Limit the nation spy range

[Grillick]

This suggestion would make the game much more boring for me, but I wouldn't oppose it too vocally. It's not at all unreasonable.

[Phiney]

Agree with grillick. It'd make it less interesting but has some merit

[Alex]

I don't think we need to change the whole system because of one unconventional example. Unless this is an issue for normal nations, I don't think we need to both with changing game mechanics that affect everyone.

[Clarke]

Well we don't know if it is an issue since most spy attacks are successful so we can't say for sure if we're being spied by someone who has no business being in range to spy. 

[Alex]

Well we don't know if it is an issue since most spy attacks are successful so we can't say for sure if we're being spied by someone who has no business being in range to spy. 

 

How do you decide who has no business being in range to spy?

 

Each player gets one spy attack per day. If a giant nation wants to pick on a little nation, he's wasting a bunch of his money and not going to destroy much in return. The opportunity cost, of not being able to spy on a larger nation, however, is part of the soft cap on keeping nations from constantly sabotaging small nations. In reality though, the concept that a large nation could sabotage a much smaller nation makes the game fun, imo.

[Grillick]

How do you decide who has no business being in range to spy?

 

Each player gets one spy attack per day. If a giant nation wants to pick on a little nation, he's wasting a bunch of his money and not going to destroy much in return. The opportunity cost, of not being able to spy on a larger nation, however, is part of the soft cap on keeping nations from constantly sabotaging small nations. In reality though, the concept that a large nation could sabotage a much smaller nation makes the game fun, imo.

It certainly is making it interesting right now.

[Docus Maximus]

How do you decide who has no business being in range to spy?

 

Each player gets one spy attack per day. If a giant nation wants to pick on a little nation, he's wasting a bunch of his money and not going to destroy much in return. The opportunity cost, of not being able to spy on a larger nation, however, is part of the soft cap on keeping nations from constantly sabotaging small nations. In reality though, the concept that a large nation could sabotage a much smaller nation makes the game fun, imo.

 

No. This is utter BS!!!

Somebody who has both the number of spies and the GDP to keep it all secret, has been running spy ops against my nation for 4 days straight!

Nobody within range to declare war on my nation has the resources to do this on their own!

I am assuming this is in retaliation for raids on inactive nations. Which, BTW, when the alliances of said raided nations conacted my alliance and requested hostilities to stop and/or reps, we obliged them as best we could.

If the attacks continue, they will either A)cripple my nation economically trying to re-buy the military hardware that is being destroyed every day, or B)eventually leave my nation defenseless against attacks from nations that are within range to declare war against me.

AND I CAN'T EVEN FIND OUT WHO IS DOING IT!!!

This leaves me without any recourse! Either to contact the alliance of the nation attacking me to demand reps (like other AA's have done when I raided their inactives) or to simply declare war on the offending alliance either as a single nation or with the support of my own alliance.

 

I have no fear of going to war with any nation within the range of declaring war set in the rules of the game!

But this being attacked every day by somebody who can remain totally undetected is total BS!!!

This mechanic is just going to eventually, and inevitably lead to the usual status quo of internet gaming. Large, established players being able to bully smaller, newer players with impunity, rendering the game pointless. You either do what you're told, or get destroyed.

[Clarke]

How do you decide who has no business being in range to spy?

 

Each player gets one spy attack per day. If a giant nation wants to pick on a little nation, he's wasting a bunch of his money and not going to destroy much in return. The opportunity cost, of not being able to spy on a larger nation, however, is part of the soft cap on keeping nations from constantly sabotaging small nations. In reality though, the concept that a large nation could sabotage a much smaller nation makes the game fun, imo.

Lets say 50 spies were sent to target airplanes? How many would they destroy?

If I built 10 spies, how easily could 50 spies kill them?

 

Certainly it seems that the nation receiving the spy attack is greatly hurt from spy attacks when huge spy numbers are used to attack them.

[WISD0MTREE]

If I built 10 spies, 

Wait, spies are robots? 

 

Somebody who has both the number of spies and the GDP to keep it all secret, has been running spy ops against my nation for 4 days straight!

I am assuming this is in retaliation for raids on inactive nations. Which, BTW, when the alliances of said raided nations conacted my alliance and requested hostilities to stop and/or reps, we obliged them as best we could.

If the attacks continue, they will either A)cripple my nation economically trying to re-buy the military hardware that is being destroyed every day, or B)eventually leave my nation defenseless against attacks from nations that are within range to declare war against me.

AND I CAN'T EVEN FIND OUT WHO IS DOING IT!!!

 

This mechanic is just going to eventually, and inevitably lead to the usual status quo of internet gaming. Large, established players being able to bully smaller, newer players with impunity, rendering the game pointless. You either do what you're told, or get destroyed.

GDP is irrelevant; money is what spy ops cost. 

