[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#12677) CVS: Spies get built foul, so cannot make embassy

["Brendon" <yautja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=12677 >

Jason Short wrote:
 > foulness needs to be shown to the user (via yet another
 > graphic icon)

I'd favour it be simply be changed that spies with a veteran level get 
executed creating an embassy, although that would mean communism can't 
get them this way. There is a 50% chance of vet (or higher with Sun Tzu) 
when they escape and would solve both the icon and coding problems (and 
save a few bits of memory).

 > or the concept should be dropped.

The fact that it has not even been working through all of the 2.0 betas 
and no-one has noticed is justification for this. And I can only 
remember it happening once to me in 1.14.

But there are more serious problems within diplomats.c than this IMO...

-----[ Unrelated stuff that should be in it's own ticket/s follows ]----

Currently an _elite spy_ defending in your capital (+50% defense with 
palace) gets:-
(20[100-diplchance] x 2[spy] + 15[veterancyx5]) x 150%[palace] = 82.5
An attacking green Diplomat has 80 (diplchance) / 82.5 to kill it.
A pretty sad state of affairs when the _best possible_ defending unit 
only has a < 5% advantage over the worst attacker.

I think diplomat combat should be on equal footing, both starting on 100 
without diplchance playing any role. Newbies complain allot there is no 
way to stop diplomats, and their defending ones always die (80% of the 
time at least). So they set diplchance 30 or lower that totally screws 
the game up (for me at least), making walls impossible to get rid of, 
technology hard to acquire.

Veterancy should have more than 5 points per level in diplomat combat, 
using the same veterancy %'s as unit combat would be better.
I assume the reason it's 5 is because it gets added to 80% diplchance 
for escape / steal / sabotage success (out of 100%) in the rest of 
diplomat.c. Combat success is a ratio of att/def and not a percentage 
success.
Would make the difference between spies and diplomats more pronounced 
and veterancy as well.

Even /help diplchance agrees with me :P...
"Defending spies are generally twice as capable as diplomats; veteran 
units are 50% more capable than non-veteran ones."

Would be nice if a another building in addition to the palace gave 
spy_resistance. I would suggest the Police Station but that would make 
Woman's Suffrage too powerful, Barracks -> Sun Tzu. Courthouses already 
double bribe costs.
Walls could have a spy_resistance rather than sabotage defense as they 
make controlling who enters and leaves the city easier. There already 
some code giving +25% in fortresses and airbases (used to be able to 
bribe stacks ?).

Another problem is not stopping you from trying to steal tech twice with 
diplomats. It's just a nasty trap for newbies, or people (like me) who 
just can't remember exactly which city it was they stole from about an 
hour ago.
Either disabling the [Steal Technology] button or "Security has been 
increased due to previous theft" would at least give a clue instead of 
the same message as failure.

Also it should show you the percentage success rates next to the 
selections with spies.
Most people don't know that choosing the target (to steal / sabotage) 
reduces the success rate by 1/2 (not in the help).
The chance decreases with every technology you've stolen from that city 
with spys (not in the help)
Walls also have 50% penalty as well as anything in the capital (most 
people don't RTFH :P).

Unit bribery doesn't take into account veterancy of the target when 
calculating cost.

Should be a user option that anything below X% of you treasury doesn't 
need to be [yes][no] confirmed to bribe (also for buying and upgrading 
aswell).

Good to get all that off my chest, sorry for the spam, just be glad I'm 
only an art developer :P (can't get this blender tree generator to work 
}:\).