tech trading / stealing / etc.

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Geoff the Medio
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#16 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Impaler wrote:I belive its better to have spy events be rare and large rather then small and continual, its more "flashy" and "wow" hence more fun. It also makes for a simpler interface and messaging system.
We can have rare/large spying events and still require the player to maintain the spying turn after turn in order to get benefit from it. When one starts tech spying, one wouldn't instantly start getting research. You'd have to wait a few (or many) turns until you get lucky and your spy actually infiltrates the enemy labs. Then every turn you'd get +X RP towards the tech in question. You'd still have to keep paying the spying cost each turn though. If you stopped paying to support the spying, you'd stop getting the stolen RPs.

Whether or not you've actually successfully infiltrated the enemy labs, there would also be a chance that your spy would be caught each turn. This chance could be higher or lower after the actual infiltration. Also, after you finish researching a tech for which you have a spy, that spy could attempt to stay infiltrated, and get assigned to some other research project in the enemy empire, potentially giving you another tech to steal. Which tech this is could be random or you might be able to pick it... (perhaps a spying tech determines this).

Perhaps your spy might end up assigned (by the enemy) to do work on a tech you already know, meaning you'd have to accept that, meaning you can't use that spy to steal research until that tech is finished, or you could tell the spy to attempt to transfer to another project that you don't already know, at risk of being caught. Or you could leave the spy on the tech you already know, and use the spy to sabotage enemy research on that tech... perhaps you knowing the tech already gives you a bonus to sabotaging others' research of it.

I suppose there's also spying to steal techs that you don't know that the enemy has already finished reseraching... I'm not sure how that would tie into the above.

Anyway, the original point of this was that you'd get the interesting and rare events ( Spy infiltrates project! Spy caught! Infiltrated project finished! ) but you'd still need to maintain the spying each turn to get the benefit, which IMO is beneficial, as it makes the results a bit less completely random in terms of cost, and make it a bit more transparent and understandable to the player, rather than spying just being a pay X for a Y% chance to steal, otherwise you have a Z% chance to get out safe or 100 - Z% chance that the spy is caught, which is rather unfun and arbitrary seeming, to me. With continuing spy presence on projects and such, there's some more interesting player choice and calculated risks.
Last edited by Geoff the Medio on Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Black_Dawn
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#17 Post by Black_Dawn »

Another alternative: when an empire steals/trades/backwards engineers a tech from another empire, they get a version of the tech which is one itineration better then the version they have now. For example, if your empire already has Laser Mk 1, and you steal "Laser" technology from an empire that has Laser Mk 5, you get Laser Mk 2. This type of tech stealing / trading / scrounging could be instant, as you already have the base tech.

There would therefore be two types of tech theft / trade: acquisition of upgrades to existing techs, which would be instant, and the acquisition of new techs, which would be harder and take longer, as has already been discussed above. With this set up, you get the best of both worlds. Constant, low level rewards from spying / trading that doesn't boost you ahead of your competitiors, and infrequent "cool" acquisition of hi-tech "plans" as already discussed above.
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Impaler
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#18 Post by Impaler »

I think some system ware you can aim for very focused tecnologies your oponent has but the risks incresse accordingly. In order of lowest risk to highest risk spys can...

HIde (dose nothing)
Survalence (gathers low value public information, nothing cloak and dagger)
Survey (trys to gather information about a partular capability of the enemy such as Military, Economy or Science, this is a prerequisite for performing a more focused operation)
Steal anything (trys to get any random piece of information)
Steal from a Catagory (aims at one particular field such as Growth, Economics ect ect)
Steal a specific Tec (aims at a particular Theory, Aplication or Refinment)


This brings up another though whitch Black_Dawn touched upon as well, should their be any difference in the difficulty of stealing Theories, Aplication and Refinements? We know Theories are going to be larger, longer to research Projects. Apps and Refinments are quicker and easier but their are many more of them, each refinment gives you the next Mk ? level of a particular device first opened up by the Aplication (so aplication is realy like the first level of refinment in a sense). I am leaning towards making a difference in them so they have strong game play differences but I cant realy say which should be easier or harder or easier to steal. It will depend on game play I guess.

