Matrix Games Forums

Hello.
In latest update we got some nice nerfing of espionage (which is somewhat OP but with some details):

INTELLIGENCE MISSIONS
- decreased success chance for intelligence missions. Diminishing value begins at 75% instead of previous 90%. Thus spies must have much higher skill levels to reach high success chance

But it was nice only at first look. In reality now only manual espionage works. On auto you can set low mission difficulty caution (not below 85% success). But it won't work. I play Human, they have innate spy bonus +10%. All my starting spies have only 40-50% of success rate on any mission. Ofc, on auto they will be on counter-espionage.
What can be done?

Drastically reduce mission difficulty caution in policy settings. Like, low - 30% (was 85%), normal - 45% (was 90%), high - 65% (was 93%), very high - 80% (was 97%). Why so low? Because 95% of spies for all races without espionage bonuses are trash. On auto they almost never do any mission (before patch, now 'never' without 'almost').

OR

Revert values from the previous version. Temporary. Espionage has too many issues but can't nerfed so directly.

I was so happy as well. Now I wish they would extend mission time.

btw - I'm still getting decent success on auto as humans but I've lost a spy or two and I get more mission failures. I've also had the AI dismiss a spy for poor skills! That seems new.

My experience was quite different with this patch. As the Teekans, they were able to net territory map stealing missions to start- all that matters is that they return, not that they succeed. That gives them traits and starts their skill progression. Around early-mid game, I had to manually make sure that new spies went to steal a map, then the automated system was able to take care of the rest.

The Teekan spies were able to fill out the low-to-mid tier tech tree without any additional input other than forcing greenhorns to get their feet wet. I did set them to aggressive, and to focus on tech and territory maps. The neighbors didn't like that, but not too much. This seems more balanced. The few good spies that arise from all that subterfuge can still be used manually for impactful missions.

AI dismissing spies has been a thing, and I'm glad for it. Decent spies are barely usable, bad spies are a liability.

Nightskies wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 6:48 pm My experience was quite different with this patch. As the Teekans, they were able to net territory map stealing missions to start- all that matters is that they return, not that they succeed.

That's a crucial part. Did you perform first missions manually or not? AI won't start missions.

The first target was a Zenox empire- whom has a counter-espionage bonus, no less. However! That was after 1-3 diplomats went in. I'm not sure how many it took before they started- it could have been all 3, whom were automatically assigned.

I may have manually sent a spy to find the territory of a soft pirate faction, but in the early game, the others went through automation.

WiZz wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 11:27 am What can be done?

Drastically reduce mission difficulty caution in policy settings. Like, low - 30% (was 85%), normal - 45% (was 90%), high - 65% (was 93%), very high - 80% (was 97%). Why so low? Because 95% of spies for all races without espionage bonuses are trash. On auto they almost never do any mission (before patch, now 'never' without 'almost').

This has been altered somewhat in line with the above in the next update (1.0.4.9) which should be available as a new beta in the next day or two.

Thanks
Elliot

Thank you!

Not sure what the upshot of this thread is...

Just wanted to say all my games before 1.0.4.7 I had functional spies on default settings. They'd run missions, win some, lose some, get caught sometimes, catch an enemy sometimes.

Now - 1.0.4.7 and above - they never budge. They seem unable to take the initial risk, so for the whole game they hide in the corner on defense.

I've tried increasing their aggressiveness / danger willingness - but there's barely any room in the danger settings - like 85% success is the "most dangerous" setting they'll try - which is... well, they'll never try at that setting. 3rd or 4th game - always this way. Mortalen, Humans, Ackdarians.