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Esbionage system and victory condition.....

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Esbionage system and victory condition.....

https://forums.galciv2.com/328231/page/49/#2232455
from Elemental Forums

A few days ago, I came up with an Esbionage Victory condition for GC3 (link @ top of post, for those who are interested). GWSwicord saw it, and apparently took a liking to it, as he thinks it would look good in Elemental. Of course, we know so very little about the esbionage system in Elemental and whether there will even BE one, but assuming that it works like the one in GC2, all you would need to do is achieve the highest possible esbionage level on every surviving empire. Now, if the system worked EXACTLY like GC2's, this would create a large spend+wait-fest, so I have come up with an Elemental esbionage system:

  1. Spies are a special type of unit that you can train in your cities. They take a set amount of money to train that increases with each consecutive spy, but that money can be cut by techs and buildings. When you have trained a spy, you can keep training him and adding gear to him just like a regular unit, or give him extra esbionage training that increases his effectiveness. You can then send him out onto the map to get to another city.
  2. When the spy is on the map, he can do one of two things. He can strike out over land, at which point he becomes just like a regular unit of yours (no way for the other guy to tell that he's a spy) and behaves the same way, too, but he needs to be trained like a regular soldier to do so. He can also join a caravan, but only if he is carrying no other gear. If the caravan is interrupted and destroyed, you lose the spy.
  3. When the caravan reaches the city, the spy enters that city. If the spy comes in overland, he can enter a city covertly, but has a % chance of failing and getting caught. You can decrease this chance the longer you train the spy. When the spy has entered the city, you can assign him to any of the buildings.
  4. When you assign a spy to a building, he goes to work in that building. Each type of building has an esbionage type, minimum value, maximum value, and some have a discovery value.
  • Type is the type of info you get from the building: research buildings give you info on whatever they are researching, forges give you info on what they are making, et cetera. Buildings like capitals or taverns give you info on everything, as well as stuff you can't get from  the others like race stats.
  • Minimum value is the amount of info "points" the spy CAN collect. The actual amount can be higher or lower depending on how oong you trained him. The number also grows slowly the longer he is on the building (exactly how quickly is dependant upon training, again) until it reaches
  • the max value. This is as high as you CAN go for that particular building. Now, of course, something like a stable would have a very low value, while a town hall or an empire capital would have a very high value.
  • The juicier bouildings (tavenrs, garrisons, castles, etc.) also have an increased risk of capture, as giverned by the capture value.

5.  The spy stores information until you tell him to dump it to you, as opposed to instantly revealing it. If he gets captured, whatever info he had is no longer accessible, unless you resue him by sending another spy into the city.

6. Every time you tell your spy to do something (switch buildings, dump info, leave the city, and so on), he runs the risk of being captured. This risk is increased by the building's natural risk level (see above). A spy could sit for an infinate amount of time on a building with no internal risk and never be caught, but there is a constant, low-level threat of capture if the risk level is above 0.

7. If a spy is captured, you will get a hefty diplo penalty with that empire, but it decreases over time. If you let the spy sit there for X number of turns, he will be executed, and you will (obviously) lose him forever. Except for a "resurrect dead spy" spell.... In any case, before that time, you can send another spy in to resue the one in jail. This carries a bit of risk, as there is a fair chance that one or the other will be killed or (re)captured, or that both will. However, such a resure will dramatically boost your morale.

8. There are human and fallen spies. A human spy can only go to human-contr cities, and vice virsa. Spies of the opposite race are much, much (I was thinking of 2X more) expensive.

9. The info you have from a spy won't go away if you make him leave the city, but it will not update, and your esbionage level will decrease.

10. Lastly, you can build improvements in a city to increase the risk of detection in all of the buildings, or fund police efforts. If you put in too much policing, however, your citizens will start to get ticked.

11. I will probably add some kind of "sabotage" mechanic, but not right now.

60,012 views 107 replies
Reply #101 from Elemental Forums Top

Goodmorning all,

firstly

Lomion Agarwaen,  I like most of the things your spys can do, some of them like well poison and such i see as being better for an alternte unit, but how are you forseeing the mechanics of your system,  most of them seam to be RNG rolls,  poison well pass fail, steal lump sum pass fail, steal tech pass fail.   Do you have a method of removing the one turn one roll  nature of most of your actions?? Also what reasononing do you have for wanting your super spy units to be on map? Why can't your super spy units be off map, but still equipable, spellable. . . what benifit does it provide to have to micromanage which cities you get to and haveing to build a supper spy to sit at every town to 'see' approching opponent super spys...

psychoak, Good thing nothing in my suggestion uses a slider :-D. they are pritty dull i agree.


Take care.
Robbie Price.

