Spies and the use of.

Post by **trewqh** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:19 pm

Vortan wrote:1% in fact. Has anyone EVER actually found out who sent the spies in? Perhaps - oh ho its another this percentage could be raised to say 10%. This increased risk of detection may well be the deterent needed to stamp this out - if in fact it happens - seen as it is so hard to prove, almost as hard as 'not letting anyone through deliberately'.

What you are referring to was mentioned a couple of times over the years. But, the fact that we did not see the need to change that percentage over the years proves that nobody saw it as such a big problem. Mmmm, I mean it happened very rarely, someone trying to exploit it, but once this someone was indentified (it's possible, if noone confesses the GM can view the orders) he was dealt with appropriately.

Vortan · Post by **Vortan** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:22 pm

Thats good enough for me Trewqh. I hadn't considered ref policing.
Okay, well ...

Saladin · Post by **Saladin** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:56 pm

Ok, yesterday i made a quick reply after glancing over some of the heated debate. I've now had time to read everything through properly and guess what i have an opinion too.

I too think that spies are too powerful, especially when having several players orchestrate an attack on one other player.

Of course this is not unfair. It's just making the most use of the option offered you and rewards good diplomacy.

However diplomacy is much easier for veteran players than for new players. I mean half the time i will be 100% sure of getting a nap with most of the players in a game simply because i've played in a lot of games with them and we know each other (fairly) well. So i can definitely understand a new player feeling like they are being treated unfairly when 2 or 3 (and sometimes 5!) players gang up against you.

I strongly disagree with the idea that lowering or removing the EFF bonusses and penalties would make the game easier. Quite the contrary. With these bonusses it means i seldom to never have to build EFF with workers. My spies do all that work for me, making the game easier to play.

Like several players have said. Wether or not to spy is not even an option any more. As the basic spy player option simply has to be used as it's so powerful. I try to use steal pop a bit in the opening game, but after 5-6 rounds there won't be much pop left to steal so it's back to spy player and using all 5 tries.

The option to use multiple spies is also a waste as the extra resources that you use by adding more spies to a spy attempt strongly outweigh the increase in chance of success. So i would personally like to see that changed as well. Making it so that spying with multiple spies in one try actually has a significant increase on the success percentage.

Post by **korexus** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:04 pm

The percentage is actually 3% per spy, minimum 1. I have seen who has spyed me several times over the years. It has never been a surprise. Again, these numbers are GM editable if you don't like them.

Games can also be published now, so breaking a NAP with spies will be found out when the game finishes even if not at the time.

As for TheDragon's points about being a new player, this is exactly why I pointed out that new players should join clans.

As for the steal pop option, most experienced players convert their pop away as soon as they get it, there are a few notable exceptions, but keeping pop around tends not to makes sense. This makes the steal pop option much less useful in the mid to long game...

Multiple spies are useful for sab and steal options. not only do they (marginally) increase your chances, they greatly increase the amount stolen/destroyed.

korexus.

Saladin · Post by **Saladin** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:04 pm

It would be good to come up with a way that spies can be foiled. Maybe by having the chance of success lowered by the number of spies that are in the province being spied upon.

Because right now all people do is set 20 wok to build 5 spies each turn. With 20 wok you get up to an EFF increase of 15% which would normally take 120 wok! (see how spies make the game easier). Plus the EFF is not the only bonus. 5 spies can steal up to 115 pop and lower the other player's EFF by 10%. That's a LOT of good stuff for only 20 wok.

I know a lot of wok players are very conservative (i know i am). WOK is a great game, but it's not without it's flaws and it can be improved upon as we have done in the (near) past (lev reduction, no spy headhunting on the first turn). And so we can improve on the workings of spies.

Saladin · Post by **Saladin** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:09 pm

Now what i agree with most is Tbert's statement that there is no defence against spies. That by itself unbalances the game.

So i would suggest that having spies in a province reduces the chance of success in that province by a fixed percentage per spy. This would be in place of the spy detection percentage which has no real usage in the game.

The percentage doesn't have to be big i was personally thinking about 2 or 3% per spy in a province.

Saladin · Post by **Saladin** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:12 pm

korexus wrote:As for the steal pop option, most experienced players convert their pop away as soon as they get it, there are a few notable exceptions'

A few? I'm always surprised to see a lot of experienced player still have quite a number of pop around on turn 15. But i don't complain and just say thank you.

korexus wrote:This makes the steal pop option much less useful in the mid to long game...

Multiple spies are useful for sab and steal options. not only do they (marginally) increase your chances, they greatly increase the amount stolen/destroyed.

Well the sabotage options are too weak right now. They never get used, so we should bolster them a bit and make them a more viable option.

Saladin · Post by **Saladin** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:18 pm

trewqh wrote:but once this someone was indentified (it's possible, if noone confesses the GM can view the orders) he was dealt with appropriately.

A GM disclosing game info about a player is a 100% no-no. A player does not break any WOK rules when he breaks a nap. If he does so and gets away with it, well good for him. Players should always be free to break any nap they have.

HOWEVER!

As has been said before a thousand times, breaking naps is strongly frowned upon by most clans and by most players.

Thin King used to spy on players he had a nap with now and then which was the reason i left the Scholars years ago. He did not break any WOK rules, but he broke his word, which to me personally is just as bad.

Most clans will kick you out if you're found deliberately breaking a nap. I think there's only one clan where nap breaking is/was frowned upon but not a capital offence, but i'll leave it to you to guess which clan that is/was.

