The boats: spies sometimes?

[Caerfanan]

Ok, new question now. I couldn't help but notice that whan one has a boat somewhere, it can spy the provinces having a shore on its sea.

Well almost. Sometimes you can't se anything.

And I'm almost sure that this has not to do with the fact of being in the see in which the port goes. And I'm not sure about the blocus.

Anyone knows about this?

[Deus ret.]

AFAIK your boat can always see the province along with its resources and income. If no other factions' boats (at least not of the faction to which the province belongs) are present in the same waters, you can also see the general(s), the size and composition of the army, the province's buildings etc.

....is that what you were pointing at?

[drone]

I think you are blocked from seeing details if the owner of the province (or stack) has a boat in the sea region with you. Other factions' boats don't block you, if I recall.

The inability to see the composition of most Viking stacks/provinces in VI without a spy is my basis for this.

[Caerfanan]

AFAIK your boat can always see the province along with its resources and income. If no other factions' boats (at least not of the faction to which the province belongs) are present in the same waters, you can also see the general(s), the size and composition of the army, the province's buildings etc.

....is that what you were pointing at?
Yes it was. Thanks! So I can see everything if there are no boats from the province's faction in the see, and only general info otherwise.

What AFAIK stands for? As Far As I Know?

[Deus ret.]

As Far As I Know?

:2thumbsup:

[macsen rufus]

This aspect is a bit buggy - I often have situations where I should be able to see into the province (ie see the units/buildings) because my boat is the only one there, but can only actually see the parchment. I haven't pinned down qute what causes it - maybe there was an enemy boat there last year (or next year?!), or maybe my ship needs to take an extra year to get close to the shore. Whatever, it's frustrating!

[EatYerGreens]

Get an emissary or bishop into the province and check to see if it has border forts or not.

At least in Shogun, as soon as a neighbouring enemy province put up BF's, your watchtowers stopped providing information about buildings and army stack contents. You could still read the province parchment (income, faith, loyalty) though. The BF's basically act as counterspy, stopping certain info getting out and you may be seeing a similar effect.

Strangely, in MTW, BF's in a neighbouring province don't block your watch towers at all. Perhaps ships are being treated as a lesser quality of agent?

[Caerfanan]

Get an emissary or bishop into the province and check to see if it has border forts or not.

At least in Shogun, as soon as a neighbouring enemy province put up BF's, your watchtowers stopped providing information about buildings and army stack contents. You could still read the province parchment (income, faith, loyalty) though. The BF's basically act as counterspy, stopping certain info getting out and you may be seeing a similar effect.

Strangely, in MTW, BF's in a neighbouring province don't block your watch towers at all. Perhaps ships are being treated as a lesser quality of agent?
That's a very good suggestion indeed! ~:cheers:

[macsen rufus]

I can rule out the border fort theory - often a province that is "invisible" to a ship one year is "visible" the next - I don't think the AI knocks down border forts.... I did once have a theory it might be that "deep sea" ships can't get close to the shore, but they can spy into provinces sometimes....

[Deus ret.]

I had the impression that is it never possible to spy into a province with a ship as long as a ship from the province's owner is in the same waters while a neutral ship from a third faction sometimes also prevents spying. I don't have a clue why this happens, yet it might depend on alliances.

[EatYerGreens]

According to the game's own manual, the ships that you build are, strictly speaking, trade protection vessels. The actual cargo ships themselves are 'invisible' and cost the Treasury nothing to build or maintain (i.e. they're privately owned).

Basically, the cargo ships don't venture into hostile waters at all, notwithstanding that you may have your navy present in those same waters. It's just not safe for them.

As I see it, the actual 'intelligence' about what is going on in the foreign-owned provinces is dependent on the cargo vessels arriving at the port regularly and the crew picking up on local gossip.