Three of the four people you are attacking are considered "active" by the community. 

You are in active wars as the aggressor. This might be part of the problem. 

Get more spies. I'd assume it is someone from VE or the United Sort Alliance. Also, you have a 3% chance of finding out who did the attack(s) each time they happen. 

 

Either way, it will be the same. Someone at the top of your war range will do it if someone larger can't. "Oh, but they won't have the money and it will be more fair." Larger nations will send aid to the smaller nations. If your alliance isn't helping you with this problem, then I'd recommend finding a new one. 

[Docus Maximus]

 

GDP is irrelevant; money is what spy ops cost. 

Three of the four people you are attacking are considered "active" by the community. 

You are in active wars as the aggressor. This might be part of the problem. 

Get more spies. I'd assume it is someone from VE or the United Sort Alliance. Also, you have a 3% chance of finding out who did the attack(s) each time they happen. 

 

Either way, it will be the same. Someone at the top of your war range will do it if someone larger can't. "Oh, but they won't have the money and it will be more fair." Larger nations will send aid to the smaller nations. If your alliance isn't helping you with this problem, then I'd recommend finding a new one. 

 

You are right. Spy attacks cost money. And the attacks that have been launched against my nation for that past 4 days straight did not come cheap! The first 3 attacks were to kill off the spies that I had defending!

Nations that are roughly the same size as mine (GDP of 500-600k per day) don't just throw that kind of cash away unless they had been saving up for a long time.

However, for a nation with a GDP of ~2 mil per day, they would be able to afford to pay for attacks like the ones being carried out against me out of one days' income. That seems a lot more likely to me than somebody blowing money they've been saving for a while just to piss in my picnic basket.

Admittedly, these attacks are costing whoever is doing them more than what they are doing in damage to me.

However, a nation of a size to be able to afford to pay for these attacks on a daily basis, can afford to pay for them a lot more readily than I can pay to replace what keeps getting destroyed. Furthermore, I CAN NOT replace all of the hardware that is getting destroyed each day because the game won't let me buy that amount per day! Even if I could afford it.

 

As for the wars I have right now. One was a counter-attack against a nation that raided one of ours. Peace has been accepted by all parties now.

Furthremore, if you had bothered to look closely and paid attention to the DoW's of the other 3 wars, you would have seen that they were sent as a message to the alliance I felt was most likely responsible for these attacks.

The message being, stop spying my nation or I will attack whoever in your alliance that I can reach!

As of now, that situation is being worked out between the leadership of the 2 alliances involved, and I have already offered peace to the nations I attacked, and put money in my alliance's bank to help pay reps for the damage I caused.

 

Finally, I can see how channeling money between larger and smaller nations to carry out these kind of attacks would not be that difficult. However, there are almost no nations in range to declare war on me that routinely carry the number of spies that were needed (much less the cash) to carry out these attacks against my nation for 4 days straight with virtually no chance of being detected. And by forcing larger nations to channel cash to nations within range of a smaller nation to do this kind of thing, at least 2 people must agree that this is something worth making happen instead of just one person being an @ss. And a coward.

[WISD0MTREE]

-snip-

As of now, that situation is being worked out between the leadership of the 2 alliances involved, and I have already offered peace to the nations I attacked, and put money in my alliance's bank to help pay reps for the damage I caused.

-snip-

See, there is more to this game than war. 

[Clarke]

This limitation needs to be put in place, I am sure I am being spied on by nations up to 4 times bigger than me atm. 

[Mayor]

I agree. Spying would be better anyways if large nations had to funnel income through to smaller ones to launch an attack. Then it would be more plausible to find out who is spying you through checking war range nations rather than wait for a random attack to fail.

 

EDIT: Then again now that I think of it. It would probably be better to just increase the failure chance against smaller nations so at least they have a better chance at finding out who is responsible but at the same time not limiting with spy attack ranges.

Edited March 3, 2015 by Mayor

[Diocletian]

You know, I usually don't agree with anything Diabolos says, but the spy system is certainly something that needs....fine-tuned. It really is insane that anyone can spy anyone, while it makes sense in a real-world situation, this isn't the real world. We play games like P&W in part to get away from real world issues. And taking it a step further, it really kills the game a bit when a 500-1k something person can spy away any new player's assets at the drop of the hat. I wonder how many people have already been driven away from the game due to this game mechanic alone? I'm sure is doesn't happen too often, but surely it happens more than people would probably like to believe. Maybe limit spy-ops to people within 1-200 ns of their targeted nation. I'm not suggesting going full-board Cybernations here, but even a broad range like that could greatly cut down early-life inactives and promote slightly fairer gameplay. 

Edited March 4, 2015 by Robert House

[Arthur James]

Suggestion:

1) players in 1st 2 weeks are free from spying

2) spying the nation outside the war range cost more?

