What do you think of these espionage ideas?

[Fal]

Be subtle! Be Subtle! And use your spies for every kind of business. - Sun Tsu

I, for one, always enjoyed a good challenging MP game with graphs disabled, as one must rely on his spies, spells and diplomacy to learn the strength and weakness of his opponents. However, I have always thought espionage is largely overlooked in this great war game. IMO the espionage can, and should be improved in the next game, here is a list of spy activities I can think of and they should fit into the existing game quite nicely (along with some historical background in case you are not convinced ). I didn't want to post this in the Dom4 wishlist straight away as I'm hoping to get some opinions from you guys first, so please give your suggestions.

Spies have the option to sabotage opponent's construction activities, causing slight delay or minor loss of gold, for example spy activities forces you to spend say extra 20 gold when constructing a rampart, while an extremely skilled/lucky spy can delay the construction time for 1 turn and loss of 60 gold.
(Historically, the Norwegian heavy water sabotage initiated by SOE to prevent German nuclear energy project).

When sieging enemy castle, having a spy in the castle gives you extra siege points, causing the wall to breakdown faster. Naturally, the spy is unable to leave the province until the castle is taken by your force.
(Historically, the Mongolians employed extensive spy networks to spread propaganda prior sieging Chinese cities, as the Mongol horsemen earned their fearsome reputation from mass murder of Chinese civilians, the spy network was extremely efficiently in reducing morale of the defending armies which led to unconditional surrender of countless heavily fortified cities).

Planting spies improves your chances of intercepting/avoiding enemy army: e.g, army I located in province A wishes to attack army II located in province B, while army II wishes to attack neutral province C this turn. Assuming the sizes of both armies are equal and no terrain restrictions, by planting a spy in army II and giving him 'improve interception' order, army I's chance of catching army II in province B is slightly improved. Vice versa, if army II wishes to evade army I's attack, he should plant a spy in army I and give him 'evade interception' order.
(Throughout history military generals have employed scouts to observe enemy movement, planted spies to give false information to the enemy).

Spies can sabotage opponent's research activities, depends on his skill/luck, causing extra gold investment and/or loss of research points.
(Historically... well, there are numerous examples. The most obvious cold war aside, industrial espionage still largely active in technology-based industries such as biotech and computing).

Honeytrap: this works similar to succubus's seduction and will only work on opposite sex, and only over a period of time, say 3 months. The victim gradually attached to the spy who seduces him/her, eventually losing loyalty to his/her formal master and joins the cause of the seducer.
(Historically, US marine sergeant Clayton Lonetree sells classified documents to KGB after having affair with a female soviet officer).

So yes spies should be readily available to every nation in the game, but their ability of causing unrest should be limited. spies would have different leveling system compare to other military units (what's the point of having a lvl 5 spy anyway?). A higher lvl spy would be able to carry out tasks better than low lvl ones.

Just my 2 cents.

[Endoperez]

1) Anything less than 100 gp is too small to have an effect, and increasing unrest already causes loss of more gold in most provinces where castles are comsidered. Loss of time would be nasty, but if it was a command there'd be no way to keep the spy from using it every turn.

Spies are already VERY important in sieges, because otherwise you won't know about the defenders until you storm the castle. However, once you can storm in it's easy to send a lone commander in to see the exact enemy position. I'd like to se the probing made less effective instead of giving spies #siegebonus.

Accumulated research can't decrease, and being able to lock out enemy research with 3 groups of 10 spies rotating around enemy labs would be nasty. It isn't easy to make it dependent on the province the spies affect, except via spreading Drain dominion, and that should be a LA Ulm specialty. In fact, I think I'm going to give LA Ulm a couple more options via modding sometime soon.

Honeytrap - would be used to trade commanders between nations, so magic diversity would become commonplace and nations would become much less unique. Let LA Patala (and EA Arcos? do Oreiads seduce?) keep their specialty.

An order for a chance of stealing few gems into the spy's personal inventory would be nice. Very risky, but potentially devastating, and in most cases you'd rather cause certain loss of gold. Gem types with no income and lowest amount in storage would be stealen from less often.

Mage-spies in enemy provines with labs could do all kinds of things.

[CUnknown]

Sabotage of castle construction - I love this idea! A first step, though, would be to allow spies to detect castles being constructed (and by which commander). Like a report added on to the province report: "There is one unit currently in the province, a lone Commander. He is constructing Ramparts which will be finished in 2 turns."

click sabotage

"You have successfully sabotaged the enemy Ramparts construction. It has been delayed 1 turn and will cost an additional 30 gold. Your spy was caught after the attempt, however."

Spies in seige situations - I agree with Endoperez that scouts and spies should be more effective in probing enemy defenses than other units, but that they shouldn't give a straight seige bonus.

Spies helping your army intercept/evade enemy armies - Great idea! It shouldn't be too great an effect, though, because sometimes armies are hard enough to intercept as is.

Spies planting false information - Another good idea, a spy in a province with your army could help modify the army size as perceived by your enemies. Right now, it varies by like +100% to -50%, I think. One spy could up that to +110% / -55%, two spies +120% / -60% or something like that. And you could maybe choose which way you wanted to adjust it.

Spies sabotaging enemy research - I don't like this one so much. Rather, I would like to see spies able to infiltrate and discover what exactly your enemy has researched, and what he's currently researching at the moment. And how many research points per turn he's getting. Maybe a chance at one of these at once per spy per turn, or something.

[TwoBits]

I'd like there to be a chance that caught spies/scouts have a chance to remain anonymous - an enemy who found one of your spies would have to make a second role (perhaps more difficult than the first role to find him) to discover where he came from.

Of course, this wouldn't apply to certain nation-specific stealth-capable commanders.

[Endoperez]

I just finished the .dm of a mod that gives LA Ulm access to stealthy inquisitors. I'm intrigued with the effects of spreading hostile Luck dominion - AFAIK, it will make events more common, but won't help against bad luck.

In case you're interested, I've attached it to this post. LA Ulm is the one nation that should have good spies - and to an extent, does have them. Cheap mage-spies, good stealthy ranged units, Wolfherds to create lots of stealthy troops in enemy territory...