Suggesting rework of "Espionage"

[Grapjas]

Don't wanna hijack the other post from @wowgetoffyourcellphone but it got the ball rolling. so decided to make a seperate thread instead.

My suggestion something along the lines of:

A:

• Make Espionage exclusive to village phase but reduce the cost.
• Expand vision to support units of the player you selected to bribe.

B:

• Make the amount of times you can Espionage limited to something like 3 times a game.
• Expand vision to buildings of the player you selected to bribe.
• Make it have a timer till the vision goes away again <- currently cant be modded, it would require some work on the C++ side of the engine. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

C: 

• Keep as is, just expand bribable units to all support units, not just traders
• Only 3 "bribes" can be active at a time

 

[maroder]

D:

• You can bribe all units in all phases, because everyone has a price
• but make it so expensive it will only be used few times in late game

[Grapjas]

1 minute ago, maroder said:

D:

• You can bribe all units in all phases, because everyone has a price
• but make it so expensive it will only be used few times in late game

Could make the price increase (like +200 metal) per bribe you do.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I find government corruption interesting, my country knows very well about it.

 

[soloooy0]

for games that the loser does not want to give up, if the enemy has less than 10% or 5% total pop
that using the spies you see the last units

[Nescio]

29 minutes ago, Grapjas said:

Expand vision to support units of the player you selected to bribe.

27 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Keep as is, just expand bribable units to all support units, not just traders

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3565

[Lopess]

37 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I find government corruption interesting, my country knows very well about it.

 

coff..coff..

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48787996

[chrstgtr]

36 minutes ago, Nescio said:

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3565

Why would anyone want to do this? I wouldn't want to spend resources just to see that the enemy has a soldier fighting my army. Just like I wouldn't want to spend resources to see that my enemy has women farming by their CC because I already assume this. 

 

Making it so that it reveals ALL traders would be useful since it gives a more information than the base fact that a trade line runs through one specific point.  

[maroder]

36 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Why would anyone want to do this? I wouldn't want to spend resources just to see that the enemy has a soldier fighting my army. Just like I wouldn't want to spend resources to see that my enemy has women farming by their CC because I already assume this. 

You never know, maybe this time they put the farms in front of the battlefield.

But jokes aside, that's a good point. An interesting video relevant to this topic:

To make it short: randomness in map generation is good, because it helps with replayability, but randomness as in loot boxes or in this case bribing units is bad, because you can get screwed hard.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

17 minutes ago, maroder said:

randomness as in loot boxes or in this case bribing units is bad, because you can get screwed hard.

The current bribe method is supposed to be a bit risky. Sometimes you get actionable intel, sometimes you don't. 

 

EDIT: Right now, the downside is too likely. That's why I proposed to extend bribery to more unit classes, to increase the likelihood of actionable intel. 

Edited March 12, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[maroder]

I do support the idea of all units being bribable and I also like the idea of escalating cost to do so. 

So if you really want to know if your opponent is going for a rush, you can invest your 50 starting metal in a bribe and see what he's up to. But then you have to delay the first woodcutting upgrade. 

The next time you want to get intel, it costs 100 ect. ect.

But I also see the problem, that once you invest let's say 800 metal, you are very disappointed when you bribe a unit just to find out that the position of your opponents cc has not changed.

Maybe that just needs to be tested in game, to see if it is enough of a improvement.

[chrstgtr]

43 minutes ago, maroder said:

You never know, maybe this time they put the farms in front of the battlefield.

My point is that changing it to all units or something instead of just traders means you would have like a 1/6 chance of seeing a woman in a field. And a 1/2 chance of seeing a solider fighting your own army. So about 2/3 of the time you would get useless information. Current structure means you would never get useless information as knowing where traders are is always useful. 

Edit: a change would be nice as the tech is basically never used now and it's a cool idea. But the most common suggestion is a nerf that would make it even less likely to be used in the future. 

Edited March 12, 2021 by chrstgtr

[Grapjas]

Maybe instead of only 1 person that gets bribed it should randomly bribe a handful of people, like 5 or maybe even 10 at once for 15s. Along with the escalating metal costs for each bribe or a hard game limit to make sure it doesnt get to spammy in case someone has good metal income from traders. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Edit: a change would be nice as the tech is basically never used now and it's a cool idea. But the most common suggestion is a nerf that would make it even less likely to be used in the future. 

I don't see how extending it to all support units is a nerf, when before all you'd be able to see is the position of some trade routes and whatever the trader happened to be walking by. At least if you extend it to all support units you could see the position of his key mining operation or something to that effect (in DE, bribery is possible for all Support units and Citizen Soldiers). You can  use bribery multiple times as long as you can afford it and get multiple bribed units feeding you vision. It's not supposed to be some big game changing effect. Just possibly give you some actionable intel. If the first bribe doesn't give you much, bribe again.  Maybe it's currently too expensive for that, and cost needs looked at in conjunction. 

