so spies

[Ogaden]

Every war I never really get to use spies, they're all assassinated by the 3rd or fourth day of war.

 

There doesn't seem to be any way of preventing having every last spy in your country murdered in a week or so?

 

Considering the rebuy rate is literally it takes 3 and a half weeks to build your spies up, shouldn't it take at least a week and a half of spy attacks to murder them all, rather than 2 full days?>

Edited June 20, 2016 by Ogaden

[LordRahl2]

If it did then spies would be basically valueless.

[Andrezj Kolarov]

In Alex's podcast I think it mentioned that spy buy-rate will be increased to 4 a day (5 with CIA). I think one way to do it would be to have 2 espionage unit types; Spies and Counter-Spies, Spies do the operations while Counter-Spies can't attack, so they just sit in your nation and defend against spies (though they do that much better than regular spies).

[Buorhann]

I think one way to do it would be to have 2 espionage unit types; Spies and Counter-Spies, Spies do the operations while Counter-Spies can't attack, so they just sit in your nation and defend against spies (though they do that much better than regular spies).

 

No thanks.  That'll just add more problems in the future.

[Speaker Faris Wheeler]

Every war I never really get to use spies, they're all assassinated by the 3rd or fourth day of war.

 

There doesn't seem to be any way of preventing having every last spy in your country murdered in a week or so?

 

Considering the rebuy rate is literally it takes 3 and a half weeks to build your spies up, shouldn't it take at least a week and a half of spy attacks to murder them all, rather than 2 full days?>

"Can you please make sure none of my aircraft are destroyed because I don't like it. Thanks" Edited June 20, 2016 by Zelda

[Ogaden]

"Can you please make sure none of my aircraft are destroyed because I don't like it. Thanks"

I've had my aircraft destroyed many times, in fact I think I have among the most aircraft losses in the game

I can rebuild my air force though in a week, so it's not a complete pain in the ass.  There was a time where all my spies were murdered every single day for 4 months.

[BeachBunny]

I've had my aircraft destroyed many times, in fact I think I have among the most aircraft losses in the game

I can rebuild my air force though in a week, so it's not a complete pain in the ass.  There was a time where all my spies were murdered every single day for 4 months.

 

 

I cant imagine why....

 

I think its fine the way it is.

[Kyte]

Every war I never really get to use spies, they're all assassinated by the 3rd or fourth day of war.

 

There doesn't seem to be any way of preventing having every last spy in your country murdered in a week or so?

 

Considering the rebuy rate is literally it takes 3 and a half weeks to build your spies up, shouldn't it take at least a week and a half of spy attacks to murder them all, rather than 2 full days?>

 

Hm. I recall that Sheepy was working on changing the buy rate to 5 a day if you have the CIA.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Kyte

[Caillou]

I have killed 93 spies this war

[Alex]

As pointed out above, in the host of war changes I plan to make, I intend to increase the spy purchase rate.

[LordRahl2]

As pointed out above, in the host of war changes I plan to make, I intend to increase the spy purchase rate.

 

Why?  Are you planning on increasing the kill rate at the bottom end of the spy numbers or do you just want spys to stop being relevant?

[Alex]

Why?  Are you planning on increasing the kill rate at the bottom end of the spy numbers or do you just want spys to stop being relevant?

 

Because at 2 spies/day it currently takes 25 days to max your spies. At 3 spies/day it will take 17, which I believe is a more reasonable number. I don't see how that makes spies irrelevant.

 

And with the CIA and 5/day it still takes 12 days to max spies, but I believe the CIA needs the buff.

[LordRahl2]

Because at 2 spies/day it currently takes 25 days to max your spies. At 3 spies/day it will take 17, which I believe is a more reasonable number. I don't see how that makes spies irrelevant.

 

And with the CIA and 5/day it still takes 12 days to max spies, but I believe the CIA needs the buff.

 

With the CIA delivering 5 per day everyone with nukes will have one and with the ability to rebuild 5 a day you are nerfing the ability to kill nukes (which is the ONLY wartime application of spies that makes sense) to about zero utility thereby making spies irrelevant.  I mean you have to have them if you have nukes so I guess that makes them "relevant" but they will no longer be used offensively by anyone who understands the mechanics.