Meanwhile, your military vessels *do not actually visit the foreign port*, hence their support costs are dependent on the distance from a home port. Sure, they can mosey up and down the coast but they're not going to glean much, in an age before binoculars etc. were invented. ;)

Alternatively, you might prefer to believe that the navy does visit ports in neutral/allied territory, to resupply provisions, but they get fleeced by the hard-bargaining locals <g>, hence the higher support costs. However, since it's a military crew, the locals might be more guarded and less chatty about local matters...

This info-blocking thing is interesting though. It could be the only example we have of agent 'counterspying' activity having a genuine meaning in the game. It also adds weight to the 'ship = agent' argument. Whether it's another faction's ship, in the area, causing the blocking, or an agent on land, who you can't see anyway, is immaterial. Either way, you may see variations from year to year in what you can see within the province, because of the movements of ships and/or agents.

It may even be something as simple as the need to leave your ship in position for a whole turn before info becomes available. However, I habitually 'shuttle' pairs of ships back and forth between neighbouring sea zones, in case they get attacked and I get full province info virtually all the time, despite this.

I would agree that an enemy vessel in the sea zone is enough to block the info.

[Deus ret.]

This info-blocking thing is interesting though. It could be the only example we have of agent 'counterspying' activity having a genuine meaning in the game. It also adds weight to the 'ship = agent' argument.

Despite having become quite prone in the meantime to classify ships as some special kind of agents myself, the info-blocking actually doesn't support this claim substantially imho - after all, an agent is never blocked while spying.


I would agree that an enemy vessel in the sea zone is enough to block the info.
Definitely. Furthermore, a ship of a faction which has a province adjacent to the ship's sea tile always prevents spying into that province, notwithstanding diplomatic status. You can't even spy on your allies.

What I was wondering about, though, was a case like this: If a ship from faction A is adjacent to faction B's territory and the only other ship in the same waters is from faction C (let's assume there's no war among the three), C's vessel may interfere with the spying ability of A's ship - but only sometimes. I checked it and found this blocking to be quite independent of alliances, so I'm still not sure why this happens.

edit: those neverending typos...

[Caerfanan]

As I see it, the actual 'intelligence' about what is going on in the foreign-owned provinces is dependent on the cargo vessels arriving at the port regularly and the crew picking up on local gossip.
I don't think that it's based on trade, as you can see the info of provinces without a port. It could have been a good criteria though! :yes:

For the case that Deus Ret raises, having a neutral boat blocking your vision, could be because the neutral is allied with the province owner, and you're not?

[EatYerGreens]

the info-blocking actually doesn't support this claim substantially imho - after all, an agent is never blocked while spying.


Fair enough. I'm just inclined to believe that the 'counterspying' agent activity was something that only got as far as the appearance of the string which says that on the agent info parchment. Either they simply never got around to coding the countermeasures part of it or they tried it, didn't like the results and subsequently removed it.

I imagine the beta team reporting that agents "somtimes give province info, sometimes not" and some bright spark realising that this might lead to tons of complaint emails from users, which cost money to handle. So basically anything which users might not immediately understand needs to be pruned out - for the sake of an easy life in the aftercare department. :beam:


@Caerfanan

We just need to gather more observations and see what conclusions can be drawn. It's tricky to do because most people will be concentrating on carrying out their campaign, rather than paying attention to quirks of the game.

[Caerfanan]

@Caerfanan

We just need to gather more observations and see what conclusions can be drawn. It's tricky to do because most people will be concentrating on carrying out their campaign, rather than paying attention to quirks of the game.
Even I did play without paying attention to this, and I did have a very good opportunity: I had a boat in every sea, in a viking campaign, and the viks had 2-5 boats per sea. No other faction had boats. I should've tried to see what I could see or not, the alliance having changed between different nations, including mine. Now I'm struggling against dying northumbrians,resisting mercians and angry vikings who did take control of all the seas (and now plunder wherever they want/need). I remember them being quite resisting to cease fire offers. So I just don't know how I will invade Ireland.. Maybe a lot of money and a lot of emissaries...

