[IDEA] Cloak and dagger: spies, propaganda and other tricks

[Freakazoid]

How about the idea of being able to spy on your enemy's colonies? What about being able to wage a "peaceful" war by hindering your enemy's production, lowering morale and stealing secrets? Well, read on!

My idea is that for a certain price you can set a spy to infiltrate one of the hostile colonies. The higher the morale, the lower the chance of sucess, by the way. Once a spy is in place, he stays in the colony until the cover is blown. A spy can do some of the following:
- try to demoralize colony's morale, by launching a propaganda campaign
- sabotage the production of a building (lower chance of sucess with more building points involved)
- steal research (steals a random technology and transfers it to one of your colonies)
- destroy a certain amount of resources in refinery ( something in the area of 100-200)
- colonies at low morale (starting from downcast) can be converted. The player gets the colony (morale does not change) and all the defences.
- reveal if anyone is sleeping in the colony
- steal defence plans (reveal presense/abscence of a solar cannon, and showing the planet's landscape with marked turret locations)

All the operations have a certain price and a chance of success. If the operation fails, the spy's cover is blown, and he's killed (enemy colony loses 1 pop, ) The colony will be immune for further infiltration for a certain time (to prevent people with lots of money from doing this over and over again). May be the entire system becomes immune to propaganda (however you can still spy in other systems, since larger empires are easier to infiltrate;))


Some limitations might be placed on the operations: for example a propaganda campaign might be launced only if the targeted planet is in the system bordering yours.

The chance of success of spy activities is determined by your experience, reputation and charisma. If the operation fails, the player loses reputation, since spying is generally looked down upon. The chance for sucess is greatly influenced by the GOVERNMENT (lowest at democracy, higher at directionship and highest at anarchy and prison) and colony's morale (lowest at unity and highest during revolts).

Oh, and I almost forgot. The owner of a targeted colony can launch a sting operation, for a price of course, to find and kill the spy.


Soooooo, what do you think?

[Freakazoid]

Sorry, I did not read the guidelines, shouldn't have a poll here.

I personally think this idea is great because it makes the game so much deeper. The player gets an ability to research his enemy before attacking, as well as the ability to hinder the opponent's development, rather than attack head on. A carefully timed sabotage (an example: opponent changes the government to prison, increases taxes, sets the colony to buil solar cannon and goes to bed) can be a very potent weapon. This would encourage players to pay more attention to their colonies and employ finer tactics.

And another sabotage option:
- randomise settings (mismanage plans), i.e. the colony's workforce changes allocations, to a degree
Some notes:
corporate members can't sabotage each other
In case of SUCCESS, the spy activity is not noticed. So the opponent will have no idea why his Solar was not built, or why he is missing some resources.

[Freakazoid]

Hellooooooo...Is anyone reading this post? Come on, people, 53 views and no feedback. I know we can do better than that

[Jain]

how much would you be looking at in cost wise?

sounds great idea,but dont expect mircles....

[Maniacus]

The idea is interesting, but it may be too complex to integrate into Starport as it is. It would be interesting to see something like this perhaps in a sequel if one is ever created. I doubt that there ever will be a sequel, but I can't see this being added into the game, it would change the game too much too fast and could confuse alot of current players and might be met with quite a bit of opposition.

Just a quick note also... I'm not trying to give you a hard time, However you could end up being locked by an admin or one of the mods for tripple posting your own thread like that. I have seen many good idea threads locked for tripple posting in the past. and then the ideas are never resubmitted.

[Freakazoid]

Just a quick note also... I'm not trying to give you a hard time, However you could end up being locked by an admin or one of the mods for tripple posting your own thread like that.

Thx for the tip
Well, I guess you're right, nothing of this magnitude would be implemented any time soon...But still, I think my idea is pretty neat Oh well, I guess I play civilization 3 too much (oh wait does this count as advertisement?).

[Tux]

There is an edit button for a reason.

[Freakazoid]

There is an edit button for a reason.

Really? I must've missed it

About the prices, I'm looking at something in the area of 100k-500k per operation.

[CaptKirk]

I don't think the idea is bad in and of itself, but I don't think it would play well in a game of SGE's magnitude. It would be effective in a galaxy of say 100 or less planets and 10-12 players max, but in a galaxy of thousands of planets, hundreds of players, and probably 20 or so planets changing hands every day due to invasions, it's not something that is going to significantly affect gameplay one way or the other. Thus, probably not worth the trouble to code.

[Freakazoid]

Ok, fine, no invasions. What about spying itself?

[Mua'Dib]

This sounds like a great idea for a game like the Civilization series.

Starport, not so great. Most colonies remain at the maximum positive morale(+1500), most players in a perma have near limitless cash, and colonists are inherently stupid(too dumb to clean their own pollution before it kills them).



Good first idea, but not really for this game. Though I must say I did enjoy the espionage aspects of Civilization II and the rest of the series.

[Stiffler]

this sounds like a great idea..in theory. im not saying it couldnt or shouldnt be implimented but a bit of touching up. and also 100-500k doesnt make sence. starting at 5-8mil and it could be a hardwae item. also i think you should be able to dump in up to 100mil for as great of a chance of succes as you want.

[Freakazoid]

Well, I guess, I went a bit too far with all the spying and all. But I think this would be a great addition for a REBANG, and I started this thread with rebangs in mind.

Perhaps some of those operations are too hard to implement, but still, adding a reconnaissance aspect to an already strategic game should be interesting.