Spies

[Oaty]

Wondering what people thought about MTW and STW having spies telling you exactly what was in the next province. I know a big kicker for STW where a Geisha house would be a hidden building and only a high level Emisary/spie or assassin would have a good chance of finding its location and maybe it could be so well hidden that even with the territory conquered, that building could still have a chance of staying hidden and be in control of the enemy. But thats probably a little far fetched for gameplay and coding it into the game

My main point is that they should not show up so much detailed info and the higher the level of the spy the better chance that his data will be accurate. Heres an example of what I am thinking, gonna use MTW units to give a perspective

Lets say you spie on a catholic faction and they have


units total

3 royal knights 53

4 feudal sergeants 327

7 feudal men at arms 363

3 archers 128

2 hobilar 57

19 total units 928

now heres what a high valour spie comes back and tells you


you will be facing an army of 850 men

50 royal knights
300 feudal sergeants
300 feudal men at arms
100 archers
100 hobilars

but a low valor spie could come back with results such as 500 or 1500 throwing your whole game plan off or not even reporting one of the units

Same with buildings and capabilities of that province but that isnt as important and maybe even making the buildings not visible for a few seasons as it could have been off at an odd place or in an obscure place to ensure its safety

But my biggripe is that you should not know exactly what kind of army you are facing

[[DnC]]

That would be a great idea indeed So I voted for option 2.
It would make the game far more interesting and a lot harder.
Hope they do implement that
Would be fun thinking about bringing an army the size of 500 men for example, when you've been given information about an army the size of 400. And then it turns out to be an army of 800 men and the odds are suddenly against you

Yes, yes, this would indeed be a very nice feature http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Snowhobbit]

Woho, more realism in the game

[Sir Robin]

Will spies even be in RTW?

Innacurrate reports would be a good addition to the fog of war effect.

[Shono]

I agree all the way, spies should give data accurate to their rating and experience.

One extra possibility is the longer the spy is stationed ina province/city etc then the more information you get and the more accurate it becomes. Of course with the added risk of him/her being captured.

[Skidrowpunk]

Quote[/b] (Shono @ Oct. 13 2003,09:41)]I agree all the way, spies should give data accurate to their rating and experience.

One extra possibility is the longer the spy is stationed ina province/city etc then the more information you get and the more accurate it becomes. Of course with the added risk of him/her being captured.
I agree. But it could also be the other way around, the bigger the army is the more inaccurate is the report. And, as you said, the less valour and experience, the less accurate the report should be. A fun scenario is that when your spy has spied at that french army you've just is about to attack, the spy gets captured or killed and you stand there at the battlefield facing an army which is ten times bigger than yours http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif.

[Lord of the Isles]

As long as the main role of spies is to, well, spy, I'll be happy. I hate uber-powerful agents that can easily bribe armies, forment revolts in provinces, assassinate generals and the like. As the TW series has gone on things have improved (*hated* those super-geishas in STW) so I have hope.

[spmetla]

There should be another seperate unit. Conspirators, they should be the ones that lower loyaltly and such.

Spies should give you information but I think they should also give you information on what that provice is building/training and how many turns before it's completed.

[Shahed]

Good ideas

I think that it would be great to have a "civil unrest" generating type of unit, whihc could be the spies task and/or apart from the spies.

One thing I really hope is that you do NOT have to pick up spies one by one, and they can be moved in groups.

[Spino]

I want spies in RTW but I do not want them so easily detected and killed off like they are now in MTW. Border Forts should only increase the chances of detection by a small amount. Leave the real cloak and dagger stuff to the appropriate units. Basically the better the spy the more accurate the intelligence and the greater his chance of survival.

Maybe CA ought to consider creating a special unit stack for Assassins, Emissaries and Spies.

I would also love to see 'Track' and 'Stay' commands for Assassins so you can determine whether they should follow their target unit into another region. In MTW it's a major pain in the ass to watch your high ranking assassin track his target into some far flung territory only to get killed off because of some stupid Border Fort.

[Sir Kuma of The Org]

Quote[/b] (Sinan @ Oct. 23 2003,11:59)]One thing I really hope is that you do NOT have to pick up spies one by one, and they can be moved in groups.
Amen to that

Furthermore if they do have asssssasssssins let's hope that they will be of some use http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[desdichado]

I also don't want spies to give me exact information about the valour of units. Maybe a generalisation "some untrained milita units and a veteran unit of spearmen, with outdated armour, etc". Gives you an idea but not an exact knowledge of their stats.