Also keep in mind the "steal only what you can learn" principle. Basicaly you cant steal something unless you have the pre-requisites for it yourself. If you have Mk 1 and they have Mk 5 your only going to be able to research or steal Mk 2.
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#19 Post by Impaler »

In response to Geoff:

I see your point, you think the spy should be ocupied by their successfull spying because they aren't simply running off with a single cache of data from the lab their actualy members of the research teams who are continualy leaking everything they see and hear from their coleges. This is adsactly how the Russians got the bomb by the way, though I cant say its very belivable in the games setting It could make for good game play.

It would work like this. Your spies are trying to get "implanted" each turn into their desired area. If you give very focused targets they have a harder time and are more likly to get caught, less focused targets are easier to do. When the spy successfully implants you get a notification of success. From that point on you get +X points per turn, X being dependent on the skill of the spy and the security meashures employed by your victim. X is capped at the per turn rate of research on the project, the reson is that your own scientists who are reciving the spys information can only assimilate so much information in a turn (the same reason your normal research can not instantly finish a project even with unlimited resorces and why a software development project cant be completed instantly with an unlimited number of programers). At any time though your spy might be caught, which imediatly ends the free research points. You might also choose to "recall" him or you might actualy finish aquiring all the knowlage you can at which point he is automaticaly recalled.
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Geoff the Medio
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#20 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Impaler wrote:I see your point, you think the spy should be ocupied by their successfull spying because they aren't simply running off with a single cache of data from the lab their actualy members of the research teams who are continualy leaking everything they see and hear from their coleges. This is adsactly how the Russians got the bomb by the way, though I cant say its very belivable in the games setting It could make for good game play.
I really didn't mean to justify it with realism arguments. I want spies to have to maintain their spying, and for stealing techs to take many turns of continued maintained spying to get the full benefits, for gameplay reasons. IMO this would be much better than the instant steal that's usually used in this sort of game.

The worst example of a spying system, IMO was CivIII, which had you just pay money and get a random chance to succeed instantly at various spy missions. CivII and Alpha Centauri at least had diplomats / spies / probe teams you could move around and defend against for some degree of player involvement, though these had their own issues.

It also sounds like the research plan stealing that tzlaine proposed would be instant success/fail, after which there would be no need for continued spying (nor the potential interesting choices that that would allow as I discussed earlier), even if the benefits of having the stolen plan due accrue over time, which is an improvement over CivIII, at least.

The rest of your post was basically the same as what I proposed in my previous post, I think...

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#21 Post by Impaler »

Actualy on second though it would be tremendusly UN-fun to spend all that time and energy getting your spy implanted only to have them caught a turn or two later. So I propose that once your spy is succesfull inplanted and geting research for you he is imune to being caught (Or atleast the change goes way way down). The only way you can stoped if if you recall him or he exhausts the alowabel tec stealing (your research points equal the victims indicating you know everything they know).

The spy is still ocupied and unavalibe for other tasks when they are stealing tecs and the transfer rate is caped as was previously discussed but you no longer need to worry about loosing all that effort once you have goten the "Spy successfully implanted" message. What do yall think of this idea?

Once the spy is done (cause of recall or you stole all avalible knowlege) he goes back to your pool of "idle" spies ready to be re-assigned to some new mission (their would ofcorse be a convenitent "do that same thing again" button to make this task easier).

When spies atempt to implant they use a particular skill (lets call it the Implant skill) to get themselves in without getting caught, each turn they make one implant atempt. A random roll is temprarily added to their implant skill and compared to the security level / difficult of the target. If the result is lower then the security value they have been "deflected" and make no progress in infiltrating the target. A deflected spy keeps trying to implant makeing one atempt a turn untill you change his orders or his is caught or succedes. A spy that is not deflected is still not in the clear, he must pass a more grueling test. A second random number is rolled and added to the Security of the target. If the spies implant skill plus his earier random roll still exceed this new value then he successfully implants, otherwise he is "foiled". A foiled spy is not yet caught and captured, he has one last chance. If his random roll is lower then the random roll for security then he is able to bite the cynide capsule and is destroy himself without revealing any information to the enemy other then the fact that an unknow spy was foiled. Note here that the requrement for a lower roll here will result in highly skilled spies almost always dieing rather then being captured as they should. If a spy is foiled and then caught he will spill the beans and all kinds of diplomatic consequences may ensue. An interesting twist happens at this point, the player is never told if their spy is caught, they are only told he was foiled and isn't comeing home, the other empire may or may not know about your atempts. It adds more tenshion to the spy game.