Reply #102 from Elemental Forums Top

Robbie,

 

I think that "SuperSpys" would fit well with your system, but give players who want that extra control over movement an option. Having visable / playable "SuperSpy" units allows for greater micromanagement and the increased chance of an enemy kingdom detecting them..... I know if I see a superspy unit i would think to myself "crap this guy is building spys and I am not ready for that" (Of course, that is if I can see the unit at all). I guess I don't always assume that my enemies are putting money into espoinage. And if they are, as it has been in the past, who really cares? All its going to do is perhaps steal some tech or reduce my production. 

As to the pass fail nature of spy skills.... well they are pass fail nature but, success can be heavily scued by increased investment.

My thoughts on a not SuperSpy units being not so relaint on RNG:

Example: You have built a powerful assassin type spy.

Spy unit infiltrates army. Spy unit selects available unit to attack (based on spy skill level vs target value). Ensuing battle ends up being between Spy, selected unit, and 2 other units who overheard the nightime scuffle because they were also taking a piss in the woods. However, Spy is fully equiped and ready for battle while the 3 opposing units are missing their armor. etc.  

I think this could be done for other skills as well. Posion Wells may end up alerting townsfolk or guards. If the spy is not equiped for the ensuing battle (s)he may be catured, die, or have to run away. (magic, equipment, and unit abilities can all play a role in this).

I guess I am thinking that every spy action may end up being a kind of mini quest of varing difficulty.

 

 

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #103 from Elemental Forums Top

Most of your post would be better applied to general stealth, spys as board and combat units just doesn't add anything in the way of game play. I think if you want stealth units, Garrilla units are the way to go, but they are not spys. Spys are diplomatic units with alternate modivations, or implanted units with outside loyalties. Most of the system your suggesting lacks subtefuge. I want a spy system that is dark and nueanced, rather then just another military unit.
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Personally I definately want spy units on the map, units that you can move around. As I proposed them they would be very diffferent from military units so I don't really know exactly what you are getting at. Theu would add another dimension to the game. And they would also affect diplomacy. Regarding a "dark" system, to me poisoning and assassinating people is about as dark as it has to get ...  

Also how does your system mittigate the RNG abuse, or frustration. All your spy actions appear punctual, one roll to succeed or fail, one role to be detected. it just sounds like a painful system to me. althought in gerneal i think spells to aid spy rolls are a good idea, and would have to be thought out. But a mixed system is almost nessisary.
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If you reread the post you'll see that it is not at all based on a single roll. Every turn there would be a comparison of levels/skill and then a roll, with several possible outcomes. Each action would demand many turns. Yes there would be one decisive roll at the end of the implementation period for each action, which is not annoying. Actually the system exist more or less as described (Hegemonia, old space strategy game) and it worked really well.    

Reply #104 from Elemental Forums Top

Goodmorning all

I think that "SuperSpys" would fit well with your system, but give players who want that extra control over movement an option. Having visable / playable "SuperSpy" units allows for greater micromanagement and the increased chance of an enemy kingdom detecting them.
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The problem with Super Spys as on board (covert) units (rather then Spec Ops),  is that most of thier functions involve being part of something, normally something abstract like 'Faction Alpha's diplomatic corps'  if you where going to 'put' that somewhere it would be the capital city, All your spys would have to individually marched over to the capital city and given order when there to join this that or the other branch. 
what i'm proposing is that the user tells a spy what roll it's going to play, what mission it's going to do, And then the covert spy gets itself to wherever it needs to be do to that.   Instead of going to a city then choosing what to do, you choose what to do, and let to spy take care of the getting it done.  However Spec-Ops units would behave more as you're explination of Super spys.

Re detection, no matter the system, detection will be balanced appropreately, so no one system is more detectable then any other, by releace time.

Example: You have built a powerful assassin type spy.
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I could see the exmples being good for Spec-Ops units.  I've not yet worked out a good system for most of the Spec Ops opperations which isn't suspeptible to 'save, use some number of random numbers, try, if fail load and use a differnt number of random numbers before trying again'.   Having all Spec Opps opperations be reduced to fight some units, if win yay if loose boo . . . might work . . . . i don't know i'll have to think about it.  That would be consistent with Spec_ops units being firstly and formostly military in nature....

As I proposed them they would be very diffferent from military units so I don't really know exactly what you are getting at. Theu would add another dimension to the game.
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That's actually part of the problem, Frogboy has already told us that all military units are to be cut from the same cloth, (take a normal dude, equip and train them.) Frogboy specifically stated that the game will ship with the minimal number of pre-set units (no knight unit but a unit with armour, sword, and mounted on a horse, which you could call a knight, if you wanted to.).  I think a good on map 'spy' unit should be true to that ideal.  Making a preset and property fixed unit called a 'spy' goes against what stardock is going for. . . at least in my interpritation of what has been said.  That's why i propsed 'Spec-Ops' unit system, where all abilities are derived from being given specific training and equipment that can be as mixed and matched as all other elemental units.

