New Spy Attacks

[Viluin]

So, if you want to mess up their tax rate for a 19 day collection, the spy op will cost 19 times as much as if you want to mess up someone 1 day inactive.

What's the base cost?

[Loxley]

For Standard it would be:

Sabotage IRS Proficiency (New tax rate randomly produced, 1-5% lower than old tax rate) = $100,000 + (20 x enemy nation strength x enemy number of days inactive) [Defender required to collect taxes to change]

We are committed to making this op workable, as it offers something unique to mix it up a little and add a potential risk to the big back collects that have become so commonplace... We will continue to tweak as necessary, so keep the feedback coming.

Obviously we don't want it overpowered at the top, but it also has to be feasible in the mid ranges.

[Viluin]

For Standard it would be:

Sabotage IRS Proficiency (New tax rate randomly produced, 1-5% lower than old tax rate) = $100,000 + (20 x enemy nation strength x enemy number of days inactive) [Defender required to collect taxes to change]

We are committed to making this op workable, as it offers something unique to mix it up a little and add a potential risk to the big back collects that have become so commonplace... We will continue to tweak as neccesary, so keep the feedback coming.

Obviously we don't want it overpowered at the top, but it also has to be feasible in the mid ranges.

So, spying on someone at 100k NS who's 19 days inactive would cost $38,100,000? That's a pretty steep cost when you consider a ~50% fail rate. And he'd most likely be in nuclear anarchy anyway so the money lost would be minimal. This spy-op is really only useful in non-nuclear wars, or for spying on people in peace mode..

EDIT: At a 30% tax rate, this spy-op would reduce your income by something between 1/30 and 1/6. Even if you spy on someone at 100k NS, 19 days inactive and no anarchy, I doubt he collects over a billion dollars every 19 days so chances are you would actually lose more money than him unless you get a lucky dice roll. That, and the fail rate involved, really doesn't make it worth it. Also, if you are in anarchy the spy-op would cost $76,200,000.

By the way, please change "Destroy money" to "Steal money". When you factor in the cost of the spy-op, a fail rate of (usually) ~50% and lost spies it probably costs you just as much as the enemy loses on average, possible more. It doesn't make much sense to use it.

Edited June 26, 2009 by Viluin

[enderland]

More feedback from those anticipating changes in standard, and those using the ops in TE, will continue to help shape the face of the spy changes.

Just a strong word of caution - using TE for testing is ok, but the data generated there is next to worthless compared to what players can hypothetically determine since the nature of TE is so much more different than CN:S (especially with spy operations since almost no nations of the same size as nations in TE do spy operations in CN:S).

[schmutte693]

Alrighty, what will be tested over the next several days in TE is the following;

1. The DEFCON Switch/Freeze has been split into two separate ops.

This essentially halves its power, doubles the cost, and doubles the number of spy ops it uses.

So, there is one spy op to try and switch opponent defcon just as you had before (except it really is random, not just DC4)... and one spy op to try and freeze an opponent in their current defcon until they collect.

It is possible to do both in one day, but if you do, that's your two ops done and it locks out all other ops for the day.

2. The IRS switch has been reduced to a 1-5% reduction in tax rate, so those at 28% can only go as low as 23%, and those at 30% can only go as low as 25%. In addition, the price has also been tweaked, and the cost of this spy op will be multiplied by the number of days your opponent is inactive.

So, if you want to mess up their tax rate for a 19 day collection, the spy op will cost 19 times as much as if you want to mess up someone 1 day inactive.

I think those tweaks make these spy operations much more reasonable.

[Lummerian Empire]

Can the 1-5% reduction be applied more than once?

[Loxley]

It can, but the second penalty doesn't stack on top of the first one, it replaces it, so 5% is the max even if you spend both your daily ops on it.

[Loxley]

It can, but the second penalty doesn't stack on top of the first one, it replaces it, so 5% is the max even if you spend both your daily ops on it.

This has been modified slightly.

You can stack up the negative penalty now with repeat spy ops, but only down to a minimum tax rate of 23%.

So for example you could run one op and if you were unlucky and only knocked them from 30% down to 29%, you could try your luck again and maybe get them down to 24%... running this op twice of course does not come cheap, but the option is there.

23% is the minimum though, no matter how many times you run the op.