[chrstgtr]

11 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I don't see how extending it to all support units is a nerf

Because it would result in a 2/3 chance that you see something worthless since is about the chance of seeing either women around a CC or an army that you are already fighting. As opposed to now when you get a 100% chance of seeing something useful that you won't intuitively know (i.e. traders and whatever they walk by which could be useful and isn't likely to where the fight is or the farmers). It should be given a buff because no one uses it now. But spending units to see a woman farming isn't a buff. 

Edited March 12, 2021 by chrstgtr

[hyperion]

What is talked about here is some tweaking, reworking could be being able to buy info about techs researched, how many troops there are, how many resources are stocked.

The issue with the current setup is, it's much cheaper and more reliable to just send a horse into the enemy base.

The advantage of being able to bribe any unit to share vision is mostly if your opponent plays hide and seek with his last one or two units.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Lopess said:

coff..coff..

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48787996

Yes but but mine could end up in jail in the United States. Lol.

 

_______leaving aside the jokes ---- +

I remember that in EE there was a unit that was a diplomat and in RoN there was then another general or hero type unit that could bribe your units...

 

 

[Grapjas]

1 hour ago, chrstgtr said:

Because it would result in a 2/3 chance that you see something worthless since is about the chance of seeing either women around a CC or an army that you are already fighting. As opposed to now when you get a 100% chance of seeing something useful that you won't intuitively know (i.e. traders and whatever they walk by which could be useful and isn't likely to where the fight is or the farmers). It should be given a buff because no one uses it now. But spending units to see a woman farming isn't a buff. 

Seeing a trader isnt all that useful either tbh. Most people place their market at the back of the base / edge of the map and a decent player makes sure they walk it too. So you can already guess where those things are very likely to be and they are hard to defend because they get wiped in a blink of an eye and your military will likely be somewhere else to respond to it in time. EDIT: Besides, what happens if the player doesn't have traders? Gone metal?

E.g. what you want to know:

Why has the opponent suddenly stopped attacking even though he was aggressive? Probably will reposition to attack someone else or waiting for a regroup from another player. Those are situations where a bribe can be useful. So you then choose that player to bribe for 50 metal. You get displayed X number of units for X amount of time, i liked @wowgetoffyourcellphone possibility that you can get crappy info. Too bad. Next bribe will cost you X more than usual. I could see some people use that, even though others won't. Maybe bribe should be something very short. 3-5s you see all selected player units before they return to FOW.

1 hour ago, hyperion said:

The issue with the current setup is, it's much cheaper and more reliable to just send a horse into the enemy base.

The advantage of being able to bribe any unit to share vision is mostly if your opponent plays hide and seek with his last one or two units.

Right now yes , but even then i dont think it gets used. It's exactly why a rework is suggested to make it more interestingly.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Grapjas

[Gurken Khan]

On 12/03/2021 at 9:11 PM, Grapjas said:

• Make Espionage exclusive to village phase but reduce the cost.

I think intel might be the least beneficial in village phase, while also it would be less realistic for a village to pull off an espionage mission as for a city.

 

On 12/03/2021 at 9:11 PM, Grapjas said:

• Make the amount of times you can Espionage limited to something like 3 times a game.

As proposed by others above, increasing the cost for each use might be the better solution.

[fales]

I like @Grapjas idea of showing the vision of multiple units (I suggest 5) at the same time (with all units included, not only traders). There could be some preference for units moving towards your positions.

Instead of increased cost for each  use I would suggest a count down - it takes some time to get useful information from the other side. The count down could either be between the bribes or (may be better) it could even take some time to get the intel ready (you pay now and after 30 seconds you get a one minute window to use the vision). Moreover, it IHMO better corresponds to the rest of the game, technologies take time to investigate, citizens take time to train.

[Lion.Kanzen]

What about Espionage level 2?

[Palaiologos]

On 11/05/2021 at 1:04 PM, fales said:

(you pay now and after 30 seconds you get a one minute window to use the vision)

 

On 11/05/2021 at 1:15 PM, Lion.Kanzen said:

What about Espionage level 2?

Why not just reveal the whole map for a certain duration rather than targeting specific units. Espionage levels for each phase. Delayed pay now/capture intel both nice ideas.

[Dakara]

Delete the tech please  

You can guess where the traders are, or just go exploring. save you resources for really useful things.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Dakara

[fales]

10 hours ago, Palaiologos said:

 

Why not just reveal the whole map for a certain duration rather than targeting specific units. Espionage levels for each phase. Delayed pay now/capture intel both nice ideas.

Revealing the whole map seems to much to me. However, it suggested to me a new way how it could work. The espionage could create an additional strip of vision around your territory with partial knowledge (something between knowing everything and nothing).

An example: for simplicity, imagine you only have CC and it has a vision range of 10 meters around it where you know about everything what is happening there. After paying for espionage it would create vision in the range between 10 and 20 meters around the CC where you would know about every building and for units you would only have e.g. 50 % chance to see them. You could even choose how much to pay for the espionage and bigger investment could result in wider strip of vision and/or higher chance of seeing units.

Sure, this solution would require more programming, but it could be quite realistic and useful because a large group of attackers would be almost surely seen but a small raid could go unnoticed.