Regarding a "dark" system, to me poisoning and assassinating people is about as dark as it has to get ...
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Ah, my appologies, my use of dark there was a mixture of definitions 7 -9 and 12- 13 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dark

IE, when i accuse assassinations and poisonings of not being dark, i mean that they seam obvious and straight forward. Enemy hero being a problem, kill him. Want to hut a town, poison it.  A system i would appreciate would muddy the water between 'good guys' and  'bad guys', mix 'my side' with 'there side' so sometimes it's hard to be sure who's side who's on. 

Concider,  if a spy is going to become a member of my diplmatic core, that spy has got to be at least as good a diplomat, if not better, then those i have, otherwise they would not be promoted into the team.  Having a spy in your mists boosts your proformance (becuase they are doing great work to inorder to get themselves promoted and trusted).  But that boost in proformance comes with a cost when that spy betrays me.   That is what i ment by dark, nothing is clear cut good or bad for anybody,  all spy actions should have both + effects and harmful effects, the harmful ones always outweighting benifitial ones.   (This assumes that most fields will have bonuses being applied to them for various units/people, so that having a bonus doesn't give away immideately that there is a spy, since the bonus could be a legit bonus assosiated with a friendly unit.)

Re
If you reread the post you'll see that it is not at all based on a single roll.
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I had read your post, my RNG comment was directed at Lomion's system, the system you proposed suffers less from the RNG problem.  I might incorperate your 'preperation period' suggestion into my Spec-Ops mechanics.

Take care all

Robbie Price

Reply #105 from Elemental Forums Top

In system described in original post was too much micromanagement. I also read all the topic and come out with something like Spec-Ops units described in previous post. Actually it's very like system implemented in Imperium Galactica II.

Here it is: you have agents, just some, not lots of them. They can be hired as mercenaries, summoned (an Air Elemetal example was nice) or just born sometimes. Agents are not units, they are not present on the map. Each spy has a name, some characteristics and special abilities. You can assign spies to some espionage/sabotage/counter/training missions or wich can also cost money, mana, whatever.  New technologies can buff your spies, open new missions or new trainings. You can also enchant spies. On performing missions/trainings your agents get experience, raise their characteristics and get new special abilities.

When opponent send a spy against you you have a chance to disclose him. Then you can let him go with mission failed (and remember him), catch and interrogate/kill/turn to dual agent. When a known (remebered) spy is sent against you again you almost allways detect hime and receive a choice to fail mission/let succeed/catch him/feed him misinformation. You can even trade info about known spies to third party. When a dual spy is sent against you you also can make him fail/succeed/deliver misinformation. When a dual spy is sent against a third party you can make him fail (pretend failing) or if he succeeds you receive the same benefits (tech/money/spell stolen), info gathered, etc.

Of course, third party can catch your dual spy and make him triple ;)

Reply #106 from Elemental Forums Top

Hopefully I'm not too late to chime in....espionage hell yeah!! But as a Victory condition itself then I'd say no.

Here is what I hope(guessing) are the victory conditions.

·         Military...I love to kick a## and chew gum, but I'm all out of gum..Yep definately in

·         Magic...Casting the spell of "Omnipotence"..similar to Master of Magic.

·         Diplomacy...This is where I hope espionage comes into play to help with this type of victory

·         Adventuring...Getting those hero's to complete the quest of awesomeness

So how would spying work?  Well first you have to pump into the buildings to create them as well as the Diplomacy line to make the spies better.  So at first you are creating scouts and working up toward master assassins or master bards at endgame. 

Now when you create a spy you choose what city to send it to.  Depending on your level of spy vs. the size of the city and any counter-spying measures they have in place will determine if they make it in undetected.  From that point nothing has to be done from the players perspective (hopefully cuts down on micromanagement), after some amount of time you would get a pop-up box stating the spy has been given (offered) a job...you can take it or wait to see if you get a better job offer or something similar.  Now a scout might only be offered jobs like farmer, or dock worker, while master assassin get better opportunities, such as a military command, or perhaps a job in the royal court.  Depending on what you get would then open up what special opportunities you might be able to employ while a farmer might only be able to steal some food, or give info on how much they are creating in that particular city, a laborer might get options to booby trap a bridge, etc.   Depending on what you attempt or try would determine if you are found out, as well as how expensive a job it is.  The longer you are not found out the better chance you have of moving up the ladder, so the farmer is now in charge of several farms, while the military unit whom has survived has moved up to a leadership position in that army and could end up taking control of those units at inopportune times.

 

Reply #107 from Elemental Forums Top

How about a simpler solution to this question. I would like to see an item maybe a cloak that is only available to troops not champions. that alows them to ignore the influence boarder but doesn't alow them to use  weapons when it is equipped or to join a stack. then you could 'spy' on your neighbours as well as better explore the map.