[macsen rufus]

In my current game (new mod, so hope it all stacks up with vanilla game...) I had a (deep water) ship in the Baltic - the next nearest ship of any faction was in the Med so NOTHING could be blocking me, I could not see into Sweden. Next turn, I had another ship put out, and with one ship in Baltic and one in Skagerrak I COULD see into Sweden. Now whether that was due to the Baltic being occupied for two years in a row, or my ships now covering the entire coastline of Sweden, who knows? But that is another variable - maybe you have to cover the entire coastline. On the other hand, the same "invisibility" occurs with islands, and that takes only one ship... oh well, back to the drawing board....

[General Dazza]

I'm having a similar thing on my current game. I own Venice, Serbia and Greece and have a line of ships through to Egyptian lands and also had ships to Constantinople, but I can't see into some other factions' provinces - despite their not being another ship in the same sea area as me. I'm pretty sure that was when I hadn't moved ships around for a while too. :inquisitive:

On a related matter, I can't build a trading post in Serbia (and I think Greece from iirc). I thought you could build trading posts in all provinces? Or id that a false memory?

[seireikhaan]

Trading posts can only be built in provinces with trade goods. If there's nothing to trade, the trading post kinda loses its importance.

[EatYerGreens]

@ Macsen Rufus

That thing with Sweden is interesting because, when its port is built, that faces into Skaggerack, not into the Baltic.

I'm not saying that the port needs to have been built. What I'm getting at is that the positions of ports are predefined, in the startpos files (I think) and those coordinates may have a secondary use, in defining the point of contact between the sea and the land, for the purposes of reconnaissance.

There are plenty of other examples of where the land and sea boundaries cause overlaps, like Algeria across to Egypt; bits of the Iberian peninsular and so on.

Like I mentioned before, you need to scout ALL the lands of that faction (using Bish/Alim/Emm), to make sure they have zero spy/assassin training capacity, so as to eliminate counterspying effects as a possibility.



@ General Dazza,

Check the province parchments carefully. You may have mistaken the 'Resources' entry for the trade goods one. Serbia has Gold as a resource, so you have to build the mine or mine complex to make money out of that. It's a fixed income and a modest amount, compared to what trade can bring, but it has the advantage that the income doesn't stop when you get blockaded.

Greece has Silk as trade goods, so you should be able to build the trade post there.

[Caerfanan]

That thing with Sweden is interesting because, when its port is built, that faces into Skaggerack, not into the Baltic.
I'm not saying that the port needs to have been built. What I'm getting at is that the positions of ports are predefined, in the startpos files (I think) and those coordinates may have a secondary use, in defining the point of contact between the sea and the land, for the purposes of reconnaissance.

Yes, I think the boat has to be where the port would show to see anything.

[caravel]

@ Macsen Rufus

That thing with Sweden is interesting because, when its port is built, that faces into Skaggerack, not into the Baltic.

I'm not saying that the port needs to have been built. What I'm getting at is that the positions of ports are predefined, in the startpos files (I think) and those coordinates may have a secondary use, in defining the point of contact between the sea and the land, for the purposes of reconnaissance.
Interesting thread, I've always assumed that rival factions' fleets blocked your fleets from reconnoitering a province? If you find this not to be the case then it may be that counterspying agents or border forts could block it, though I'm not sure...

The port positions are located in the startpos file. The coordinates seem to determine as to which coastal waters a port or shipyard interacts with. The facing is purely cosmetic, it simply sets the port sprite (different facings) used on the campaign map.

[General Dazza]

[QUOTE=EatYerGreens@ General Dazza,

Check the province parchments carefully. You may have mistaken the 'Resources' entry for the trade goods one. Serbia has Gold as a resource, so you have to build the mine or mine complex to make money out of that. It's a fixed income and a modest amount, compared to what trade can bring, but it has the advantage that the income doesn't stop when you get blockaded.

Greece has Silk as trade goods, so you should be able to build the trade post there.[/QUOTE]

Thanks EYG - I do have the gold mine already so no probs there. I just forgot that the prvince needs to have a trade good to be able to trade (which makes sense).

