"Going Grima" - an innovative and unique approach to spycraft

from Elemental Forums

Sorry for another thread on espionage, but there are several threads with spy conversations going and I want to address some points in all of them, and I don't want to post my response in all those threads.

In one of those threads someone had the idea of a Grima type of espionage - it's a cool idea and definitely fits the genre. but it never really gained traction and I never really considered it seriously because as I imagined how it would play out in the game I was imagining how this would play out against another human player. I mean, would they gradually lose control of their channeler as he fell under a Grima-type's influence? I puzzled it and decided it was not really something that could add to the game.

  Other concerns about espionage systems is that they are mostly RNG based, and really are just a slightly different path to what essentially becomes a combat or diplomacy victory. The thing about a diplomacy victory is it is essentially a sharred victory with your allies, and it seems that people are after something like that but that definitely leaves you as the person in charge. Again this brought my thinking back to Grima in LOTR - this was not some shared power arrangement, this was puppet mastery. And again, I couldn't think of a fun and engaging way you could have that in a game.

This morning I had an idea that just might work. It does not have it's own victory condition, but I do think that it could be powerful enough and provide enough of a unique approach that someone could still essentially win a game following a spymaster approach that does not just boil down to RNG luck.

In essence (PUN!), for the Grima approach to work well you need to have minor races (or tribes or whatever) in the game. And developing the spy networks only works among these minor tribes who either are not led by a channeler (they have found some habitable land and are getting by without one) or their channeler is in some way flawed or significantly less powerful than the leaders of the major factions. The exact process of subverting their government or gaining Jedi mind control over their leader - I leave the specifics of that to better brains than mine. But there could be a very involved combination of Spy Heroes/ mundane spies and magic to accomplish the take-over. It should take some time and take significant investment to "take over" the minor race. Also, I don;t think your take-over should be evident to other players. The tribes city(ies) come under your control, you move their armies, heck you could even run this minor races diplomacy and trading! (Imagine befriending your enemy via proxy and then betraying them and backstabbing them when they needed your help most! }:)   So I think for multiple reasons they should not just "convert" to being part of your empire, they become your puppets.

This also provides for some interesting counter-espionage possibilities. Another major tribe could infiltrate just as you did and wrest control of the Civ from you. If they suspected that a minor tribe had been taken over they could cleanse the leader of your nasty influence by a spell (should be very costly) just like Gandalf removing Grima's influence from Theodin of Rohan. And such a cleansing there should be very likely to cause the previously controlled sovereign to umm - put you at the top of his shit lilst and declare war on you! Of course if a channeler made the wrong call and tried to "cleanse" a sovereign who was not being controlled, well, it would be a huge waste of resources, and possibly said sovereign will be a tad miffed.

Anywya, eventually a true spy master player may find himself not only running his civilization, but eventually could be pulling the strings of multiple minor races as well. It strikes me as a VERY fun possibility, provides a truly unique path to victory 9although not its own VC) and I can;t think of any game that has taken such an approach.

One possible way i could see it working (there are tons of others) would be that first you would need to soften the sovereign up with some mundane spies that could ingratiate themselves and earn the sovereigns trust. This could be followed up by sending a Hero Spy in for the coup d'grace. The Hero could then either stick around to keep a tight reign (the cost being that he couldn't move on to his next victim) or he could proceed to subverting another Civ, but leaving the puppet cheiftain open to being taken over by another player. I would not expect this would be something easily available to any player, it should only be open to someone who vigourously pursued this path.

Thoughts?

8,045 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Your idea seems fun, but there would definitely need to be some significant resistance when such a thing happens. Some commanders will see what you're doing and rebel, others will fall under your influence. It SHOULD be evident that someone is messing with this kingdom's leadership, but it shouldn't be evident who it is (unless someone makes a concentrated effort to find out). There would of course be significant consequences if someone would find out that you were controlling the kingdom that repeatedly screwed them over, and that civ's bad rap would immediately spill over to you. 

However, if it were up to me, I would keep it more true to Grima's style. You don't control anything directly (too much micromanagement) but instead you can "suggest" courses of action to the leader of this minor race like "attack this civ" or "cut off relations with this civ" etc. Combat control of their armies is too much and would slow down the game. 

