Espionage is a new game mechanic available through the Shadows expansion.
Description[]
Espionage offers players a new way to undermine other empires, by infiltrating enemy cities with Heroes (spies), offering a new range of possible actions against either the infiltrated city, or its empire at large.
Infiltrating Empires[]
Infiltrating a City[]
Heroes can be assigned to infiltrate any visible foreign city.
Once infiltrated in the city (and thus in the Empire), the hero is removed from the map.
Considered as assigned to a foreign city, the hero can exfiltrate the city after their assignation cooldown.
A maximum of one hero for each empire can infiltrate the same city at the same time.
The cost in Influence is partly bound to the population of the targeted city and the number of cities of the infiltrating empire. The cost decreases with the population of the targeted city and increases with the number of cities of the infiltrating empire.
Information unlocked after Infiltration[]
Diplomacy: treaties ratified by each spied empire become available through the Diplomacy screen.
Marketplace: Market exchanges of each spied empire becomes available through the marketplace screen.
City vision: an infiltrated city gives its vision to the spying empire as long as the Hero stays infiltrated.
City interface: when infiltrated, the Hero also gives the player the possibility to enter the interface of the spied city, getting access through a "spy view" of the infiltrated city, to all the City information. Yet, only navigating is allowed preventing the spy from doing any city action in place of the owner.
Infiltration level & spy actions[]
The longer a spy remains infiltrated in a city, the more they get access to better actions to perform.
Once infiltrated, a hero is considered as assigned to a city belonging to another empire while remaining invisible.
From that point, by remaining infiltrated, the hero is going to reach different levels of infiltration (from 1 to 5)
To each infiltration level reached corresponds one or several new actions the player can choose to perform against the infiltrated city (City Actions) or towards the City Empire (Empire Actions), each new action being better than the previous one in its category. Eg:
- Empire Action 1 Lv.3: Deactivate all watchtowers visions for 10 turns
- Empire Action 1 Lv.4: Deactivate all buildings visions for 10 turns
Each action has its own cost in Influence that is also partly bound to the population of the targeted city and the number of cities of the infiltrating empire. The cost decreases with the population of the targeted city and increases with the number of cities of the infiltrating empire.
In addition, Technologies, Hero skills or Items as well as City Improvements may also impact this cost.
The time to reach each level of infiltration gets longer. The time required is also bound to the game speed and hero skills.
Each time an infiltration action has been performed by a spy in a city, the infiltration level is reset.
Some actions are only possible once an advanced level of infiltration is reached, other only improve up to a certain level.
Notifications: some effects are silent as they do not harm the target empire
copying technology, reducing diplomatic costs and stealing vision. The target empire is notified of any effect that does them harm however.
for each triggered city action, the action effect as well as the name of the targeted city is notified to its owner. For each triggered empire action, the action effect is notified to the empire owner.
XP: Infiltrated Heroes earn XP for infiltrating cities and performing spy actions, but also by remaining infiltrated. XP earned also increases with the population of the targeted city.
Counterespionage[]
Anti-Spy level[]
Spy actions cannot fail, however, each time a spy action is performed, heroes take the risk of being wounded, disabled (status), captured, or that nothing happens. This result directly depends on the Security level of the infiltrated city.
Each City starts with a Security value that will be impacted by city Approval, governor skills or items, and City improvements
Captured Heroes[]
Captured Heroes are disabled and blocked in their Academy and also represented in the Academy of the capturing empire which pays part of the upkeep without being able to use it.
After n turns in jail, the captured hero is sent back to their Academy, disabled and unequipped, or, at any time, can be sent back in the same state to his owner. Through the Diplomacy Screen, the prisoner can also be traded prematurely without suffering any damage.
Roundup[]
The roundup is a system that can be activated at any time in a city. Once activated, the city starts accumulating Security bonuses at the cost of 50% of the per pop city production.
After a few turns of activation, it will try to flush spies in this city based on the current city security value.