My spies watch movies?

[Brandy Blue]

I think there was a movie called Our Man in Havanna. It was about a spy who made phoney reports to impress his bosses. For example, he photographed the inside of a vacuum cleaner and claimed it was a photo of an enemy secret weapon.

Well, I wonder if my spies watched this movie, because they keep sending me false reports. I get this message saying that the Almoads will attack France in two years. I revise my plans so I can help my French allies. The Almoads do nothing. I return to my old plans and move my units back to where they were. Rinse, repeat. I've given up listening to the egregious liars. Maybe I should assume that reports of immanent invasion mean that there will be peace?

Does anyone else have problems with silly spies? Does anyone know how to tell if a report is for real or not?

[Martok]

The phenomenon you mention is not an isolated one--quite a few players have experienced it as well.

While no one knows for sure why it happens, it's been speculated that the spy *does* have genuine information indicating a certain faction is about to invade another....but that then something happens to cause the AI controlling that faction to change its mind and call off the attack.

My hunch as to what happens is this (it's a little wordy, hence the spoiler tags):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Let's say that Faction A is getting ready to attack Faction B next year, and your spy picks up on this. He therefore dispatches a message to your king saying as much. I think what most likely is happening, however, is that after you've ended ended the turn (and a new year has begun) is that Faction A notices that Faction C has suddenly built up its military forces along their mutual border. As a result, A decides that, instead of attacking B, that it needs to keep its army at home to protect itself from a possible incursion by C.

A year or two after this (assuming Faction C still hasn't attacked), A once again harbors ambitions of gaining more territory. So once again, it mobilizes to invade B. Again, your spy reports this. On the next turn, however, C (or perhaps Faction D) once more threatens A with invasion itself, and so again A keeps its army at home.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I have no proof that this is what actually happens, of course, so you should accept my explanation with as many grains of salt as you're comfortable with. Still, I have a feeling that my explanation must be at least something like what happens. I say this because on occasion, those spy reports actually turn out to be true....leading me to believe they're not just random.

Oh, and welcome to the Org, Brandy_Blue! Glad you could join us.

[caravel]

Like Martok has said it works in the way e.g. Egyptians in Antioch have a huge stack there. Your (Byzantine) spy informs you that the Turks in Syria are the likely target, but nothing happens. Basically the spy checks the size of a stack, and the most likely target province for a possible invasion, i.e. that which is the most vulnerable (explaining why it's rarely the players provinces that come up, as the players are usually better protected, whith chokepoints established etc). It's not that useful.

[Vladimir]

I received a warning that the Papacy was going to invade in two years, one year after they launched a massive invasion of Venice.

[Don Esteban]

Maybe the courier sending the report got lost on the way to tell you......

[caravel]

It's a case of:

Two Almohad spies in Castile is peeping out of a thicket.

Spy: "wow, now that is an army, they're obviously going to invade Cordoba next year!!"

Other Spy: "the Khalifah needs to know about this... oh hold on...

Castilian General: "Well, I think we'd better get moving if we're to invade NAVARRE TOMORROW AFTERNOON" *wink wink nudge nudge"

Castilian Captain: "Oh yes, we'd better get the men mounted up and move out, we're taking the NOTHERN ROAD into NAVARRE after all" *wink nudge"

Spy: "Hmmmm they're attacking Navarre, or should I say NAV..."

Other Spy: "Shhhhhhhhh..."

Spy: "oops"

Other Spy: "We'd better go and inform the Khalifah that the Dons are heading for Navarre then?"

Spy: "Lets go..."

Much Later, two spies enter the court of the Almohad Khalifah

Spy: "My Lord, the Castilians are planning an invasion, they are going to attack the Navarrese tonight!!"

The two Spies are looking very smug, until an emissary bursts into the court out of breath...

Emissary: "The cas... cas... THE CASTILIANS ARE COMING!!!!"

Khalifah turns to look at the two spies, whom are hoping that the ground will swallow them up...

Khalifah: "What a pair of muppets..."

[drone]

OT - Caravel, you just got a promotion, right? Congrats, and well deserved.

[Adrian II]

Does anyone else have problems with silly spies?

Man, I have an Assassin who is so fond of ice cream he refuses to operate outside of Italy.

It's hard to find good help these days.

[Martok]

Man, I have an Assassin who is so fond of ice cream he refuses to operate outside of Italy.