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I rather like this. We'd still have to think of something for the major players, but this has a lot of potential. One way I see of extending it to majors is the ability to misinform the learder: you get Grima'd, and the enemy actually shows you things that aren't there. Like your ally betraying you, and stuff. Again, not very fleshed-out, but worth considering....

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting SavageBananaMan34, reply 1
Your idea seems fun, but there would definitely need to be some significant resistance when such a thing happens. Some commanders will see what you're doing and rebel, others will fall under your influence. It SHOULD be evident that someone is messing with this kingdom's leadership, but it shouldn't be evident who it is (unless someone makes a concentrated effort to find out). There would of course be significant consequences if someone would find out that you were controlling the kingdom that repeatedly screwed them over, and that civ's bad rap would immediately spill over to you. 

However, if it were up to me, I would keep it more true to Grima's style. You don't control anything directly (too much micromanagement) but instead you can "suggest" courses of action to the leader of this minor race like "attack this civ" or "cut off relations with this civ" etc. Combat control of their armies is too much and would slow down the game. 

 
End of SavageBananaMan34's quote

I agree with specific control of the armies. However the ability to declare wars, trade techs, and effectively run diplomatic relations through a proxy, I think that could make for some real fun and wouldn't bog the game down. I don't think it should be obvious that they are being controlled because that would fundamentally undermine the whole point of doing so. Now it should be discoverable if someone is looking for it, and it should be counter-able. But clearly evident I think spoils the concept.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Scoutdog, reply 2
I rather like this. We'd still have to think of something for the major players, but this has a lot of potential. One way I see of extending it to majors is the ability to misinform the learder: you get Grima'd, and the enemy actually shows you things that aren't there. Like your ally betraying you, and stuff. Again, not very fleshed-out, but worth considering....
End of Scoutdog's quote

Yep this is one thing that could be used directly against the other Civs - you could taint the accuracy of the info that his advisors give the enemy channeler. Maybe you could lower the morale of the enemies army by spreading rumors.

There are lots of other directions that spycraft could be fleshed out. But I really find the ability to play puppet master of a minor race or three I find VERY intriguing.

sadly it doesn't seem like it has many other people excited. :'( Dang, I thought it was a pretty nifty idea.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

sadly it doesn't seem like it has many other people excited. Dang, I thought it was a pretty nifty idea.
End of quote

Don't worry too much by the seemingly lack of interest, some people have other things to do than hanging out on the Elemental forum (Yeah, I know, frightening concept... :grin: ) And the other threads about espionage take time to keep up with...

Anyway, about your idea, it really sounds interesting... It would certainly be something I'd like to try out in a game. The ability to move the army of the minor civ might be too much, but could sometimes be very usefull. I'd like to have the option to move them myself, if I don't let the AI take care of it.

The amount of investment it would take to start influencing a minor civ, shouldn't be too big... If for example the minor civs are comparable to those in GalCiv II, you wouldn't gain all THAT much be taking them over. The time / magic / essence required to take over a civilization should be related to the power of that civilization. Also, I think it should be easier to take over a civ that's friendly to you than one that's hostile... The leader of the minor civ would more easily be influenced by that big neighbour with some good, friendly advice compared to the other neighbour that has been making unreasonable demands in the past.

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

This kinda looks like vassalage, just without telling everyone else who's your vassal.  It sounds like a wonderful idea, I hate knowing things just because.  It doesn't really sound like espionage though, more like something for espionage to find out.

 

I'm guessing that when you try to come up with the how behind your idea to covertly take over a minor civ through espionage, it's going to end up RNG based. :(

 

How is the sticking point, what is fairly irrelevant until someone figures out a how that doesn't suck.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I think this is espionage, perhaps a truer stystem of espionage than just info-gathering, especially for a fantasy setting. I also understand how much you hate RNGs (I loathe them, too), but I think that they are easy to circumvent, provided that people want to kick them.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

This could be really cool, although I suspect it would take a lot of tweaking to get it working right (but then, so do most of the features that are worth being included). And like Psychoak said, it'd be hard to wean even this idea off of the RNG.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

There could be RNG elements but it wouldn't be the end all be all. I have been playing a lot of GC2 this weekend (imaging that it is land being healded by my ilnfluence, and turning laserfire into spells in my mind lol). Anyway I could see this project working somewhat like a terror star in TWOTA. How they need to have multiple constructors, likewise it could take multiple mundane spies gaining influence before sending in a hero spy to completely dominate the minor race's leader.

