted by other aircraft...

Now, if we can add a fundamentalist-type government, and link the unit to that government type (is that possible? we'll see), give the terrorist a low cost...

One concern (off the top of my head) is possible missile defense, and how that would affect such a unit. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the game and editors are capable of, and go from there.

However, one of my top priorities (after learning how to play) will be to find a way to simulate a fundy government/civ, and give it a suicide bomber.

Firaxis may not want me to blow up my opponent's universities and cathedrals, but I'll be damned if I'll go down without a fight.

[Ragnar]

Hmm, just some thoughts (eventhough the issue has been resolved lately

1) Of course a spying unit is not able to destroy a complete city wall, but destroying it partly (with a bomb, maybe only after the invention of gunpowder) seems to be quite realistic and would be enough to enable an easier attack directly afterwards.

2) And Stealing Techs? What one always could do is kidnapping scientists and have them work for you or not. Often single scientists are responsible for sensational breakthroughs in terms of technology. And since Gunpowder has been mentioned as not easy to steal because of the great impact it had on the society. Well, if I’m not wrong Marco Polo brought it from China without even really stealing it so one surely can question the concept of a knowledge that is kept within borders and that goes especially for philosophical ideas. On the other hand it’s of course a valid point that a civilization that hasn’t even found out about flight can’t construct a space ship but that one could prevent by the new resource concept (no ability to construct a suitable material for example).
As an alternative of stealing a whole tech one could make it possible to steal the tech that one is actually researching partly from another civ that has already invented it.

But besides everything I wrote and has been written before I’m actually just curious how everything will work and I’m sure I’ll be very happy with the game

[jsw363]

Stealing advances seems to me to be realistic, though perhaps unbalancing. A better system might have been to allow spies to speed up the research of an advance through espionage.

Blowing up buildings and poinsoning the water supply were interesting options. For me, the more options, the merrier. Seems like they could have tweaked this concept instead of eliminating it completely.

[Lorizael]

... Are there any restrictions on stealing technologies?

[Blake]

Yes... yes...
Prehaps a spy option like "infiltrate research projects", if successfull you gain a %age of the enemies research for a number of turns, until the infiltrator is ferreted out, at which stage you must try again... the infiltration should also be possible via a research pact of some description, or prehaps just any alliance.
(A research pact with have to replace tech trading)

I like to think of an advance as something greater than knowledge held on a scroll, journel or disk, it's accumulated knowledge & equipment over all the universities, research labs and businesses in your civilisation. The advance of Nuclear Fission isn't held on a single CD, it's university research projects, a complex with equipment for refining U-238, dozens of highly trained specialists, prototypes and blueprints for nuclear devices. Then if you research Nuclear Power, it's not just a blueprint for a nuclear reactor, it's actually a complete prototype of a nuclear reactor worth billions of dollars, and again more staff and scientists trained to manage nuclear reactors....

It should be cheaper to research an advance which an infiltrated civilization has, because your scientists aren't following 'dead ends', but it should still take time, example:
)Infiltratee has the advance your currentely researching:
60% discount. (or, if the advance would have taken 10 turns to research, it would only take 4 with infiltration)
)Infiltratee is researching the same advance as you:
30% discount (OR you get a bonus of 30% of their research points)
)Infiltratee neither has nor is researching the same advance as you:
15% discount. (OR you get 15% of their research points)

This would make catchup easier than being the pioneer, while still making it possible. For peacefull tech trading you could agree to assist another civ with their research (60% discount), collaborate on a particular critical advance (30% discount for both parties), or have a permament research pact (same as infiltration).

Infiltration should be fairly easy to get...

[Steve Clark]

Did you guys not play Civ2? This is the same espionage list that came up when entering your spy into an enemy city, with the minor addition of stealing maps and plans, and revealing spies.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
Did you guys not play Civ2? This is the same espionage list that came up when entering your spy into an enemy city, with the minor addition of stealing maps and plans, and revealing spies.

Of course we do...

what's your point?

The minor addition of steal plans, maps, and reveal spies is a big thing.

And it's done in an entirely new way now...

