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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 5344513" data-attributes="member: 8158">It's very easy to implement espionage incorrectly. It often feels very all-or-nothing in terms of investment, meaning that if you didn't go out of your way to be good at it, then you really suck at it and wind up at the mercy of anyone who did specialize in it.It's also annoying that spies in these games tend to be little invisible imps that can runrampant with impunity, and that they can destroy 20 or 30 rounds worth of work in a suicide run.I think that espionage should be overhauled. Essentially, a spy should be a worker that can build things in enemy city territory. That's how spies work, by establishing themselves in a specific territory, setting up safehouses and making local connections. Then you give them the spy equivalent of hit points, which represent a threshhold of risk-taking. Now whenver they try to get away with theft or sabotage, they lose risk points. Players can deter enemy spies with not just specialized counter-expionage stuff, but also with things that already exist for other purposes--walls, castles, garrisons, etc. can all result in greater risk for the spy. So, let's say you set up a black market. that can allow you spend gold to steal a nearby resource from a city, but only if the target civ has more than one of that resource (black markets re-route surplus, not main supply lines). That's beneficial to the espionage player, but not devastating to the target. The reason to have espionage is that it gives a way to push against a player that has gained a lead that can't otherwise be overtaken--particularly a military lead.</blockquote>

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