Idea about spying
Moderator: Oberlus
Idea about spying
Largely success on spying depends on knowing your enemy not only spy gadgets so race who has more knowledge about enemy should be better at spying. So what i propose is little minigame or objective list that would help spying:
1. capture enemy frigate
2. capture enemy destroyer
3. capture enemy colony
Race who would accomplish such things in objective list would have deeper understanding of enemy technology and culture thus bonus to spying factor. What do you think?
1. capture enemy frigate
2. capture enemy destroyer
3. capture enemy colony
Race who would accomplish such things in objective list would have deeper understanding of enemy technology and culture thus bonus to spying factor. What do you think?
- Krikkitone
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Re: Idea about spying
You should probably get a spying bonus based on having knowledge of rival tech/culture. But that could come from
1. Capturing rival materials/colonies
2. Peaceful Contact with Rivals
Ideally I'd like to see spying on a race that has no contact with you being almost impossible (ie nearly impossible for most countries to spy on N.Korea.. we can get a few satellite pictures and that's it) On the other hand it should be very easy to spy on your trade partner (you should get a lot of info even without spying)
1. Capturing rival materials/colonies
2. Peaceful Contact with Rivals
Ideally I'd like to see spying on a race that has no contact with you being almost impossible (ie nearly impossible for most countries to spy on N.Korea.. we can get a few satellite pictures and that's it) On the other hand it should be very easy to spy on your trade partner (you should get a lot of info even without spying)
Re: Idea about spying
Well theres great gameplay problem with that, if trade treaty would give such an impact on spying effectivness who would ever make trade treaty with spying race.
- Krikkitone
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Re: Idea about spying
That depends, is the risk of their spying enough to make up for the trade treaty benefits. Including the diplomatic Benefits...If the spy race can become your ally, then they can spy on you easier, but they should be less likely to, they might even help you spy on others.
Re: Idea about spying
Rather than spying bonuses as a downside to trading I'd suggest economic manipulation, basically you can spend X money/whatever its called a turn to increase someone's costs, decrease their production speed or something, the more you trade with someone the more effective these things are, and the less effective it is for you to use this on your own empire.
The rational is your useing economic influence to manipulate things, want to decrease spaceship production speed: oh look, they're buying parts from you, a few delays and red tape should slow things right down. Or you want to decrease morale? Luckily your a major export of fashion* a new advertising trend subtlety promoting unrealistic ideals for beauty underneath your products would do it.
* Actually a lot of our species seem to be nudists but I'm sure they'll have something equivalent to fashion, fur-care? polish? perfume?
The rational is your useing economic influence to manipulate things, want to decrease spaceship production speed: oh look, they're buying parts from you, a few delays and red tape should slow things right down. Or you want to decrease morale? Luckily your a major export of fashion* a new advertising trend subtlety promoting unrealistic ideals for beauty underneath your products would do it.
* Actually a lot of our species seem to be nudists but I'm sure they'll have something equivalent to fashion, fur-care? polish? perfume?
- Krikkitone
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Re: Idea about spying
Well I meant more a simple disadvantage to trading.
Basically any
1) way I can get one of my people into your empire
2) way I can get one of my people to survive in your empire
3) way I can contact one of your people and turn them
# 1 requires regular civilian transport between our empires, or stealthed transports
# 2 requires that one of the races in my empire be able to look like a race that could be seen in yours, or a really good disguise
# 3 requires unofficial communications between our empires
If the Egassem are trading with the Giysache, then a Giysache individual will not be seen as too out of place on an Egassem world
Basically, these would lower your defense against spying
1.. Diplomatic contact (if you never talk and only blow up each others ships, it'll be hard for either of you to spy on each other)
2..sharing a race (if there is any race that is a member of both your empires, then individuals can blend in to the population)
3..communication/transport of population / goods (similar to #2.. its an excuse to be in/talking to someone in your empire)
Essentially, its the balance between
isolation (good spying defense, and poor spying offense, and poor diplomatic benefits)
and
engagement (poor spying defense, but good spying offense, and good diplomatic benefits)
Economic manipulation sounds like another opportunity for spying that would be oppened up through trading, but that shouldn't be the only one.. regular spying (inciting rebellion, stealing technology, stealing information, sabotage) should also become easier.
Basically any
1) way I can get one of my people into your empire
2) way I can get one of my people to survive in your empire
3) way I can contact one of your people and turn them
# 1 requires regular civilian transport between our empires, or stealthed transports
# 2 requires that one of the races in my empire be able to look like a race that could be seen in yours, or a really good disguise
# 3 requires unofficial communications between our empires
If the Egassem are trading with the Giysache, then a Giysache individual will not be seen as too out of place on an Egassem world
Basically, these would lower your defense against spying
1.. Diplomatic contact (if you never talk and only blow up each others ships, it'll be hard for either of you to spy on each other)
2..sharing a race (if there is any race that is a member of both your empires, then individuals can blend in to the population)
3..communication/transport of population / goods (similar to #2.. its an excuse to be in/talking to someone in your empire)
Essentially, its the balance between
isolation (good spying defense, and poor spying offense, and poor diplomatic benefits)
and
engagement (poor spying defense, but good spying offense, and good diplomatic benefits)
Economic manipulation sounds like another opportunity for spying that would be oppened up through trading, but that shouldn't be the only one.. regular spying (inciting rebellion, stealing technology, stealing information, sabotage) should also become easier.
