As long as spy's are done more like the Space Empires series then MOO, GalCiv and Civ5 then I will be down with it.



The idea that out of billions of my people I only have a single spy who can be easily killed is beyond fathomable to me, let me fund into an entire agency or branch of the government in-order to carry out sector wide missions on my enemy's and friends alike.



Gathering Intel, sabotage, inciting rebellion, stealing research points or even stealing technology's, hijacking ships or prototypes of ships to decompile, fund terrorism and piracy, rig elections, assassination hell why not even political intrigue by having an agent marry into a Hissho royal family to earn rights to their systems and causing civil war!



Rather then a dice roll chance to earn a simple tech.

The model for spies could be Alpha Centauri.



This gives missions for getting to see a place like the owner does, destroying a random or selected improvement, destroying whatever is in the build queue, spending large amounts of cash to take the system, causing unrest, or stealing a tech (with the odds of taking the tech dropping heavily after the first time at that particular place).



The spies were units with special modules added on and they had better odds as they became more experienced. They could also steal units on the battlefield by spending cash.

tbh civ 5's spies weren't bad at all.

A catch-up mechanics are more than needed in modern 4X's.

I believe SE4 is better yes, I only have experience with 5 however.



And I may be slightly exaggerating with the mission types but overall, yes pretty much.

Isn't SE4 a better game over 5? :P But What kind of missions? The ones you said? Galciv2 has a pretty horrible espionage true, impossible to spy without getting nullified. But I don't remember MOO2 being too bad, not as much immersion as Space Empires (according to how many missions they could do) but any espionage in this game would be great

In space empires 5 you would fund into a agency, and then you could issue orders from there, personally I automate a a lot of SE5 because it has everything you could want in a 4X space strategy...including a micromanagement nightmare.



The problem with it was that if your enemy had even 1 'intelligence' point over your 'counter-intelligence' points, their missions would succeed every time. (Mods made this better however)

Civ 5 had spies? What....



I never had problems with spies in MOO.... but Galciv was horrible for me :P how are they in Space Empires? I def agree with a large variety of missions for the spies, but a, for example, Craver agent marrying a Hissho is kind of absurd :P

I completely agree. this would be some evolved spy management...

Igncom1 wrote:
As long as spy's are done more like the Space Empires series then MOO, GalCiv and Civ5 then I will be down with it.



The idea that out of billions of my people I only have a single spy who can be easily killed is beyond fathomable to me, let me fund into an entire agency or branch of the government in-order to carry out sector wide missions on my enemy's and friends alike.



Gathering Intel, sabotage, inciting rebellion, stealing research points or even stealing technology's, hijacking ships or prototypes of ships to decompile, fund terrorism and piracy, rig elections, assassination hell why not even political intrigue by having an agent marry into a Hissho royal family to earn rights to their systems and causing civil war!



Rather then a dice roll chance to earn a simple tech.

Hear ye, hear ye!



cant say it better

i have nothing to add.

For now there's only one possibiility of getting enemy technologies: to purchase them.

I'd suggest two additional optiions for this: battle and system.



1) Battle

It's easy one. If you fight with guys of superiour tech, you get some chance of getting their technology in case of winning.

* 0-25% (appr) for simple battle (like getting some metal chunks afterwards - and "OMG! Command we've found something interesting!");

* 25-75% (appr) for battle with salvager, that has survived and salvaged something - like "Command, prepare interrogation teams! Marines onboard, bridge succesfully captured!"



2) System

When you conquer your opponent solar system you can get tech of building built.

* 25% each turn you have it; - like "oooh! what this button do?!" (c)

* 50% of getting if you demolish it. - like "Dee-dee, noooooo!" (c)



But on the other hand getting tech that is too far away is kinda strange. You will look at them - "Our tech for you is magic" (c) comix Thor.

You can get some research points from the nearest research to that one. Like soviet atomic bomb: americans were first, but part of the tech was stolen, and in two years soviet scientist had repeated it with their own polygon explosion.

duo_ wrote:
how about spies? for example you could send a hero on a espionage mission with a certain chance for success if the hero fails then he dies and must be revived but if successful then they get a random technology of the faction you sent then to.

yes, using spies seems to be the logical way. that's why Master Of Orion 2+3 did it, I guess.

Nasarog wrote:
WHat exists needs to be adjusted upwards a bit. Once they introduce espionage, and I know it's only a matter of time, then we will have an interesting conversation.

I really want espionage which would (I think) make the Adventure heroes a whole lot more useful.

WHat exists needs to be adjusted upwards a bit. Once they introduce espionage, and I know it's only a matter of time, then we will have an interesting conversation.

The adventurer hero has a science leach ability that acts as a spy when in a fleet over an enemy system.

how about spies? for example you could send a hero on a espionage mission with a certain chance for success if the hero fails then he dies and must be revived but if successful then they get a random technology of the faction you sent then to.

I like this idea. But as stasik28 already mentioned, this is, in some way, already the game.

AmDDRed wrote:
For now there's only one possibiility of getting enemy technologies: to purchase them.

I'd suggest two additional optiions for this: battle and system.



1) Battle

It's easy one. If you fight with guys of superiour tech, you get some chance of getting their technology in case of winning.

* 0-25% (appr) for simple battle (like getting some metal chunks afterwards - and "OMG! Command we've found something interesting!");

* 25-75% (appr) for battle with salvager, that has survived and salvaged something - like "Command, prepare interrogation teams! Marines onboard, bridge succesfully captured!"



2) System

When you conquer your opponent solar system you can get tech of building built.

* 25% each turn you have it; - like "oooh! what this button do?!" (c)

* 50% of getting if you demolish it. - like "Dee-dee, noooooo!" (c)



But on the other hand getting tech that is too far away is kinda strange. You will look at them - "Our tech for you is magic" (c) comix Thor.

You can get some research points from the nearest research to that one. Like soviet atomic bomb: americans were first, but part of the tech was stolen, and in two years soviet scientist had repeated it with their own polygon explosion.

1) This is already slightly in place, with the trait that gives you a boost to science for every ship you destroy, pirate or other empire (which had made the cravers a powerhouse early in the games life)



2) I have also felt like you should be able to use advance from capturing a more advanced empires system, which is using their technology. Though how you are beating a more technologically advanced race, I don't know. But it will probably get exploited from outpost capturing, which won't even trigger war (nor make sense since their resources are limited, realistically )

AmDDRed wrote:
You can get some research points from the nearest research to that one. Like soviet atomic bomb: americans were first, but part of the tech was stolen, and in two years soviet scientist had repeated it with their own polygon explosion.

A more recent example is everything that china has

Maybe this should be an invasion option in the expansion - technology raid. Take a look here: /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13126-exp-system-invasion