The same basic skills + rolls principle can be used for all kinds of missions such as Sabotage, Propaganda, Assasination even Diplomacy. Ofcorse different skills are used for these actions and special abilites can modify the rules. For example spies might have abilities that add to their random rolls rather then their base skills, this would incresse the chance of Infiltrating AND of being Caught (I thik we could call that skill something like "pig-headed stuborness" ). Another seperate skill would determine how much information a spies makes off with when he dose succeed at implanting.
Last edited by Impaler on Thu Jun 02, 2005 2:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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CIV 3

#22 Post by guiguibaah »

... Just to say that I absolutely hated the CIV3 spy system. I'd have a russian spy in my egyptian empire, and... Hey look there goes my aqueduct... oh, next turn it's my barracks. Better get rid of him... OH, what's this I have to PLANT a spy in HIS empire to rout out his wrongdoings? Okay, I'll just plant my spy here an.... Failed? Oh no, now the Russians are pissed at me for trying to ROUT OUT THEIR SPY I KNOW THEY HAVE!!!

Eventually I just modded the game to remove the spying element and had a lot more fun.
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Common Tech

#23 Post by spudnugget »

This may be a bit off topic, but I just finished reading the related brainstorming discussion on how large empires crumble and was wondering why the effect of disruptive technology was not mentioned more often. Throughout history, the balance of power has shifted significantly by even relatively modest technical advances in hardware, methods, or organization. (For instance, coordinated "Blitzkrieg" warfare wasn't particularly novel but was quite effective for a country that was pretty well beat up after WW1.)

Despite state secrecy on specific military projects, a lot of the disruptive advances are actually based on information that is available in the public domain. Consequently, the advantage gained doesn't last long as competitors belatedly connect the dots and make advances of their own. I'll toss it out for discussion... Would there be interest in adding the concept of "common knowlege" to the game?

Perhaps technologies that are developed by x number of players become known to all after y number of turns. The parameters x and y would change as the game progressed to reflect increased contact between the empires. Some projects (military related) might require a greater amount of time to become common knowledge but would still be vulnerable to spies. Societies that chose to be secretive (like N Korea) could keep their information secret longer but would suffer a diplomatic penalty (and possibly a scientfic penalty).

This could help to reduce the snowball effect in mid-game when several large empires are starting to coalesce. Also, it would force technically advanced players to strike when the opportunity arises instead of waiting to build up an inventory of strike fleets. A larger, broader tech tree might also be required to make up for the "freebies" that each empire would receive during the course of the game. What I wouldn't want to see is a simple "catch-up" routine that makes up for poor AI.

Any thoughts?
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Common Tech

#24 Post by Geoff the Medio »

spudnugget wrote:Would there be interest in adding the concept of "common knowlege" to the game?
From my first post in the thread,
Geoff the Medio wrote:Another possible tweak related to this is the issue of advantages to learning techs when many other empires already know the tech. In some games, the cost to research a tech is reduced if one or more other empires knows it. Since we have fairly fixed costs and research times, adjusting them could be problematic, so perhaps we could instead have +1 RP / turn towards the total cost of a tech for each other empire that knows the tech... Or perhaps that should be

(free RP per turn) = (empires who know tech ) * (cost per turn to research tech) / (total number of empries)

which would be added whether or not you were researching the tech yourself.
the (empires who know tech) part should probably be weighted... so empires you have diplomatic contact with are higher weighted, and ones you have generally good relations with lots of (generic) trade with are higher weighted, ones you don't know or which have completely different psychology/sociology/culture are low or zero-weighted, etc.

Getting this bonus could also be the result of a low-level Learning building, somewhat like the Great Library in Civ games, but would be an empire-wonder, rather than one per galaxy. Various other sociology or culture or trade or such techs or choices could also improve the effectiveness of this building. ie. the more open your society is, especially to foreigners, the more "common knowledge" you acquire for free.
A larger, broader tech tree might also be required to make up for the "freebies" that each empire would receive during the course of the game.
The tech tree being too small (for anything) is a problem we will almost certainly NOT have... Go take a look at it on the wiki or tech tree design threads... and that's just theories for planet infrastructure, let alone actual applications and refeinements, or ships stuff, or politics / sociology / culture, or espionage, or anything else.

