Visible troop and other nation information

[popnfrresh]

All of the nation information should be hidden unless spied upon.

 

I shouldnt be able to see what the person I am about to attack's military without spying on it first.

 

This could be low risk to reveal information with a certain amount needed to reveal.

[Vincent]

That will force even a small nation to have spies and the cost of recruiting them is not of that a new nation can afford.

[last187]

its not that expensive to recruit a single spy

[Alex]

its not that expensive to recruit a single spy

 

It's $50,000 and $2,400 a day, that's rather spendy for a new nation.

 

The other fact of the matter is simply that you could figure out how big of an army a player has by looking at the score formula, so why make people dig around on the wiki for formulas and do the math themselves when the game can do it for them?

[Destroyer]

It's $50,000 and $2,400 a day, that's rather spendy for a new nation.

 

The other fact of the matter is simply that you could figure out how big of an army a player has by looking at the score formula, so why make people dig around on the wiki for formulas and do the math themselves when the game can do it for them?

Agree

[Reagan]

Not everyone will understand how to look at the score formula and assess a nation's military size. More incentive to join an alliance and learn from them.

 

Beyond that, I strongly disagree with being able to see how many spies another nation has. Spy effectiveness is countered by how many spies the nation being spied has (correct me if I'm wrong about that).

 

The decision to launch a spy attack should favor risk/reward. Not only does it make more sense from a RP perspective, but it increases the risk of a failed operation, or exposure, which can heat things up politically. I'll have to reference (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) here because it's one thing they got right. When you know exactly how many spies the enemy has, you're less inclined to spy on them unless you build up your own spies first. Finally, a nation may gamble on not bulking up their spies, hoping their poker face holds and using their funds towards other things if no one knows how many they might have. It's a gamble each side takes and it's more dynamic gameplay.

[Greene]

I'm with Reagan on this one, I really think there's a good enough balance here with what we're talking about.

[last187]

it would finally make spies a little more usefull

[Ren]

If I remember correctly, the odds of successful espionage are calculated from the ratio of spies, so someone could easily solve for the enemy's spy count if it's not already displayed. It's the same logic as Sheepy's point above.

[Reagan]

If I remember correctly, the odds of successful espionage are calculated from the ratio of spies, so someone could easily solve for the enemy's spy count if it's not already displayed. It's the same logic as Sheepy's point above.

 

You guys assume everyone here is a math wizard or took the time to locate the formulas and discern how to make sense of them in order to calculate these things.  I've played since November and I can tell you I don't fit in either category.  The average player would benefit from my suggestion.  According to your logic, why not just go ahead and display the war results of a battle before it's fought?  There's something to be said for putting it on the players to figure things out rather than the game handing it to them on a silver platter.  It's what makes it more challenging and fun.  We talk about how politics are dead, but we refuse to do anything to make it more dynamic.

[Ren]

That was Sheepy's explanation for it last time this discussion came up. Both when the odds of success and the cost of the op can reveal the enemy's spy count. I'd like to see a little more risk when performing spy actions, but at the same time I think the odds of success need to be displayed. It follows the same logic as Sheepy's response above: If some can math their way to the answer with the information given, then let's just give them the answer and level the field.

 

There would need to be some randomness/fudge factor to the odds and cost calculations if the spy count were were to be removed from the nation page .

[Livius Clades]

It's $50,000 and $2,400 a day, that's rather spendy for a new nation.

 

The other fact of the matter is simply that you could figure out how big of an army a player has by looking at the score formula, so why make people dig around on the wiki for formulas and do the math themselves when the game can do it for them?

 And this is why we bow to the almighty Sheepy!

Edited November 25, 2014 by Livius Clades

[Grillick]

The odds could display a range, rather than a precise percentage...

[Mikhail Gorbachev]

I agree with Reagan (wow, did I just say that?); it would be nice to have spy count hidden.

[Alex]

If I remember correctly, the odds of successful espionage are calculated from the ratio of spies, so someone could easily solve for the enemy's spy count if it's not already displayed. It's the same logic as Sheepy's point above.

 

This is basically my point, anyone worth their salt would look at the odds and the cost, plug the variables they have into the odds formula and solve for X. Boom, now you now how many spies they have. Is that hard? No, probably not, but it's tedious and if you're going to sit there and do it with a calculator, might as well have the game do it for you.

