Caecus

Theoretically, that's possible I suppose. But you are forgetting the biggest reason why Apeman decided to attack now of all times. Sheepy's war formula overhaul neutered spies. The BoC has one of the best offensive spy programs, and Apeman knew without the update, he wouldn't have landed even half of those nukes and missiles. Hell, back on the first page of this poo flinging contest, he publicly thanked Sheepy for the update. Point is, unless spies are removed altogether, holding large alliances hostage is more of a suicide errand than anything else. Sure, you are going to deal damage, but you might as well join an opposing alliance and actually get support rather than go rouge without spy support.

http://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7102-spy-discussion-why-the-system-is-good/#entry113990 Does everyone now see why I spent the past week foaming at the mouth and ranting like a bloody mad man? I'm surprised you guys are only starting to become concern about this now. Also Ansom, if you run the simulations, despite having more than twice his spies, you will only be able to kill 3 of his spies due to the 25% kill cap.

Admittedly, I didn't put too much thought into this. A new spy operation to destroy (not steal) an enemy resource. For example, if you conducted the operation, you would be able to destroy munitions, or gas, or aluminium, or steel, or (heaven forbid!) uranium or another energy resource. This would be quite different from sabotaging an enemy's resource production. This is just straight on sabotage of whatever the enemy has on hand. Pros: 1. This operation now makes the "gathering intelligence" op more useful, so that if you do end up destroying another resource, you do it for the maximum benefit. 2. Diversifies project builds, promoting the purchasing of the CIA project for a more immediate effect. 3. Includes a much more tactical use of spies outside of sabotaging strategic weapons like missiles or nukes. Sabotaging an energy resource may result in the enemy losing power to critical military structures. *wink wink* Cons: 1. Very difficult to not make too op or a waste of text space. 2. When someone is losing bad, this op could potentially make it so someone losing will never have a comeback for the duration of the war. What do you guys think?

A lot of people would consider me to be incredibly stupid for not getting MLP or ID first. I personally decided to specialize in spying instead of conventional warfare. I thought that it would prove to be useful for my alliance, and that I would have a niche in the group. Edit: It works out for me. I kill spies and missiles, everyone else gets to beat the crap out of other people. It's actually quite nice.

There are, of my knowledge, only 5 people with CIA projects, myself included. I can totally understand why people think the CIA project is useless. These are how the mechanics of the game function: The upkeep is aimed to limit the size of spy armies. The higher the upkeep, the lower amount of total spies people are willing to buy, thus lowering the overall spread of spies (from zero to whoever has the most spies). Likewise, the $50,000 cost also serves the same purpose. The universal purchasing limit of spies, however, is meant to limit nation's capacities to prevent a nation from essentially building a necessary army overnight. Right now, the amount of spies needed to kill an enemy missile for 99% Q&D (when your enemy has 4 spies) is 49 spies, with a cost of $490,000. If your enemy is smart, instead of purchasing 4 spies per day, they will likely purchase over update for 8 spies, which requires 93 spies to sabotage a missile at 99% Q&D. The mechanism in place is designed so that defenders can't just put up a spy screen and watch you struggle to kill missiles for an expensive price. Recruiting 3 instead of 4 might be better for that reason, though that still may be op. A better option, imo, is a reduction of operational costs instead. This allows for you to hit other nations more profitably. Almost all national projects, in some way, contribute to saving income or producing more income. ID, for example, saves you income (by not eating a missile). MI increases your food production, thus your sales on the market. Of all the projects, only the CIA project does not save you money in any way. If the CIA project decreases operational costs instead, it would serve as a significantly better project. Cheaper operations means you can take more risks with your spies, thus giving you an edge, which is what an expensive project should do. Edit: I forgot to say that missiles and nukes are projects that do not save income. However, they do contribute to what is widely considered victory in PnW wars, which is maximizing infrastructure damage. The CIA project and spying does NOT contribute to infra damage nor saving income, which is why it is widely considered the worst project. Plus, missiles and nukes are fun to make people eat. Gotta love the nom factors as well.

Hi Tbran, Offer a trade to the nation. 1 ton of food for whatever the amount of money the reparations are. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message in game.

I agree with this statement. Wars, regardless of spies or conventional declarations of war, favor the first strike. With perhaps the exception of the Great VE War, almost all major wars are won by first strike alliance blocs. What I am specifically talking about in my previous statement is if you conducted an upward assassination. Due to the game mechanics, upward assassinations have a uniquely less favorable first strike initiative. Again, depending on how big of a difference there is between you and your enemy, your first operation likely only drops your enemy to around your own spy count. It's only by the second op (assuming you have yet to lose any spies in the process) does your enemy start to drop below your original spy count. And while they now have a little less spies than you, they now have the ability to conduct an operation against you, without your next operation happening until the next day. Assuming they take that chance to conduct the operation, your first strike initiative likely only barely levels the playing field. This, of course, is under the assumption that your enemy does not have the CIA project. My discussion of spies so far is looking on the small scale side, meaning one nation against another. If we were to look at alliances independently funding an organized spy program to deal maximum damage against an enemy force, that would be a much more complex story.

Sheepy, I haven't done enough missile sabotage ops to notice this, but did you also nerf the success rates for sabotaging missiles? If so, by how much? And I'm also assuming the same for nuclear weapons if you did.

Yes, for the 1500 word reason that I posted about. I'm going to try and shorten that into something that I can fit here: 1. Cost - The number of spies killed must reflect how much money you put into it. When a guy kills your spies, he spent a lot of money doing it. Decreasing the number makes going on the offensive inefficient and pointless. Having the defender be op is not an option, because that would defeat the entire purpose of spies. 2. Basic Math- Regardless to say, 100 spies will beat 50 spies. Losing slower or faster solely depends on the overall objective of what spies are used for, which is to (primarily) attack missiles/nukes and (secondarily) ships. Increasing the cost and time too much to get to those objectives also defeats the purpose of spies. 3. Strategic initiative- The game should reward those who thought ahead and recruited spies, not penalize them. Those who recruited spies and spent that time and money should be dominating those who didn't, not barely making by as it is. Spies are expensive, and thus the system is a give and take. Build too many spies, and you will have less income for your other military. Recruit too few, and you risk having heavier weapons being destroyed. Overall, it should be noted that spies do not contribute to victory, which (in terms of the game) is 6 successful consecutive ground battles or (by the standards of everyone playing PnW) how much infra damage you do. The proportion between spy kills and operational costs in the old system was perfect. The attacker made a small profit killing spies (as he should, since he had spent more money to build a larger military). Severely decreasing the amount of spies you can kill in one operation without decreasing the operational costs favors the defender too much for spies to be an actual strategic part of the game. MY PERSONAL OPINION is that the 50% system worked, and was fine. Obviously that isn't the general consensus, which Sheepy hears and agrees with. So, my compromise is to max spy kills at 35%, but reduce operational costs of spies to $7,000 per spy at Q&D. The overall effect is to increase the amount of time it takes to kill an enemy's spies. I distinctly decided to keep the upkeep the same, for the reason that the upkeep is a limiting factor as to how many spies someone can have, and will serve to limit massive spy armies. Likewise, keeping the initial costs of spies also serves to that effect. Edit: Also, 9 operations to kill 100 spies is 9 days of spying from one person. What you are assuming is that there are at least 3 people out there who have more spies than you and are all simultaneously attacking you. That's just part of the game strategy. If you managed to piss off three very powerful people, you better find some allies. That's where the "Politics" side of the "Politics and War" comes in.

My interpretation of what LordRahl2 said was that the system after the war formula overhaul favors the defensive too much, which I agree with. What I interpreted as what you said was before the update, it was easy to use a smaller amount of spies to kill someone with more spies. My topic name is a bit ambiguous, and I apologize for that. What I am in favor of is the system BEFORE the war formula overhaul update, but now I am willing to compromise at the new proposed system, which I think does address the problem of losing spies too fast. That is a true statement. After your initial investment, the spy attacks do become cheaper depending on how many spies you manage to kill in the first attempt. But that is entirely under the assumption that $10m+ is something people throw around like chump change. This is also excluding the fact that the other person can retaliate, given that the person was willing to spend that money. All in all, defending the old system was more of a secondary objective to my main goal, which is to change the war formula overhaul system. Under the new proposed system (35% kills), upward assassinations are now nerfed so that instead of killing around 60-70 spies over an update attack (out of the original 150 I was discussing), upward assassinations now only kill around 50. Which I think is a reasonable amount, but not so over powered to the point where if you were losing a spy arms race, you would never be able to change that.

I have no idea what kind of numbers you are using, but I would entirely disagree. What you are talking about is what is more commonly known to me as upward assassination. Upward assassination is when you have less amount of spies than your opponent, and you try to kill them. Upward assassination, depending on the disparity between you and your enemy in spy counts, is extremely expensive. To simulate, let's take a look at a scenario with 100 spies against 150. Under the old system, your chances of a successful operation is around 47% for Q&D. Upping those chances to Normal Precautions got you 72%. Only by conducting an extremely covert operation could you get a 99% success rate. The cost is ~$5m for extremely covert, or ~$3m for normal precautions. Again, 72% success means you have a 28% chance of completely wasting ~$3m. At the time, we didn't have the simulations, so we ended up conducting experiments. The game mechanic specifies "Up to 50%" killed. In almost all operations where you have more spies than your enemy, you will kill up to 50%. So, what they mean by "Up to 50% killed" is likely from upward assassination. This was done as a small scale test, when an individual with 1 spy conducted an assassination operation that was successful against someone with 20 spies, but only killed one spy. Likewise, we have also conducted a test with 40 spies against 40, in which the mission ended as a partial success: 17 enemies were killed, 7 spies lost. Most curiously, we have yet to conduct a large scale upward assassination operation. In the case of 100 spies against 150 (assuming you use extremely covert and bust out the ~$5m for the op), we estimate that the number killed is roughly 50-55 enemy spies, compared to the full 75, but this is just a guess. I seriously wouldn't call it "decimation" (though, taking the literal definition of what decimation was, sure). Most experienced people do upward assassination ops over update, in order to raking in two attacks. I think that upward assassination is very difficult enough, and if someone is willing to throw ~$10m just to get even with you, I think it is a fair system. This update doesn't nerf upward assassinations, it makes upward assassinations statistically impossible. Upward assassinations over updates used to be a tactic used to try and even the playing field against someone who has a little more spy power than you. Now, it is a strategic nightmare. Looking on the bright side though, because of the update, that guy isn't going to threaten you with spies anymore without breaking his bank.

Before War Formula Overhaul: $2,400 per day per agent, $200/turn upkeep. Each operation costs $10,000 per agent (at Q&D). Maximum kill count is 50% of the enemy force. 224 spies assassinate 100 spies at 99% success rate (Q&D). Each spy costs $50,000 Current: $2,400 per day per agent, $200/turn upkeep. Each operation costs $10,000 per agent (at Q&D). Maximum kill count is 29% of enemy force. 224 spies assassinate 100 spies at 66% success rate (at Q&D). Each spy costs $50,000 Proposed: $2,400 per day per agent, $200/turn upkeep. Each operation costs $7000 per agent (at Q&D). Maximum kill count is 35% of enemy force. 224 spies assassinate 100 spies at 99% success rate (at Q&D). Each spy costs $50,000

2.5m per.

Also, to put it in perspective, let's take a look at how many spies it takes to spy missiles away. If the enemy has 0 spies, it takes 4 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 1 spies, it takes 15 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 2 spies, it takes 26 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 3 spies, it takes 38 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 4 spies, it takes 49 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 5 spies, it takes 60 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 6 spies, it takes 71 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 7 spies, it takes 82 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 8 spies, it takes 93 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 9 spies, it takes 104 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. If the enemy has 10 spies, it takes 116 spies to sabotage a missile for Q&D at 99% success. Using current market prices (Al - 1700 ppu, G - 2000 ppu, M - 800 ppu), a cost of a missile is $530,000. If the enemy has more than 4 spies, sabotaging a missile no longer becomes profitable (assuming operational costs are the same).

6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:09] <Ashland> If someone spied me before they'd get like 60-70 kills. 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:09] <Ashland> Now they'll get like 35. 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:09] <Sheepy> And you don't think that's right? 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:10] <Sheepy> 60-70 kills is a month's worth of spy building 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:10] <Ashland> I don't. I think that if you have a ton of spies you SHOULD lose more. 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:10] <Ashland> And if you have not a ton of spies you SHOULD lose less. 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:10] <Ashland> Which is why it makes sense for someone with 5 spies to lose only like 2 or 3. 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:10] <Sheepy> It's currently capped at 25% + 4 spies per op (25% of defending spies) 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:11] <Sheepy> What would you like to see it at? 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:11] <Ashland> 35% or so would be reasonable with the costs decreased just a tad. 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:11] <Ashland> I think. 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:11] <Sheepy> Alright 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:11] <Sheepy> Why don't you make a closed dev post about increasing it to 35% and a lowered cost proposal 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:11] <Sheepy> So I can see what everyone else thinks 6:12 PM <•Ashland> [20:11] <Ashland> Sure. Ashland will be fronting the proposal later, coming up with some reasonable numbers and such. I would also like to see the success chances returned to the old system as well. So, according to this system: if you have 100 spies that are being attempted assassination, you are left with 65 after the first operation. Second op leaves you with 42. Third op leaves you with 27. Fourth leaves you with 18. Fifth leaves you with 12. Sixth leaves you with 8. Seventh leaves you with 5. Eighth leaves you with 3. Ninth leaves you with 2. Tenth leaves you with 1. Eleventh zeros you. According to the old system: 100 -> 50 -> 25 -> 13 -> 6 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> 0, meaning it takes nine operations to zero you.

Cost is the biggest issue. Spies are practically the only way to strategically destroy missiles and (god help you) nuclear weapons without either eating it or praying your ID blocks it like a boss. Right now, the system has been nerfed: it used to be 224 spies could attack 100 spies for 99% success at Q&D and be able to kill up to half. Now, 224 spies against 100 is 66% probability success at Q&D, and you can only kill up to 29 spies. In ground battles, you will suffer casualties, but you will undoubtedly kill enemies. Spy attacks are very different from ground battles. 66% success means that there is a 33% chance of failure: a 1 in 3 chance that you will kill absolutely no spies. Moreover, that chance completely excludes the fact that you could lose spies in the process. 33% chance of failure on a ~$2.3m operation IS RIDICULOUS. If you increase the chances to "Normal Precautions," you will find that your success percentage is now 82% instead, but the operational cost just skyrocketed to ~$6m. 82% success still means you have a 12% chance of failure. And all of that money just to kill 29 enemy spies. Right now, the spy system favors the defender so much, people could potentially just sit on 50 spies. Even if their enemies managed to get 200+ spies for the 99% success rate at Q&D, the amount of money they spent trying to kill 14 of your 50 spies (the 29% limit) would be hilariously stupid. By the time you can start killing missiles for a decent success rate, you would have already spent over ~$6m, when you clearly have a significantly larger spy force. The system makes everyone with more than 100 spies look stupid, because we are wasting a lot of money on trying to make a universally defensive unit in nature to be offensive. Again, I suggested a proposed fix to this earlier: If we are going to keep this system, we should also significantly reduce the upkeep cost, purchasing cost, and operational costs of spies to reflect how many spies killed. But the only difference between this fix and the old system is that people will now be able to amass larger spy armies than before. It would increase the amount of time that your spies would drop by a significant factor, and this I worry would also undermine the effectiveness of using spies offensively.

A lover of classical Latin, logic, history and debate. My my, looks like we have a lot in common

lol, I'm totally bashing your balls, Van Allen effect gives peeps cancer, lol. Edit: Plus, if an emp happens, all the lights will go out. That means no internet. And if I didn't have internet, I would go ape #@$% and hate whoever was in charge.

Perhaps also include the effects of increased population approval rating because of the pretty lights of the Van Allen effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_radiation_belts

But the guy who killed your spies spent a $%&@ load of money to kill them. The upkeep, the operational cost. Depending on how many spies that person has, they probably spent more money than some of your cities to maintain and use that spy force. Also, under the old system, it's 50% of your spies max kill, so even if you had 10 spies against 100, they can only kill 5 in one operation, and 2 in the next. And let's be honest here, nobody spy attacks you unless you have ships, missiles or nukes. Even if you have ships, most people wouldn't consider it profitable to hit them during peace. The fact is, spies do not win wars. Sure, spies help significantly and reduce the casualties suffered, but at the end of the day a war is won (by the standards of the game) by 6 ground battles or (by the standards of everyone who plays the game) how much infra damage you do. Spies, in no way, directly contribute to these methods of victory. That being said, let's picture a scenario where you have 100 spies, and an enemy has 224 spies under the old system. 224 spies cost $537,600 per day in upkeep, multiplied over the 5 day period a war happens, that is $2,688,000. That is roughly ~$3m that your enemy will not have in the remainder of the war. To attack your 100 spies, the Q&D cost is $2,240,000. The maximum amount of spies your enemy can kill is 50, meaning you have 50 left over. To spy a missile away at 50 spies for Q&D is roughly ~170 spies, or around $1.6-1.9m. The costs of building a missile during wartime prices is roughly ~$1.3m (Don't quote me on that). And most people build missiles with peacetime supplies. Counting up the score, this person has spent around ~$6m over the entire course of the war so far. Your losses of 50 spies and 1 missile equates to around ~$4m (wartime prices). And by spending that ~$6m, they have done absolutely nothing to win. My point is, building spies is a give and take scenario. While they are overall useful, they don't help you on the ground battle a single bit. Also being limited to just one spy operation per day, some might even say that spies are useless. By the time the guy with 224 spies gets to start spying on your missiles profitably, you likely already made him eat it.

o/ TLF Best of luck.

Welcome to Orbis!

Here is why people should not complain about spies: http://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7102-spy-discussion-why-the-system-is-good/

Does anyone have a good rational reason why the old system was bad?

Eviljak: http://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7102-spy-discussion-why-the-system-is-good/