Spies and ships

What would you like to see in Freeciv? Do you have a good idea what should be improved or how?
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jpsm
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Spies and ships

Post by jpsm »

Make spies able to enter a city through ship. Spies have no power of defense of course the ai unit will attack the spy first if the spy need to disembark in a living tile first before enter the city...
PS: In real life spies act discretely...
Ignatus
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by Ignatus »

It's possible in some rulesets since v.2.6 but in most ones it is deliberately blocked. It's too easy to sneak to the city on a ship since there are no zones of control on water tiles. And spies are invisible from non-adjacent tiles if I recall it correct, and one does not get info ehen a city is investigated. The pity is that any really rogue actions like poisoning the city are always attributed to the player who done it, you can't frame another one for your deeds.
nef
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by nef »

Ignatus wrote: And spies are invisible from non-adjacent tiles if I recall it correct,
Depends on ruleset (unit flag "Partial_Invis").
Wahazar
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by Wahazar »

I have some on-board spy actions in augmented2 ruleset, but they are limited to some unique units and some actions are not possible at all (for example embassy can be created only from land). Such precautions are taken in sake of game balance, diplomatic actions are powerful, coast cities are already exposed on naval attack, should not be handicapped much more. Especially important actions which can't be defended against (like creating embassy) should not be never possible by disembarking.
Augmented2 ruleset/modpack for freeciv2.6: http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=91047
jpsm
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by jpsm »

Wahazar wrote:I have some on-board spy actions in augmented2 ruleset, but they are limited to some unique units and some actions are not possible at all (for example embassy can be created only from land). Such precautions are taken in sake of game balance, diplomatic actions are powerful, coast cities are already exposed on naval attack, should not be handicapped much more. Especially important actions which can't be defended against (like creating embassy) should not be never possible by disembarking.
So spies should have some defense power to compensate that because if I disembark the spy and she can only enter the city next turn. The Soldier that it is guarding the city may attack her and destroy she before she enter the city... In real life spies have some training to defend themselves and are not powerless.
cazfi
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by cazfi »

Diplomats have movement of 2, so they don't need to spend turn next to city in order to enter it next turn, but they can sneak in from further away.
Ignatus
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by Ignatus »

cazfi wrote:Diplomats have movement of 2, so they don't need to spend turn next to city in order to enter it next turn, but they can sneak in from further away.
But there are size 2 isles, even if you have turned off size 1. Or cities among hills, diplos are not "ignore terrain".
jpsm
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by jpsm »

Why is the option of poison well unavailable when the city have only one inhabitant? The idea that spies that already killed many have a moral scrupulous to complete a genocide is odd.
ilkkachu
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by ilkkachu »

jpsm wrote:Why is the option of poison well unavailable when the city have only one inhabitant? The idea that spies that already killed many have a moral scrupulous to complete a genocide is odd.
Decreasing the population of a size 1 would destroy it, along with all improvements and such. Even a small city gives defense benefits and stackdeath protection to units inside it. Being able to make one disappear could be a huge military advantage: any units that were there would now be much more vulnerable to an attack. Note that while a successful conventional attack can also decrease the population of a city, that too doesn't happen for a city already at size 1.

If you want an in-game lore reason for why the poisoning doesn't work, just imagine they have a backup water supply or water stores to help a minimal population survive.
jpsm
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Re: Spies and ships

Post by jpsm »

ilkkachu wrote:
jpsm wrote:Why is the option of poison well unavailable when the city have only one inhabitant? The idea that spies that already killed many have a moral scrupulous to complete a genocide is odd.
Decreasing the population of a size 1 would destroy it, along with all improvements and such. Even a small city gives defense benefits and stackdeath protection to units inside it. Being able to make one disappear could be a huge military advantage: any units that were there would now be much more vulnerable to an attack. Note that while a successful conventional attack can also decrease the population of a city, that too doesn't happen for a city already at size 1.

If you want an in-game lore reason for why the poisoning doesn't work, just imagine they have a backup water supply or water stores to help a minimal population survive.
I used some 4-5 spies to poison the well multiples times of a city that was the enemy capital and that originally had 8 inhabitants. I want to cause a genocide in his capital hoping to trigger civil war. I decided to follow this strategy because I became a little pissed because his alpine troops were able to defend his city against my armors so I did industrial sabotage repetitively in many turns. I realized that if I order the spy to sabotage the city walls she was always caught so I need to did at spy's discretion all the time many turns, every turn his city grow to 2 so the first spy poison the well and the others did industrial sabotage at their discretion. The city walls was the very last building that the spy sabotaged at their discretion (when I explicitly order it she was caught) so I attack with armors after that and destroy the city but after that I realized that he had moved his capital to other city.
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