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Cthuddha
Cthuddha
Join Date 03/2006
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Espionage in GalCivII

April 8, 2006 2:04:43 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I've been playing this game daily, and I'm loving every minute of it. After some thought, I have a few ideas about espionage and how it can be improved in the next update.

Right now, to spy on a civilization, you simply go to the interstellar relations tab and ramp up the money being used - while useful, I think this is a tad simplistic, and a whole new level of depth could be added to the game. For most of human history, we have been spying on one another, and new surveillance techniques usually meant one side gaining vital information from the other. What I suggest is implementing espionage as an active part of the game - players can build ships equipped with stealth generators (researched, of course, and expensive to put on ships) while also equipping their starbases with anti-stealth radar and other countermeasures. This would mean that in addition to the social/economic/military conflict civilizations would also be engaged in a spy war - researching a new stealth technology would mean you can penetrate the other civilizations' screens and allow your surveillance craft to sneak in. Also, this stealth technology, while bulky, could be used to cover military ships. Obviously, the ships can't fire while stealthed, but equipping a corvette with a cloak would allow it to sneak in undetected and attack vital supply routes/starbases. To make the game fair, a ship can't engage stealth for x number of turns after firing (maybe make this number vary according to tech level?).

This would be simple to implement - a lvl 1 stealth generator gives you 1 point of stealth, while a lvl 1 stealth radar would give you a protection of 1. To successfully spy on a civilization and pass undetected, a ship has to have a higher stealth rating than the level of the civilization's anti-stealth tech. Also, to add flavor, adding radar modules to starbases would allow players to create anti-surveillance nets. The placement of these nets would be essential, and players would have to make sure that no holes existed. A cool addition would be to make Aegis cruisers, allowing players to add detection modules to their ships and create a moving anti-surveillance platform.

This sounds like a pretty cool aspect of the game, especially if the AI were to be "taught" how to use stealth. This could potentially ruin a player, if he researches, say, rail guns, and the Dregnin send in a few cloaked ships, discover this, and immediately start researching armor tech to counter his technology (they already do this, but only after a confrontation, right?) If the mods agree with my idea, maybe it'll become reality in a future patch. I think most players enjoy subterfuge, and right now there just isn't enough of it in GalCivII. Not that I'm complaining - I love this game to death.
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Cthuddha
Cthuddha
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #1 April 8, 2006 2:11:14 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Another thought - I don't know how you would quantify this, but it would be pretty darn cool if sneaky neutral players could trade information about civilizations with willing parties for cash/tech/truce/whatever. Maybe the info could be worth more depending on how up-to-date it is - no-one wants to buy information that will turn out false.
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Cthuddha
Rct2mad
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Reply #2 April 8, 2006 2:56:26 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
That sounds like a pretty darn cool idea to me.

Oi, Stardock!! We' ve got the next idea specialist here

Please implement it, it is a great idea!
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Cthuddha
David Giovagnoli
Join Date 03/2003
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Reply #3 April 8, 2006 3:56:13 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Wouldn't it become too unbalanced if people started putting these generators on Huge battleships, dropping them in the heart of someone's empire, and blowing them away? I'd rather have the simple espionage system, and just assume that there are ships flying around spying, we just don't see them, like assumed civillian ships.

Perhaps, we could have semi-random events that occur if one of your agents is caught, if the other race has a higher espionage spending on you, than you do on them, which would damage relations.
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Cthuddha
Profound Darkness
Join Date 04/2006
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Reply #4 April 8, 2006 4:46:59 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I have to say I enjoy the simplified espionage system compared with other systems where I had to handhold the unit(s) and there were counter units and counter counter units (and on and on)... Now I can just hand some credits over to some black box organization and get the results .

I can understand how their isn't much in the way of backlash as it's not like an alien is doing the infiltration but rather someone is getting kickbacks for information on their government... After all tourism is rampant in the galaxy...
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Cthuddha
Cthuddha
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Reply #5 April 8, 2006 4:49:15 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I've had my doubts about this too...I think it might boil down to simply saying that "the stealth field has a limit" and cannot be put on ships larger than "Medium" class. Or, incidentally, make it so that the space taken up by the field increases exponentially with size, so putting it on a Huge ship leaves you with little or no space for weapons/armor.
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Cthuddha
Empyrean
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+1
Reply #6 April 8, 2006 5:20:17 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
This would be a cool system, as long as the size of the stealth generator is sufficiently large. Basically, a stealth ship wouldn't be good for much except for spying or ambushing merchant ships and unguarded transports. I'd be worried about balance if you could make stealth troop transports, for example.
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Cthuddha
Ishkabo
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #7 April 8, 2006 5:28:51 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I really don't like this idea at all. It's assumed that pretty much all nations have thousands of civilian ships flying around doing business and conducting tourism with each other. You really don't need to have some ship stealthed in orbit to gather information on a civilization when it's easier to just land there and walk around the street yourself.

The information gathering right now is supposed to be how much money you are dedicating in training and hiring agents to infiltrate important parts of the enemy's government. Gathering information from employees and carrying out bribes and whatnot to get the information they want.

The stealth ship idea could be interesting, but just for the sake of sneaking ships around to take out supply lines or something. Although it could be an interesting mechanic I think it would probably upset the style of gameplay too much to implement stealth even on just that level.
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Cthuddha
CrazyZen
Join Date 03/2006
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Reply #8 April 8, 2006 5:42:20 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I like this idea as well, though cloaking devices and espionage technology could be 2 different aspects of the game. I guess I'm thinking along the lines of Master of Orion 2 . . . though I haven't played that game in years, I remember it being cool.

As to cloaking devices being unfair on large ships- as Cthuddha said- as the ships get bigger so too do the cloaking devices required to mask their presence (exponentially so).

BUT, as you can develop cloaking technology so too can you develop sensor technology that reveals cloaked ships (if not all the stats on them or even necessarily the number of ships present; maybe just their presence- depending on the associated tech levels of the respective races and their techs).

I too don't like the idea of handholding all of my spy operatives to ensure constant data from specific races, but something a little more "complicated/fufilling" than just sliding a bar up to ensure constant information would be nice. ie. perhaps on top of funding our spies/informants we can also develop better technology in this field (like any other field on the tech tree). Countermeasures against espionage would be nice as well. If I can, I would like to stop people from betraying/spying on me. This may be as simple to impliment as gaining mathematical bonuses/penalties to your espionage and counter espionage ratings as you develop the respective technologies.

Either way, these seem like cool ideas (I think) that would add a lot to the game, but perhaps it would require too much rewriting at this point to be feasible. /shrugs
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