Caravel - are you saying that there's a difference in where the port sprites are on the map to where the port actually faces (i.e. which coastal water it interacts with)?

[caravel]

Caravel - are you saying that there's a difference in where the port sprites are on the map to where the port actually faces (i.e. which coastal water it interacts with)?
I would say that the coordinates dictate as to what sea the port interacts with. The facing is cosmetic only. A shipyard alone, where the port has been destroyed, can produce ships and dump them out at sea, so it must be the coordinate alone that dictates it.

[Caerfanan]

I would say that the coordinates dictate as to what sea the port interacts with. The facing is cosmetic only. A shipyard alone, where the port has been destroyed, can produce ships and dump them out at sea, so it must be the coordinate alone that dictates it.
I think that if you want to know which see is "linked" to a province, building a boat would do: the boat will appear in the "linked" sea

To answer your previous post, yes, the province owner's boats block the sight. We had someone expecting to see Sweden from the baltic sea, and apparently, you have to have a ship in Skaggerak.

[caravel]

I think that if you want to know which see is "linked" to a province, building a boat would do: the boat will appear in the "linked" sea
Yes I know that, my point was more so "how does the game engine determine this". It must be based on the location of the port on the map, but this is not clear.

To answer your previous post, yes, the province owner's boats block the sight. We had someone expecting to see Sweden from the baltic sea, and apparently, you have to have a ship in Skaggerak.
I believe that if a province adjoins two or more seas, and you are in an empty neutral sea, you still won't be able to see into that province if the province owner has a boat off one of the other coasts. This is from memory though, so don't quote me on that.

:bow:

[Caerfanan]

Yes I know that, my point was more so "how does the game engine determine this". It must be based on the location of the port on the map, but this is not clear.:
Oh. Allright. You were one step ahead... I guess that the drawing of the port is linked to the official sea of a province (I think it's written in the manual)


I believe that if a province adjoins two or more seas, and you are in an empty neutral sea, you still won't be able to see into that province if the province owner has a boat off one of the other coasts. This is from memory though, so don't quote me on that.

:bow:
Gah, I should've explained better.... A few post before, someone was surprised because he was the only boat in the sea (no foreign boats around), and couldn't see Sweden from the Baltic. But could as soon as he had a boat in Skagerak. Then EYG answered that it could be linked to the fact that the Swedish port leads to skaggerak, probably meaning that to see sweden, you need an unblocked boat in skagerak (and not the baltic).

I'm not making it clearer am I? :sweatdrop:

[caravel]

Gah, I should've explained better.... A few post before, someone was surprised because he was the only boat in the sea (no foreign boats around), and couldn't see Sweden from the Baltic. But could as soon as he had a boat in Skagerak. Then EYG answered that it could be linked to the fact that the Swedish port leads to skaggerak, probably meaning that to see sweden, you need an unblocked boat in skagerak (and not the baltic).

I'm not making it clearer am I? :sweatdrop:
Serves me right for not reading the whole thread! :dizzy2:

If the issue is "seeing" into provinces from an adjacent sea, then I believe that not only does the fleet have to be in the sea where the port is located but that the port itself needs to be present. If it's not the latter then it's still definitely the former. The fleet "looks" into the province through the port if that makes any sense?

Sorry for not following this thread more closely.

:oops:

[Caerfanan]

Serves me right for not reading the whole thread! :dizzy2:

If the issue is "seeing" into provinces from an adjacent sea, then I believe that not only does the fleet have to be in the sea where the port is located but that the port itself needs to be present. If it's not the latter then it's still definitely the former. The fleet "looks" into the province through the port if that makes any sense?

Sorry for not following this thread more closely.

:oops:
Argh. You second EYG on this port thing... I was thinking otherwise, but I haven't checked properly. And in my current campaign, there is a ring of angry stacks of viking boats all around the main Isle of Great Britain.... OK, I definitely have to make some tests...

