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Which Spy Ops are Dirty


Which Spy Ops are Dirty?  

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I know I'm the aloof Nihilist who's given up hope of understanding this world, but if there's one thing that hurts my earballs, it's a shrill argument over semantics.

 

I do not seek to justify previous actions, I do not seek to condemn anyone.

 

So that we don't get any more they-did-it-first LH-esque nonsense, let's be clear about what we mean by what we say, or so help me I will-- . . . Do absolutely nothing.

 

I don't care.

 

Satisfy my curiosity, I beg of you.

Edited by Horatio Longworth
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I'm glad you asked this question, Horatio.  We've got "gentlemens' agreements" but a lot of these are not clearly laid out.  People cite them all the time but there are very few actual instances of a person laying out exactly what should be agreed on.  As an example of how I personally rate ops, I have a ranking system, where i rate all ops in five categories based on how egregiously they harm the opponent's economy.

 

Level 3: the "big three", the severe ops that cause the most economic harm are:

Incite gov't propaganda (when the target is in anarchy)

Assassinate generals - killing generals can cause as much economic harm as if you'd destroyed two of their econ wonders; XP limitations may prevent them from recovering at all.

Sabotage IRS Proficiency - can seriously harm a postwar collection

 

These three are guaranteed to really piss people off.

 

Level 2: Next up are the moderately dangerous but mostly just annoying ops

 

Destroy Money - there are people in this game sitting on 200m or even higher.  At lower warchest levels where the money destroyed is still at the 1m cap (20m or more) this can be dangerous but against a 300m warchest monster it's nothing to worry about

Incite Religious Propaganda - costs you 1 happiness in your backcollect, will cause minor pain to the postwar backcollect.

 

Level 1: Ops that are grey area on being dirty; generally they are acceptable on their own but when compounded with more serious ops, they become a problem

 

Assassinate Enemy Spies - this will somewhat weaken an opponent's spy resistance, and will cost somewhere around $200,000 per successful op.  Spies are a war asset, their deaths should be as expected as soldiers, tanks, or planes.

Change Threat Level - this confers an important combat advantage; when used with clean spyops (nuke stealing, Defcon changes) it's a solid strategic move.  The enemy must collect to reverse the effect, but the most desired Threat Level for the enemy is actually optimal for collection.  When i only drop someone's threat level down to orange or yellow, i'll re-run the op until it's blue (-0.5 happiness, a trivial loss) or green (zero economic harm).

 

Level 0: Ops that are not dirty nor are they grey area

 

Change Defcon - seriously, who doesn't do this?

Target Weapons of Mass Destruction - a much less destructive op in the era of WRC's allowing 3 nuke purchases per day, and a staple of war.

Destroy Infrastructure - war is about destroying infra and other attributes.  the infra levels destroyed by this op are minimal, and it's rarely used.  Certainly not dirty.

Destroy Technology -  again, war is about destroying a nation.  hitting tech is a normal spyop in line with an inevitable need in war.

Gather Intelligence - can expose someone's dirty laundry or paltry warchest, but causes zero economic or military harm.

 

Level Farm: Ops with next to zero actual value, not dirty because their only real use is getting XP without spending a lot of money per op.

 

Destroy Cruise Missiles - this one gets used a lot on nation who don't even have CM's stockpiled, because it's cheap and easy XP.  even if you do lose some CMs, they are very cheap to rebuy.

Destroy Land - lol wut.  with the land destruction GAs and nukes cause, destroying land via spyop adds only a trivial amount of damage with a negligible effect on economy (that can be reversed with a single successful GA).

 

The "Other" Clause

 

Which ops you use on a particular nation can have a cumulative effect.  While it's not dirtily harmful to change someone's threat level, using that threat level to launch more dangerous ops (inciting gov't comes to mind) or changing their threat level back to maximum at the end of the war is dirty since they'd have to collect at a -2 happiness penalty.  Use your judgment.  Do the right thing even if it's hard, and avoid dirty spyops or shady use of clean spyops; this is how we keep this game positive.  We all have our grudges, and making the TE community into a constant battlefield of grudges and hate instead of pixels isn't going to attract new members.  One look at our OWF sees an endless debate over this.  I hope everyone else adopts this list and the attitudes/rationales explained in it.  Consider these my standards of a gentlemen's agreement on spyops.  We should all strive to avoid the level 2 and up ops.  This almost seems like something we should debate, and ratify on alliance by alliance basis; if it gets enough support we should outline the agreements on other areas too (when you can attack someone after war, I'm looking at you, Defcon 1), etc.  We should also draw out clear consequences - that those who break these agreements shall not receive the protection of these agreements.