[Steve Clark]

No, it wasn't meant to be snidely (is that a word?). I interpreted some of the recent posts as if stealing tech and investigating city and sabotage were something new. My point is that those have been around for a long time and speaking for myself, they were rarely used since 90% of the time, I used my spies to incite revolt and not wasting my time with anything else. As far the additions, I hope that the Civ3 AI is capable enough to where such measures like stealing plans prove to be beneficial. In MP, yes, but I still don't think the Civ3 AI will be that challenging eventually for deity players, unless we put restrictions upon ourselves. Just my .01

[Lorizael]

But in Civ III, if stealing techs is gonna be fair... it's also gonna have to be different than it was. That's why we're talking about it.

[vincentz]

IMHO, you should only be allowed to steal OR trade techs which you have the prereq. for.

If you are in the pre-stone age and the advanced babylonians want to give you Aerosol Spray technology because of your bad hygiene, it won't help you squat. UNLESS they give you all the preq. techs so you can understand that you are not supposed to smash the can with a rock in order to use the spray.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Lorizael
But in Civ III, if stealing techs is gonna be fair... it's also gonna have to be different than it was. That's why we're talking about it.

My personal opinion about the "ease" of tech taking in Civ2 is that it is more a result of a poor counterintelligence feature than an unfair tech stealing system.

Few players know the 20%/40% system for counterintelligence, and even fewer use it. The support of keeping 3 spies in every city (plus having to battle the urge to use some of those spies on the offensive) was so impractical in Civ2 that it was almost completely ignored. A more effective and convenient counterintelligence system could balance out the "unfair" tech stealing, without adding odd restrictions and arbitrary gambling to the business of tech stealing.

[Grim Legacy]

Hmmm the all-powerful stealing tech is in, but not the havoc wreaking options....hmmmm.

[HalfLotus]

Steal tech is quite powerful. Maybe it costs a boatload of cash to balance it out.

[Chronus]

The support of keeping 3 spies in every city

Spies didn't require support. (?)

Or are you simply referring to the construction of them?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Chronus


Spies didn't require support. (?)

Or are you simply referring to the construction of them?

Yah, but it's a pain to have to build three spies when you can only build one thing per city.

There is still sabotage production, which as I explained with propaganda and investigate city can be very useful...

[ndnls]

In civ 2, the spy icon was not a single spy!

In keeping with the macro scale abstraction of civ gameplay, that spy represents a cell of spies, their informants, contacts, and masters back at your spy HQ. So its not unrealistic for a group of spies, over the course of a year, to gather together all of the info necessary to develop and use a technology. Also, no one has said anything about foreign nationals defecting to/ giving scientific data to an enemy nation. The Soviets were helped by an American scientist when they wanted to get the A-Bomb for example.

Sping is more complex than just some secret agent walking into a building and grabing a folder marked "secret techs,battle plans,
etc."

[Rommel393]

I'm overall pretty satisfied with the espionage they listed. Although I don't see the reasoning behind hacking the destroy improvement option. It is good that the steal tech option is gone though.

Do you think we'll be able to add/subtract espionage options through the editor?

[ajbera]

Originally posted by Rommel393
It is good that the steal tech option is gone though.

It is in.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by ndnls
In civ 2, the spy icon was not a single spy!

In keeping with the macro scale abstraction of civ gameplay, that spy represents a cell of spies, their informants, contacts, and masters back at your spy HQ. So its not unrealistic for a group of spies, over the course of a year, to gather together all of the info necessary to develop and use a technology. Also, no one has said anything about foreign nationals defecting to/ giving scientific data to an enemy nation. The Soviets were helped by an American scientist when they wanted to get the A-Bomb for example.

Sping is more complex than just some secret agent walking into a building and grabing a folder marked "secret techs,battle plans,
etc."

Uh... I'm not grasping your point. I understand this, now what does it have to do with espionage options in civ3?

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS
Hmmm.... I'm not sure how they were missed but aparently, some of the espionage missions were not mentioned in the update. The omitted missions:

Come on Mike, don't you understand the "For Your Eyes Only" over the Dan Magaha's folder? He's trying to keep covert some plan, and now you leak info so easily... Run for your life, Dan "James Bond" is on your tracks!

