How to buff Espionage Ideas?

[Rubidium]

We have a thread on the main page about buffing Quantity ideas.

I believe there was recently a discussion about buffing Aristocracy.

That said, if someone had to pick the "worst" idea group, I suspect that most would point to Espionage, which is probably less useful than either of those, and uses ADM points instead of the much less generally useful MIL points. So how would you go about making Espionage a valuable competitor with Religious, Innovative, Administrative, etc.? This can involve changes to the ideas, changes to basic mechanics, or some combination of the above.

Have at it.

 

[delpiero1234]

Sow Discontent should work similar to fabricate claim but instead of increasing revolt risk it should decrease the target's stability by -1. Maybe it should take 2-3 years to complete sow discontent.
Infiltrate administration is not that useful.
The Sabotaged reputation modifier should be applied to all countries and not just to neighbors.
Increase spy offense by a lot. Maybe by +50%? Also increase spy defense
Give CB against countries that used covert actions against you. So if someone gets caught fabricating a claim on one of your provinces you can react by declaring war upon them.
Sabotage economy: Increases inflation by 0.1% per month & embargo efficiency by 33%
Sabotage moral: Decrease army and navy moral by 10%

So my proposal:
1. Vetting: Increase spy offense by 50% & spy defense by 33%
2. Shady recruitment: 1 diplomat + Covert action relation impact reduced by -50%.
3. Infilatre Administration
4. Sabotage economy: +0.1% inflation per months
5. Sow discontent: Decreases stability by 1 after 2 years. On discovery the progress is reset.
6 Sabotage moral: -10% moral
7. Rebel support Efficiency + 75%
Full Espionage gives powerful CB against other countries that used covert action on you.

 

[Strangedane]

My Espionage tree would looks something like this.

1. Vetting: Spy offense/defense 50-ish% (maybe 50/33 as suggested above)
2. Shady recruitment. +2 diplomats
3. Sow discontent: As support rebels, but on a national scale.
4. Sabotage economy: +0.01 - +0.3 inflation per month. (Adjustable scale, should be expensive as hell)
5. Sabotage Army infrastucture: -% morale, manpower recovery, reinforcement rate and maybe even morale recovery. (adjustable scale)
6. Infiltrate administration: I'd rework this completely and let it net either PU's or Vassasl. I would however make it take 10+ years to do either, and a discovery would reset it. This way you'd have to plan long-term to get benefits from it, but when you do, you can cash in madly.
7. Quiet ways: -75% spy discovery chance, Can have spies in countries you are at war with.

As above I agree that full espionage should grant CBs against people you discover trying to use covert actions.
Probably a simple superiority CB.

 

[delpiero1234]

2. Shady recruitment. +2 diplomats

+2 diplomats is too powerful. Not even the diplomatic tree grants +2 diplomats.

I like the idea of using spies against countries you are at war with very much.

 

[Strangedane]

+2 diplomats is too powerful. Not even the diplomatic tree grants +2 diplomats.

I like the idea of using spies against countries you are at war with very much.

Might be a fair point, but i feel that simply +1 is not enough, and I don't agree with reduced impact. If you are the bad guy causing revolts and other stuff in peoples countries, you should be forced to pick up relations over time from other sources to counteract it. It shouldn't be in the same tree.

Maybe + 1 Diplomat and -15% covert action costs?

 

[dav77-b]

Make them a DIP or MIL idea.
Add some bonus modifiers to it. Like stability cost modifier, revolt risk, land moral/leader maneuver ( land espionage)

 

[delpiero1234]

Make them a DIP or MIL idea.

No.

Add some bonus modifiers to it. Like stability cost modifier, revolt risk, land moral/leader maneuver ( land espionage)

Espionage is not a military idea and it should not reduce stability cost or have anything to do with leader maneuver.

