An interesting idea, but making them ships just wouldnt make alot of sense.

That would still require me to "build" send it off, then manage its movement to a planet. This would basicly turn it into the same mechanic for military conquest, where speed of your ships is often what determines how effective you are. This is also doesnt make sense in the form that, your enemies would see some strange ship come and land on their planet, as would you see one coming to yours. This would make it all too easy to figure out who sent it. And stop it. And if the ships going to be invisible...then why have it be a ship? Why not just automate the entire process?

Espionage needs to be its own tool, like diplomacy, and research and influence. To do this, it needs its own system of use. Selecting a target, choosing a mission and then hitting "Go" is more efficient, and makes more sense. You tell the spy where to go, and he finds his own way there. Its invisible, it requires minimal direction from the player, and is its own unique method.

The reason we want counter-espionage to mostly be contained to a slider is because playing "whack-a-mole" with spies just isnt all that fun. Choosing where your spies go and what they do however is. And so if it takes some micro-managment to accomplish that, I'm all for it, its just a matter of keeping the amount consistent with how rewarding and fun it is. If you noticed, alot of posts discuss adding more content to the offensive aspect of espionage, while removing alot of the maintaince of nullifying enemy agents.

Like I said, your idea is interesting, but in the end, I dont think it would be a practical solution.

1) Ship speed is sort of what's missing for me in the current system. If I can instantly teleport spies anywhere in the galaxy, why am I bothering with combat hulls at all--can't I just pay more to teleport my troops?

Well what I had invisioned was that tasks took X number of turns to accomplish, that timeframe is not only the amount of time it takes the agent to do the task, but also to arrive and leave safetly.

2) The ships don't need to be invisible, but they can be anonymous unless the enemy has your production planet in sensor range.

Wouldnt you then just start shooting down all anonymous ships? If they dont "belong" to anyone then who can get angry at you without implicating themselves.

I'm not bashing the idea completely, but there would have to be more too it then simply a spy module on a ship. Maybe you attach it to a trade vessel, and your spy infiltrates when it lands?

I still think that it would just be easier to make it abstract and simply have the time to arrive be factored into the time it takes to accomplish missions. That way you just say, "Do this" and then move on to other tasks.

Spies in this way are annoying and hard to keep track of. I remember everone HATING this way of doing it in the Call to Power Civilization series...

I prefer things like this to be all in one menu, myself. Like how it is on Space Empires 5 or Master of Orion 2.

The best idea, imo, is a hardcoded limit on spys or you get more spies depending on % of spy skill. Like 1 spy every 10%.

Like the idea and i have a suggestion about it.

-How about mole ships. You spy on an enemy first, see what fighters they have, and for about the cost of the ship plus 2000 coins can buy a fake version of the ship and make the enemy think its theres! Of course there would have to be a limit on these to balance the game though. Imagine flying into enemy territory during a war with the fake ship and flying right next to there main attack force finally completly suprising them and damaging their army. There are millions of possibilities with this idea! (There should be a 10/100 chance of it not working and on a side note fake troop transports would rock!)

The more I think about having spies arrive to planets via special ships with modules, the more it doesnt sit right with me. It sounds ever more cumbersome and tedious, and unnessecary.

Instead of making the delivery system more complex to improve espionage, I think expanding upon it would be a better course. Dont just make sabotage the only course of action spies can take, give them other types of tasks. Demoralization, corruption, misinformation, infiltration, and sabotage are a spies duties, why not represent them all?

Make them take X number turns to complete, with a chance of failure dependant on the agent, and the targets toughness. The number of turns to complete includes arriving, not just doing the task.

And due to their extended and more powerful capabilites, limit the number to something like 5 at most...maybe 10 for larger games. Make it a system of target, assign, and move on. Keep the decision making to the player while relieving them of all the management aspects. The system also remains invisible aside from its effects, making it feel more spy like, and less like a military invasion.

Changing the delivery system doesnt really solve the base problem, a lack of depth. And would likely add more frustration then relief.

My views arent going to be everyones, so I'm sure some will agree with me, while others will lean more towards OP suggestion.

Yea, we have different approaches to the same end, which is more depth and fun to espionage with less micro-management.

Oh and I do agree with that tile thing, selecting tiles would be limited to destroying specific buildings, most operations wouldnt/shouldnt require such micro-targeting.

Spys are the ultimate killing machines. They can be used to assasinate the leader of an alien race or even the player. It could be fun to use them to turn a well run letal empire in to turmoil. Also consider a well placed spy when you are just planning an atack and the defense or atack of the enemy is lower because the moral of the troops is gone. (Leader RIP) And they are sent to the wrong enemy for ten turns.

The capture of a spy should cost you income, or it's starts a war. Trade routes?

A spy need to be a two edeged sword you should and could be burned by them. You have to be defended by them and against them. Can you trust a spy or is it a double agent? It's a hard game to play with them.

Also consider the turns of chaos to get a new leader elected or a new dictator installed.

(Gameplay element, Spy = moral + spy factor + stability+ defense/atack of ship).

The destruction of a (ship or a factory tile) is not high enough to use a spy for.
A spy need to be the ultimate powerplay. To be a new element for galciv2.
It would be nice to lose a game because the avatar of the player is gone.

just my 0.02.

How about getting rid of the module, and allowing you to send spies through any known trade route (not just your own). As I see it, the point of entering through trade routes is to conceal your spies. So why not just hitch a ride on another races frieghter as a member of the "crew" or a passenger?

The general idea with the module is to prevent spy spam.

Based on your level of trade and miniaturization, you can't send a crapflood of spies to every planet. Neither can your opposition. So you have to use your brain and create a strategy for how you will deploy your spies. You can spy and sabotage _some_ tiles on _some_ planets.

In the current Dread Lords, you can't spy until you're trading which tells me somebody at Stardock has a clue on how spies work.

Each civilization gets 12 spies? That's ok except that there's more strategy involved with the module. You have to pay for the module and the spy. You have to pay for the research to fit another spy in there. Not all civilizations will ultimately and automatically have the same amount of spies.