Ok, so now we have some old mission back from hell, and a lot of words were spent for nothing, not to mention the growth of an Ignore list (not mine).

BTW, I suppose some missions can be added by Editor or with the nearest Firaxis Civ III Patch (Improvement), but it remain to be seen if AI can use them properly. I remember I had some trouble with SMAC AI.

About some "attack" mission, you should consider that Spies in Civ II where something like a cross between real espionage net and some elite patrol like SAS: they can hit with precision force or manipulate/bribe/menace people to discover secrets.
Of course some Civ II spy abilities where too much powerful, but I suppose Firaxis know this and can have spent some time in tuning & balancing...

[Your.Master]

Originally posted by cyclotron7


Uh... I'm not grasping your point. I understand this, now what does it have to do with espionage options in civ3?

Other people who had poor understanding advanced concepts of mathematics including algebraic representation (i.e. 1 unit = ~1000 men or something, depending on the age) were arguing that steal tech was unrealistic. He was demonstrating how it is actually quite likely.

I don't mind the loss of Poison water supply...who ever used it? I suppose SOMEONE must have...

I'm disappointed at no sabotage...how many times have my small spy corps of about 6 units come and destroyed all of a key democratic city's religious structures and production in order to throw the democratic system into Anarchy?

Also disappointed at the lack of Nuclear devices...these things added uncertainty by taking out SDI's 100% defence.

Warning: game story ahead.

I remember my first deity game, where my Mongol allies decided to sneak attack me (I'm STILL trying to figure out how they did that in our alliance...I've Quadrillion-uple checked that we were allies) and capture every one of my cities on the main continent...his continent. After an unsuccessful defensive war (trying to import more advanced troops from my island cities to my unsuspecting but primitive front) at the front lines I basically went scorched earth policy and dropped 8 nukes from an aircraft carrier on captured cities that I had just sold the SDI defence from .

I started out with a more technologically advanced civ with a weaker military, but war-time situations forced me from democracy to fundamentalism and severely lessened my cities and thus science, not to mention the tax hike I needed so as not to lose any my islands, too. I launched several massive D-Day type invasions, one of which even allowed me to retake over half the continent and make peace before the mongols breached the treaty again (2 turns later!) and blitzkrieged my position and once again retook the cities (once again I pulled the Soviet manoeuver by selling improvements).

I must mention at this point that Mongolia was a democracy, so I couldn't bribe cities. I had planned on doing just that, with transports full of lots of spies and a few supporting tanks, but then Mongolia made it's switch.

My desperate gambit - I managed to sneak a nuke into the Mongol capital. I went to another part of the world and unloaded a diverted transport with 8 more tanks to destroy a tiny, restarted, seventh civ. Then my tank drove merrily into the Mongol capital, and Mongolia had an equally merry rebellion (actually, the capital moved for 5000 gold, but I did the same again to more successful effect).

From that point on I learned to never trust a Mongol...I allied with them to help them take Rome (former allies who got too demanding and reverted to peace), got my fair piece of the pie, and then the barrel of the Mongol war machine (a much bigger barrel since taking Rome, the most advanced civ at the time, just above me).

[HalfLotus]

Originally posted by Your.Master


Other people who had poor understanding advanced concepts of mathematics including algebraic representation (i.e. 1 unit = ~1000 men or something, depending on the age) were arguing that steal tech was unrealistic. He was demonstrating how it is actually quite likely.

The Soviet Union had a spy at Los Alamos Nat'l Labs when USA worked on atomic bomb. He sent the "tech" back home to USSR.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Your.Master
Other people who had poor understanding advanced concepts of mathematics including algebraic representation (i.e. 1 unit = ~1000 men or something, depending on the age) were arguing that steal tech was unrealistic. He was demonstrating how it is actually quite likely.

You have completely missed the point.

A civ advance such as Nuclear Fission is not a tech per se, but a body of accumulated knowledge with the scientists who understand this knowledge.

Also there is no mention that a spy unit is 1000 men. It merely is a presumption on a user's part. Please refrain from using unfounded assumptions as facts.