Spies Input

[abaddonis]

I also think that spies should not be able to change Government or Religion. The same goes for changing DefCon status.

I like the idea of them destroying infra although as my nation is growing and infra is costing me more and more, it does seem like that would become very expensive.

I also feel that spies should not be put in place until after the current big war ends. If anything they will only prolong the war and instability.

Admin delayed the release of spies during the FAN conflict and he gave plenty notice.

They don't change the choice of gov't or religion. They change desired religion and gov't

[President Pierce]

Few short points...

1) If Admin feels the new feature is ready to release he should release it regardless of if there is a war or not. Wars are a choice we as players make good or bad going into it and should not influence a game feature that involves players not involved in the war. This "OMG theres a war you cant do this!" argument is just selfish and wrong.

2) Peace mode nations should be spied on and be able to spy. Even Canada has spies...when was the last time you saw canada get uppity and hostile?

Now, I agree there should be some sort of penalty for peace mode nations spying but not being able to be declared war on and that solution is really quite simple- if a peacemode nation is caught spying(pick a % of spies) then they are forced into war mode.

In terms of the one player posting "OMG if i go on vacation i can find my stuff gone". Then just hulk up your defences.

3) Let's not get carried away with the prices. It seems that all of us longtime players that make a decent amount of cash wanna just keep upping everything to prevent our enemy or possible enemy from getting it. Well learn to cope. These things should be affordable. A dude with a $10 backback and $20 worth of cleaning supplies with a quick trip to Home Depot can do some serious damage and it doesnt cost as much a nuclear weapon.

4) Different prices are insane. I saw the argument that little nations should get them cheaper....thats ridiculous. I have a boatload of technology(heck accroding to the little pics I dominate outterspace) and infra and people and military stuff...but not the capability to fund a spy network at the same cost as somebody with 1 tenth my tech and whatnot? Thats just a ridiculous concept.

5) Intel agencies should have an impact but I started a topic on this yesterday and admin said it'd be in so +1 me lol

6) The trade partner revelation is brilliant. This should work along side what we already have. If you "trade in secret" then your trade info should be left secret from spies but if you trade openly-just as you can be sanctioned, you should be able to have your ties revealed. Does finding new trades suck? Yes, yes it does. But this doesnt eliminate trades itself. Plus it adds a very interesting dynamic in keeping close contact with your trade partners and such. losing trades is bad but you can rebound and it makes the game have that much more "risk". We're all comfortable just chillaxing and buying infra, everything can't always be sunshine and smiles.

edit-added my opinion of the trade partner revelation.

Edited September 12, 2007 by President Pierce

[Rozalia]

President Pierce, intel agenicies do something for spies now. They let you have 100 more spies each.

[abaddonis]

Few short points...

1) If Admin feels the new feature is ready to release he should release it regardless of if there is a war or not. Wars are a choice we as players make good or bad going into it and should not influence a game feature that involves players not involved in the war. This "OMG theres a war you cant do this!" argument is just selfish and wrong.

2) Peace mode nations should be spied on and be able to spy. Even Canada has spies...when was the last time you saw canada get uppity and hostile?

Now, I agree there should be some sort of penalty for peace mode nations spying but not being able to be declared war on and that solution is really quite simple- if a peacemode nation is caught spying(pick a % of spies) then they are forced into war mode.

In terms of the one player posting "OMG if i go on vacation i can find my stuff gone". Then just hulk up your defences.

3) Let's not get carried away with the prices. It seems that all of us longtime players that make a decent amount of cash wanna just keep upping everything to prevent our enemy or possible enemy from getting it. Well learn to cope. These things should be affordable. A dude with a $10 backback and $20 worth of cleaning supplies with a quick trip to Home Depot can do some serious damage and it doesnt cost as much a nuclear weapon.

4) Different prices are insane. I saw the argument that little nations should get them cheaper....thats ridiculous. I have a boatload of technology(heck accroding to the little pics I dominate outterspace) and infra and people and military stuff...but not the capability to fund a spy network at the same cost as somebody with 1 tenth my tech and whatnot? Thats just a ridiculous concept.

