Espionage & Spying

[The Griffos]

Can you give us some idea on how you are planning to make Spying work in the game. Hopefully it will be a bit more involved than most games of the genre where I feel it is far too abstracted. I'd like to see the player have some control over the operations.
Things like selecting actual targets to spy on/sabotage/assasinate - counter espoinage - bribing of officials for info etc would be great.
Individually named spies that get better at their roles as they gain experience would also give the player a bit more of a feeling of being involved.
Any info you can give us yet on this or is it still a bit early?
Thanks

[Queeg 500]

It turns out the game is actually called Fragile Allegiance

There's a few for sale on eBay, Amazon has it listed but out of stock or you could try getting it by a less legal method...*cough*underdogs*cough*

Here's a review

Oh, it's a real time game not turn based (but it is empire building not a C&C type game).

[Ravana]

[The Griffos]

Some nice ideas there Rob. These are the type of things I was hoping to see in a spying system to give the player a bit more of a feeling of "being there".

[RobHuntingdon]

While I am a big fan of the KISS principle that appears (at least to me) to be one of the driving factors behind the design of this game, I too would like to see a balanced, enjoyable 'sub-game' in spying. I hate to bash MOO3 too hard... but this is one of the (many) areas that deserve a good bashing.

In short, I would really like to see spying have an effect other than "you stole my totally worthless technology, prepare to die! (you were framed)"

I have always wondered how in some games you know so much about the alien empires as soon as you first meet them. I don't know about you, but if I was a warmongering alien race and I just ran into some other weird alien who I didn't trust, thought looked as ugly as my waste products, etc... would I tell him where all my planets were? Ummmm, let me think for a minute...

I would really like to see spying enable you to obtain information. Say, perhaps, the ability to 'explore' a system you never visited by hooking into the alien's database. Or perhaps the full technical readout of another race's battlecruisers (or whatever). Rather than stealing technology outright (esp since I don't think that's possible in this game anyway), how about getting information that reduces the amount of time needed to develop something similar in your tech tree? And, of course, 'borrowing' some extra cash that was just 'lying around' can always be fun...
[edited]
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[Sobriquet]

[Zaimat]

Sorry guys, I can't talk about covert operations at this time, still too early.

But I like the discussion about it and what you guys think.
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Horizon - Lead Designer

[Queeg 500]

No the spies didn't improve (as far as I remember) as the game worked differently. Each empire was actually a company employed to mine an asteroid field and had to compete with each other. You didn't train spies you just hired them for a few missions so I doubt they improved under your command. Similarly there wasn't any tech research rather you bought the licence for new ships/weapons/buildings etc from the people who bought the minerals and then you could start using the techs.

[Ravana]

Sounds similar to the espionage system in IG2. Not every aspect worked "properly", as it could cost Cr.2000 to set a spy to stealing from another empire, and s/he would net Cr.500 as a result!

Did the spies improve in 'FA', Queeg? The ability to increase certain spy abilities was fascinating. You could even improve their loyalty! Not that that was a guarantee if they were captured.

Hopefully, we'll see the same level of capabilities (and vindictiveness) with Horizon's espionage set. }

[Queeg 500]

I used to have a game called Fragile Alliance (or Allegiance, I can't remember) that had a really good spy system. You'd recruit a spy who would have different cababilities in different fields, eg. out of 10 he could have a rating of 5 as a scientific spy, 9 military, 7 diplomacy, 6 economic and 8 counter espionage. You could therefore send your spy on any mission although he'd be more succesful at some more than others.

What I thought was great though was that you could give them specific objectives, my favorite being the military ones like destroying planetary defences, just before my fleet arrives or they could cause a fault with missile silos so they couldn't fire or jam fighter hangers shut. Or economic spies could steal loads of cash etc...

Having this control over your spies made them an integral part of your strategy, hopefully they'll work a bit like this in Horizen

[Sobriquet]

Will we get a reply if more than one perosn asks? if that's the case, then . . .

<em>Can you give us some idea on how you are planning to make Spying work in the game. Hopefully it will be a bit more involved than most games of the genre where I feel it is far too abstracted. I'd like to see the player have some control over the operations.
Things like selecting actual targets to spy on/sabotage/assasinate - counter espoinage - bribing of officials for info etc would be great.
Individually named spies that get better at their roles as they gain experience would also give the player a bit more of a feeling of being involved.
Any info you can give us yet on this or is it still a bit early?
Thanks </em>
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i am sofa king we todd it

[Sobriquet]