Research: the abilities of agents

[RedKnight]

Major update Nov. 12:

1) When you move spies into foreign cities (including allies! aha!), their Public Order goes down - watch and see.

2) P.O. goes down by 5% for each "eye" you have in the city (each spy-skill eye) to a maximum of 50%. Thus only the first 10 eyes matter. The number of spies does not - two 6-eye spies will only get you 50%, as will five 2-eye spies. This makes skilled spies a lot more cost effective vs. maintenance (100/turn).

3) While there's a 50% cap on spy Unrest, there's also an 80% overall cap on Unrest. So if the city is already in great turmoil, you may not get a full 50. Also, some traits (and buildings?) ward off Unrest, and can "eat" your first few eyes.

4) 1-eye spies become 2-eye on successfully entering a foreign city (including allied cities), thus causing 10% Unrest. Apparently it's like MTW command stars - the first successful action gives a promotion (and after that, they're harder to get). The initial city status screen will only show a 5% drop in P.O. but if you check again, you'll see it down by 10. Apparently the skill increase happens after the city screen pops up.

5) If there are "third party" spies in a city, they do not affect your success rate. For example if I as Julii spy on a German town that has a Brutii in it, the Brutii is ignored for success purposes. (Makes sense.)

6) If there are no indigenous spies in a city, a 1-eye spy will have a 93% success rate, and all others 100% success. If there are enemy spies in the city, the success rates will be worse, as follows:

                       My Skill

 Their   1    2    3    4   5    6    7    8    9    10
 Skill  --   --   --   --  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---
    1   55   75   89   97  100  100  100  100  100  100
    2   40   57   71   83   91   97   99  100  100  100
    3   32   46   59   69   78   86   92   96   99  100
    4   26   39   49   59   68   75   82   88   92   96
    5   22   32   42   50   59   67   73   79   84   89
    6   19   27   37   45   52   60   66   71   77   82
    7   17   24   32   40   46   53   60   65   70   75
    8   15   22   29   35   42   48   55   60   65   69
    9   13   20   26   32   39   45   49   55   60   65
   10   11   19   24   29   35   40   46   50   55   60




(garbage text to make the window tall enough to see what matters, sigh)

For example, if I have a spy with 3 eyes and see a 42% success rate, I know he's got a spy with 5 eyes there.

These rates are for ONE indigenous spy.

NEWS FLASH - In my test game platform, I was working Brutii against Julii. A little playing around showed that Gauls have, for a 1-eye spy vs. a city with no indigenous spies, 75% success for a 1-eye, 93% for 2 eyes, and 100% for 3. When Gauls have spies there, the numbers are likewise slightly elevated. Conversely, Carthage did not have these slight increases. My preliminary guess is that there's a "cultural difference" that slightly increases the odds versus some races.

Before I spend tons more time on this, I want to figure out the spy-vs-spy equation for the simple matrix above. I bet the rest is simple variations of it. However, I can't figure out a simple equation for it, can you? For a discussion, I've posted a question in the Compuserve Science/Math forum here (I think you have to make a free account to join in, but they won't spam you and you don't need to install anything - there are some great math brains there).

7) Multiple indigenous spies will cause different rates which are more than the max single spy; preliminary testing shows it to be about halfway between the single highest spy of the lot, and the total eyes. While I've got some data, I want to discover the single-spy equation before proceeding. (There are tons of combination, while the 100 datapoints of the single spy matrix took hours of game research! With a working single-spy equation to start with, I should think multiples would only need a few points to see its nature.)

7) Public Security traits (and buildings? are there any?) affect spy entry success - it is the only thing I have found so far that can affect it (I've tested Personal Security, Law, Unrest, and a host of other things - no effect). (However, if a governor has a trait which eats a few Unrest points, you may not cause Unrest with your first few eyes.) Traits with Public Security are as follows (research TBD re: how much points matter, but it's probably like 1 eye each):

   Group / Level Names / Effect Value

   CounterSpy
      Counter-Spy        +2
      Counter-Espionage  +3
      Spycatcher         +4

   Unjust
      Judgemental   +1
      Wrong-headed  +2
      Unjust        +3

   Xenophobia
      Distrusts_Outsiders  +1
      Hates_Strangers      +2
      Loathes_Foreigners   +3

   Xenophilia
      Welcoming_To_Foreigners  -1
      Likes_Strangers          -2
      Fascinated_By_Outsiders  -3






(garbage text to make the window tall enough to see what matters, sigh)

8) Spies in the "open field" (on campaign map, alone, not in cities or armies) have much steeper rates than those in cities, as follows. These are for Brutii vs. Julii:

                       My Skill

 Their   1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9   10
 Skill  --   --   --   --  --    --   --   --   --   --
    1   22   32   43   52   60   67   75   80   85   89
    2   11   17   22   27   32   37   43   48   52   56
    3    5    9   13   17   20   24   27   29   32   35
    4    3    5    9   11   13   15   19   20   22   24
    5    1    3    5    7    9   11   13   15   15   17
    6    1    3    3    5    7    7    9   11   11   13
    7    1    1    3    3    5    5    7    7    9    9
    8    1    1    1    3    3    3    5    5    7    7
    9    1    1    1    3    3    3    3    5    5    5
   10    1    1    1    1    1    1    3    3    3    5




(garbage text to make the window tall enough to see what matters, sigh)

9) In my current game, I have 15% Unrest in a dozen of my cities. At first glance, this would suggest that there were exactly 3 eyes' worth of spies in all these cities, but the Control cheat showed me that there wasn't a single spy in them. So if you see exactly 15%, it probably doesn't mean an enemy spy (although it could) - there seems to be something else that causes 15% in the game. Others have also seen this (see here) - possibility it is a "permanent cultural difference". If anybody has ideas, speak up!

More to come! Spy on - and give your exotic dancer a whirl for me.