5) Intel agencies should have an impact but I started a topic on this yesterday and admin said it'd be in so +1 me lol

6) The trade partner revelation is brilliant. This should work along side what we already have. If you "trade in secret" then your trade info should be left secret from spies but if you trade openly-just as you can be sanctioned, you should be able to have your ties revealed. Does finding new trades suck? Yes, yes it does. But this doesnt eliminate trades itself. Plus it adds a very interesting dynamic in keeping close contact with your trade partners and such. losing trades is bad but you can rebound and it makes the game have that much more "risk". We're all comfortable just chillaxing and buying infra, everything can't always be sunshine and smiles.

edit-added my opinion of the trade partner revelation.

1. Agreed

2. I sort of agree with you. I'd suggest that those in peace mode can only have certain options for spying. For example, a nation in peace mode can only send spies to gather intel and change desired religion/gov't. Also, nations in peace mode can be hit by the same spy missions as well as tech destroying/stealing missions. Tech will not bring down your nation if you lose a little over a few days

3. Some prices are ridiculous and some are spot on. Nukes are expensive, therefore, it should be costly to destroy one.

4. Agreed

5. They'll have an effect

6. Agreed. This will help promote trade circles within alliances.

[Daver]

admin, I'm reading my Threat Level and it says. "Severe risk of terrorist attack." Now I realize that I'm in fact not at high risk and it refers to my intelligence agencies' readiness stance, but do you think you could change it? It makes me jump at 1st glance and could cause a noob to panic and place themselves at risk by not raising there readiness level.

Maybe, "Your intelligence agency is at <insert readiness level here> level of alert.

Edited September 12, 2007 by Daver

[abaddonis]

You set your own threat level

[Daver]

You set your own threat level

I never said you didn't.

[Rakarth]

Firstly the spies should be renamed to saboteurs since they don't seem to be doing much spying.

I do feel that the actions comited by spies should have a RL counterpart. If a spy would not be able to do something in real life they shouldn't be able to do it in the game.

The change of religion, goverment and DEFCON should be removed/changed. Because it would not make sense in RL. It would be very hard for a spy to convince the whole population that they should have a new goverment, religion or DEFCON level.

Instead change it to acts of propaganda and missinformation to give negative popultaion happines.

Change of DEFCON level to 4 or 5 is just stupid. No spy could ever convince the people that there are no war happening. Instead the soy should be trying to get the enemy soliders demoralized, thus making them less effective in war without the popultaion happines change.

The threat level should be changed. Why does the population gets sad when the nation is prepared for a terrorist attack? It should have a upkeep price instead. It is expencive to keep a elevated readynes level all the time, security controls and surveillance costs money and is bad for the economy since it takes longer time to send people and mail form one place to another.

All in all I'm not convinced this will be a good idea.

Spies should be a way to gather intel not another battle mode. If you want more battles why not just give us more normal attacks each day?

[Saxxon]

Lol, alliances will start sanctioning/ZI'ing people for trading uranium with nuke rogues

[Vor]

admin, I'm reading my Threat Level and it says. "Severe risk of terrorist attack." Now I realize that I'm in fact not at high risk and it refers to my intelligence agencies' readiness stance, but do you think you could change it? It makes me jump at 1st glance and could cause a noob to panic and place themselves at risk by not raising there readiness level.

Maybe, "Your intelligence agency is at <insert readiness level here> level of alert.

The wording seems fine to me. They are more or less exactly the same levels the UK has in real life, just worded slightly differently, and I expect exactly the same as the real world United States levels.

Personally I'll never drop my threat level below substantial, even during peace times. Its worth 1 lost happiness to me to have my counter-intelligence agencies working at 100% capacity to deter terrorist attacks, despite having gone the better part of a year without entering into hostilities with any other nation in the game.

If a newb panics and makes a mistake then its bad for him, but he will learn for next time. Although I'm sure it will be fully explained in the next edition of the new player guide.

Edited September 12, 2007 by Vor

[Vor]

The threat level should be changed. Why does the population gets sad when the nation is prepared for a terrorist attack? It should have a upkeep price instead. It is expencive to keep a elevated readynes level all the time, security controls and surveillance costs money and is bad for the economy since it takes longer time to send people and mail form one place to another.

I thought that at first, but having a happiness penalty, in effect, is an upkeep cost. Your income is decreased x amount depending on the happiness loss from the level you selected.

I agree about the religion, government and DEFCON levels however. It would make more sense if religion and government changes took more than 1 update to become to become active.