Post by **Lardmaster** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:20 pm

I use the oop to workout who spies on me. It's normally pretty easy to make an educated assumption.

Post by **trewqh** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:21 pm

I may not have expressed myself clearly but if all of the involved parties claim that they didn't break a NAP and say they don't mind having their orders checked then all should be fine.

Post by **korexus** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:33 pm

Saladin wrote: Well the sabotage options are too weak right now. They never get used, so we should bolster them a bit and make them a more viable option.

Sorry, I have to take issue with this one. Have you actulally used the sabotage option under the new system? Did you even notice that it had changed? It was useful but underated before, it's actually a very good option now. The fact that people don't use it isn't a reason to make it stronger still!

Chris.

TBert · Post by **TBert** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:27 pm

I know for a fact that there was somebody in Back to Roots and somebody in Fun in the Sun that spied me while in a NAP. In Fun in Sun I was napped with everyone except for Vortan, and he had no spies... and I still somehow got spied. In back to roots I was napped with 4 people, Dragonette was RIP'd, and Hryll was M-2. That only leaves 3 people to spy me, but 4 people did.

Your chance to detect where the spies come from increase with the amount of spies, but very few people actually scatter spies all over to detect where they come from, because the only case you really need to know is when there's a nap-breaker involved.

Vortan · Post by **Vortan** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:52 pm

Just caught up.

Sal - I am surprised to hear you say that people should be free to break NAP's. Even with your HOWEVER it shocks me.

see look shocked.

Obviously discussing spies has opened a serious can of worms and the upshot is that we KNOW from statement given by TBert that there is at least one practicing deliberate NAP breaker in the community whose actions are going unanswered who is using spies in this manner.

A simple solution would be to have the turn report state where spies came from. Knowing who has attacked doesn't change anything it is a war after all except in the case of the NAP breaker and I believe that this would stop TOTALLY this method of NAP breaking.

Thoughts?

Post by **trewqh** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:58 pm

Don't be too hasty about calling this a deliberate NAP break.

Tbert, did you take into account that someone might have spied a province which you did not own at the end of the previous turn?

Even if he did, people do make mistakes in their orders. That wouldn't make the nap breaking deliberate. And I know there's no way of checking what someone thought when inputting orders, but you can't go on a witch hunt just because you don't trust someone's words.

Vortan · Post by **Vortan** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:08 pm

I ain't proposing a witchhunt - heck I would be burning myself at the stake on my track record of two incidents breaking three NAPs. The first instance was in Risk World - still sorry about 46 TB. The other Turn 7 in Roots, having just renegotiated NAPs with Jen AND LM for turns 7, 8 & 9 with borders that were my idea. Tigress got close, I saw red, ordered the attack and submitted my orders with 19 hours to go. Ooo look thought I, I am the only one not ready. I pressed the button and went off to contact LM about my actions. When reminded of my border I went back to revise the orders to not attack Tigress. WHY DID I NOT KNOW THAT WHEN THE LAST BUTTON IS PUSHED IN A FULL GAME IT RUNS EARLY - NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE DON'T PRESS THE BUTTON.

What? ... NO! ... GET AWAY! ... IT WAS A MISTAKE! ... ARGH! FIRE!!

Vortan · Post by **Vortan** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:11 pm

Seriously though - Up the % and eventually the culprit - or culprits will be unmasked.

Saladin · Post by **Saladin** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:19 pm

Vortan wrote:Just caught up.

Sal - I am surprised to hear you say that people should be free to break NAP's. Even with your HOWEVER it shocks me. see look shocked.

Well personally i'm completely against breaking a nap. However that doesn't mean that my personal opinion should be law.

I'm also in favour for having the balls cut off from every idiot that cuts in front of me in traffic...i wish they would make that a law though.

And let's not even start on me voting in favour of using France as a nuclear dump site...stupid EU with their veto!

TBert · Post by **TBert** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:28 pm

I was in no way proposing a witch hunt, and I do understand that mistakes happen. With the large percentage of new players in the community, there are bound to be mistakes or mis-interpretations. That's why I didn't bring them up until now, in context, instead of starting a flame-thread or emailing everyone in the game trying to bring the culprit to justice.

If a person is truly out there purposely breaking NAP's, they will be discovered eventually, and they probably won't get any VP's for all their treachery. Things tend to correct themselves.

Saladin · Post by **Saladin** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:31 pm

korexus wrote:
Saladin wrote: Well the sabotage options are too weak right now. They never get used, so we should bolster them a bit and make them a more viable option.
Sorry, I have to take issue with this one. Have you actulally used the sabotage option under the new system? Did you even notice that it had changed? It was useful but underated before, it's actually a very good option now. The fact that people don't use it isn't a reason to make it stronger still!

Yes, i know that it has changed. Though i haven't used it yet, mainly because the chance to do so is very small. As you first have to find the missiles. Then when you do you have to hope that they do not get used. Which is unlikely. The gain is also quite small with only 2 missiles destroyed in a succesful attempt per spy. And above all the chance of success is small. Even if you have 99% EFF you only have a 59% chance of success. And with the chance of a 2% EFF loss with a failure that's to low a success procentage to try it.

So yes the fact that nobody uses it means that the option is no good.

I would suggest either increasing the chance of success and/or increase the number of missiles destroyed.

Dragonette · Post by **Dragonette** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:36 pm

i am not sure but i think i may of spied on you in fun in the sun. If so i am extremly sorry.

dragonette