Why I don't think current Espionage is balanced:

Bomb banks takes money, but because of corruption most people probably don't hold enough cash on hand to make it worth it. Also this kind of stock can be dumped off in a day to protect it from future spy ops. It's use is limited to warring I think.

Raid Food Stores takes food, but because of bushel decay most people probably don't have enough stock on hand to make it worth it. This kind of stock can also be dumped or hidden in a day to protect it from future spy ops. It's use is also limited to warring I think.

Raid Oil Reserves takes oil, but I doubt most people carry enough on hand to make it worth it. Even if they did, this stock can be dumped or hidden in a day to protect it from future spy ops. Again It's use seems limited to warring I think.

Espionage steals tech and most of the larger players in the game seem to be carrying enough tech to make this op worth it. Unlike all other stocks that can be stolen, Tech can't be sold off or hidden in a day because we are limited to selling 1/4th of it at a time. This makes our Tech stock very vulnerable compared to the other harmful spy ops that steal a portion of the stock. Currently this is being used as a netting strategy by someone in Primary. They are stealing tech daily from many different people.

Why doesn't Cause Dissensions capture a portion of the enemy's military instead of just making them all flee? Or why not make Stir Rebellions capture a portion of their population? Again these uses seem to be limited to warring I think.

So we have a majority of harmful spy ops geared towards helping people with warring from what I can tell. Then there is Espionage which I see being used more for netting than warring. With the harmful spy ops having such a large success window, I don't think I have a chance to stop this Dictator country with half my land and half my networth from succeeding every other day to steal more tech per spy op than I can gain per turn myself. So my options are go to War and ruin my set. Probably lose against a Dictator half my size due to spy ops. Or just let him leech tech off me and lower my ending networth by about a million..

14.6 hours ago
Spies infiltrated your research labs and stole 14,390 points of technology!

3.4 days ago
Spies infiltrated your research labs and stole 16,094 points of technology!

Feb 14, 1:33
Spies infiltrated your research labs and stole 15,351 points of technology!

Feb 13, 2:12
Spies infiltrated your research labs and stole 13,653 points of technology!

Feb 11, 22:58
Spies infiltrated your research labs and stole 9740 points of technology!

good points but espionage to being effective spier needs to have nice amount techs in his/her country already to get more than few points (cding requires having nice amount of troops so espionage should require having techs).

Espionage does require having tech to be able to steal tech. If this is such a major problem, perhaps having enough of your own spies on hand to catch the guy at it would be a good idea, don't you think.

This is the problem with you bottomfeeding netters who believe that you should be completely shielded from the hazards of the game, for example all the artificial restrictions placed on the type of retaliation you should suffer. Thus, you grab land from some poor schmuck that can't possibly hit you back with his own military using SS or PS, but can beat yer ass with his tanks, and/or his missiles, and thus you think that those types of attacks should be against your little dream world's rules.

Grow a pair and get some spies if this is a problem for you!

45-55 SPAL 134% spy tech, should deter tech thieves ;-)

Maybe I should of mentioned I do have a SPAL of ~48.5 with over 1.1million spies. The expenses cost of having enough spies to actually stop a Dictator at half my land (for at least 3 turns) would probably outweigh the total cash he is stealing from me in tech. And I would assume the other individuals getting their pockets picked as well. Its not about just catching him, I know who he is via GDI not preventing me from nuking him should I choose.

And I am aware that he has to have his own tech to seal mine. All harmful spy ops work this way from what I am told. You have to have a good amounts of the same thing you are targeting in the spy-op for it to have the most effect. But the other similar harmful spy ops are generally only used in wartime situations and there are ways to guard against them other than having a massive SPAL. Even with bomb airbases you have the ability to hide your jets by keeping them away on Planned Strikes..

Cerberus that Rank #1 spot isn't given to the guy with the most missiles gained during the set. Netters have the goal the game was designed for in mind.

erm b/c of corruption bonus people have massive amounts of money on hand.

Well, if you know who he is, why aren't you doing something about it? If you can kick his ass you should, don't you think. I would think he deserves what comes his way if he's doing that. I know, I'd beat the crap out of him for it.