Re: Idea about spying
I think some discussion about the actual workings of the espionage system have already been had. Though nothing's been finalized, I think the best method is to have espionage meters on all planets, like regular meters except that races other than the owners of the planet can have espionage meters by placing spies on enemy planets. I believe that the % chance of success (or the degree to which success is attained) per turn of an espionage mission on a planet should be equal to (Attacking empire's current espionage meter value / Defending empire's current espionage meter value)*(1 - mission difficulty), where mission difficulty is a value greater than or equal to 0 and less than 1.
I believe that knowledge of an enemy empire should not affect this, but rather increase meter growth rate and max meter values on enemy worlds. Knowledge of an enemy empire could be obtained by capturing planets and ships, engaging in trade, or by simply having a spy on enemy worlds.
How relations with enemy empires affects getting spies on enemy planets relates to other ideas that I've been having about colonization, dropping troops, destroying systems, etc. Essentially, if you have troop transports or a colony ship, or a spy transport and you want to colonize/invade/drop off a spy, you have to fight your way to your destination with the vital ship intact and perform the operation in combat (unless you have the appropriate stealth technology, which should have to be substantially better than your opponents detection technology). If there are no hostile ships there, you can simply drop troops, colonize, or destroy the system without interference (though allied ships would become enemy ships if you tried to destroy the system or invade with troops, and you would have to fight).
If, however, you have any kind of treaty with another empire, you should be able to, when enqueueing a spy, arrange for it to be made active on one of that empire's planets, rather than in a transport built at a shipyard. This is the other way that spying is made easier by having good relations.
That's the way I think it should be, but of course we'll have to have this discussion all over again come v.7.
I believe that knowledge of an enemy empire should not affect this, but rather increase meter growth rate and max meter values on enemy worlds. Knowledge of an enemy empire could be obtained by capturing planets and ships, engaging in trade, or by simply having a spy on enemy worlds.
How relations with enemy empires affects getting spies on enemy planets relates to other ideas that I've been having about colonization, dropping troops, destroying systems, etc. Essentially, if you have troop transports or a colony ship, or a spy transport and you want to colonize/invade/drop off a spy, you have to fight your way to your destination with the vital ship intact and perform the operation in combat (unless you have the appropriate stealth technology, which should have to be substantially better than your opponents detection technology). If there are no hostile ships there, you can simply drop troops, colonize, or destroy the system without interference (though allied ships would become enemy ships if you tried to destroy the system or invade with troops, and you would have to fight).
If, however, you have any kind of treaty with another empire, you should be able to, when enqueueing a spy, arrange for it to be made active on one of that empire's planets, rather than in a transport built at a shipyard. This is the other way that spying is made easier by having good relations.
That's the way I think it should be, but of course we'll have to have this discussion all over again come v.7.
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- Sui Generis
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Re: Idea about spying
Well if you consider intelligence more broadly than you could say we already have a minigame for producing knowledge of an enemies' military disposition, namely stealth, detection and scouting!Yeeha wrote:Largely success on spying depends on knowing your enemy not only spy gadgets so race who has more knowledge about enemy should be better at spying. So what i propose is little minigame or objective list that would help spying:
1. capture enemy frigate
2. capture enemy destroyer
3. capture enemy colony
Race who would accomplish such things in objective list would have deeper understanding of enemy technology and culture thus bonus to spying factor. What do you think?
I have another one to add to the list: having citizens of the targeted race in your empire.Krikkitone wrote:You should probably get a spying bonus based on having knowledge of rival tech/culture. But that could come from
1. Capturing rival materials/colonies
2. Peaceful Contact with Rivals
Since they would be less out of place in the target empire (after all it would take a good disguise to pass a human off as an Eaxaw!) However this could work in both ways. I suppose a relevant factor would be the allegiance of the Eaxaw citizens to your empire relative to the Eaxaw empire.
EDIT: Looks like you beat me to the whole sharing a race thing!
Hmm, whilst it should definitely be easier to infiltrate an open society as opposed to an isolationist one, I would still expect the imperial government to keep security tight around certain targets, such as military installations, research networks and the like.Krikkitone wrote:Ideally I'd like to see spying on a race that has no contact with you being almost impossible (ie nearly impossible for most countries to spy on N.Korea.. we can get a few satellite pictures and that's it) On the other hand it should be very easy to spy on your trade partner (you should get a lot of info even without spying)
So what I suppose this would mandate is different levels of spying bonuses for different levels of isolation/openness.
