Spies and unrest

thejeff · #1 February 13th, 2007, 11:11 AM

Unrest does not affect gems.

I've noticed something odd about catching spies.
SP game, playing MA Ulm, I've had a bunch of spies causing unrest in Pythium's capital for awhile now. He rarely catches any, but when he does he seems to catch all of them.
The first time, I'd just started and assumed he'd just boosted his patrollers. The second time I already had roughly 150 unrest there. He had the standard capital 25 PD and judging from the troops that attacked my poor spies another 60 or so patrolling. With the penalty from unrest his chances should have been slim, but he caught all 4 spies.

Is the roll only made once for patrolling, so if he got a good open-ended roll all stealthy units are likely to be caught?

PhilD · #2 February 13th, 2007, 11:26 AM

interesting catch, thejeff - but I seem to recall that probability of getting caught is supposed to be linked to the "army size" - so it seems to make sense that several spies/scouts/whatever are detected together, and the more, the easier.

What this means is that your spies collaborate, they're not independent, dormant agents. So it would make sense if several different scouts gave widely more accurate reports

thejeff · #3 February 13th, 2007, 11:46 AM

Army size, yes, but from the explanation in the manual that seems to apply to sneaking troops, not commanders.

I don't think it explicitly states each commander (and any squads he commands) are dealt with separately, but it is implied.

And I know I've seen only one of several scouts get caught.

I'd guess it's one patrol roll compared to a sneak roll for each commander. This produces reasonable results in normal conditions when the chances are decent, but when a really good open ended roll is required, you'll either catch none or all.

Meglobob · #4 February 13th, 2007, 04:24 PM

Quote:

thejeff said:
Army size, yes, but from the explanation in the manual that seems to apply to sneaking troops, not commanders.

I don't think it explicitly states each commander (and any squads he commands) are dealt with separately, but it is implied.

Implied and it is actually the case. 5 spies have a seperate check to be caught. When all of yours got caught they must have all failed there seperate checks, producing just 1 battle. I have had several occassions when 1/5 or 2/5 have been caught by patrollers but the rest escaped detection.

Even a scout, effectively has +40 on the die roll to avoid detection (this is default stealth), a bard has +70 has he has a further +30 bonus. Every troop you lead without a large plus to stealth themselves gives you -1. So a scout for example with a command magic item leading 40 wolves would have +0 stealth and would be easily detected by PD/patrols.

thejeff · #5 February 13th, 2007, 04:40 PM

I don't buy it. I'll check the numbers again tonight, but this was 4 spies (+20 Stealth) with 150 unrest. The odds were against even one getting caught. All 4 in a single turn is really pushing the odds. It happened once before in the same game, and those were the only times any of my spies were caught there.

And they did produce 4 separate battles.

Meglobob · #6 February 13th, 2007, 04:58 PM

Quote:

thejeff said:
And they did produce 4 separate battles.

This confirms each one was detected seperatly.

I believe patrolling creates 2 seperate checks, 1 to reduce unrest and another to detect stealth units. High unrest adds hugely however to avoid detection, but as I have said before there are so many random rolls in Dom3, you are bound to get extemely unlucky every now and again.

Abit like I fumbled with a -700+ fumble that time in Middle-Earth...

mivayan · #7 February 13th, 2007, 05:46 PM

Quote:

thejeff said:
The second time I already had roughly 150 unrest there. He had the standard capital 25 PD and judging from the troops that attacked my poor spies another 60 or so patrolling. With the penalty from unrest his chances should have been slim, but he caught all 4 spies.

Is the roll only made once for patrolling, so if he got a good open-ended roll all stealthy units are likely to be caught?

Perhaps the ai only patrolls once now and then.

Manuals formula for stealth strength: 40 + 20 (spy's stealth bonus) = 60
Destealth strength: 60 (Sum of destealth strength of patrollers, about 60 guys, probably without bonuses or fly) - 50 (unrest /2, capped at unrest100) + 16 (for province defence of 25, assuming the ai never raised it) = 35.

The spy is found if 35 + 2d25 (open ended) > 60 + 2d25 (open ended)

Catching all four at once is a bit lucky but nowhere near requiring the open-ended part of the die rolls.

Ironhawk · #8 February 13th, 2007, 06:13 PM

How are you getting 2d25? I thought all dominions randomness rolls were 2d6 OE.

mivayan · #9 February 13th, 2007, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Ironhawk said:
How are you getting 2d25? I thought all dominions randomness rolls were 2d6 OE.

page 67 in manual, 3/4 down.

thejeff · #10 February 13th, 2007, 09:18 PM

A bit lucky doesn't describe it.

If the numbers I've been playing with are right, it's about a 6% chance of making that roll.

Which is a 0.0013% chance of getting 4 in row.
Possible, technically.

Which is why I suspect only a single roll is made for the patrollers, which is then compared against a roll for each stealthy commander. Since one really good patrol roll could beat all the stealth rolls, it would be much more possible.
Simulating that comes out to around 0.3% for catching all four.