When did I ever say I could kick his ass? Pretty sure in my first post I mentioned I would probably lose if I went to war with from spy attacks alone. With the way GS/BR/AB's work now, spy attacks seem to be how you do the most damage in Primary. And with the way Spy Ops work, his Dictator bonus at half my land would probably wreck me. My netting set would at least be over.

And to be clearer, this is not being done for retaliations for land grabs, I have never attacked the guy. Why should I have to be forced into a war with a country half my size who I have never attacked.

I simply would like a way to prevent his leeching of my tech, without needing a massive amount of spies (like the other harmful spy-ops have). How it is done I don't much care. They could let us sell more than 1/4th of our tech at any given time to help hide more of it on the market. Or they could also make harmful spy ops have less of a success window than information spy ops. This would allow us to better defend ourselves against the harmful spy ops with our own spies. And such a massive amount of spies would not be needed to deter this behavior.

You know what you should do? Missile him to the stone age while you do your nw jump. When you finish jumping you're 4x+ his size and he can't fight back because of humanitarians. This way your netting goals aren't sacrificed, and the Tax Man learns collection isn't always free. He only has 9k land, he'll have like 2k when you're done with him, he won't get past 15m net.

I like it!!!! ^

Yes!

^^ this is the misinterpretation that demonstrates how overpowered steal tech ops / bomb bank ops are.

while i don't have the spal you mention KoH, i should add to this discussion: in primary i've got gogy running all his turns stealing tech from me. his spal is around 12 and mine around 24 and his success rate is about 50-60%.

just as an example, this demonstrates a huge gulf in what most would expect a very weak offensive spal / comparatively strong defensive spal can do. IMO with around half the spal (and similar ally contributions), the effectiveness of these 'non-harmful' (lol) ops should be seriously nerfed, particularly on the slow servers, as the spy dr is less relevant. it's probably about right in express as it is... which shows the gulf compared to primary with 54 turns /day vs 360 turns / day.

overpowered ops create a haven for poor players to suicide. without this avenue, they would be forced to learn to improve their game in other ways (i.e. play properly)

with the tax man example, he at least has a high spal and has tried to make a strat of his use of hte tool (landthin, dict, high spy number).

either way, it's not a logical mechanic with teh current success rates and should be adjusted accordingly, as this thread demonstrates.

I just attempted to do a spy op against twice my size and it said it wouldn't let me due to GDI.

So suck it and get it.

If neither of you have GDI just nuke him.

A) Destroy his entire country in one move, so he can't hurt you.

B) Let him know via diplomacy that further attempts will see retaliation. This can be dangerous as you he can premptive strike at you offensive capablities. Most players want to avoid a feud however.

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What is really scary is how do you figure out who is stealing? \:

spier can't have 100% success rate so eventually he or she fails.

If GDI rules in Primary are the same as they are in Express, if you're in GDI, all you need to do is try to send a missile (or other special attack) to every country in the ranks until you get the attack confirmation screen instead of the "GDI thinks you're gay and won't let you do this" message.

i would have thought that the game was designed for people to overcome the military force/etc of others to get that top networth. netting should consist of the right balance of self peservation.

It is also about making smart, economically profitable decisions, while staying powerful enough on military that nobody wants to land grab you. By not doing anything about this guy's tech stealing, it allowed me to finish 3rd place last set. Had I put more buildings into industrial to pump out more spies and purchased up max spy tech, I can assure you I would of finished worse off than 3rd place. And I still probably wouldn't have been able to keep this guy from succeeding most of the time.

The point of this was not to diminish the returns on a successful spy op. It was simply to be given an economically feasible way to fight against Espionage like every other market good that can be stolen or destroyed with spies already has.

If harmful spy ops were given a smaller success window, then maybe my 1.1million spy network (~48 SPAL) would of been worth something against spy attacks like these coming from a Dictator with high spies and low land.

Not only is it the one harmful spy op of its kind that doesn't have a way to protect the goods being targeted, but it is not protected by GDI either.

Maybe I am missing something, but I just don't see the balance in this one. That is all.