It's hard to find good help these days.

Ah, that's so true.

[Adrian II]

Ah, that's so true.

Oh, the things we veterans have to put up with. In my fifth Polish campaign I have conquered Khazar which has an Inn. Mind you, the year is 1243 and Gunpowder has not been invented. I click on my Mercenaries in Khazar and lo and behold, there is a unit of Handgunners.

It's unnatural, I tell you. Must be some kind of black art.

Vade retro, Satane!

[macsen rufus]

I always see handgunners in the mercenary pool before it's been "invented", same way as there are a few mongol types there before the Horde arrives. I put it down to a few adventurous individuals running westward with inventions that haven't been made public in Europe yet, trying to grab a better paycheck with their stolen technology

[Lord Cazaric]

I simply don't use spies.

My problem with them is that they always get assassinated within a year or two of training. Surely if they can manage to gather information about a massing army in Wessex, they should be able to find out about the man in the hooded cloak who intends on plunging a knife into their heart!

Imbeciles...

[caravel]

My problem with them is that they always get assassinated within a year or two of training.

You can't lose spies to assassinations, as they're invisible, so I'm assuming you're losing them to counterspying spies, assassins or (more likely) border forts, in foreign provinces? If this is the case then you're not using your spies correctly. The greatest ability of a spy is to keep your provinces loyal and guard against rival spies/assassins (counterspying), while gaining valour for doing so. Once your spy has valoured up he will then be read for foreign missions. The only reason why you would want to send a spy on a foreign missions would be to attempt to incite revolt there, or to try and reveal vices. If that province has a border fort, you can expect your spy to die fast unless he is valour 5 or above. Valour 5 and above spies have a fighting chance of getting past border forts, lower valour spies have virtually no chance whatsoever.

[The Unknown Guy]

So high valor spies have a chance at bypassing border forts? Interesting. I gave it up as hopeless after I failed several spy man-waves and used them as fodder to protect my assasins (the border forts target spies first, methinks. At least if you launch an assasin and four or five spies against a border fort province target, chances are the assasin will be able to get to his target)

[Lord Cazaric]

Ah, well. I can still do fine without using spies.

[The Unknown Guy]

I prefer to use them and assasins for homeland security for bonus skill points reasons. (But with massive numbers building up their skill can be as tedious as building up the morale in an army by merging veteran units)

[Caerfanan]

Man, I have an Assassin who is so fond of ice cream he refuses to operate outside of Italy.

It's hard to find good help these days.

Aw, man!!!
I kinda understand him, though, Italy is a very nice country!

[Caerfanan]

I always see handgunners in the mercenary pool before it's been "invented", same way as there are a few mongol types there before the Horde arrives. I put it down to a few adventurous individuals running westward with inventions that haven't been made public in Europe yet, trying to grab a better paycheck with their stolen technology

Exactly! Thus creating a technological leek leading to the new inventions!

[The Unknown Guy]

I think there was a movie called Our Man in Havanna. It was about a spy who made phoney reports to impress his bosses. For example, he photographed the inside of a vacuum cleaner and claimed it was a photo of an enemy secret weapon.

Well, I wonder if my spies watched this movie, because they keep sending me false reports. I get this message saying that the Almoads will attack France in two years. I revise my plans so I can help my French allies. The Almoads do nothing. I return to my old plans and move my units back to where they were. Rinse, repeat. I've given up listening to the egregious liars. Maybe I should assume that reports of immanent invasion mean that there will be peace?

Does anyone else have problems with silly spies? Does anyone know how to tell if a report is for real or not?

By the way, "Our Man in Havana" is a book by Graham Greene. Later Frederick Foryish made an adaptation to the Panama crisis: "The Panama Tailor" or somesuch, and from THAT one, they made a movie.

I recommend reading "Our Man in Havana". It was a very good book.

[EatYerGreens]

By the way, "Our Man in Havana" is a book by Graham Greene. Later Frederick Foryish made an adaptation to the Panama crisis: "The Panama Tailor" or somesuch, and from THAT one, they made a movie.

They've *both* been made into films.

I'd need to look it up to get the facts fully right but, based on rusty recollections, "...Havana" was in black-and-white, may have had Alec Guiness in it and might even have been an Ealing comedy (which would confine it to the 40s/50s).

[Lord Cazaric]

Aw, man!!!
I kinda understand him, though, Italy is a very nice country!

And ice cream in damn good!

