spy attacks

[iljohn]

I have been looking at the espionage lately and I found something that im pretty sure should be changed a bit when I was looking I found out that you can just as easily kill spys as collect information on a nation  

 

for example 1 spy doing  extremely covert costing $51,961.52 can have a 82% chance of killing off spys against a nation with 4 spys but I don't see this possible this basically makes spys a complete waste of money in a sense but what are you thoughts I think there should be a bit of tinkering with the spys

 

also it seems that 1 spy can do the job off 4 spys cheaper EX: 4spys normal precautions cost $113,137.08 for 80% while well read above to see what 1 spy can do

 

another big one that I found and this is a big one

 

Placentica the worlds strongest player and also has 28 spys this is what just 1 spy chance is to kill

 

one spy has a 76% chance to win costing just $51,961.52 

Edited November 28, 2014 by iljohn

[Dwynn]

When I run the calculations it should be 25% odds, so it's most likely a bug/typo in the code in-game.

[Mutant]

28 to 1 and I still have a 25% chance? I like those odds, gentlemen.

[Arthur James]

here is what the game calculates: 1 spy sabotage 28 spies in 3 odds: Quick and dirty; Normal precautions; Extremely covert as 26%:51% and 76%.....you go 100% odds when adding 22 spies in xtreme covert..... and required $1,143,153.53.

which is very costly to operate.

[Alex]

If you use 1 spy to try and kill 28, you may have some success, but you'll still only kill like 1-2 spies max most likely.

[Morgan]

Has anybody found spies to be useful at all? I've used spies during a war once and they were useless. It cost more to use the spies than the damage they did against the nation I was at war with. 

[Livius Clades]

Spies aren't being used in war. They are being used to troll people. I lost at least 3 spies today and the Brotherhood isn't at war with anybody. This is an issue because then I have to spend my money on building more spies then on my brothers and my cities. I feel its wrong that one spy can kill two spies. Sheepy you gotta see this mechanic is getting abused for petty reasons and we can't even see who is killing our troops and destroying our units. I declared the founding of my Navy awhile ago on this forum, because I didn't even consider spies as a mechanic people used. Silly me. I lost the ship I built. And now someone is messing with me and my alliance. I find it completely uncalled for and ridiculously childish. iljohn says change the system, I agree. I don't know how we should change the system maybe limit the number of convert missions if that isn't already a thing or make spies slightly cheaper to build and more expensive to use, or just lessen the chance of success for a spy to be killed on both sides. Also what intel are they trying to obtain you can see everything I'm doing pretty much. They aren't spies they are saboteurs. They only destroy crap.

 

Maybe divide Spies and Saboteurs. Yeah have Saboteurs be hella expensive like 50k-75k and make spies around 25k. Spies can be used to gather intel and be used to defend against Saboteurs/Terrorists(the ratio of success would fall to you Sheepy). Saboteurs would be for destroying troops, killing spies and destroying ships and tanks. Make sense? I think it would help stop trolling, not completely but it might help.  

[iljohn]

Has anybody found spies to be useful at all? I've used spies during a war once and they were useless. It cost more to use the spies than the damage they did against the nation I was at war with. 

well spys are mostly used for navy killing other spys our for later taking out missiles and nukes

[Morgan]

Spies aren't being used in war. They are being used to troll people. I lost at least 3 spies today and the Brotherhood isn't at war with anybody. This is an issue because then I have to spend my money on building more spies then on my brothers and my cities. I feel its wrong that one spy can kill two spies. Sheepy you gotta see this mechanic is getting abused for petty reasons and we can't even see who is killing our troops and destroying our units. I declared the founding of my Navy awhile ago on this forum, because I didn't even consider spies as a mechanic people used. Silly me. I lost the ship I built. And now someone is messing with me and my alliance. I find it completely uncalled for and ridiculously childish. iljohn says change the system, I agree. I don't know how we should change the system maybe limit the number of convert missions if that isn't already a thing or make spies slightly cheaper to build and more expensive to use, or just lessen the chance of success for a spy to be killed on both sides. Also what intel are they trying to obtain you can see everything I'm doing pretty much. They aren't spies they are saboteurs. They only destroy crap.

 

Maybe divide Spies and Saboteurs. Yeah have Saboteurs be hella expensive like 50k-75k and make spies around 25k. Spies can be used to gather intel and be used to defend against Saboteurs/Terrorists(the ratio of success would fall to you Sheepy). Saboteurs would be for destroying troops, killing spies and destroying ships and tanks. Make sense? I think it would help stop trolling, not completely but it might help.  

 

 

I agree. The spy system should be altered. 

[ooohu]

Spies aren't being used in war. They are being used to troll people. I lost at least 3 spies today and the Brotherhood isn't at war with anybody. This is an issue because then I have to spend my money on building more spies then on my brothers and my cities. I feel its wrong that one spy can kill two spies. Sheepy you gotta see this mechanic is getting abused for petty reasons and we can't even see who is killing our troops and destroying our units. I declared the founding of my Navy awhile ago on this forum, because I didn't even consider spies as a mechanic people used. Silly me. I lost the ship I built. And now someone is messing with me and my alliance. I find it completely uncalled for and ridiculously childish. iljohn says change the system, I agree. I don't know how we should change the system maybe limit the number of convert missions if that isn't already a thing or make spies slightly cheaper to build and more expensive to use, or just lessen the chance of success for a spy to be killed on both sides. Also what intel are they trying to obtain you can see everything I'm doing pretty much. They aren't spies they are saboteurs. They only destroy crap.

