Covert Ops: a Closer Look - live stream by Firaxis@twitch.tv on Sept 11

[sisko]

The new stream named "Covert Ops: a Closer Look" will go live on Thursday, Sept 11 at 2pm EST (that's 6pm GMT).

Live link

EDIT: Here is the recorded video for those who missed it.

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth - Livestream 4: Covert Ops

[BlaneckW]

The spy aspect of strategy games has always been small.  I'd almost be surprised they bothered to mention it.

[sisko]

Countdown added to the OP, so you don't miss it.

[Geo]

Darn. My internet connection was down just when this was live. Only saw the last few minutes of it.

[sisko]

You can find the video in the first post of the thread.

[Geo]

But that's not the same experience as seeing it live.

Thanks.

[sisko]

But that's not the same experience as seeing it live.

yeah, i almost fell asleep during the show. 

For those who don't have time to see the video, here's a summary made by Arioch:

Covert Ops
Covert Ops is unlocked by building the Spy Agency, a National Wonder which gives you three Covert Agents (more can be acquired through virtues and quests). This operates in a similar manner to Espionage in Civilization V, though with a lot more options and limited by Intrigue levels, which must be accumulated over time. As in Civ V, Agents gain up to three experience levels. In addition to providing visibility and Intrigue, agents have a choice of different operations:

-Establish Network (Intrigue Level 0, Very Easy difficulty): Establish the Agent's operational network and gather additional information about the city. The higher the Agent's rank the more information is provided. Once established, the network remains until the Agent leaves the city or is killed (Gives the player access to a UI that provides an Intel Report on the city, showing current yields and production, research target,  presence of counter-intelligence Agents in the city, and a history of previous ops in that city).
-Siphon Energy (Intrigue Level 0, Easy difficulty): "Steal" a lump sum of Energy (which is not subtracted from the target's supply)
-Steal Science (Intrigue Level 1, Easy difficulty): "Steal" a lump sum of Science (which is not subtracted from the target's supply) and apply it towards the technology that you are currently researching.
-Steal Technology (Intrigue Level 2, Moderate difficulty): gives you a technology that the target player has researched.
Recruit Defectors: Gifts you 1-3 military units (depending on Agent level), randomly selected from the classes that the target can build, near your Capital.
-Hack Satellites (Intrigue Level 4, Moderate difficulty): De-orbit all satellites within 5 hexes of the target City.
-Coup D'etat (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): Claim control of the city for yourself. Works with Capitals as well as normal cities.
-Dirty Bomb (Purity level 11) (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): Detonate a nuclear device in the city, reducing the city's Population by half.
-Call Worm Strike (Harmony level 11) (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): Activate a device which attracts Siege Worms to a city.
-Sabotage (Supremacy level 11) (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): ?
Whether the operation succeeds or fails, the Agent can remain undetected, be detected (the target is informed that something happened, but not who did it), be identified (the target is informed who conducted the operation, and the Agent flees the city), or captured and killed. So an operation can succeed but result in a captured Agent, or it may fail but allow the Agent to remain in the city undetected.

Intrigue
As an Agent completes successful Operations in a city, he or she builds Intrigue, which is represented on a 0-5 scale. Each Operation has an Intrigue requirement; more damaging Operations require a higher level of Intrigue; an Intrigue level of 4 or higher is required for Operations that will overtly damage the target. There are a number of ways to counter intrigue: you can station counter-intelligence agents in the city, or deploy certain types of satellites near the city.

Agents in friendly cities can still perform counter-intelligence, which reduces Intrigue in addition to attempting to uncover foreign agents. Another addition is a choice of National Security Project missions, which is a cumulative task that Agents can add to if they are left at Headquarters. The options include:

Homeland Security: +1% City Strength and +1% City Hit Points for each Agent at Headquarters.
Research and Development: +1% Production for Wonders for each Agent at Headquarters.
Propaganda: +2% Health for each Agent at Headquarters.
Operations Support: Lowers the risk to Covert Agents doing Operations for each Agent at Headquarters.
Operations Reconnaissance: Increases the chance of Operation success for each Agent at Headquarters.
There is a series of quests (beginning with "For Your Eyes Only") involving the Culper Ring, which will award additional agents and ultimately the Culper Lodge, a building which levels up your agents.