[caravel]

Check to see if border forts have a blocking effect also. Are you playing using ian mode? With ian mode you can switch factions, so you'll be able to destroy/construct buildings to check their effect.

[Caerfanan]

Check to see if border forts have a blocking effect also. Are you playing using ian mode? With ian mode you can switch factions, so you'll be able to destroy/construct buildings to check their effect.
Err, no, I'm not playing ian.... but I'll check the border fort stuff!

(how do you play in ian mode?)

[caravel]

Err, no, I'm not playing ian.... but I'll check the border fort stuff!

(how do you play in ian mode?)
Right click your desktop shortcut, click properties and change the path to the file. At present it will be something like:

"C:\total war\ medieval - total war\medieval_tw.exe" -strictserver

You want it to be like:

"C:\total war\ medieval - total war\medieval_tw.exe" -strictserver -ian

With this enable you can change factions by using the ctrl and number keys or shift and number keys. This allows you to monitor AI movements.

(I used it in my last "pics and history of your empire" campaign as the Byzantines to give the Fatimids, my arch enemies a helping hand by disbanding some of the units that were paralysing their economy through support costs and investing in infrastructure to make them more challenging, otherwise I would have steamrollered them in a few years - I didn't continue either the campaign or the write up after that though.)

[macsen rufus]

I'd like to clarify what I said earlier about Sweden and ships in the Baltic and Skagerrak - first off, I'm using the XL map, so Sweden's port is in the Baltic. Another campaign from the same mod, I am based in Cyprus and have occupied all sea areas from there to Greece and into the Black Sea - I cannot see into a single province from the sea! Many of the provinces have ports (it's a very trade-dependent faction, which is why the ships are there, and the trade is working according to my economy scroll.) Only two other factions have boats in my areas - still early game so no-one's at war yet, however, Eastern med, Rhodes, Crete and Myrtoon seas have neutral ships in. This raises another possibility - do your ships need a clear run back to your capital/king to be able to report what they've seen, ie can "intelligence" be blocked in the same way as trade? (Though I'm sure if this was the case I would have spotted it before :laugh4: ) BTW some of the factions I'm trying to spy on can only build watch-towers and not border forts, and so early in the game none of them will have spies or assassins on the go yet, all of which would seem to rule out the watch-tower and counter-spy theories.

[Caerfanan]

I'd like to clarify what I said earlier about Sweden and ships in the Baltic and Skagerrak - first off, I'm using the XL map, so Sweden's port is in the Baltic. Another campaign from the same mod, I am based in Cyprus and have occupied all sea areas from there to Greece and into the Black Sea - I cannot see into a single province from the sea! Many of the provinces have ports (it's a very trade-dependent faction, which is why the ships are there, and the trade is working according to my economy scroll.) Only two other factions have boats in my areas - still early game so no-one's at war yet, however, Eastern med, Rhodes, Crete and Myrtoon seas have neutral ships in. This raises another possibility - do your ships need a clear run back to your capital/king to be able to report what they've seen, ie can "intelligence" be blocked in the same way as trade? (Though I'm sure if this was the case I would have spotted it before :laugh4: ) BTW some of the factions I'm trying to spy on can only build watch-towers and not border forts, and so early in the game none of them will have spies or assassins on the go yet, all of which would seem to rule out the watch-tower and counter-spy theories.

OK, thanks very much for your clarifications! Not knowing the mods, I had figured that the swedish port was in skagerak!

With both -ian instructions and all your inputs, I might do some testing playing in -ian.

[Caerfanan]

Right click your desktop shortcut, click properties and change the path to the file. At present it will be something like:

"C:\total war\ medieval - total war\medieval_tw.exe" -strictserver

You want it to be like:

"C:\total war\ medieval - total war\medieval_tw.exe" -strictserver -ian

With this enable you can change factions by using the ctrl and number keys or shift and number keys. This allows you to monitor AI movements.