I would also like the option of determining the level of organisation my spies try to infiltrate. Maybe one to get basic low risk economy information from the chancellory or high risk insertions in to the military command to find vital invasion plans etc, but for one spy to get information from everything is unrealistic.

Perhaps the longer a spy is in a province/city they can build up a network of informants instead of just valour? As long as micromanagement does not become an issue at least.

There is just so much scope it is easy to get carried away.

I agree with larger armies being harder to count - it would certainly not be unheard of for armies to have been grossly over/under estimated by idiots who couldn't count past their fingers.

[dessa14]

spies should give more accurate data on future attacks like where it is likley to be but the stats for an army should be within 200 at most thanks dessa

[spmetla]

And "stealth" units like welsh bandits wouldn't show up.

[Earl of Sweden]

Hmmm, a very interresting discussion indeed. I would like spies to be "rooted" in a specific area and using messengers to communicate with "me". You should be able to set how often you would want reports and maybe even just get really serious warnings.

The more often you want messengers to report your spys intelligence the greater the risk that the messenger gets caught and the more messengers get caught the greater the risk of revealing your spy.

I also think that you should be able to reveal spies in your own territory and make them leave false information. It would be cool to see your neigbour concentrating his armies on a spot just toi invade him on another.

I think that intelligence-services should have a bigger part in the game as long as it doesnt get repetetive or adds lots of micromanagement.

[desdichado]

How important were spies historically in this period - with such a primitive communication system were they relied on to a great extent?

I like a lot of the ideas in this thread but I think this is an area where historical accuracy should and could be implemented unless its ridiculously complicated.

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] ]How important were spies historically in this period - with such a primitive communication system were they relied on to a great extent?

Spies have existed even before RTW

[spmetla]

And when you think about it, if a nation had really good spies their enemies and us in the present day wouldn't know about it.

[magnatz]

Quote[/b] (desdichado @ Oct. 28 2003,23:58)]How important were spies historically in this period - with such a primitive communication system were they relied on to a great extent?

I like a lot of the ideas in this thread but I think this is an area where historical accuracy should and could be implemented unless its ridiculously complicated.
The Romans did have spies - the first "official" intelligence corps were the frumentarii (grain gatherers), which were used at first for exploration and covert infiltration missions. After a while they started messing too much with the internal politics and carry on assassinations and blackmailing (does this ring a bell? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif), so Diocletian (I think) disbanded the corp and replaced them with the agentes in rebus, which incidentally is where the term "agent" comes from. Other than that provincial governors had their own intelligence, some of which can be glimpsed by Plinius' letters to Trajan.

As for the other factions, they probably had something on that line too - at the very least Caesar mentions that the Gauls briefed merchants and travellers - and I would be surprised if at least the Egyptians, the Macedons and the Parthians didn't employ professional spies either.

How much were spies reliable ? I suppose they mostly were interested in military intelligence, ie reporting troops and ship movements, warship building and so on. As you say communications was a vital factor, and that's why the Romans had set up an extremely efficient courier system, with horse exchange posts all around the road system. Optical communications were also in use since the Greek times.

So my take is that spies are not out of place in the game, even if their importance shouldn't be overstated. Maybe to make this absolutely accurate some faction should have slightly better spies than the others, but this would suck for people that want to play Germans, so don't count on it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Vlad Tzepes]

Great ideea I voted for optiion 2. Spies were never computing machines. And, talking about spies and espionage... Intoxicating the enemy with false information was always part of the game Why not implement that as well? And how about double-spies? Well... this sounds already like a totally different game.

[Voigtkampf]

I went for number two as well, but I wouldn't like to see the spies becoming utterly unreliable; their valor should reflect their precision. But I am also quite happy with the present situation in M:TW, so I wouldn't spill all too many tears if they don't change at all.

[alman9898]

I'd just like to point out that CA has confirmed that spies will have two roles: spy and assasinate. Just to clear up the assassins question by Sir Kuma.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (desdichado @ Oct. 28 2003,05:15)]I also don't want spies to give me exact information about the valour of units. Maybe a generalisation "some untrained milita units and a veteran unit of spearmen, with outdated armour, etc". Gives you an idea but not an exact knowledge of their stats.
This is about as much information in want from my spies. No messing with inacurate statistics, since inacurate statistics are worse than no statistics. That and the name and skill of the general are the important things.
Perhaps the spies/assasins should be made a lot more expensive. Good assasinsinations were rare, and I don't like the current system which forces you to "trow" you assassins / ninja to targets until you get lucky.