- Closed borders - no trade, strong defensive spying bonus, extremely hard to do any spying
- Semi-open borders - (ie. open but with strong border checks) - details on enemy worlds available, somewhat able to sabotage. Stealing information or tech still hard
- Open borders - details on enemy worlds trivially easy to get, sabotage is easier. Stealing info or tech is moderately difficult (you can contact, or bribe traitors much more easily)
- Compromised government facilities - Easier to do everything
Come to think of it, none of that seems like a surprise really.
It would require the states of open, semi-open and closed borders to be added as diplomatic options though. Perhaps these conditions could be attached as conditions to other treaties. Even the "compromised government facilities" option could go in there -it would be like forcing a country to permit weapons inspectors to enter.
Oh yes and I disagree with the idea that being isolationist (N Korea in your example) should mean poor spying offence. You should still be able to get agents out, it's just the enemy will struggle to get them in! Of course it would be harder for different races to do this, as they stand out like sore thumbs if you don't have trade (and hence more members of each race crossing borders) but you could say the agent has been surgically altered say, or let an agent 'escape' as a 'dissident', or an outcast.
- Krikkitone
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Re: Idea about spying
Well I think there are two factors to consider
1. "Border" openness
2. Society Openness
#1 indicates how easy it is to get from empire a to empire b... and that will generally be the same in both directions (easy to go either way/hard to go either way)
This would improve defense and decrease offense (isolationism)
#2 indicates overall security ie freedom of people within borders of an empire. This would Only affect defense (ie making it worse if society is more open)
1. "Border" openness
2. Society Openness
#1 indicates how easy it is to get from empire a to empire b... and that will generally be the same in both directions (easy to go either way/hard to go either way)
This would improve defense and decrease offense (isolationism)
#2 indicates overall security ie freedom of people within borders of an empire. This would Only affect defense (ie making it worse if society is more open)
Re: Idea about spying
I dunno, I think #2 should be bound up with your choice of race at the start of the game. Borders would be the only one I would expect to be able to control in-game.Krikkitone wrote:Well I think there are two factors to consider
1. "Border" openness
2. Society Openness
...
#2 indicates overall security ie freedom of people within borders of an empire. This would Only affect defense (ie making it worse if society is more open)
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- Krikkitone
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Re: Idea about spying
Unless we go with the VERY BAD idea of unchangeable racial governments then society oppenness should be there/changable.
Do I go for a boost in science/trade/happiness/efficiency/etc. that comes with an 'open type' society/government, or do I keep a strict security and keep spies out, but make my people happier/more productive, etc.
Do I go for a boost in science/trade/happiness/efficiency/etc. that comes with an 'open type' society/government, or do I keep a strict security and keep spies out, but make my people happier/more productive, etc.
Re: Idea about spying
Go for a middle road, most races can choose governments but what governments they have options they have differ. George isn't going to go for a democracy for obvious reasons, either he won't have government picks at all or he'd have picks that are sound a like he got them from a self help book.
Re: Idea about spying
The ability to change racial governments in game is unnecessary and unintuitive. It is also more difficult to clearly define governmental racial picks. Those choices should be inherent in the players style rather than selected with a slider. Each time you make a trade, you're choosing trade over security, because that player will be able to infiltrate your empire more easily.Krikkitone wrote:Unless we go with the VERY BAD idea of unchangeable racial governments then society oppenness should be there/changable.
Do I go for a boost in science/trade/happiness/efficiency/etc. that comes with an 'open type' society/government, or do I keep a strict security and keep spies out, but make my people happier/more productive, etc.
The idea of unchangeable racial governments (beyond what will be selectable in the race customization screen) is not bad, it's KISS, and less like another annoying aspect of MoO3.
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Re: Idea about spying
imho goverments shouldnt changeable. Its who your race is, you cant just disband your democracy for feudalism just because you need fleet and so on. Although small set of different policyes that would be only specific to that goverment form and when changing those would weaken your economy for a while so you wouldnt switch them all the time might be interesting. But i think big set of policies like in civ4 isnt interesting.
- Krikkitone
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Re: Idea about spying
I definitely disagree with the idea of unchangable racial governments.
The idea that you can go from feudalism to democracy in a single turn (or vice versa) is not any more unsurprising than the idea that you can go from 1,000 year alliance to xenocidal war in a single turn.
Unchangable racial governments are fine for a 'mission' but for an actual game, it basically eliminates the "social" aspect of the game if that is unchangable.
Races should definitely have restrictions, George is a good example, or different reactions to different governments. But if you can't change your government, then you work towards eliminating a part of the game.
The idea that you can go from feudalism to democracy in a single turn (or vice versa) is not any more unsurprising than the idea that you can go from 1,000 year alliance to xenocidal war in a single turn.
Unchangable racial governments are fine for a 'mission' but for an actual game, it basically eliminates the "social" aspect of the game if that is unchangable.
Races should definitely have restrictions, George is a good example, or different reactions to different governments. But if you can't change your government, then you work towards eliminating a part of the game.