7/13/2015 - Espionage Update

[Alex]

I've been going back and forth on this update. Part of me likes it and part of me doesn't. I'm a relatively small nation, so this change doesn't really affect me yet.

 

Did you consider rather than making a cap on spies, just increasing the cost per spy exponentially (kind of like infrastructure)? You could set the formula so that buying the first 50 spies would be similar to the cost of buying 50 spies right now (maybe even leave it at the standard rate). Then make it so expensive to go from 50 to say 100 that in most cases it wouldn't make sense to do so anyway due to the extremely high price tag. With this formula, you could even set the cap at 100 (I think 100 is a better cap regardless). 

 

If spies did increase in cost exponentially already, sorry for posting the above. In my very few spy purchases so far, I haven't noticed an increase in cost haha.

 

I considered making them cost exponentially more, but that would've just made whoever already had a lot of spies at a huge advantage over everyone else. What I also thought might be a good idea was just exponentially increasing upkeep, but I decided that the flat cap was a better solution.

 

Even though I lost a lot of spies, I think this is a good update. Also, can you hide CIA project? Opponents can find out whether there is a CIA or not only by gathering intel through spy operation, not just by looking at the nation page.

 

Hiding the CIA Project is a novel idea, but it would really just make it harder to tell whether someone had it or not. You could look at their project score and what projects they have to see whether or not they have it. I.E. If I had the score of 2 projects but only one displayed project, I must have the CIA.

 

Now maybe hiding all projects and just displaying a count would be interesting, then you wouldn't know whether a nation is nuclear or missile capable either. And you could tie that information into a gather intel op... interesting...

 

Thanks for the explanation, Sheepy. This change isn't particularly in my favor since I had a big stack of spies, but oh well. One thing I would really like, though, is for espionage results to be saved somewhere - either in notifications or in some dedicated spy results log. I'm not sure why it's necessary to have the results self-destruct after reading. 

 

That was a great idea, and I've done this. When you do a gather intel op, it now sends you a notification with the info that you can look back at whenever.

[T Servo]

God damn it. I was just making a calculator to determine how many spies someone had.

 

 

Everyone has 50 spies now. 

[Alex]

Everyone has 50 spies now. 

 

That's a blanket statement that's not necessarily true. Probably any large nation has that many spies, but really you could have anywhere from 0-60 depending on if you have the CIA project or not.

[Karrde]

An unknown nation has executed an espionage operation against your country. They were not successful.

 

Cool, liking the new feature with the notification! :-)

[LordRahl2]

Hiding the CIA Project is a novel idea, but it would really just make it harder to tell whether someone had it or not. You could look at their project score and what projects they have to see whether or not they have it. I.E. If I had the score of 2 projects but only one displayed project, I must have the CIA.

 

Now maybe hiding all projects and just displaying a count would be interesting, then you wouldn't know whether a nation is nuclear or missile capable either. And you could tie that information into a gather intel op... interesting...

 

If you don't want to do all that just make the CIA not a project and hidden.  That way lower score people can have them if they save enough to buy them.

[Shellhound]

Sheepy, can you make it to where if you're in the same alliance as someone (an actual member) you can see other members spy counts? That kind of information's super helpful for IA/Military.

[Dwemyrn]

Soooo what happened to taking off spy range?

[LordRahl2]

Sheepy, can you make it to where if you're in the same alliance as someone (an actual member) you can see other members spy counts? That kind of information's super helpful for IA/Military.

 

Seems like this would encourage multis in other alliances.

Edited July 14, 2015 by LordRahl2

[Alex]

Sheepy, can you make it to where if you're in the same alliance as someone (an actual member) you can see other members spy counts? That kind of information's super helpful for IA/Military.

 

Seems like this would encourage multis in other alliances.

 

As LordRahl2 said, it would encourage multis, or even just spying in general. I.E. you send one of your members to temporarily leave and apply to Alliance X, they get approved, you get all their spy counts from them, then he leaves and rejoins your alliance.

[Guest]

 

As LordRahl2 said, it would encourage multis, or even just spying in general. I.E. you send one of your members to temporarily leave and apply to Alliance X, they get approved, you get all their spy counts from them, then he leaves and rejoins your alliance.

 

I can understand the multi issues, but if I wanted to send someone to an alliance to spy on them by getting their spy counts and having them return that isn't necessarily something you should worry about.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Rampage

[Alex]

I can understand the multi issues, but if I wanted to send someone to an alliance to spy on them by getting their spy counts and having them return that isn't necessarily something you should worry about.

 

Perhaps it's something acceptable, but it's enough to keep me from immediately making the change Shellhound suggested.

[WISD0MTREE]

Number 8 is awesome! 

Edited July 15, 2015 by WISD0MTREE

[Greatnate]

As LordRahl2 said, it would encourage multis, or even just spying in general. I.E. you send one of your members to temporarily leave and apply to Alliance X, they get approved, you get all their spy counts from them, then he leaves and rejoins your alliance.

 

The multi risk vs. being actually able to manage an alliance-wide spy program? I think favoring people playing squarely is probably the best bet. I would love to go back to micro-managing my member's spy counts.

 

Edit: You could limit it to officers or make an alliance option like "spy count viewable to members"

Edited July 15, 2015 by Greatnate

[Alex]

The multi risk vs. being actually able to manage an alliance-wide spy program? I think favoring people playing squarely is probably the best bet. I would love to go back to micro-managing my member's spy counts.

 

Edit: You could limit it to officers or make an alliance option like "spy count viewable to members"

 

 I had the same idea.

 

 

<+Rampage> As LordRahl2 said, it would encourage multis, or even just spying in general. I.E. you send one of your members to temporarily leave and apply to Alliance X, they get approved, you get all their spy counts from them, then he leaves and rejoins your alliance.

<+Rampage> Lol so?

<~SheepyAway> Rampage - If that's the case, then why hide them to begin with?

<+Rampage> I mean, to me there's a difference. Having the information completely public vs using spying tactics

<+Rampage> If I join an alliance, gather their spy info, and go back to tS I'd hope that alliance would do something about it

<~SheepyAway> Imo it's marginal. I went through a lot of owrk hiding all spy info, only to have it available just by being in the same alliance?

<+Rampage> Your call bud.

<~SheepyAway> Maybe officers+ can see spy counts for nations in the alliance?

[Don Juan]

Now maybe hiding all projects and just displaying a count would be interesting, then you wouldn't know whether a nation is nuclear or missile capable either. And you could tie that information into a gather intel op... interesting...

I think this is a good idea. Although this would also lead to the possible idea of hiding nuke and missile counts (to also get in an intel report?).

[Buorhann]

Yeah, allowing Officers to have access to number information ( In this case, the spy number ) on their alliance members sounds good.

[Moreau]

Thanks for not removing spy range and putting in a spy cap

Now nukes and missiles are even more targetable

Yeah cheers!