Edited March 4, 2015 by Arthur James

[MRBOOTY]

This was suggested earlier as well, but make smaller nations harder to infiltrate by large ones. Think of it like it's easier to sneak into a larger crowd unnoticed versus sneaking into a small group. I think basing it off the number of cities you have is the way to go, Someone with 5 cities should have a hard time spying someone with 1-2, very hard time. 10 cities hard time with 5, and so forth. 

 

Or you could just make it increasingly expensive for smaller nations. You have to bribe more important people to sneak into a smaller group, costs more. So someone could spy someone else with a handful less cities, but it might not be worth the cost.

Pre is completely right here

I think this is the best way to keep things interesting but fair

 

 

meh,then it just becomes another military unit as it then takes on a similar dynamic to those.

 

the lack of a range made it interesting.

ELPINCHAZO is right

He actually is kinda bright... 

 

 

 

Edit: Dammit did I just gravedig?

Edited March 4, 2015 by MRBOOTY

[Fox Fire]

How do you decide who has no business being in range to spy?

 

Each player gets one spy attack per day. If a giant nation wants to pick on a little nation, he's wasting a bunch of his money and not going to destroy much in return. The opportunity cost, of not being able to spy on a larger nation, however, is part of the soft cap on keeping nations from constantly sabotaging small nations. In reality though, the concept that a large nation could sabotage a much smaller nation makes the game fun, imo.

Agreed.

 But everyone seems butthurt by it.

[Clarke]

The problem is that spies can destroy a large amount of military in a small nation instantly before any fighting even takes place, to the point where the most damaging attack facing a nation is a spy attack.

Possibly even an entire military branch of a nation. 

 

 

 

If a giant nation wants to pick on a little nation, he's wasting a bunch of his money and not going to destroy much in return.

That's simply not true, larger nations can quite easily destroy equipment worth more cash than the cost of the spy op on the smaller nations. Spy slots aren't exactly being used that often, saying they're wasting a spy attack is meaningless since it was going to be idle regardless. 

Edited March 5, 2015 by Diabolos

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

its interesting that the people that exploit other game mechanics to thier advantage, are some of the people that complain the loudest about game mechanics that work agaisnt them. 

[Clarke]

its interesting that the people that exploit other game mechanics to thier advantage, are some of the people that complain the loudest about game mechanics that work agaisnt them. 

Are you trying to say I am exploiting something? 

[Eviljak]

This makes sense. Alternatively if you want something simpler it could be that you can only spy someone with a max of 2 cities less than you.

Except that u will have a nation with 5 cities and only 5,000 infra...being spied by nations with 5 cities and 15,000 infra...more balance is needed

[WISD0MTREE]

Except that u will have a nation with 5 cities and only 5,000 infra...being spied by nations with 5 cities and 15,000 infra...more balance is needed

The balance is cost. Spy ops are expensive to do. 

 

The problem is that spies can destroy a large amount of military in a small nation instantly before any fighting even takes place, to the point where the most damaging attack facing a nation is a spy attack.

Possibly even an entire military branch of a nation. 

 

That's simply not true, larger nations can quite easily destroy equipment worth more cash than the cost of the spy op on the smaller nations. Spy slots aren't exactly being used that often, saying they're wasting a spy attack is meaningless since it was going to be idle regardless. 

From my experience with spies, they don't do enough damage to be worth the cost (except missiles and ships). Even if they were, destroying military before fighting is the whole point. 

Please post results where this happened. 

 

You successfully assassinated enemy spies in Baatopia. Your spies killed 1 enemy spies. Your agents were able to operate undetected. The operation cost you $120,000.00 and 0 of your spies were captured and executed. Save this information somewhere safe; after you leave this page you will not be able to see this intelligence report again without executing another operation.

 

It cost me $120,000 to do $50,000 worth of damage. 

 

Sorry, Sheepy. It was for science stats.  

[Fox Fire]

The problem is that spies can destroy a large amount of military in a small nation instantly

Not really. You can only spy once and be spied on three times.

The actual damage is not that much.

 

You successfully assassinated enemy spies in Baatopia. Your spies killed 1 enemy spies. Your agents were able to operate undetected. The operation cost you $120,000.00 and 0 of your spies were captured and executed. Save this information somewhere safe; after you leave this page you will not be able to see this intelligence report again without executing another operation.

 

It cost me $120,000 to do $50,000 worth of damage.

 

^^^^

[Clarke]

Well some spies attacks are more powerful than others and destroy way more than money spent on the spy attack, notably destroying missiles, nukes, tanks and ships. 

And those spy attacks seem mess up if sheepy only had two spies and only lost 1, clearly something is wrong with that. 

 

Destroying soldiers and airplanes are the weakest attacks.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Diabolos

[Fox Fire]

I can agree with a spy range, but I'd prefer it if that range was a bit wider than the declare range.