 

Blockades

 

Almost always dirty.  A successful series of blockades can severely cripple a nation's backcollect, in some cases reducing it by half or even more.  Use your naval slots for battle support instead, and do more actual damage with your GA's, CM's and your nuke.  That's what war is about.

 

Edit - adding a picture of a pikachu, and of my cat, just because i want to for some reason.

 

1881614-pokemon_pikachu_kanto.png

 

tQbyCmE.jpg

Edited by Nick GhostWolf
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Nick's list pretty much sums up the benefits/damages of all available spy ops.

For me, war should have this outcome:
1. Destroying as much infra/tech/money as possible.
This part shouldn't require much explanation.
The more infra I destroy, the less soldiers he can field in GAs.
The more tech I destroy, the less damage I eat from nukes.
The more money I destroy, the less infra/airplanes/nukes he can buy.
Etc.

2. Hampering his ability to rebuild post-war.
Harming his economy is a vital part of warring. Doing these spy ops will hamper his ability to rebuild and prevent his warchest from growing to its maximum potential. This will only make my and my comrades' jobs easier the next time we meet him on the battle field.

If I need to do 'dirty spy ops' to achieve point 2, so be it. The same way, I would respect such spy ops done against me. Will I like it? No. But I recognise what war requires. Ditto with blockades.

That being said, if my alliance was to ratify such a 'gentlemen's agreement', I would desist from doing them. Similarly, if a 'friendly' alliance war is announced , I would follow the rules agreed upon.

Till then, hit me with all the spy ops you got. Be assured that I will be doing the same.

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Nick's list pretty much sums up the benefits/damages of all available spy ops.

For me, war should have this outcome:
1. Destroying as much infra/tech/money as possible.
This part shouldn't require much explanation.
The more infra I destroy, the less soldiers he can field in GAs.
The more tech I destroy, the less damage I eat from nukes.
The more money I destroy, the less infra/airplanes/nukes he can buy.
Etc.

2. Hampering his ability to rebuild post-war.
Harming his economy is a vital part of warring. Doing these spy ops will hamper his ability to rebuild and prevent his warchest from growing to its maximum potential. This will only make my and my comrades' jobs easier the next time we meet him on the battle field.

If I need to do 'dirty spy ops' to achieve point 2, so be it. The same way, I would respect such spy ops done against me. Will I like it? No. But I recognise what war requires. Ditto with blockades.

That being said, if my alliance was to ratify such a 'gentlemen's agreement', I would desist from doing them. Similarly, if a 'friendly' alliance war is announced , I would follow the rules agreed upon.

Till then, hit me with all the spy ops you got. Be assured that I will be doing the same.

 

If that's how you're gonna do it, you will be afforded none of the courtesies and respect associated with gentlemens' agreements.  Your whole alliance will suffer for it until your policies change. 

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If that's how you're gonna do it, you will be afforded none of the courtesies and respect associated with gentlemens' agreements.  Your whole alliance will suffer for it until your policies change.


What part of "That being said, if my alliance was to ratify such a 'gentlemen's agreement', I would desist from doing them." was difficult to understand?

The day DEFCON 1 signs an actual on-paper agreement instead of such unwritten 'rules' (which a few alliances break nilly-willy, but lets not get into that), we'll talk about following such policies and the 'courtesies and respect' associated with them.

 

I'll now let logical rational minds discuss the spy-ops question.

Edited by RahulHP
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What part of "That being said, if my alliance was to ratify such a 'gentlemen's agreement', I would desist from doing them." was difficult to understand?

The day DEFCON 1 signs an actual on-paper agreement instead of such unwritten 'rules' (which a few alliances break nilly-willy, but lets not get into that), we'll talk about following such policies and the 'courtesies and respect' associated with them.

 

I'll now let logical rational minds discuss the spy-ops question.

 

The rational and logical minds have already discussed this, you hold yourself to a higher standard or you don't.  and how you play determines how your alliance will be viewed.  the actions of one, if not addressed by their government, will have repercussions on the entire alliance.  whether it is roguery or a tacit acceptance within your leadership of dirty spy ops or any one of the other numerous dick moves Defcon 1 has pulled this round, you will be held responsible and treated accordingly.  People in this game are tired of it and we are going to do something about it.  And that could very well mean that we burn Defcon 1 to the ground and screw up your rebuild.  It's not a secret that most of your guys have subpar warchests, especially compared to TDO - and they've already told you what's going to happen.  You guys are in it for the long haul now.  They've got money and they've got friends, meanwhile you have much less money and you've burned bridges all round - INCLUDING NDO with all those dumb raids you guys pulled.  The days of people giving you the benefit of the doubt and kissing your ass are OVER, either play with some honor or you'll find out how ugly it can get when the big boys decide to let you have it your way.  Consider what happens next to be reaping what you've sown because you guys are pissing off a lot of people..  Acting surprised and huffy when what goes around comes around you just makes you look like a hypocritical fool.  If you want to talk about being logical and rational you should correct your own behavior rather than act like an "i'm gonna do what i want child", then you'll have some ground to stand on.