 

[fleetothemoon]

Just some of the ideas I'm throwing out here:

Sow Discontent should provide the current standard stability increase penalty and revolt risk. However, the user can also fund money into this action, which would cause the following effects:

• +monthly war exhaustion for target (if target is at war)
• -tax efficiency
• -manpower recovery

The extent of the penalty from sow discontent should be based on the amount of money projected relative to the base tax and income of the target nation (to a limit of course). In addition, the amount of money needed would be dependent on the relative spy efficiency between the two nations.

Stealing trade power (e.g., inflict the effect of the them being embargoed by you in the same trade nodes you both share power in and granting you the same amount, relative spy efficiency could be used to determine the effectiveness of this 'trade power leech')

Sabotage reputation - Instead of a instant -50 malus, it should be a ticking malus that reaches -50 max which should then linger for a while even after the diplomat is withdrawn (recovery should be faster than gain, so that you can't just go making everyone hate each other permanently).

Additional effects for Infiltrate Administration:

• Enable us to see what the AI really thinks, akin to the information you may get from the console command AI_View - not really a major buff but would be fun.
• Enable an event to occur on a MTTH of 5 years where user may get the option to steal money, steal manpower (defecting troops?), and steal randomly from one of the three power types, with a chance of failure, revealing the spy action.

^I would prefer the maphack to be removed completely though but it seems to be a rather defining element of the espionage set.

Of course, if we are going to buff the espionage actions, we should also increase the consequences of using them. As standard, when the target country discovers your spy action, they should get a CB on you as well as a relationship malus along with prestige loss. However, in addition to this, the user should be prevented from engaging in certain high level espionage actions against the target during truce... since the target cannot punish the user during this duration ->

 

[delpiero1234]

they should get a CB on you as well as a relationship malus

They should only get the CB if they have completed the Espionage tree.

 

[dirtInfestor5]

I think, PI should add Spies to the game, that can do all that espionage stuff (including fabrication of claims). Then the idea should give you 1 or 2 spies (every nation has 1 in the beginning) to make it viable (next to other general buffs to the idea)

 

[Jomini]

The important thing to remember is that unlike other ideas, espionage stacks. Take the -1 stab option. That sounds appropriate and powerful enough that you might want to get it ... but if you are faced with 10 AIs who have it, you need some pretty nice flags so you don't end up with large power being unable to raise stab. Of course if you have those flags, you can end up with states wasting a lot of diplomat time or making the idea less powerful because you can use it so rarely (I could, for instance see people keeping an Espionage vassal around just to give out the -1 stab hits to whomever you two war).

Similarly things like tax maluses, manpower draining, and the like have to consider the situation where you have 15 nations with espionage ideas and 1 target. Is the game still going to be playable and fun if you have the malus conditions for the rest of the game? Are you going to put up limitations (e.g. you are protected from manpower nerfing for 2 years after you've been nerfed for 2 years), then will the idea group still be underpowered?

A much better option is to not make Espionage the "spite the other nations" idea group, but to give espionage options that help out the sending country. For instance - give a "open the gates" mission that can be used when a province is under siege - it effectively gives the general leading the siege say 2 bonus siege pips for that province only (your spies seek to compromise the defenses of besieged cities). For another, have something like "finesse succession" - when there is a contested succession this mission either moves you up the list for an unclaimed throne or if you are already at the top, it increases the odds of direct inheritance and PUs at the expense of having a cadet branch take the throne; maybe, maybe let it give you a CB to depose a weak claimant and install a cadet branch on the throne (basically your spies work over the powerbrokers to back your guy towards the throne). Bonuses might also be helpful, e.g. reduced coring time (people "fear the Okhrana" so they stop rebelling and start paying taxes more quickly), tech reduction when you border a more advanced state (your spies spirit out bellfounders and foreign officers to show superior military technology to your forces), and "chart stealing" (faster map knowledge spread).

 

[Emmanuel_M]

The main problem these ideas have is that they are in the admin tree.

I would like the eithe rin the military tree (for those merchant wanting a iplomatic game and a good use of their MIL points or in the DIP tree.