[bamff]

Just for the sake of idle curiousity, is there a province with a valour bonus for spies? I know Syrian trained spies get a valour bonus, for example - but what about spies?

[caravel]

Just for the sake of idle curiousity, is there a province with a valour bonus for spies? I know Syrian trained spies get a valour bonus, for example - but what about spies?

In Vanilla MTW/VI there is no valour bonus province for spies. There may be in some of the mods. I'm not sure about that.

[Deus ret.]

Speaking of valour bonuses, does anyone know if there is any perceptable effect of valour bonuses for ships? I had the impression that they're pretty useless.

[Caerfanan]

Speaking of valour bonuses, does anyone know if there is any perceptable effect of valour bonuses for ships? I had the impression that they're pretty useless.

Never seen anything about valour... There's a command level of the admiral though, and from what I've seen, it has an influence. But the outcome of naval battle is more uncertain that the outcome of an autocalc-ed battle.

[caravel]

There are valour bonuses for ships in Aragon, Venice, Wessex, Portugal and Tunisia IIRC.

Though the valour of ships is referred to as "command" it is still really valour and naval combat and it's inner workings are still rather unknown territory. What we do know about them is that they work much more like agents than army stacks.

With valour bonuses the ship appears with +2 valour (as assassins appear with +2 valour in Syria - the same system). It is debateable as to whether stacked vessels attack as a unit or whether only the lead ship actually attacks and the others wait their turn. It may be that having more ships in the stack gives a bonus to the lead ship, or it may be that when the lead ship is destroyed that the next in line takes over, this is not clear. Many mods remove the ship valour bonus regions as they can be inbalancing and the AI doesn't utilise them well either. In terms of them increasing a ship's effectiveness I'd say yes. In order of importance, the biggest factors for deciding a stacked* naval battle are IMHO:

Valour of lead ship
Number of ships
Types of vessels

You can draw many conclusions fromt this and many of them can be countered. In reality it's simply not clear as to how ships work. Personally I subscribe to the idea that the lead ship does all of the attacking, because I cannot see how the AI can utilise the other ships in such a situation unless the others are somehow used as extra hit points for the lead ship. When stacked the lead ship also gains all of the valour, the other ships in the stack do not. I've often had fleets with a valour 4 lead ship and 6 valour 0 ships stacked under it. The lead ship went from 2 to 6 in a few years but the other ships gained no valour at all, which seems to point to them not directly engaging the enemy. The If you split the stack up and attack individually then every attack is a true separate attack, with each attack having a percentage chance of either winning or not.

[Deus ret.]

Thanks for your replies, actually my question wasn't that complicated. I was just doubting whether regions with a valour bonus for naval vessels actually do give a bonus to ships built there. I had the impression they did not, but I may be wrong.

On the naval discussion, just to warm it up again : I'm still sceptical about the equation ship=agent. The AI knows no hostile agent movements (even though the consequences may be hostile, like in a bribe), but AI ships only attack if you're at war with them. This suggests a difference in the handling of ships and agents; besides, you're correct in that only the leading ship gains a bonus, but the description reads command and not valour bonus. Accepted as it is stated, it would seem more logical that only the leading officer gains a command bonus (as in land battles). This is supported by newly built ships having rather random command levels (0-2, maybe 0-3); no unit or agent enjoys random valour bonuses upon recruitment, whereas some of the better units do with command. Furthermore, if only the leading ship would fight it'd be the first casualty if any occur. I can safely tell that this isn't the case; sometimes the admiral ship sinks, sometimes another one does.

let's see where we'll end up with this....

[caravel]

On the naval discussion, just to warm it up again : I'm still sceptical about the equation ship=agent. The AI knows no hostile agent movements (even though the consequences may be hostile, like in a bribe), but AI ships only attack if you're at war with them.

AI ships can attack when you're allied or neutral and actually start a war, but I think you know that. I'm guessing you mean that if a ship attacks a state of war occurs? This is very true, but if an emissary "attacks" that is if he is dragged over a rival's emissary or faction leader a state of ceasefire or peace can be reached using the same system, yes there is a dialogue and some user intervention involved and the AI has to agree but basically the same sort of thing occurs. The AI simply needs to be notified of whom sank it's ship, in the same way as the AI is notified of the allegiance of emissary, then the AI simply invokes a state of of war automatically, as it would invoke a state of peace or ceasfire with an emissary.

