admin Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 I'm getting close to releasing the new spies feature. Please see the spies about topic here: http://www.cybernations.net/about_topics.asp#Spies and provide any input / tweaks that you think are necessary before the feature is released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozalia Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Let be the first one to say thanks for this Admin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lastr0ce Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 (edited) yes big thanks! possible input: I see on "Spies cost $100,000 each to purchase and nations are limited to 500 spies." But the actions on it's own cost thousand of dollars too. It would make it kind of weird of you would want to steal tech, as you have to buy spies and then pay for the operation. It'd be cheaper to just buy the tech.. spies =/= war system, right And maybe we could steal more things? like steal a nuke or maybe land? It's always fun to steal something you can't get.. To be honest it would be way more fun to actually just steal stuff, instead of always destroying tanks, land, money, tech and INFRA. Just my thoughts. After all, the game is there to have fun, right Edited September 11, 2007 by las trace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omnilynx Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 (edited) Will there be upkeep on spies? Edit: I guess I should provide feedback, too. I'd prefer there not to be upkeep, because this is already going to be a huge money drain. Unless you've done some extensive research, it'd be easy to unbalance the economy. Edited September 11, 2007 by omnilynx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flamingmonkey923 Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 I like the idea. Is there a limit to which nations you can spy on though? Kind of like how you can't go to war with significantly weaker nations, will it be impossible to spy on significantly weaker nations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozalia Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 I like the idea. Is there a limit to which nations you can spy on though? Kind of like how you can't go to war with significantly weaker nations, will it be impossible to spy on significantly weaker nations? It would be unfair as your spies would be much better then theirs and you would gain 3 tech a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abaddonis Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Destroying infra seems VERY unfair to large nations, where infra costs millions to replace. Also, get rid of changing gov't, religion, and DEFCON. It makes no sense for enemy spies to be able to change things like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morey 2k7 Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 those prices are too low in actions which can be carried out IMO, is there not a way to possibly create formula so that larger nations are paying more for the actions they carry out, as way i see it atm for the damage which can be caused by spies to enemies, the cost for larger nations is very low. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozalia Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 those prices are too low in actions which can be carried out IMO, is there not a way to possibly create formula so that larger nations are paying more for the actions they carry out, as way i see it atm for the damage which can be caused by spies to enemies, the cost for larger nations is very low. Considering Spies can fail those prices are great. If anything they should be put down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Palazzolo Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 150k seems a pretty steep price to change someone's DEFCON for only one day. Maybe if the mission is successful the nation would have to wait a few extra days or the duration of their current war(s) (I assume this would be the only time you would want to try this operation). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingzog Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 get rid of changing gov't, religion, and DEFCON. It makes no sense for enemy spies to be able to change things like that. I concur with this. Also, in the interests of not throwing the entire CyberVerse into turmoil, might I recommend holding off on release until the current Bob-wide war winds up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brotherington Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Its pretty good but i have to say that the 'destroy nuke' option needs to be waaaay more expensive, its by far the best thing there. All the others are just a nuisance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy_Luigi Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 holy broken feature batman! "Destroy Nuke" and many others of these need to be much much more expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozalia Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 I concur with this.Also, in the interests of not throwing the entire CyberVerse into turmoil, might I recommend holding off on release until the current Bob-wide war winds up? Why? Its annoying when registration is taken down because the big boys want to fight. Alliences should not delay a feature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy_Luigi Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Why? Its annoying when registration is taken down because the big boys want to fight. Alliences should not delay a feature. because it could easily tip the balance of the war to either side Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morey 2k7 Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Considering Spies can fail those prices are great. If anything they should be put down. Im on about the larger nations having to pay more, there should be formula in place where smaller nations get actions cheaper, larger nations have to pay alot more for actions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy_Luigi Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Im on about the larger nations having to pay more, there should be formula in place where smaller nations get actions cheaper, larger nations have to pay alot more for actions. then 3 smaller nations fueled by larger nations would be able to completely disable a larger enemy nation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RossGarner Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Why? Its annoying when registration is taken down because the big boys want to fight. Alliences should not delay a feature. Its not done to "serve alliances" but to let them fight their conflict based on the plans that alliance draw up for such things. Changing the dynamics of the game during a major conflict can have a major impact on the way the war is fought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDave Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Spies should be independent of the war system. Spies should not be able to destroy infra bus should be able to steal tech (might also put an end to nations having millions of $$$ worth of infra destroyed so a nation could get 10 tech for free, and would stop retaliatory attacks. There obviously needs to be a way for spies to be unmasked They hould not change religion and they should not not change government. They could, I sduppose reduce happiness by say, instigating a rebellion or a riot but not one significant enough to put you into anarchy. Possible a feature along the lines of stealing efficiency (not in the game calculation sense but in everday working population sense) so for a one time only you could be able to send an additional foreign aid package (please no one suggest the same thing for a trade slot) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abaddonis Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Im on about the larger nations having to pay more, there should be formula in place where smaller nations get actions cheaper, larger nations have to pay alot more for actions. That will work, if there are restrictions on who can attack who. Otherwise, it'd be unfair to larger nations against smaller ones who are being supplied by larger nations Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calaustria Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 I see one big problem. The threat level. Nation's happiness should not go down just because spies are being implemented. IMO, it should be more like this: Low (+1.0 population happiness, 75% counter intelligence readiness) Guarded (+0.5 population happiness, 90% counter intelligence readiness) Elevated (-0.0 population happiness, 100% counter intelligence readiness) High - (-1.0 population happiness, 110% counter intelligence readiness) Severe - (-2.0 population happiness, 125% counter intelligence readiness) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbdawg Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 I agree that defcon, gov and religion shouldn't be able to be affected b/c that would be a major annoyance. adding something like "start riots" would be more appropriate where it could put you into anarchy for 1 day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
admin Posted September 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Its not done to "serve alliances" but to let them fight their conflict based on the plans that alliance draw up for such things. Changing the dynamics of the game during a major conflict can have a major impact on the way the war is fought. If you see the game update log and other posts made by me I've been planning on adding spies for quite some time. (Since July) I'm not going to hold off on a feature that is already delayed because there is a war going on. I've provided plenty of time for everyone to get ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowe Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 (edited) * Change Desired Government = $150,000 (Randomly chosen) * Change Desired Religion = $150,000 (Randomly chosen) * Change DEFCON Level = $150,000 (Changes to level 5 or 4) * Destroy Defending Tanks = $200,000 (Max 50) * Destroy Cruise Missiles = $200,000 (Max 5) * Destroy Nuclear Weapons = $200,000 (Max 1) * Assinate Enemy Spies = $250,000 (Max 20) * Destroy Money Reserves = $300,000 (Max 1 Million) * Destroy Infrastructure = $350,000 (Max 10) * Destroy Technology = $350,000 (Max 5) * Steal Technology = $500,000 (Max 3) Going in order. What on earth could spies do to make people want a different government and whats the point when you take into account the national wonder that negates government desire? Since when has international espionage had ANY effect on what god people want to worship? And this one ALSO has a national wonder attached to it. How could spies possibly change the defcon level of a nation? That's even less believable than changing peoples government desires. These are spies, not Special Forces. They don't go around carrying anti armor weaponry, they gather information. Again these are spies, not special forces. How could they possibly destroy a cruise missile? These things are huge and stored in very secure areas. This is the most ridiculous option of them all. Not only is it totally implausible but it's