 

Maybe divide Spies and Saboteurs. Yeah have Saboteurs be hella expensive like 50k-75k and make spies around 25k. Spies can be used to gather intel and be used to defend against Saboteurs/Terrorists(the ratio of success would fall to you Sheepy). Saboteurs would be for destroying troops, killing spies and destroying ships and tanks. Make sense? I think it would help stop trolling, not completely but it might help.  

This would kill the spy system entirely... you'd have so many more spies that it'd render anyone trying to use espionage against another nation/alliance almost hopelessly ineffective. Because for every 1 saboteur you'll have 2-3 spies to counter him... Now I can understand being annoyed by having your ships blown apart by espionage but that just means you should invest in more spies.

[Jodo]

Has anybody found spies to be useful at all? I've used spies during a war once and they were useless. It cost more to use the spies than the damage they did against the nation I was at war with. 

I find them useful. I'm the 'low man' in TEst. So when my alliance mates get into a scuffle with people out of my war range, or targets that are full with no slots open, I can send spies to blow up ships/airforce or gather intel on how much gas/ammo they have left. They are very useful when used correctly.

[Livius Clades]

This would kill the spy system entirely... you'd have so many more spies that it'd render anyone trying to use espionage against another nation/alliance almost hopelessly ineffective. Because for every 1 saboteur you'll have 2-3 spies to counter him... Now I can understand being annoyed by having your ships blown apart by espionage but that just means you should invest in more spies.

See the problem with that is for every 1 spy I build I lose 3. And I can only build 2 a day. So no it would make the system fair, not broken like it is now. I think it would make sense and depending of how you make the winning ratio it could make it far more balanced. For example in Risk the Defending unit gets 3 die while the attacker gets 2. This same type of system could be used where the game auto-generates a "roll" and randomizes who wins. That gives the defense a 66% chance to win over the Attacker who has a 34 percent chance. This is common is strategy games as the defender usually has the advantage. Now you would just have to add a multiplier for the number of spies vs saboteurs. It would work.

[Phiney]

Question, has anyone killed or had killed more than 2 spies at a time? During the TEst SI war I couldn't kill more than 2

[SAI-40]

Never. It's always two for me.

[Phiney]

So that plus the 3ish spy attack against you limit (or 5 or whatever it is) per day, its quite slow work whittling them down. Doesn't seem over powered to me.

[Shellhound]

Has anybody found spies to be useful at all? I've used spies during a war once and they were useless. It cost more to use the spies than the damage they did against the nation I was at war with. 

The main reason for this is your nation size, spies are mostly useful in gathering info and taking out ships, looks like this might get adjusted but spies really aren't for I'd say >300 score nations.

[Placentica]

Yea I have to admit I didn't realize spy odds were so high to sabotage others spies.  Prob. need to cut the % success by 1/3 or at least 1/2, like it is with ships.  In theory it should be hard for spies to kill other spies.

[Livius Clades]

I have lost 7 spies in 24 hours. Here's the records:

 

 

My members have been dealing with the same !@#$. Yet not one failed attempt? Not one when I've been hit 5 times, iljohn was hit 6 times and on the 24th LF was hit twice. 11 times in 24 hours and not one failed attempt? I'm not even including the attacks on Ashland. This is ridiculous and after I put all this on here I fully expect to get hit multiple times. Why? Because there are some petty people targeting my alliance for no other reason then because they can. 

 

7 spies in one day. ONE DAY. I can only build 2 spies a day. TWO SPIES.  Yeah this mechanic is broken, one of the people working on this game needs to fix it, whether it's Sheepy or whoever. It's a broken mechanic and people are abusing it.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Livius Clades

[Livius Clades]

OH! LOOK AT THIS! HOW DOES ONE SPY KILL FIVE SHIPS!?

 

 

It just happened while I was writing my other comment. Here's more proof on how broken this is.

[Ashland]

It's kind of ridiculous that there's literally no chance of catching them.  Come on, Sheepy.

[ELPINCHAZO]

The main reason for this is your nation size, spies are mostly useful in gathering info and taking out ships, looks like this might get adjusted but spies really aren't for I'd say >300 score nations.

Yeah,we've used them effectively in war. I'd say that they will become very important as the majority of nations grow.

 

The thing is with spies,they are expensive as are carrying most military. You have to do a cost/benefit analysis. I would consider carrying spies like paying for insurance,the more coverage you have the better off you should be.

[Ashland]

Yeah,we've used them effectively in war. I'd say that they will become very important as the majority of nations grow.

 

The thing is with spies,they are expensive as are carrying most military. You have to do a cost/benefit analysis. I would consider carrying spies like paying for insurance,the more coverage you have the better off you should be.

Fantastic if it actually worked in practice.

[Livius Clades]

They don't work because if you have enough money there is a 100% chance of victory.

[SAI-40]

They don't work because if you have enough money there is a 100% chance of victory.

 

Yeah, and the damage you do is going to be significantly less than the money you spend to do it. If you have enough spies and money, there should be a 100% chance of victory, because you are dumping a lot of money into getting your desired effect.

[Phiney]

They don't work because if you have enough money there is a 100% chance of victory.

 

This isn't true at all. the more spies the opponent has, the less chance of victory there is. So if they have as many as you, then you can't get 100% chance on some things, or even close on a lot of things.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Phiney