Espionage is a suite of special abilities and mechanics in Civilization II used by espionage units, namely, Diplomats and Spies. Espionage can provide a player with information about rival civilizations, means of sabotaging opponents ouside of a formal war, and even converting units and cities to the player's control.
Espionage actions do not require the Espionage advance; most are available to the appropriate units inherently, although nuclear terrorism has specific technological requirements.
Overview[]
Espionage units[]
Espionage is conducted by specific units: Diplomats (available with Writing) and Spies (available with Espionage). In general, diplomats are "one-shot", while spies can escape detection and return to friendly territory after a mission; successful operations and counter-espionage can award veterancy, improving odds of evading detection.
Espionage units can conduct missions against rival units and cities, regardless of diplomatic relation, by moving into their tile. Certain missions are considered acts of aggression and will provoke an international incident if exposed.
Unit missions[]
Espionage can be conducted against any individual (non-stacked) unit. Units of any domain, including sea and air, can be targeted.
Unit missions are guaranteed success regardless of unit; Spies conducting sabotage may be captured after the mission, otherwise they return to the player's nearest city, potentially earning veterancy.
Bribe[]
Pay a variable Gold price to convince the unit to defect to the player, determined by the following equation:
- b = 37.5d + 2 × 1 + t750 × s
where d is the target's distance from its capital,[note 1] t is the target civ's treasury, and s is the unit's Shield value. Worker units incur double the normal price.
The defecting unit is assigned a home city as per normal mechanics; if the closest city is not controlled by the player, the defector's home is NONE.
The espionage unit will attempt to move into the target unit's tile, but the action itself does not expend movement points.
Sabotage[]
Available to Spies. Damages half of the target unit's current hitpoints, rounding down.
City missions[]
Diplomats are expended after every mission; Spies have a chance to evade capture and return to the player's nearest city, potentially earning veterancy. Actions with guaranteed success are "free" for spies, consuming a partial movement point (as if moving on a road) and leaving them available for further missions.
Establish Embassy[]
Permanently provides expanded intelligence on the civilization to the Foreign Minister. Free action for Spies.
AI civs with positive attitude may also choose to provide an embassy, without requiring espionage units.[note 2]
The Marco Polo's Embassy and United Nations Wonders provide embassies with every active civilization.[note 3]
Investigate City[]
Allows viewing the target's city screen for the remainder of the turn. Free action for Spies.
Industrial Sabotage[]
Destroys a city improvement or resets Production progress. Can cause international incident.
Diplomats are guaranteed success against a random target. Spies have the option to select a specific target, at risk of capture before the mission completes. City Walls are the lowest priority target and incur additional risk. The Palace and SDI Defense are immune to sabotage.[note 4]
The following table details spies' probability of interception when assigned a specific target:[1]: post 5
Capital status / targeting walls |
Before | After | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Regular | Veteran | Regular | Veteran | ||
Capital | Walls | 67 | 46 | 78 | 65 |
Other | 51 | 26 | 80 | 39 | |
Non-capital | Walls | 45 | 39 | 80 | 46 |
Other | 28 | 15 | 63 | 54 |
Steal Technology[]
Steals a civilization advance, if available. Can cause international incident.
Diplomats provide a random advance, and are guaranteed success if no opposing agents are garrisoned. Spies can target a specific advance.
A city that has suffered technology theft will guard against subsequent attempts,[note 5] preventing further attacks from diplomats; spies cannot steal a specific advance, and can be captured before completing the mission.
Poison Water Supply[]
Available to Spies; reduces the target's population by 1. Not applicable to 1-citizen cities. Can cause international incident.
The mission is guaranteed success, with probability of capture as follows:[1]: post 2
Capital status | Capture chance (%) | |
---|---|---|
Regular | Veteran | |
Capital | 67 | 33 |
Non-capital | 50 |
Plant Nuclear Device[]
Available to Spies; requires that the player possess Nuclear Fission and Rocketry, and any civ has completed the Manhattan Project. Can cause a unique, major international incident.
Detonates a bomb with equivalent effect of a Nuclear Msl., bypassing SDI Defenses. Despite the wording of popup messages, the spy is not sacrificed in the mission, and will escape even if exposed.
Incite Revolt[]
Pay a variable Gold cost to convince the city and all supported units garrisoning and immediately adjacent to defect to the player. The base cost is determined by multiple factors including the city size, owning civ's treasury, and distance from the capital, with a mitigating bonus if the city is suffering civil disorder. Spies further discount the cost by one-sixth, veteran Spies by one-third. Full equation as follows:
- b = 1000d + 3 × 1 + t1000 × p
where d is the distance of the bribing unit from the target civ's capital,[note 1][note 6] t is the target civ's treasury, and p is the city' population. 1000d + 3 is further modified by the following cumulative factors:
- ×0.5 if the city is in disorder;
- ×0.5 if no units are present in the city;
- ×0.5 if previous owner is bribing (liberating);
- ×56 when bribed by Spy (×23 by Veteran).