 

tl;dr knock off the dirty spy ops, declare wars that aren't bullshit curbstomps on alliances who are barely out of war, quit raiding people willy-nilly, or be condemned to a pixel-reaming that makes your AA irrelevant for a very, very long time.

Edited by Nick GhostWolf
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As I said above, I gave my reasons why I think dirty spy ops should be allowed. You then proceeded to say what would happen if  my alliance did 'dirty spy ops' instead of limiting this discussion to "Which spy ops are dirty and why".

 

After your first post in this thread describing the spy ops (which was a good job), you have only focused on a rant regarding what DEFCON 1 has done this round. While that may be a debatable topic, that discussion is for another thread.

 

TL;DR - Limit this thread to discussing which spy ops should be considered dirty and why/why not. Take the rant about DEFCON 1 and what you'll do to alliances which don't follow the unwritten "gentlemen's agreement" elsewhere.

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As I said above, I gave my reasons why I think dirty spy ops should be allowed. You then proceeded to say what would happen if  my alliance did 'dirty spy ops' instead of limiting this discussion to "Which spy ops are dirty and why".

 

After your first post in this thread describing the spy ops (which was a good job), you have only focused on a rant regarding what DEFCON 1 has done this round. While that may be a debatable topic, that discussion is for another thread.

 

TL;DR - Limit this thread to discussing which spy ops should be considered dirty and why/why not. Take the rant about DEFCON 1 and what you'll do to alliances which don't follow the unwritten "gentlemen's agreement" elsewhere.

 

You brought it up, about what your alliance is going to do in spite of the existence of these agreements.  These agreements are to protect you just as much as the enemy; the idea is if neither side uses them they don't get used and both sides stand to gain from that.  So don't try to pin this on me spinning into something about Defcon 1's behavior, you introduced that topic yourself.

 

Nick's list pretty much sums up the benefits/damages of all available spy ops.

For me, war should have this outcome:
1. Destroying as much infra/tech/money as possible.
This part shouldn't require much explanation.
The more infra I destroy, the less soldiers he can field in GAs.
The more tech I destroy, the less damage I eat from nukes.
The more money I destroy, the less infra/airplanes/nukes he can buy.
Etc.

2. Hampering his ability to rebuild post-war.
Harming his economy is a vital part of warring. Doing these spy ops will hamper his ability to rebuild and prevent his warchest from growing to its maximum potential. This will only make my and my comrades' jobs easier the next time we meet him on the battle field.

If I need to do 'dirty spy ops' to achieve point 2, so be it. The same way, I would respect such spy ops done against me. Will I like it? No. But I recognise what war requires. Ditto with blockades.

That being said, if my alliance was to ratify such a 'gentlemen's agreement', I would desist from doing them. Similarly, if a 'friendly' alliance war is announced , I would follow the rules agreed upon.

Till then, hit me with all the spy ops you got. Be assured that I will be doing the same.

 

Read #2, you wrote it.  You might be oblivious to the effect that a single individual's policy can reflect poorly on an entire alliance, but your lack of awareness doesn't change the fact that you're all being judged based on this.  You might even be oblivious to the reason this thread was even made.  Your little stunt with TDO using NLON as NS meat (you know perfectly well NLON's a threat to nobody) was noticed by everyone, not just TDO.  Many of these spyops are public record in the "exposed spy ops" tab.  Everyone sees your conduct, and your weak attempt to justify it digs you deeper.  Look at the results of the poll.  Look at the response from practically everyone in the community.  We can't stop you from doing that stuff... but we sure as hell can relegate you to the sub-10k NS pit where your antics are ignored as irrelevant to the mid and upper tiers.  And when you use those tactics with our noobs, we're perfectly fine reaching down and putting a smack on you.  Go ask your pal malakarlian how that worked out for him.