Edited September 12, 2007 by Vor

[Allnighte]

The wording seems fine to me. They are more or less exactly the same levels the UK has in real life, just worded slightly differently, and I expect exactly the same as the real world United States levels.

Personally I'll never drop my threat level below substantial, even during peace times. Its worth 1 lost happiness to me to have my counter-intelligence agencies working at 100% capacity to deter terrorist attacks, despite having gone the better part of a year without entering into hostilities with any other nation in the game.

If a newb panics and makes a mistake then its bad for him, but he will learn for next time. Although I'm sure it will be fully explained in the next edition of the new player guide.

i think they're talking about the wording of the threat. not the actual levels per say.

countries in real life change their threat level because of intelligence that leads a country to believe they might be hit. in other words, it's not really in a countries control how likely they are to be attacked by terrorists.

the way the threats are worded in CN right now seems to say the following:

"well, i don't want terrorists to attack me, so i'm going to set my threat level to low. *changes to low* yay! now my threat level is 'Low Risk of a Terrorist Spy Attack'"

or

"i hope i get attacked by terrorists, i'm going to increase my risk of a terrorist attack by raising my risk level to 'Severe.'"

i think that's what people are saying. at least thats how it makes sense (or doesnt make sense rather) to me

[Jack of Diamonds]

i think they're talking about the wording of the threat. not the actual levels per say.

countries in real life change their threat level because of intelligence that leads a country to believe they might be hit. in other words, it's not really in a countries control how likely they are to be attacked by terrorists.

the way the threats are worded in CN right now seems to say the following:

"well, i don't want terrorists to attack me, so i'm going to set my threat level to low. *changes to low* yay! now my threat level is 'Low Risk of a Terrorist Spy Attack'"

or

"i hope i get attacked by terrorists, i'm going to increase my risk of a terrorist attack by raising my risk level to 'Severe.'"

i think that's what people are saying. at least thats how it makes sense (or doesnt make sense rather) to me

Well, that just confuses me. If anything, its more like "I think no one wants to spy on me so I will set my threat level to low", which is what happens according to the bonuses of -0 happiness and 75% counter spy readiness. The flip side is "I think someone is spying on me, I will raise my threat level to severe", where you get -2 happiness and 125% counter spy readiness. The lower threat levels don't mean you will get spied on less, just that you will be less prepared if someone does spy on you. The opposite applies for the higher threat levels.

[Allnighte]

The lower threat levels don't mean you will get spied on less, just that you will be less prepared if someone does spy on you. The opposite applies for the higher threat levels.

yes. i know this. but the text stating "threat" makes it sound like - unless someone reads about the threat/spies more - the big green button means your nation is at a low risk of an attack.

i think it would be more appropriate if instead of "Threat Level:" it just said "Intelligence:", with the alternate image text saying something like "Low counter-intelligence to spy attacks"

does that make sense? sound better?

because that's more what you're controlling: your OWN intelligence level. not your "risk" level.

[Jack of Diamonds]

yes. i know this. but the text stating "threat" makes it sound like - unless someone reads about the threat/spies more - the big green button means your nation is at a low risk of an attack.

i think it would be more appropriate if instead of "Threat Level:" it just said "Intelligence:", with the alternate image text saying something like "Low counter-intelligence to spy attacks"

does that make sense? sound better?

because that's more what you're controlling: your OWN intelligence level. not your "risk" level.

I guess that would make things a little clearer, since there really is no good term to express this

[Antartica North]

I think you'll find that the majority of the large nations will appreciate the caps due to the extreme costs of things like tech and infras at their levels.

I don't think I'd find that at all. Nations of size buy their tech from smaller nations, not themselves. This is why a percentage system is more effective.

Perhaps do it like infra upkeep costs, where your infra (or in this case NS) determines the percentage used.

Still. Please add the ability to steal money reserves.

[cookieking]

Will spies affect strength?

[thedestro]

Why don't we attach a poll to this topic so we can get a rough estimate of what the community's stance on this new feature is.

[Shadowe]

Do you have any idea how many people avoid these forums like the plague? As many people as are usually online, the vast majority of people in CN still hate coming here to the point they probably don't even have an account. That's why I still think there isn't going to be an accurate measure of opinion until this is actually put into the game and starts getting used. This is a LOT like the Mercy from supcom. Sure you think it's a cool idea at first, but then you realise it's a homing missile that's faster than any anti-air unit in the game and capable of killing the strongest units in the entire game with just a few of them for cost on par than some of the game's starter units.