Where the RNG would come in but not be such a dominant factor, would be with the mundane spies. When they arrive in the other kingdom, their chance might only be 10% to gain the leader's ear. each turn would increase the probability by 10%. So the RNG would not be success/fail, it would really just determine how long the process took to infiltrate. So at worst, it would take 10 turns, and typical would be 3 to 4 turns. The RNG would play a factor but not an overwhelming one that would have you pulling your hair out.

After the first spy has gained the leader's trust, any subsequent spies gain an additional 10% starting bonus to being admitted to the inner circle. The total number of mundane spies needed before the hero spy is sent in should be a function of how powerful the minor race is - perhaps a function of total population. Once the requisite number of mundane spies are in place, the hero spy goes to the city and has 100% success rate of dominating the minor race.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

So the RNG would not be success/fail, it would really just determine how long the process took to infiltrate.
End of quote
That's still a bit too random for my tastes. RNGs should ideally be the exception, not the rule: critical hits, and the like. In this situation, good RNG placement would be maybe a 3% chance of the process taking a fgeww turns longer or shorter than usual.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Goodmorning all, 

The other option is to make the proceess always gradual, 

one spy would take 100 turns,  2 spys would take 75,  3 spies would take 56 turns. . .(each additional spy reducing the time by 25% of remaining).  Now if i spy get's caught the proccess would stop, or slow down for a while, and other spys would be at a higher risk of being caught for a short period,  but then the counter would continue to decend till the leader is entwined in a circle of lies, wormtougned.


Also this system would not require special special unit any spy with addiquate charisma would be elegible to join the team.  Note that higher caraisma might reduce the time by 30 or 35% and lower by only 15 or 20.

As an additional bonus this is completely achivable without on screen units you have to move up to the city.  it can all be done as missions from the spy desk

Robbie Price

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I like that approach R.P. - is your middle initial "I" by any chance? x_x

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Robbie.Price, reply 11
Goodmorning all, 

The other option is to make the proceess always gradual, 

one spy would take 100 turns,  2 spys would take 75,  3 spies would take 56 turns. . .(each additional spy reducing the time by 25% of remaining).  Now if i spy get's caught the proccess would stop, or slow down for a while, and other spys would be at a higher risk of being caught for a short period,  but then the counter would continue to decend till the leader is entwined in a circle of lies, wormtougned.


Also this system would not require special special unit any spy with addiquate charisma would be elegible to join the team.  Note that higher caraisma might reduce the time by 30 or 35% and lower by only 15 or 20.

As an additional bonus this is completely achivable without on screen units you have to move up to the city.  it can all be done as missions from the spy desk

Robbie Price
End of Robbie.Price's quote

Nice idea. Like it.

Edit: Some more thoughts.

Base Spies can't even start to influence people and are only for information gathering. With some research you can get Master Spys who can, but very slowly.

Now, with the right spells, the Channeler can imbue a Master Spy with some sort of mind magic, which will increase the influence rate greatly. Call them Mind Masters.

I think those shouldnt stack, cause it be to easy to get the boulder rolling once you have a couple of them (turn one town, move all Mind Masters to next and so on.).

So, yeah. Just some ideas.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Goodmorning all

Thanks,

Fortunately the middle innitial is not I, my parents where cruel, but not that bad.

As for having the ability being overpowered, it would be easy enough to have the 'completely subvert' require an ongoing mission, an unending mission that requires a certain minimum number of spys/ number of spy levels (1 super high level, or 3 mid levels for example).  That way you can't just pull your top brass and move on.



Also once a leader is action controled, any other faction can learn about that fact and try to expose the puppet and wake them up.  Spy mission, Free puppeted leader,  short time, high costs, high risk, but has very dramatic effects if it works.

Take care all
Robbie Price