Spies

[adminGary]

I've been getting a few requests about how covert and anti covert function when your spying and sabotaging.

Just to clear things up, as it stands covert and anti covert units are very good at hiding during battles with normal troops. Therefore covert/anti covert units are never around to take a stray round or energy blast from normal troops.

When you send your spies on a recon mission. Your spylevel is based on the number of units you send on the mission and your current spy level. Covert action is simply the spy strength if you were to use all of your spies. There is 3 outcomes to any mission, if they succeed and if they are discovered.

Recon leaves the defender at a disadvantage, they need quite a few more spies or a few more levels than the attacker to foil the attacker's plans. Therefore it lets the attacker have a greater margin of error when picking the number of spies to use.

If your mission is a failure you have a chance to loose a percentage of the spies you sent in. The defender will also loose spy killers, the number of spies lost is a random percent of the number of spies sent. The defender cannot loose more spy killers than he owns.

If the mission is a success, there is a random chance based on the spy strength of the attacker and spy killer strength of the defender that you are discovered. Just like above the number of spies lost operates on the same mechanics, just the percents are different.

(Note, if you fail a mission it is an automatic discovery.)

Sabotage operates just like recon missions except the formula for your success is different, and much less forgiving for the attacker.

Since sabotage requires spies to get closer to your enemy, if your spies are detected you will loose greater numbers.

I hope that clears things up for everyone.

Edit:
Made some changes to the success/discovered calculations, they are based more on skill and less on chance now.

[Lore]

I just can't grasp this.


I mean you lose massive amounts of spies just trying to spy to see how many spies you need to send to succeed. Looks like the attacker will always lose much much more then the defender as he is taking 2 hits, first just doing the action, even successful, cause a large casualty rate, then you have the men killing each other and you give no indication as to who loses more or what the % are. So I am having some difficulty here, but atleast they are killable.

[adminGary]

You have an advantage over the enemy when sending in recon missions. You have to send in the correct amount of units, there is a couple of hints given to help you make this assesment, first being can you see the amount of naq in their Treasury, the second being their rank. Between those two bits of data you should be able to determine how many spies to send.

Or you can go through trial and error. Both methods work, it's designed so that you cannot simply send all of your spies on every mission. It balances the game.

[Lore]

You have an advantage over the enemy when sending in recon missions. You have to send in the correct amount of units, there is a couple of hints given to help you make this assesment, first being can you see the amount of naq in their Treasury, the second being their rank. Between those two bits of data you should be able to determine how many spies to send.

Or you can go through trial and error. Both methods work, it's designed so that you cannot simply send all of your spies on every mission. It balances the game.

Ok, 1 more question

What stats are used against one another?

I want to sab someone, even tho i lose massive amounts of covert agents just doing a successful spy to get the info, let say i have it. Now since his AC is what kills my spies, what happens if he has 0 AC strength? that mean I am scott free and no losses? Or what about if his AC is 2 times as high as his covert? does that mean since i send in just enough spies to beat his covert strength, and lower my casualties, that his AC is going to tear me a new one because it is so much stronger then my Covert power sent in?

If the over all Anti covert power does not decide the casualty rate then whats stopping people from having 10 AC units and killing as many spies as someone with more units and more levels? If the AC power does decide the casualty rate then your basicly protecting the covert stat as if AC is higher then covert, then the attack is screwed either way, send in to many and you suffer massive and needless losses. Send in just enough to take the defending covert and you suffer massive losses at the hands of the AC power that far exceeds your own.


Not trying to be difficult, just trying to understand.

[adminGary]

Lore, Thank you.

If you hadn't been so difficult, I wouldn't have looked at this as far as I did, and I wouldn't have noticed a typo. The spy mechanics are now functioning properly.

If you send in a massive amount of spies, there is still a chance based on their skill that they will be discovered, but you will no longer be incorrectly punished with a higher than normal loss of spies.

[Lore]

Lore, Thank you.

If you hadn't been so difficult, I wouldn't have looked at this as far as I did, and I wouldn't have noticed a typo. The spy mechanics are now functioning properly.

If you send in a massive amount of spies, there is still a chance based on their skill that they will be discovered, but you will no longer be incorrectly punished with a higher than normal loss of spies.

TY



Still need you to answer the questions as to what stats are used when fighting each other. Is it covert versus covert or covert versus anti, or anti versus covert, or what?

[adminGary]

Anti Covert protect against Covert operations. Just like how defenders protect against attackers.

The Spy levels increase your covert and anti covert effectiveness. Just like how weapons increase your attack and defence.

Your spies can also attack your enemy weapons, and the enemy anti covert try to protect against sabotage.

[Borek]

Problem is gary is neither troop type can actively be killed. You cannot kill AC units, you cannot kill Spies, all you can do is cause other people to suffer losses spying/sabbing you. What is there to stop people training up their entire armies as spies or assassins? Answer currently is nothing.

[semper]

Spies and assassins are difficult to kill, we are under no illusion of this.

So it should be simple, give defence one more reason for being.

If you have no defence you attack soldiers become your defence ones, working at 50% of their strength in defence, and your spies take over from them, making 25% of their strength into defence.

Everything is killable, its a realistic way for things to work..and it will make massing someone a lot more worth while, as you will literally LEVEL someones account from top to bottom.

[Angnoch]

I agree with Semper it will actually make people think twice before just throwing their account into a war and it will help keep the game balanced to an extent by not allowing the ridiculously large growths possible in main and creating an almost insurmountable gap between new and old as long as people keep warring

[RepliMagni]

Okay, someone just successfully sabotaged me with 3 guys....even though I have a rank 4 Anti Covert.....it is Anti Covert that protects your realm isn't it?

Luckily they got no weapons though.....even though I have well over 50 weps....

me=confused

EDIT: Now what?!:

You spies approached enemy lands but turned back because the threat of being discovered was too great.
They request you wait a while before sending them back.

Request denied. Go earn your keep and spy

[Borek]

Okay, someone just successfully sabotaged me with 3 guys....even though I have a rank 4 Anti Covert.....it is Anti Covert that protects your realm isn't it?

Luckily they got no weapons though.....even though I have well over 50 weps....

me=confused

EDIT: Now what?!:

You spies approached enemy lands but turned back because the threat of being discovered was too great.
They request you wait a while before sending them back.

Request denied. Go earn your keep and spy

far as i can tell Anti-covert does precisely nothing except act as a ranked stat at the moment. Although since you do not get given your enemies AC level/score/assassin count when you recon them it's hard to know for sure, maybe the guys i sabbed just have so little that compared to my covert power it's not causing me any losses.

[RepliMagni]

Well when you hover over AC it says it should protect from covert action against you....upped it to rank 2 now....we'll see if the person comes back, and if AC is even working.....

[Lore]

Yeah this was the main thing i was pushing to get defined and fixed before live release.

[RepliMagni]

So does anyone know if AC is actually protecting our weps....or not?