 

Edit added "offensively"

Edited June 20, 2016 by LordRahl2

[Alex]

With the CIA delivering 5 per day everyone with nukes will have one and with the ability to rebuild 5 a day you are nerfing the ability to kill nukes (which is the ONLY wartime application of spies that makes sense) to about zero utility thereby making spies irrelevant.  I mean you have to have them if you have nukes so I guess that makes them "relevant" but they will no longer be used offensively by anyone who understands the mechanics.

 

Edit added "offensively"

 

Please use the Battle Simulator and tell me how an extra 4 spies over 2 days (or 6 over 3 days) makes much of a difference. Sure, it lowers the odds slightly, but not in any real meaningful way. Go ahead and run your own simulations; I just did 3 50 spy nations vs a 60 spy nation and even with one failed assassinate spy ops, and the opponent rebuying 5/day, the opponent was down to 14 spies in just 2 days (or just one update) which leaves you with 38% sabotage nuke odds. If they could only rebuy 2/day that would leave them with 6 less, which is 8 spies, and the odds for that are at most 55%.

 

So sure, this is about a 31% reduction in nuclear weapon sabotage, but it far from eliminates it as being possible. 

[LordRahl2]

 

So sure, this is about a 31% reduction in nuclear weapon sabotage, but it far from eliminates it as being possible. 

 

 

Possible and acceptable in a tactical situation are different things Alex.  There has to be an acceptable level of risk to initiate the operation to include the uncertainty factor and the risk of losing your attacking spies and the cost of doing the operations.  So....no it functionally eliminates them from the game.

 

If you would like to revert to the old odds system it might return it to possible - but I doubt that.   If you really want to make it reasonable and you MUST increase the build spy cap then you should increase how many spies a successful kill spy op does when the target has under 25 spies.  Or make th CIA allow people to hit into a country 4 times.  Otherwise, and I say this with probably the most spy ops experience in the game, effective offensive spy ops will cease to be an actual thing in game.

 

But whatever man.  I am sure I donno what I am talking about.  It will free up my Friday nights during future wars so that is a bonus.

[LordRahl2]

Or you could decouple the max conventional kills from 1 airbase/factory/shipyard.  Make it a % of the targets total planes/tanks/ships.  If the % was high enough, say 3-5%, it may become more than irrelevant.

[Kyte]

Or you could decouple the max conventional kills from 1 airbase/factory/shipyard.  Make it a % of the targets total planes/tanks/ships.  If the % was high enough, say 3-5%, it may become more than irrelevant.

 

Now this....this could be deadly. Unfortunately, that rate might change the ways wars are fought, perhaps not for the better. 

[LordRahl2]

Now this....this could be deadly. Unfortunately, that rate might change the ways wars are fought, perhaps not for the better.

 

Hmmmm, why? Too OP? 3% seems reasonable considering cost and difficulty.

[Buorhann]

Please use the Battle Simulator and tell me how an extra 4 spies over 2 days (or 6 over 3 days) makes much of a difference. Sure, it lowers the odds slightly, but not in any real meaningful way. Go ahead and run your own simulations; I just did 3 50 spy nations vs a 60 spy nation and even with one failed assassinate spy ops, and the opponent rebuying 5/day, the opponent was down to 14 spies in just 2 days (or just one update) which leaves you with 38% sabotage nuke odds. If they could only rebuy 2/day that would leave them with 6 less, which is 8 spies, and the odds for that are at most 55%.

 

So sure, this is about a 31% reduction in nuclear weapon sabotage, but it far from eliminates it as being possible. 

 

 

Did you factor in the limited number of spy ops a nation can be hit with?

 

You have to consider that it takes roughly 3-6 assassinate spy ops in order to weaken a nation's spy defense in order to reliably knock out nukes, by which, that nation will have accumulated at least 24 MAPs before their nukes are able to be targeted with sufficient odds of knocking them out.

 

Adding in 5 spies per day with CIA, will make it that much harder to knock out nukes.

 

If you're going to go with this change, can I suggest bumping up the VDS to a 35% chance of thwarting nukes?