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#25 Post by Dreamer »

I like the ideas of Geoff andImpaler. I tried to comment on those but after a lot of time modifing my own post I reached a more or less complete model for this. I decided to structure my ideas in the wiki. My two cents:

http://freeorion.org/index.php/User:Dreamer

Almost all of the mentioned structure is incorporated and wrapped in a cohesive module for easy programing. Please take a look at it.

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#26 Post by skdiw »

why don't we do like a rpg-style spy system where you hire spies. At the start of the game, there are limited number of spies with different abilites, and more is generated as the game progress. You can either hire a spy to your limited number pool or reject when he becomes available when he is a free agent, or sent by another empire (of course you wouldn't know this). each spy have a race, which they come from giving them a history, character, and some natural tendencies and abilites that fits with the story and racial culture.

With each spies, you can assign him a limited list of activities including hiding, which just increases your empire security, training to increase abilites, and other assignments like general intel gathering and espionage.

I don't want esponiage to be too fancy. you can think that your spy has to go through a implenmentation phase and a chance of being caught each turn, however the important game effect is that each turn, you get more and more extra rp added to your rp pool for your spying efforts. the longer you keep infiltrating, the more rp you get, but more chance of being caught. so instead of picking a specific research cat or tech, which gets complicated, i think adding extra rp does the same job in terms of game effect. you can dump the extra rp into a tech and just call that "assigned tech that your spy suppose to steal." or spread the rp out and called it stealing a cat, theory or general espionage.

i don't think you should get free rp for "common knowlege." each tech suppose to significant highly guarded secret that it shouldn't be found at commonplace. If we want to do that, i think it is easily incorporated into goverment forms, which may entail a penalty in security, which reduces the effectiveness your spies on hiding. i like to have different parts of the game work together, and stay simple if possible. if you want to do common knowlege butter effect, then you can just increase the amount of rp you get from espionage. i think getting free techs just because psilon is good at what they do is a bad idea.
:mrgreen:

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#27 Post by Dreamer »

Well, I proposed in fact a RPG aproach for spies, but globaly. Having all that traits for each individual spy is a lot of unnecesarry complexity and it creates micromanagement (mmm, who should I sent to this mission?... maybe Acturati.. no, better...)

About generla or specific tech: I could skip being able to spy on a specific tech, but al least I would like to specify the tech category.

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Geoff the Medio
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#28 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I like the idea of hiring spies which have names, races, and various stats or specialities, and which are assigned missions.

Being able to send a spy to be a double agent for another empire, and having them appear to be a normally generated applicant spy is a great idea.

I don't think research espionage should just give generic RP; it should be RP for a specific tech (whether you get to pick this tech or it is chosen randomly from those available), which the other empire has to have more research completed on than you do, or other similar logical restrictions (which might vary with time or espionage tech). I don't think this would be prohibitively complicated. We won't have dozens of spies for the player to manage, and each of the half dozen (or less?) would only require attention every ten turns or so, and then it's only a few seconds to give new instructions. This isn't giving build orders to 50 generic planets / cities.
i don't think you should get free rp for "common knowlege." each tech suppose to significant highly guarded secret that it shouldn't be found at commonplace.
We could add a delay between when a tech is first researched, and when it becomes available for common knowledge free research to other empires... Or better yet, we could require that something that a tech unlocks be researched or built before the tech can become common knowledge... or have the rate of common knowledge gain for a tech be dependent on the number of things unlocked by the tech that have been built in the galaxy. The idea woudl be that if you don't implement it or use knowledge, then it's much easier to keep it secret... ie. not "common knowledge".

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#29 Post by Sandlapper »

I presume there will be anti-spy mechanisms to protect your techs? It would be neat to discover a spy, then instead of eliminating the spy, you feed the spy misinformation. Say give away plans for a tech that will ultimately fail after much time and rp spent. Perhaps give away tech that you can "turn off" if used against you. Or even a tech that you can track at extreme distances, and allow you early warnings of attack.

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#30 Post by utilae »

He he, good I like that idea. Enemy spy returns with dummy tech. They research the dummy tech, then when it finishes it says "ha ha ha ha, this ain't a tech".

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