Military espionage

[IsaacCAT]

Preface: In ancient times there were spies for diplomacy, internal affairs and military action.

Observation: small countries have less population (manpower), and many times are overwhelmed by big doom stacks. Investing some of the manpower in spies could give small nations an edge when battling bigger forces.

Suggestion:
A new support unit named spy will be available for all nations. With a cost of 1 cohort, it will allow every time a battle starts, to switch combat tactics with the information provided by the spy unit.

This information can be bogus, the outcome decided by a D6 roll with modifiers:

Spy information outcome:

• 1-3: information about the other army is accurate (50% chance without modifiers)
• 4-6: information about the other army is bogus (50% chance without modifiers)

Modifiers:

• x1.5 Spied army size is between 5 and 10 cohorts (33% chance of accurate spy report)
• X3 Spied army size is less than 5 cohorts (17% chance of accurate spy report)
• X0.7 spied army size is bigger than 10 cohorts (83% change of accurate spy report)

If nations with big stacks invest their manpower with spies, they will have also a chance to discover the other army tactic before battle starts. With spies, battles between big armies will use their best tactic possible almost every time. EDITED: in case there are spies in both armies, they cannot be both successful, for obvious reasons. If that happens, dices will be rolled until one or both spies fail.

In every battle, the spy unit will have a risk to be discovered and killed. Again, to allow for conservation of manpower for smaller nations, this chance will be affected by modifiers. Bonuses and improvements on this modifier could be incorporated in inventions or military traditions.

Chance of losing the spy unit:

• D6 roll: 1-3, the unit has been discovered and it is lost (50% chance)
• D6 roll: 3-6, the unit is successful disguising itself from the enemy (50% chance)

Modifiers:

• X3 spy nation has less than 100 POPS (83% chance of spy unit surviving)
• X1.5 spy nation has discovered spy warfare (67% chance of spy unit surviving)

If a nation has less 100 POPS and has discovered spy warfare, the modifier is 4.5, thus 100% chance of the spy unit surviving every time.

A little off-topic from the original thread intention but I have to say that I got inspiration by this post from @Bovrick :

Just a small change that could help the army composition meta a little. I'd suggest requiring an overall Tactic Effectiveness of 1/3* to be required to use a Military Tactic. With this restriction, you would need to build an army around the Tactics you intend to use. With knowledge of the composition of an enemy army, you can predict which subset of Tactics they may be able to employ, rather than them having a full array to randomly select from, and thus can gain an edge by making sure your composition can handle/beat their available Tactics. As a nice bonus, this should nerf mono-type armies, as they will have 1 (Archers, LI, Elephants) to 3 (Camelry, Heavy Cavalry, Horse Archers) regular Tactics to select from, so with the right composition you can always avoid losing the Tactic RPS game.
*Afaik the MinMax value for non-supply units comes out at 1/3, any lower and you could get a composition with no available Tactic - but to be safe you could always add that the Most Effective Tactic is always available.

The unlockable Tactics would also provide a big boost to what your army can now handle, without becoming a very large selection (as will be theoretically possible once we have access to any Military Tradition).

We already have a system that restricts available Military Tactics based on culture/unlocks, so I'd think implementation *should* be pretty simple. An immediate loophole issue if of course armies joining existing battles altering the overall Tactic Effectiveness. In theory, you could compose a smaller army that has greater tactical flexibility than a main army, and attach a good general to them to always get the best tactic, like now. I'd personally just change the rules so that Military Tactics cannot change once a battle has begun, rather than defaulting to the best general. Then, if you want to have the flexibility, you need the flexible army to be the one to engage first, and guess correctly at that point.

 

[IsaacCAT]

NOTE 1: the changing of tactic will be automatic. The program will be feed the spy report and change to the best tactic available to counter the reported tactic, even if it is bogus. No need for the player to micro.

NOTE 2: The x3 spy nation has less than 100 POPS modifier can be explained by high performance due to the stress of being a tiny nation with survival depending on every battle

 

[Jiben]

not sure if a new unit type is the best way to have intelligence but agreed that it should be a thing. I would even go so far as to say some currently available information should be hidden unless you have a sufficient intelligence network. As rome i can see how much money a indian minor earns, how much manpower they have, traits and exact health of their characters which in my opinion should be hidden.

We currently have perfect information on every country and everyone which makes it easier than it should, we are essentially a godlike being for our country instead of the actual ruler.

 

[Bovrick]

not sure if a new unit type is the best way to have intelligence but agreed that it should be a thing. I would even go so far as to say some currently available information should be hidden unless you have a sufficient intelligence network. As rome i can see how much money a indian minor earns, how much manpower they have, traits and exact health of their characters which in my opinion should be hidden.

We currently have perfect information on every country and everyone which makes it easier than it should, we are essentially a godlike being for our country instead of the actual ruler.

I’ve actually gone on a purge of ‘odd to have’ info that isn’t represented here. Health in character screen; manpower and gold in diplo screen are currently gone, with more to come probably.

This seems like it is on the agenda.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

It's a good idea to add spying, but adding a spy unit doesn’t really make sense.

The devs should just copy the La Resistance espionage system (with some obvious adjustments) with characters working as spies. Add some events for them.

 

[Magnar]

I dont like the idea of a spy unit but i do like the idea of espionage and scouting being in the game.

Ill write up a thread for my idea in another thread as its fairly different to this one though i appreciate the OP for presenting the concept.