(I used it in my last "pics and history of your empire" campaign as the Byzantines to give the Fatimids, my arch enemies a helping hand by disbanding some of the units that were paralysing their economy through support costs and investing in infrastructure to make them more challenging, otherwise I would have steamrollered them in a few years - I didn't continue either the campaign or the write up after that though.)
Sooo... If you play in -ian, you move everything you want to move for a faction, then press shift plus a number to play for another faction? Or you can take control of one faction at a time only?

[EatYerGreens]

(how do you play in ian mode?)

Copy your VI desktop shortcut and paste onto the desktop.
On the "Copy of....." one, right click the icon and click "Properties"

On the second tab ("Shortcut"), in the line which says "target", make it look like this...



"C:\Program Files\Total War\Medieval - Total War\Medieval_TW.exe" -ian -loyalty:135


The quote marks must be used, as shown.

(The loyalty parameter controls "auto-set taxes" behaviour and is completely optional. I've used it here to show how to 'stack' additional switches.)

The reason I've suggested making a secondary shortcut is that the {-strictserver} command-line switch is compulsory for participating in multiplayer games, so MP fans will want to preserve the original shortcut, to ensure they don't get locked out (-ian de-restricts camera motion around the battlefield).

[caravel]

The reason I've suggested making a secondary shortcut is that the {-strictserver} command-line switch is compulsory for participating in multiplayer games, so MP fans will want to preserve the original shortcut, to ensure they don't get locked out (-ian de-restricts camera motion around the battlefield).
Good point, I forgot about that. I never play MP myself so it doesn't affect me. I usually just remove the -strictserver command line argument.

:bow:

[EatYerGreens]

Gah! I fell for that old chesnut - not realising the thread had moved onto another page before hitting the reply button.

Apologies for repeating much of what you'd said.




That only leaves the -ian mode keypresses to be explained.

G - God mode - see the whole map (except enemy stealth agents)

A - Autorun (to stop it: press A again, while the line of leader portraits is lighting up, then wait a few seconds for the turn to complete itself)

# - sets your own faction to AI control
(on UK-keyboards this is the {# and ~} key, next to the backspace key, I can't remember what the US-keyboard equivalent is)

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 (top line of keyboard, not the keypad digits)
Switch to other factions (1=rebels)

Shift & 1,2,3,4,5,(no response from 6?),7,8,9,0
More factions
(don't worry about the provinces lighting up green while you press shift)

You WILL need to switch factions in order to find their stealth units and, in some cases, to get full intelligence on what buildings they have, as well as what they are currently building/training.

- - - - - - tear here - - - - - - - -


A funny thing:- the other day, in -ian, I switched to the papacy to let the other factions get on with their thing and discovered that the "Disband" button on his units just went 'click' and didn't actually work. On any other faction, it was fully functional. Wierd!

[Deus ret.]

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 (top line of keyboard, not the keypad digits)
Switch to other factions (1=rebels)

Shift & 1,2,3,4,5,(no response from 6?),7,8,9,0
More factions

Don't forget, though, that in most mods there are more factions than those 20 you can access. This means that if you start out with, say, faction #22 and you change control only once, you'll never be able to return.

I outline this because it happened to me recently in a very promising MedMod Teutonic Order campaign ~:mecry:

[macsen rufus]

,(no response from 6?),

Are you sure that faction was still in the game? I got caught out by that one last night :laugh4:

[EatYerGreens]

@macsen

I wasn't paying close enough attention (I was testing a mod) but that sounds like a perfectly logical explanation.

It might even be that it's the slot reserved for Burgundy, who are defined in the startpos for Early, like everybody else.


My latest findings: -

Me as Dutch (from the AddFaction tutorial pdf) with one province (Freisland).

My ship in North Sea alongside an English ship (neutral or allied with me) - I cannot see into their lands.
A few turns later, the English ship moves away - I can now see into Mercia, Northumbria and Scotland.

On the same turn, in English Channel, my ship alongside an English ship but the presence of a third faction's ship (also neutral or allied) seemed to enable me to see into Normandy. I could also see into Wessex but I think that also has a small segment of coast in contact with North Sea, doesn't it?