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IRS. the big dirty!
destroy money. dirty but less effective dealing with large ass chests.
incite religious propaganda. dirty



threat. legitimate war op. at low zero econ effect
assassinate generals. legitimate war op again. sucks to lose econ generals but why shouldn't you kill the enemy mil generals?
incite gov. legitimate op when you are unsure how long the war will last. why should you let the enemy possibly Re declare on you early?

as for blockades. dirty or xp farming. can suck if Raiders use this. also used to break ones own blockades.

that's about it.

many rounds ago some of us tried to establish some boundaries. didn't really work. TPC eventually saw it our way I think. a few others resisted as hard as they could as they thought we were just trying to preserve our own collections.

Edited by StevieG
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IRS. the big dirty!
destroy money. dirty but less effective dealing with large ass chests.
incite religious propaganda. dirty



threat. legitimate war op. at low zero econ effect
assassinate generals. legitimate war op again. sucks to lose econ generals but why shouldn't you kill the enemy mil generals?
incite gov. legitimate op when you are unsure how long the war will last. why should you let the enemy possibly Re declare on you early?

as for blockades. dirty or xp farming. can suck if Raiders use this. also used to break ones own blockades.

that's about it.

many rounds ago some of us tried to establish some boundaries. didn't really work. TPC eventually saw it our way I think. a few others resisted as hard as they could as they thought we were just trying to preserve our own collections.

 

I think the fact that the issue remains unresolved and continues to be the main thing we talk about on this forum, is reason enough to try again with the boundaries.  Everyone wants their collect after each war, and everyone gets pissed when that gets screwed up because of spyops.  It works both ways - if one person fires off the bad ops, it starts the whole process and soon it's a free for all.  What could have been a friendly respectful war becomes heated.  And that's just in the case of un-informed people using ops without knowing their off limits.  A whole different level of anger is reached when a given alliance has a first strike policy with these ops.  Then, when everybody dogpiles them on general principle, there's more anger.  It all gets traced back to these same ops, again and again.  This thread is one of dozens where we're discussing this problem.  We need to find a solution, the game isn't going to hold together with people getting pissed to the point of ragequit and an attitude of anger being spawned every which way.

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Nick first thing I would like to say is Thanks for the work you put into your opening post...

 

Would like to see us do this ....lets run the poll for a week or so , this way we make sure we have a consensus.

 

Then with some cut and pasting of your post we can draft a guide with your levels  maybe changed to 1 to 4 

 

Then get an agreement ( or consensus ) to the guide... Then we can get the agreement pinned

 

Then when a war is declared we can say " spy ops level 1-3  or 1-4  or level 1 & 2  are ok   

 

 

Horatio Longworth..... this is been a long time coming ... and yes there has been to much grey area...

 

We've got "gentlemens' agreements" but a lot of these are not clearly laid out. 

 

This is SO true and it is not fair to new AA's that come in and have no idea...

then get pissed off and leave.. We want to grow TE not loose people 

 

So we need to make a soft list of these ""gentlemen;s agreements""  

 

 

Let's do one other "gentlemen s agreement" while we put this all together

We are speaking as individuals in this discussion 

When we are done we will get the AA's to sign on.

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Nick first thing I would like to say is Thanks for the work you put into your opening post...

 

Would like to see us do this ....lets run the poll for a week or so , this way we make sure we have a consensus.

 

Then with some cut and pasting of your post we can draft a guide with your levels  maybe changed to 1 to 4 

 

Then get an agreement ( or consensus ) to the guide... Then we can get the agreement pinned

 

Then when a war is declared we can say " spy ops level 1-3  or 1-4  or level 1 & 2  are ok   

 

 

Horatio Longworth..... this is been a long time coming ... and yes there has been to much grey area...

 

We've got "gentlemens' agreements" but a lot of these are not clearly laid out. 

 

This is SO true and it is not fair to new AA's that come in and have no idea...

then get pissed off and leave.. We want to grow TE not loose people 

 

So we need to make a soft list of these ""gentlemen;s agreements""  

 

 

Let's do one other "gentlemen s agreement" while we put this all together

We are speaking as individuals in this discussion 

When we are done we will get the AA's to sign on.

 

At the risk of sounding combative (and to head off the 4000 other posts that are just gonna say the same thing I do, only with more vitriol), you should start by cleaning up your own act.  Everyone can see what's happening with D1 vs TDO and NLON.  You're talking a good talk while walking a shit walk, man.  Because right now what you're saying is all talk.

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That was the whole point of this thread which you seem to have missed. This thread is just for 'talk' and 'threats'.

 

Make an actual agreement next round and we'll follow it. Stop crying about this round. This agreement should have been ratified a long time ago if you wanted to cry about it now.