[LordRahl2]

Did you factor in the limited number of spy ops a nation can be hit with?

 

You have to consider that it takes roughly 3-6 assassinate spy ops in order to weaken a nation's spy defense in order to reliably knock out nukes, by which, that nation will have accumulated at least 24 MAPs before their nukes are able to be targeted with sufficient odds of knocking them out.

 

Adding in 5 spies per day with CIA, will make it that much harder to knock out nukes.

 

If you're going to go with this change, can I suggest bumping up the VDS to a 35% chance of thwarting nukes?

I would say opperationally irrelivant but I don't think Alex gets the current difficulty level or small margin we are working with.

[Arkiri Arch]

I have killed 93 spies this war

So you're the person who killed all mine? lmfao who did this to my poor spies!!!

[ArcKnox]

I would say opperationally irrelivant but I don't think Alex gets the current difficulty level or small margin we are working with.

Nah, we just don't know anything about spies. No sir, absolutely nothing. We don't know the first thing about spycraft.

[Kemal Ergenekon]

Nah, we just don't know anything about spies. No sir, absolutely nothing. We don't know the first thing about spycraft.

 

So much so that we could not estimate actual spy count from obfuscated numbers back in the day.

[WISD0MTREE]

I remember when spies were uncapped. 

 

Should've gone with a soft cap. Then we could just say that they didn't have enough spies. 

[Caecus]

Please use the Battle Simulator and tell me how an extra 4 spies over 2 days (or 6 over 3 days) makes much of a difference. Sure, it lowers the odds slightly, but not in any real meaningful way. Go ahead and run your own simulations; I just did 3 50 spy nations vs a 60 spy nation and even with one failed assassinate spy ops, and the opponent rebuying 5/day, the opponent was down to 14 spies in just 2 days (or just one update) which leaves you with 38% sabotage nuke odds. If they could only rebuy 2/day that would leave them with 6 less, which is 8 spies, and the odds for that are at most 55%.

 

So sure, this is about a 31% reduction in nuclear weapon sabotage, but it far from eliminates it as being possible. 

 

 

Possible and acceptable in a tactical situation are different things Alex.  There has to be an acceptable level of risk to initiate the operation to include the uncertainty factor and the risk of losing your attacking spies and the cost of doing the operations.  So....no it functionally eliminates them from the game.

 

If you would like to revert to the old odds system it might return it to possible - but I doubt that.   If you really want to make it reasonable and you MUST increase the build spy cap then you should increase how many spies a successful kill spy op does when the target has under 25 spies.  Or make th CIA allow people to hit into a country 4 times.  Otherwise, and I say this with probably the most spy ops experience in the game, effective offensive spy ops will cease to be an actual thing in game.

 

But whatever man.  I am sure I donno what I am talking about.  It will free up my Friday nights during future wars so that is a bonus.

 

Running the numbers, it doesn't seem too bad actually. A double rebuy from someone with no CIA puts them at 8. If you have 50 spies, you could still assassinate and then have an ally sabotage the nuke for relatively good chances. If you had CIA, you could go straight for the kill. However, looking at the double rebuy for CIA, it does favor the defender a lot more. The offense needs to coordinate better for the ops, keeping in mind that there are only 3 ops limited every day. It would decrease the rate at which nukes could be spied away, which is perhaps a good idea to have GPA spy ops and NK members weigh in on this matter (since their last debacle tested that system quite well). 

 

 

 

Alex, what Rahl is trying to say (perhaps not in the most persuasive tone) is that people who are sabotaging nuclear weapons generally don't like odds below 80% success. At least, I don't, since I have a nuclear stockpile to protect. Some of those ballsy guys out there with just the CIA and nothing to lose might. A failure means you waste money, or worse, lose spies, and waste an op. If you were fighting on multiple fronts, that loss of spies could compromise your own nuclear stockpile or your capacity to assassinate spies. The key aspect of the spy system is that when you fail, your opponent does not lose any spies or resources, unlike conventional warfare. Losing spies on the homefront translates to a weaker defense against others. I would have to side with Rahl on this one and advise caution in improving the defense. I don't think it would entirely stop spying, but you would sure see a decrease in its usage after a while.