 

If you think the average player doesn't care enough to do all the math themselves, you may be right, at least the first few attempts. After they've failed so many times, they'll want to know why, and then they'll be digging out their calculators like everyone else. Perhaps instead we could just not display the number of spies and the odds by default, but simply have a button to let you see them if you want. That way, they're hidden, but if you want to know (which you could anyway) you could just click the button instead of digging out your calculator and sorting through the wiki to find the formulas.

[naTia]

 

This is basically my point, anyone worth their salt would look at the odds and the cost, plug the variables they have into the odds formula and solve for X. Boom, now you now how many spies they have. Is that hard? No, probably not, but it's tedious and if you're going to sit there and do it with a calculator, might as well have the game do it for you.

 

If you think the average player doesn't care enough to do all the math themselves, you may be right, at least the first few attempts. After they've failed so many times, they'll want to know why, and then they'll be digging out their calculators like everyone else. Perhaps instead we could just not display the number of spies and the odds by default, but simply have a button to let you see them if you want. That way, they're hidden, but if you want to know (which you could anyway) you could just click the button instead of digging out your calculator and sorting through the wiki to find the formulas.

 

We have to do this anyways for a lot of things, so why not this? Calculations are an integral part to really getting into this game. As said before, this is more incentive for alliances to do work to help their nations. Why not calculate other things for us then, like what a farm is worth given our current land, or given the average price of a resource, what a refinery is worth. If you want to get the exact details of something you can do the math, but if you want to eyeball it you can. This should be the same for the proposed.

[Reagan]

Perhaps instead we could just not display the number of spies and the odds by default, but simply have a button to let you see them if you want. That way, they're hidden, but if you want to know (which you could anyway) you could just click the button instead of digging out your calculator and sorting through the wiki to find the formulas.

 

That would be pointless.  I'd rather see a system where there is no way to calculate how many spies a nation may have beyond launching a successful spy attack to find out.

[Ren]

If the spy count was removed altogether, and by extension the odds, how many people would actually use espionage? It's far too expensive to send spies on a blind mission without knowing if you have the slightest chance of winning. I can see why you would want to keep your spy count a secret, but I think that the price would have to come down accommodate the new level of risk that would bring.

[Dwynn]

It's $50,000 and $2,400 a day, that's rather spendy for a new nation.

 

The other fact of the matter is simply that you could figure out how big of an army a player has by looking at the score formula, so why make people dig around on the wiki for formulas and do the math themselves when the game can do it for them?

 

 

If the spy count was removed altogether, and by extension the odds, how many people would actually use espionage? It's far too expensive to send spies on a blind mission without knowing if you have the slightest chance of winning. I can see why you would want to keep your spy count a secret, but I think that the price would have to come down accommodate the new level of risk that would bring.

 

I'm going to have to say I agree with Reagan here as much as it pains me. I see the point of "It can be figured out so why not give it to them all". But as Nao has stated, it's basically that way with everything in the game. You apply one logic to one part, and a different logic to another.

 

As was stated, instead of having exact odds, have a range. Instead of having costs be exact, have them be a range as well. Hide the spies.

 

As for the "why are they going to risk it?". Because it provides vital information that they have no way of knowing otherwise, or it provides additional damage to a nation via subterfuge, and you don't have to be entangled in war to do it.

 

I get both sides of the coin here, I just don't get the wishy-washy implementation that's gone on. It's like it's based on the day and whoever nags Sheepy the most. Either something get's implemented that's downright awesomely implemented, or ... it's not.

 

I realize that you want to keep casual players, but casual players aren't going to break out the calculator and get the exact digits. They'll look at the rough gauge (i.e. "You have roughly 20-30% chance of success for this operation.") and then go "Oh, I must need more spies." They won't care about exacts, they'll just buy more till it is in a range that's more acceptable for them.

 

Not only that, adding an element of randomness to spying needs to be done. Even a mission that should have 100% odds should have, even if only minutely, a chance for failure.

 

To put this into tabletop RP style. In my experience, most games have something in place where you can roll a critical success or critical failure. Even if it's a walk in a park, rolling snake eyes produces some sort of failure option (example).

 

These, albeit small, chances add a realistic chance of failure. You cannot guarantee perfect results every time you do something, you can only do everything possible in your power to limit the failure.

 

 

Edit:

To add to the "you can look at the nation and see how much they have". No, you can look at the nations and cities and see how much they're capable of, not necessarily how many they have on hand. Completely different story.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Micheal Malone

[Phiney]

Agreed with Malone and Reagan, would be much more interesting to have spies hidden. And just either don't show the chances of success at all, or show a rough estimate