This suggests a difference in the handling of ships and agents;

A difference is some of their functions, in the way that spies differ from princesses, but not in their basic functionality. The biggest difference I can see is their ability to stack, their stats and their movement being based on the sea zones and not the land provinces.

besides, you're correct in that only the leading ship gains a bonus, but the description reads command and not valour bonus.

The description reads command because valour wouldn't make sense. The word is cosmetic only, it is still effectively valour, as the unit is not an army stack. Command only has effect on the battlefield.

Accepted as it is stated, it would seem more logical that only the leading officer gains a command bonus (as in land battles). This is supported by newly built ships having rather random command levels (0-2, maybe 0-3); no unit or agent enjoys random valour bonuses upon recruitment, whereas some of the better units do with command. Furthermore, if only the leading ship would fight it'd be the first casualty if any occur. I can safely tell that this isn't the case; sometimes the admiral ship sinks, sometimes another one does.

let's see where we'll end up with this....

The randomness is another factor. There are different types of agents, and ships may the only one to have the random factor enabled. Note: I'm not saying ships are simply agents, I'm saying that ships are very agent-like and are more like agents than army stacks. The reason that the tail end ships get lost first is because I think that though the first ship is the only ship that fights - that is the entire stack fights as one ship based on the first ships valour - the ships lower down in the "queue" are usually killed off first when a battle is lost, though there is also a random factor involved again that may have the lead or second ship sunk first.

Basically to clarify, what I'm trying to say is that when a battle occurs it is always a lead ship vs a lead ship. If there is a loss one ship from the stack is sunk, it may be any of the ships but it is probably more likely to be a low valour ship. This is rinsed and repeated in the blink of an eye to give a battle outcome. Any wins give the valour to the lead ship and not the rest. If the lead ship runs out of luck and gets lost the, possibly, 0 valour ships have to go on alone, this is why you sometimes see a huge fleet go down in one engagement, because with the loss of the lead ship they are systematically gunned down one after the other by the enemy lead ship, valouring it up in the process. Am I making sense at all?

[EatYerGreens]

Well, the ships stuff is very interesting but no-one is ever going to find it again, based on the current thread title.

Mods: if you can pull off a thread-split, please do.

Pity I didn't raise a thread of my own about this, which I had half a mind to do, a few days ago, but I went reading other stuff instead...


Anyway, I have 2 Caravels, with a 2-star leader and (possibly) a 1-star subordinate and move them into a sea region occupied by a lone Egyptian ship.

I always get Dhow and Baggala mixed up because their icons look so similar and only made a cursory inspection of the parchment (preoccupied with army matters). For the sake of argument, lets say it was a Baggala.

While fighting the Almos, immediately before this conflict, I'd had a lot of success with simply sending in Caravels and letting the Almos initiate the attacks - which they'd then lose. Caravels are speed=1 so, whenever it's you who initiates the attack, faster vessels can easily run away (those infernal Dromons are notorious for that), if they want to.

So, I think to myself, I have a defence of 3+3; he has an attack of 2 (at best) and no star rating - I can't possibly lose and I can stop him shipping extra troops into Morocco.

WRONG.

He attacks: Down go both of my Caravels (which were stacked together).

Work that one out?


FWIW, I was already aware of the advice to split a stack and make multiple attacks, for best odds of success and I still do that but, when my intention was to defend, I'd keep the stack together, assuming that the defence scores were, somehow, additive. Until now, that is and I'm left wondering what to think.

I don't know if old threads 'drop off' this forum but, if not, what we need right now is some scuba gear... see if we can dredge up an old one, with an informative, CA-badged, response about it.

[Ciaran]

By the way, "Our Man in Havana" is a book by Graham Greene. Later Frederick Foryish made an adaptation to the Panama crisis: "The Panama Tailor" or somesuch, and from THAT one, they made a movie.

I recommend reading "Our Man in Havana". It was a very good book.

Off Topic, but "the Panama Tailor" is by LeCarre, not Frederick Forsyth. I´ve read it, as well as all of Forsyths books - which are highly recommendable if you´re looking for political thrillers.

But on the topic, I´ve found that emissaries make for just as good an intelligence source as spies do, plus you don´t lose them to border forts or counterspies. Oh, the odd one might get assassinated every now and then, but there´s always plenty more where he came from. They´re cheaper and easier to reach in the tech tree, too.