In a normal revolt, any Temples, Courthouses, and Cathedrals are instantly destroyed. Cities can also be subverted for twice the price, preserving improvements, suppressing partisan resistance, and preventing an international incident;[note 7] this can only be conducted against civilizations with which the player has an active diplomatic treaty (Cease-Fire, Peace, or Alliance). Revolts can also provide gold and advances, as if the city was taken by force; the city will lose 1 citizen, to a minimum size of 1.
Capital cities (those containing the Palace) are immune to revolt.[note 6]
Counter-espionage[]
Expulsion[]
Civilizations with permanent relations (Cease-Fire or higher) have the option to expel espionage units that are closer to the player's cities than a rival civ's. The offending unit returns to the rival civ's capital (or otherwise nearest city). Expelling units does not incur a movement cost. Note that only single units can be expelled: stacked units can only be attacked normally.
Technology theft[]
Espionage units stationed in cities provide a percent chance of thwarting technology theft. Up to three units can provide a compounding bonus, according to the following equation:
- S = 1 - (eTemplate:Sub × eTemplate:Sub × eTemplate:Sub)
where S is the percent chance of success times 100, and e equals 1 minus 0.2 (Diplomat), 0.4 (Spy), or 0.6 (Veteran Spy). The following table provides a rough outline of how the bonus compounds:[2]
Unit | Number defending | ||
---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | |
Diplomat | 20% | 36% | 49% |
Spy | 40% | 64% | 78% |
Veteran Spy | 60% | 84% | 94% |
Successful counter-espionage awards veterancy. Thwarted units forfeit their turn, leaving them vulnerable to expulsion or attack on the defender's turn.
Bribery[]
A city with a Courthouse halves the effective distance when calculating the bribe cost. A city celebrating "We Love the King Day" also increases the bribe price.[note 8]
International incidents[]
Aggressive espionage actions (theft, sabotage, and city sedition) grant the victim casus belli to immediately retaliate without forfeiting international reputation if the perpetrator is exposed. At difficulties higher than Chieftain, an international incident damages the player's reputation by 1 level. Diplomats will always provoke an incident; Spies will only cause an incident if they are captured after the mission completes.
Planting a nuclear device provokes a major incident if exposed: all other civilizations immediately declare war against the perpetrator. Unlike other incidents, this does not damage the player's reputation.
Governments[]
Certain governments have special effects for espionage:
- Communism produces veteran espionage units.
- Democracy is immune to bribery. It can still bribe non-democratic rivals.
- Fundamentalism provides a limited tolerance for international incidents: victims may choose to condemn the player's "terrorism" instead of declaring war.
Modding[]
Espionage units are designated by the "Diplomat" role in Rules.txt; such units do not require support or provoke war weariness, regardless of their statistics. Diplomats and Spies feature certain hard-coded attributes; consult their modding sections for details.
Espionage and diplomatic notifications and dialogs are defined in Game.txt. While all mechanics are hard-coded, the player can be prevented from conducting missions by deleting their options from the relevant menus;[note 9] this does not prevent computer opponents from accessing the missions.
Espionage sound effects encompass three files: FEEDBK03.WAV (expelling), SMALLEXP.WAV (sabotage), and SPYSOUND.WAV (general espionage).
"Plant Nuclear Device" requires the Manhattan Project be completed, and the player possess Nuclear Fission and Rocketry; a successful detonation uses NUKEXPLO.WAV and the mushroom cloud animation (Image 21 / GIFS/85 in Tiles.dll).
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Normalized to a maximum of 16, or 10 under Communism. The distance between tiles is computed in a "zig-zag" pattern following ordinal directions; see Sections 4.31–4.33 in "Info: Diplomats and spies" for an explanation of the exact maths.
- ↑ Although phrased as an "exchange of ambassadors", the computer player does not receive an embassy and must still use its own units to establish one.
- ↑ Note that these embassies are not permanent, and will be removed if the Wonder expires unless an embassy has been established through normal mechanics.
- ↑ Anecdotal reports of SDI sabotage may indicate a bug.
- ↑ This flag is reset if the city changes ownership.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Capital bribe immunity is based on the espionage unit's distance from the Palace, rather than the presence of the Palace itself. A unit immediately adjacent to the rival capital cannot bribe other nearby cities.
- ↑ Subversion may, however, cancel a treaty without notice.
- ↑ Celebration's exact factor in the cost formula has not been defined.
- ↑ "Establish Embassy" and "Investigate City" cannot be disabled for spies: the "(Free)" suffix is applied externally and re-enables the menu option.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 La Fayette (1 February 2001. "Poisoning and sabotaging. Apolyton Civilization Site. Archived from the original on 7 June 2003. Accessed 2 March 2024.
- ↑ stormerne (4 June 2001). "RE: Diplomats and Spies - im on a steep learning curve here". Civilization Fanatics' Center. Accessed 2 March 2024.
- SlowThinker (21 February 2003). "Info: Diplomats and spies". Accessed 2 March 2024.
See also[]
- Espionage in other games
External links[]
- "Info: Diplomats and Spies" organizational and fact-finding thread on Apolyton
Civilization II [edit] |
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Conflicts in Civilization • Fantastic Worlds • Test of Time† |
Concepts |
† Standalone remake with different graphics, units, etc. |