ADM is the msot precious point pool. Innovative -% tcech cose is insanely good, despite this it's only a thierd group after admin and religious, not to mention economic is acceptbale. BTW, many building cost ADM points. Bottom line is :
spying must become either OP or another idea group. Getting aristocray/plutaocracy in ADM + naval in miltary and spying in diplomcay would be fine. Or just swap spying with Quantity (the amounts of troop you could levy was directly dependant upon you ability to mobilize every valid man in your heartland)

Right now it's a subtle, complex and mostly subpar diplo idea group that competes with the strongest idea class in the game. So it can be rendered OP (but beware of a collection of 5 OPM murdering AUSTRIA diplomatically). I would like som ideas in Spying to include :
* Technical expionnage : Neighbouring technology cost bonus * 3 (would be great for non western powers)
* An ability to hit target's stabilty, with a combination of cash and maybe expended ADM points. A country who got candestinely unstabilized should become immune to this for the next 5 years, to avoid unstable gangbangs at the expense of coalition targets.
* Maybe an "assasinate general" military action

Edit : I really like the post above mine : we wrote at the same time to say things that may be going in the same way. The "open the gates" and "influence succcession" looks cool.

 

[delpiero1234]

The main problem these ideas have is that they are in the admin tree.

This is not the problem. Espionage clearly has nothing to do with military so it should not be in the military group. Just because most players, including myself, have usually many military points to spare does not mean that espionage should be a military idea.

 

[ldevarga]

I'd say sabotage reputation should give a relations penalty to neighbors and everyone the target is using a diplomatic relations slot with, on top of that there should be a smaller relations penalty for people that are neither neighbors or using a relation (perhaps this group should be limited by geography (not sure ming would care that the king of denmark slept with a pig). The penalty should be -100 with neighbors and relations (perhaps modified by attitude as well (i.e. bigger penalty to cordial nations than friendly ones)) , and something smaller with the other group. It should tick down at a reasonable rate (even while the diplomat is there (perhaps some event should fire whilst doing it to boost it back up? e.g. "Great rumormongering")). Leave the penalty there when the diplomat has left, but make it tick down significantly faster.

As others have said the spy offence and defense could use a simple increase.

Infiltrate administration is quite useful if, like me, you like staying small/medium and helping others your size fight big powers, cause it's more important to know what the enemy is doing (even if it is an ai (or maybe I'm just terrible at the game...))

support rebels could be indirectly buffed by giving each province a 0.01 or so base revolt risk so that rebels are always supportable (unless province has friendly troops/harsh treatment or anything else that decreases base revolt risk), on top of that increase the revolt risk generated. Also it might be good if rebels spawned in groups e.g. 10 in one province 5 in each neighboring province (those numbers are probably excessive...). Perhaps the ai would have problems with this, being more of an role playing type I don't mind the ai having problems with it, but I presume others might. Also if the rebels are being supported by foreigners they should be better lead and equipped (more morale and so forth (this might already be the case I don't know)) and able to maneuver around the map like enemy troops.

sow discontent could give more revolt risk and stability cost over time (increasing the usefulness of spy offence and defense), perhaps multiplied if stability is already negative (same for support rebels?). But as Jomini said stacking might be problematic. On the other hand I would like to be playing as France and be murdered by a bunch of small nations in a coalition against me all sowing discontent and supporting rebels.

I like the sabotage economy ideas, but again with the stacking.

If it did give a CB it should probably give high AE for taking land but a lot of prestige.

I agree with Jomini's post.

 

[yahiko]

Very good ideas here for Espionage Ideas

We should also have something like "Competitive intelligence" (which is the core of Espionnage imo), allowing to catch technologically an advanced country.
For instance, reducing by 10% the cost of technology/ies already owned by the targeted country

 

[fleetothemoon]

The important thing to remember is that unlike other ideas, espionage stacks. Take the -1 stab option. That sounds appropriate and powerful enough that you might want to get it ... but if you are faced with 10 AIs who have it, you need some pretty nice flags so you don't end up with large power being unable to raise stab. Of course if you have those flags, you can end up with states wasting a lot of diplomat time or making the idea less powerful because you can use it so rarely (I could, for instance see people keeping an Espionage vassal around just to give out the -1 stab hits to whomever you two war).