Will Miller:

One of the systems we're really excited about is the white hat black hat covert ops. It takes espionage from Brave New World and expands it quite a bit. You can do many, many more things with spies when you get them in cities and things like smuggling from them and stealing their research and technology to things like planting the Dune thumper device in their city and having worms pop out. Only the Harmony player can do that. Or setting off a nuclear explosion, a dirty bomb in their city. There's some stuff that's white hat stuff that's done peacefully, that's not detrimental to the other player but is still clandestine, so if the AI catches you doing it they're not going to be pleased about it, but it benefits you and doesn't harm them as much. Then the more clandestine activity happens in a city, we call it intrigue, there's an intrigue level that increments. Once that gets real high you can start doing things that are more directly offensive, like detonating a bomb or sending the aliens to attack. You telegraph that the - there's a part of the HUD that's your intrigue. Once it gets to a certain threshold you can see, you don't know who's doing it, but you can see that there's a lot of intrigue going on, so I'd better put counterspies in here, or I'd better build the office of homeland security to clamp it down. There's several ways, virtues, buildings, even satellites can assist you in defending yourself against covert action.

[Yitzi]

But that's not the same experience as seeing it live.

yeah, i almost fell asleep during the show. 

For those who don't have time to see the video, here's a summary made by Arioch:

Covert Ops
Covert Ops is unlocked by building the Spy Agency, a National Wonder which gives you three Covert Agents (more can be acquired through virtues and quests). This operates in a similar manner to Espionage in Civilization V, though with a lot more options and limited by Intrigue levels, which must be accumulated over time. As in Civ V, Agents gain up to three experience levels. In addition to providing visibility and Intrigue, agents have a choice of different operations:

-Establish Network (Intrigue Level 0, Very Easy difficulty): Establish the Agent's operational network and gather additional information about the city. The higher the Agent's rank the more information is provided. Once established, the network remains until the Agent leaves the city or is killed (Gives the player access to a UI that provides an Intel Report on the city, showing current yields and production, research target,  presence of counter-intelligence Agents in the city, and a history of previous ops in that city).
-Siphon Energy (Intrigue Level 0, Easy difficulty): "Steal" a lump sum of Energy (which is not subtracted from the target's supply)
-Steal Science (Intrigue Level 1, Easy difficulty): "Steal" a lump sum of Science (which is not subtracted from the target's supply) and apply it towards the technology that you are currently researching.
-Steal Technology (Intrigue Level 2, Moderate difficulty): gives you a technology that the target player has researched.
Recruit Defectors: Gifts you 1-3 military units (depending on Agent level), randomly selected from the classes that the target can build, near your Capital.
-Hack Satellites (Intrigue Level 4, Moderate difficulty): De-orbit all satellites within 5 hexes of the target City.
-Coup D'etat (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): Claim control of the city for yourself. Works with Capitals as well as normal cities.
-Dirty Bomb (Purity level 11) (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): Detonate a nuclear device in the city, reducing the city's Population by half.
-Call Worm Strike (Harmony level 11) (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): Activate a device which attracts Siege Worms to a city.
-Sabotage (Supremacy level 11) (Intrigue Level 5, Moderate difficulty): ?
Whether the operation succeeds or fails, the Agent can remain undetected, be detected (the target is informed that something happened, but not who did it), be identified (the target is informed who conducted the operation, and the Agent flees the city), or captured and killed. So an operation can succeed but result in a captured Agent, or it may fail but allow the Agent to remain in the city undetected.

Intrigue
As an Agent completes successful Operations in a city, he or she builds Intrigue, which is represented on a 0-5 scale. Each Operation has an Intrigue requirement; more damaging Operations require a higher level of Intrigue; an Intrigue level of 4 or higher is required for Operations that will overtly damage the target. There are a number of ways to counter intrigue: you can station counter-intelligence agents in the city, or deploy certain types of satellites near the city.

Agents in friendly cities can still perform counter-intelligence, which reduces Intrigue in addition to attempting to uncover foreign agents. Another addition is a choice of National Security Project missions, which is a cumulative task that Agents can add to if they are left at Headquarters. The options include:

Homeland Security: +1% City Strength and +1% City Hit Points for each Agent at Headquarters.
Research and Development: +1% