Caecus

I actually like this compromise. I would only add that the spy range be removed too.

With a less aggressive tone, I agree with Judge. Spying missiles becomes profitable when the enemy has less than 1-2 spies (if you want a near guarantee success rate). Spying Nukes is slightly different, though I don't imagine the number to be very high (if I were to guess, if the enemy had less than 25 spies). CIA project is now the most useless project. Spies are now just defensive padding, and everyone is going to have exactly zero spies until they get into war, in which they just buy 20 spies. Since you only kill 50% of the enemy spies, it still makes it extremely difficult to spy missiles, since they can just replenish their lost spies faster than you can kill them. EDIT: I don't like the changes to spies. You can buy way too many a day now taking away all the strategy to it. Also limiting the range was not needed with the limit of each nation only able to do one spy op per day and each nation only being able to have 3 spy ops against it per day. Now it is possible for you to attack some one and once you have done some damage and lowered their nation strength for you not to be able to spy them anymore while they can still spy you. Terrible update to spies. I agree. Spies are a strategic resource, building them up is something that players who consider the consequences in the long term should think about, especially if they want a nuclear program. If you decrease the cost of spy actions, it would be the same as before the update, only with inflated spy numbers. In this case, you are really faced with two options: 1. Revert back to the original setting, which allows for nukes to be spied on, thus making spies and the strategic usage of spies an important aspect of the game. The cons to this are the same "problems" of what NMA said, which is that people who are spied on and lost their spy force rely on the mercy of their enemies to let them rebuild. 2. Keep the changes, and essentially neuter spies to serve only as a defensive force, with any nation having a maximum of 30 to prevent their nukes/missiles from getting spied. Spies are no longer a strategic resource, rather protection money. In my personal opinion, if someone decides to have nuclear weapons, one of the things they should consider is that nuclear weapons are extremely powerful and expensive military hardware. If you don't want them spied away, you should have strategic foresight and build up spies. Likewise, people who have already developed spy armies are part of a strategic component of the game, they have considered well in advance the consequences of nuclear weapons and they should be rewarded for it. Your third option is to turn spy assassinations into something like a ground battle between soldiers. But that still doesn't change the fact that people who build up in advance and have foresight are rewarded for their strategic initiative.

What I mean by "spies don't win wars" is that in terms of traditional standard warfare where victory counts as 6 triumphant victories on the ground. When you consider how much a spy attack does on soldiers, tanks, and planes (to some degree, ships), it is overall negligible. 3000 soldiers max in a spy attack is nothing. In fact, it is significantly cheaper to just buy 3000 more soldiers than it is to purchase 10 spies (assuming the enemy has zero) and then proceeding to do the spy attack. Same could be said for tanks, though the margin of financial loss is lower. Spying airplanes is just sad and a waste of money. The only time where spies "win wars" is when you look at the alliance and multilateral level of warfare where missiles and nuclear weapons play a significant role in rolling an alliance's infra. That being said, nobody in their right minds would spend thousands if not millions to maintain a sizable spy force to just spy the living shit out of some soldiers in a lower tier nation. In fact, it is around 1200 times cheaper to just fund a lower tier nation to roll the guy. So, in recognition that higher level nations can maintain a large spy force to coordinate and squish other alliances and their missile programs, yeah, I agree, it can get ugly. But I disagree that spy operations are abusive to lower tier nations, because honestly, who is willing to spend 300k a day just to kill some soldiers in a nobody's nation? Perhaps the better question is, who actually did that and told themselves that it was a smart thing to do? Also, spy assassination ops are very different from traditional battles. The aggressor in a ground battle has a slight advantage where they lose fewer soldiers, even if the attack is an "utter failure." If your spy op fails, you fail to assassinate any spies, and more likely than not, you will also lose a significant number of your own spy force. By the time anyone gets to around 100+ spies, the amount of spies you would need to execute a 99% chance success operation is over 180 spies. The maximum spies you can kill at any one given time is 25 spies, which is equivalent to 1.25 million dollars in military hardware. To just break even is 125 spies in the op (assuming "quick and dirty"). I don't think anyone has yet to send in 150+ spies against 150+ spies and found how much you could possibly lose, but I am guessing the limit is still capped at 25 spies. Point is, once you get beyond 100+ spies, it becomes extremely risky and expensive to spy your disgustingly well-defended ass. Higher tier nations are indeed at an advantage in that they have the funds and upkeep means to maintain a large spy force, but the fact is, if people want to spy you, it's expensive. The only time most people would use their spy force is preliminary offensive or defensive reasons, and their targets are your missiles and nukes (spies, but only to get them out of the way for the bigger fish). Spying missiles is only profitable when the enemy has less than 1 spy. Spying nuclear weapons is almost always profitable, with the enemy having less than 40 spies. What I think would be a cool but scary dystopian vision for Orbis is VE going on to maintain the largest spy force, and then spy the living shit out of anyone with more than 30 spies to maintain their spy dominance. Scary, and I think at that point, yeah, spies need to be fixed, but the sheer amount of money needed to build up, degrade and maintain their own supremacy would probably be more expensive than getting 10 of their members to go nuclear. Not to mention the amount of time needed, and the one thing I learned about Orbis is that nobody can keep a secret for their own life.

I suppose I would be considered part of the "benefiting group" of the current system, but I would like to point out that spies don't win wars. At best, if you tried to spy soldiers, that's only 3000 max, which is pathetic in terms of actually winning a war. Tanks is 250. Aircraft is like 36. Ships is 5. Missiles and nuclear weapons are 1, and spies are 25. You can only spy away 25 enemy spies when the person has greater than 48 spies, otherwise it is roughly half. (Say, you have 20 spies and someone spies you. Max spy kill, no matter how many more spies they send in, is 11). Spying only becomes useful when you are trying to sabotage someone's missiles, nuclear weapons, or spies. Ships are somewhat beneficial, but "neutering" smaller nations is not a problem, because smaller nations are not likely to have missiles, nuclear weapons, or spies. I would have to agree with greatnate on this one, a spy force is a necessary part of a higher level nation's defense, especially if that nation has nuclear weapons or missiles. Higher level nations should have foresight into development of a defensive (or offensive) spy force. It's why Raggie rocks 160+ spy force, not only to defend from spy attacks against his nukes, but if you have nukes, say goodbye to them. He also has a CIA project just to drive the point home. Spies are only overpowered when you consider you want to fight a spy war with someone. In any other normal war, spies do very little against soldiers, tanks, and aircraft. Considering the limit of spy attacks against someone (which is 3 per day), there is no way that this system can be used against "small" nations without costing a shit load in the first place.