Once more into the breach...
Like Xilmi says, espionage is simple enough to defend against - you simply have to block off agents by creating a 'wall' of your own units. Agents can't pass through your units. In the posted screenshot, that would mean stationing three units north of Stakhanov so any Noxium agents would have to go come in from the east. The problem with this is that stationing units in a such way would make them very vulnerable to a Noxium sneak attack, being pushed up against their border like that; you'd be basically guaranteed to have tanks or something else kill them all off the moment war is declared, and then your wall would be broken anyway and agents could still slip in and steal your entire treasury. So, at the end of the day, there really is no defense against espionage, with the seas on water maps as the possible exception. That means diplomacy in Eclipse of Nashira has taken a turn for the worse: You can *never* have peaceful relations with your neighbours in situations such as the depicted one where borders are close, because then you'll always be under threat of agents - or worse, surprise invasion, made possible because of your agent defense... realize, though, that what I'm describing here is only theoretical and/or only relevant to multiplayer games, because the current agent AI is so dysfunctional you *can* maintain peace with your neighbours (though any espionage will greatly sour your relations, as espionage causes diplomacy penalties and it appears the AI magically knows it was you who sent the agent - a very unwelcome AI cheat I also strongly disagree with). This is because espionage is entirely in the player's favor - the AI doesn't know how to 'wall off' and also is very unlikely to launch a surprise attack, especially if you signed a non-aggression pact, so all the espionage cards are decked in the human player's favor. Eclipse of Nashira has made it easier to abuse the AI than ever before.
^ that got quite long; hopefully I made it clear enough that you were able to follow my logic throughout.
As I wrote in the other thread I started, espionage will have to be redone completely, it's beyond redemption. I hope the devs realize this sooner rather than later, no point in trying to save the current model. It could easily be made into something much more coherent simply by making agents invisible: Agents would be on a seperate 'layer' from the other units, with only agents being able to detect and defend against other agents. At the same time, the power of agents will need to be drastically toned down - I agree with the devs that there should be a sense of achievement if you manage to successfully carry out a mission, but being able to steal an opponent's full treasury is crazy and it puzzles me how that could have made it into the game.
Xilmi wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that it's fine how it is?
I hope I have explained my stance well enough but if you still think it's fine I doubt we can reach an agreement, though I will listen to arguments in defense of the model. I view the espionage - which had a whole expansion pack dedicated to it - as an affront to the rest of the game, which otherwise has sane and above-standard balancing compared to the general 4X market. So yeah, this is a big deal for the game - this is something that absolutely must change.