This espionage system is the same thing. It's an insanely unbalanced way of attacking anybody without them having any real possibility of defending from it short of seriously damaging their growth in order to defend against something that may or may not ever hit them, regardless of whether they are in peace mode or not. Frankly that's insane. It's bad enough that peace mode has such crazy penalties associated with it and there isn't any true nation-freezing vacation mode, but now they can be attacked despite being in peace mode.

Any feature which upsets the balance of a game to the extent that everything revolves around it and it's usage is pretty much a textbook case of failed balancing.

Edited September 12, 2007 by Shadow of Eternity

[Rozalia]

Do you have any idea how many people avoid these forums like the plague? As many people as are usually online, the vast majority of people in CN still hate coming here to the point they probably don't even have an account. That's why I still think there isn't going to be an accurate measure of opinion until this is actually put into the game and starts getting used. This is a LOT like the Mercy from supcom. Sure you think it's a cool idea at first, but then you realise it's a homing missile that's faster than any anti-air unit in the game and capable of killing the strongest units in the entire game with just a few of them for cost on par than some of the game's starter units.

This espionage system is the same thing. It's an insanely unbalanced way of attacking anybody without them having any real possibility of defending from it short of seriously damaging their growth in order to defend against something that may or may not ever hit them, regardless of whether they are in peace mode or not. Frankly that's insane. It's bad enough that peace mode has such crazy penalties associated with it and there isn't any true nation-freezing vacation mode, but now they can be attacked despite being in peace mode.

Any feature which upsets the balance of a game to the extent that everything revolves around it and it's usage is pretty much a textbook case of failed balancing.

Thats always the case. Get over it.

[Brotherington]

Incase nobody has said it yet: You out to be able to change your spy defcon (whatever its called) only once every 2 or 3 days. Otherwise people will just constantly swap it (like they do defcon during war) and it will be basically pointless.

[admin]

The game is quite bad on so many levels, that could so easily been fixed,.. but admin has no time for that.

Now this whole spy things, like we didn't have yet enough tools to harm others, there are soldiers, tanks, fighters, bombers, cms and nukes. Not to forget all the improvments that improve your military effectiveness.

But yet we cannot buy more than 20 infra in one click... too much programming to code? We cannot sort the team senators to vote for. We cannot have drawn statistics (there are packages where it is so easy to do with). We cannot even have summs of infra/tech/tanks for each alliances. etc. etc.

Heck! we might have even an *working* alliance system *in* the game, instead of this AA hack, yes AAs are just a quick hack to it. A system with levels of hierachy, where you *allow* people in or out. No more ghosts, no more ninja AA switching, just like any other at least medicore well done MMORPG handles guilds for example.

But no admin has time enough on hand, to create yet another weapon type...

fuzzycat warned for the off topic post. This topic is about, as the topic title states INPUT ON SPIES, not a place to push your agenda for other features for the game or &#33;@#&#036;%* about what's wrong with this or that. There is a suggestion box and process for game improvements, go there or go away.

[Viridia]

For those who keep saying, 'steal nukes and cruise missiles and infrastructure. its a game, its not supposed to be realistic.' Well, I hate to break it to you, but its a realistic simulation game. Sorry.

And you cant exactly go into a nation, pick up a nuke or cruise missile or bridge and walk off with it.

[calaustria]

For those who keep saying, 'steal nukes and cruise missiles and infrastructure. its a game, its not supposed to be realistic.' Well, I hate to break it to you, but its a realistic simulation game. Sorry.

And you cant exactly go into a nation, pick up a nuke or cruise missile or bridge and walk off with it.

Steal, no. But destroying a nuke/cm/infra is fine. That is realistic. A nice bunch of C4 on a nuke, cm, or bridge will do a lot.

[Brotherington]

For those who keep saying, 'steal nukes and cruise missiles and infrastructure. its a game, its not supposed to be realistic.' Well, I hate to break it to you, but its a realistic simulation game. Sorry.

And you cant exactly go into a nation, pick up a nuke or cruise missile or bridge and walk off with it.

I can think of a list of features in this game that are far less realistic than sending secret agents to sabotage WMDs and that nobody complains about if you like...