absolutely unbalanced for it's price. If you know who the enemy spies are then how can they spy on you to begin with? it doesn't make any sense. Destroy money? The economy doesn't work that way. If I went out and robbed 200 banks and burned it all no money would be lost. This is almost as bad as the nukes, I don't see how a spy could do anything without millions of dollars of equipment for balance reasons. Destroy technology... stealing if they are more advanced I could understand but again this is still hideously unbalanced for the price. Hey, stealing, here it is. Buuuut why would you have destruction as an option when you can just steal it? Still horribly unbalanced for the price. Overall this idea is a failure imho. Excluding the absurd options of changing religion, government, and defcon levels most of the stuff I would expect Special Forces teams to take millions of dollars of equipment and training to accomplish as it has NOTHING to do with spies and everything to do with outright military action, but even ignoring that this is still hideously unbalanced for how much it costs. For a few thousand dollars I could cost someone millions of dollars in damage with no worry of repercussions, and god help them if they are in peace mode because chances are they will be hit so hard by both peace mode AND the "spies" that they won't ever recover without tons of outside help. It's horribly unbalanced, negates the 35 million dollar national wonders, defeats the whole point of peace mode, and even within itself is inconsistent with it's own concept and the counter is most likely going to be superfluous at best and harmful to the user at worst. I just cannot see how ANY of this could possibly be balanced unless it took a variable amount of time for each operation to complete, it took a significant amount of time and money to train and equip spies, operations were at least twice as expensive as this, and having spies had the risk of blowback with your population. Something along the lines of -5 to -10 happiness and riots for getting caught. My suggestion is to scrap the idea in it's current form and have spies work like they really do, with information. Troop movements, positions, amounts, that sort of thing. Percentage modifies for your success rate, effectiveness of long range attacks like bombers and cruise missiles raised since you have precise targetting information and know where the defenses are. Give each nation a low maximum limit of intelligence agents and have them deployed either abroad or domestically for the purposes of information gathering or spreading misinformation. That would put some skill and choice into the equation instead of making it the Mercy Guides Missile of cybernations (supreme commander players will get that). Edited September 11, 2007 by Shadow of Eternity Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rozalia Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Going in order.What on earth could spies do to make people want a different government and whats the point when you take into account the national wonder that negates government desire? Since when has international espionage had ANY effect on what god people want to worship? And this one ALSO has a national wonder attached to it. How could spies possibly change the defcon level of a nation? That's even less believable than changing peoples government desires. These are spies, not Special Forces. They don't go around carrying anti armor weaponry, they gather information. Again these are spies, not special forces. How could they possibly destroy a cruise missile? These things are huge and stored in very secure areas. This is the most ridiculous option of them all. Not only is it totally implausible but it's absolutely unbalanced for it's price. If you know who the enemy spies are then how can they spy on you to begin with? it doesn't make any sense. Destroy money? The economy doesn't work that way. If I went out and robbed 200 banks and burned it all no money would be lost. This is almost as bad as the nukes, I don't see how a spy could do anything without millions of dollars of equipment for balance reasons. Destroy technology... stealing if they are more advanced I could understand but again this is still hideously unbalanced for the price. Hey, stealing, here it is. Buuuut why would you have destruction as an option when you can just steal it? Still horribly unbalanced for the price. Overall this idea is a failure imho. Excluding the absurd options of changing religion, government, and defcon levels most of the stuff I would expect Special Forces teams to take millions of dollars of equipment and training to accomplish as it has NOTHING to do with spies and everything to do with outright military action, but even ignoring that this is still hideously unbalanced for how much it costs. For a few thousand dollars I could cost someone millions of dollars in damage with no worry of repercussions, and god help them if they are in peace mode because chances are they will be hit so hard by both peace mode AND the "spies" that they won't ever recover without tons of outside help. It's horribly unbalanced, negates the 35 million dollar national wonders, defeats the whole point of peace mode, and even within itself is inconsistent with it's own concept and the counter is most likely going to be superfluous at best and harmful to the user at worst. You should have stated your oppion eariler. Now you're stuck with it. But the idea isn't bad. Spies are special forces by the way. Hell they might be Ninjas, bring out the pirates Admin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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