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That was the whole point of this thread which you seem to have missed. This thread is just for 'talk' and 'threats'.

 

Make an actual agreement next round and we'll follow it. Stop crying about this round. This agreement should have been ratified a long time ago if you wanted to cry about it now.

 

Crying?  I am burning your brothers to the ground as you sit here meaninglessly posturing.  And I will not stop until you are ground into nothingness.  Every word I said, I am making good on.

 

Got three open defensive war slots.  Your talk is worthless.  Fight, or shut up.

Edited by Nick GhostWolf
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Crying?  I am burning your brothers to the ground and I will not stop until you are ground into nothingness.  Every word I said, I am making good on. 

 

While missing the whole point of this thread.

Go ahead, have fun.

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2. Hampering his ability to rebuild post-war.

Harming his economy is a vital part of warring. Doing these spy ops will hamper his ability to rebuild and prevent his warchest from growing to its maximum potential. This will only make my and my comrades' jobs easier the next time we meet him on the battle field.

If I need to do 'dirty spy ops' to achieve point 2, so be it. The same way, I would respect such spy ops done against me. Will I like it? No. But I recognise what war requires. Ditto with blockades.

 

I think it is here that the two different view points collide. 

You think that it is a good thing if you can make it so your opponents are completely wiped out and incapable of a rebuild.

I think it is something which should only be used as a final result of poor actions or in retaliation to such actions. 

 

The problem with ruining peoples rounds is that it stops becoming something enjoyable. It means only the best of the best (which I acknowledge TDO is a part of) is able to compete in. If I get my IRS lowered, my govt spied, and my WC destroyed, chances are I will still come back and keep playing. I may even have built smart enough that I am one of the lucky ones who is capable of recovering from it. However if you are a newer person, or just not as active, or many other reasons, it may end with you having to reroll to continue the round, or just leave altogether. 

 

The idea for me behind minimising the use of such spy ops is to encourage growth and skill across TE and let you fight multiple AAs multiple times in a round without it being a complete curbstomp for one side. 

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Yes, I realise you have totally valid points.
My view on such spy ops comes from the SE version where such spy ops kind of work and are actually expected.
 
About "ruining peoples rounds", I have always felt that:
1. People only join TE because they get bored in SE. Heavy alliance wars only occur every 5-6 months or so in SE. Paying bills and sending aid does get boring in SE during peace time. TE allows us to do indiscriminate war (TE doesn't have any nuclear first strike policy or no-raiding rules like SE) without worrying about any damage since the round resets after a few months anyways. This allows us to play with stuff like nukes,navies,etc. My SE nation is nearly 4 years old and I only bought nukes in the last 6 months or so. I haven't even thought of buying a navy yet.
 
2. The majority of players who join TE are those who come here from seeing the in-SE-game announcements or from their SE alliances. This by default brings in the players who are a)active (since TE does take up more time/energy than SE) and b)know what they are signing up for (eg. the no peace mode option). They also have access to their SE guides and know how to play the game (build,war,etc).
 
About the actual new players (who don't have any major SE history), yes they may get hurt and may not be able to rebuild completely. In this case, they can always learn from their mistakes, talk to older players and play it correctly the next round. I admit this does sound harsh.
 
So I don't believe TE should be played with 'kid gloves' on.
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Ah, well there is your problem. 

The most important part of TE is that it isn't SE. 

 

In SE it isn't a big deal if you take a month to recover. In TE if you lose a month you're out. 

 

As for how new players get in I personally (and others) didn't follow this trend, and building in TE is again very different to SE and cannot be considered the same way. 

 

Nonetheless I agree with some of your points. Build nukes, navies etc, buy wonders you wouldn't have gotten anywhere near to in SE.

That doesn't mean you have to use these tactics in TE. That is something you can (and do) use very often in SE. 

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Make an actual agreement next round and we'll follow it. Stop crying about this round. This agreement should have been ratified a long time ago if you wanted to cry about it now.

we can't just make a TE wide agreement and force all new AAS or old ones to sign up.

my list sums it up.
dirty ops
borderline dirty ops with some war use
category 1 and 2. then blockades.

In the early 30s The Avengers started a non first strike/revenge policy in regards to dirty ops. essentially we wouldn't use them unless a NATION used them against us. Then in return that nation would be aimed with spy ops. disuasion was our strategy.

Over those rounds it was your alliance in particular that seemed to use this as motivation to further utilise across the board these dirty ops. Edited by StevieG
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I -made- the point of this thread.  And I will :)


don't you think you are tipping the balance a bit too much though?
glance the aa page and total ns for D1 has already been almost halved.
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