Similarly things like tax maluses, manpower draining, and the like have to consider the situation where you have 15 nations with espionage ideas and 1 target. Is the game still going to be playable and fun if you have the malus conditions for the rest of the game? Are you going to put up limitations (e.g. you are protected from manpower nerfing for 2 years after you've been nerfed for 2 years), then will the idea group still be underpowered?

An easy way to rectify this is to put soft or hard caps on the stacking effects from every additional person trying to cause a stab loss. So, in your example, every person beyond the first to engage in that offensive action will reduce the time it takes to result in a stab loss for the targeted country but with diminishing returns. Alternatively, we could put, for example, have a maximum of 30% reduction in time for stab loss to occur (with say, each country beyond the first to reduce the time by an additional 10% so that at maximum, only four countries would have an effect when engaging in this action). To avoid wasting other countries' diplomats, we can disable this offensive action when four countries are already involved in this action against the target.

Also note that this is largely a MULTIPLAYER issue since most AIs do not take up the espionage tree and those that do tend to take it very, very late. Just to give an example, these are some of the nations that take the espionage tree:

France - takes it as the last idea
Denmark - takes it as the last idea
Austria - takes it third to last
Brabant - takes it second to last
Brunswick - takes it as the last idea
Holland - takes it as the last idea
Hungary - takes it as the last idea
Ireland - takes it second to last
Hansa - takes it second to last

 

[Marchosias]

I think the only real weakness for Espionage is that supporting rebels is so weak in this game.

It's so easy to reduce revolt risk in the game and the +3 RR at full funding is just so pitiful that it's a waste of money. If PI actually made supporting rebels stronger, or at least made people who completed Espionage ideas have a much stronger support rebels effieciency, then the idea tree would be worth it.

If you can spawn rebels when an enemy is weak, you can often completely wreck them. Right now, I can support rebels on an enemy with 0 units and no manpower and I still have to hope for a miracle to get rebels to spawn and succeed.

 

[Mihai Corvin]

IMO the espionage idea group should definitely have a reduction to revolt risk maybe -1.00 or -2.00.
Because of the control over the state your agents should give you.
With the name along the lines of Propaganda or Secret police.

 

[randomscribbles]

I'd fix it one of two ways. First, put it in the diplomatic tree. It gives diplomats, uses diplomats, and gives landlocked, non-colonizing, bad trade node nations a second worthwhile diplomatic idea while now they only have the "Diplomacy" idea tree.

Or second, I'd add a new spy action, "Steal Technology." It costs money and uses a diplomat akin to supporting rebels, but it instead has a chance each month of taking one MP from the target and a smaller chance of actually giving that point to you. That transforms the espionage tree into a primarily MP making/saving tree with fun thematic bonus perks, like the administrative and innovative trees in the same idea group (and to a lesser degree religious with its stability reductions).

 

[Marchosias]

I'd fix it one of two ways. First, put it in the diplomatic tree. It gives diplomats, uses diplomats, and adds gives landlocked, bad trade node nations a second worthwhile diplomatic idea.

Or second, I'd add a new spy action, "Steal Technology." It costs money and uses a diplomat akin to supporting rebels, but it instead has a chance each month of taking one MP from the target and a smaller chance of actually giving that point to you. That transforms the espionage tree into a primarily MP making/saving tree with fun thematic bonus perks, like the administrative and innovative trees in the same idea group (and to a lesser degree religious with its stability reductions).

What would you replace in the diplomatic tree?

Also, your suggestion is beyond weak. Stealing 12 random monarch points a year is not worth using a diplomat on.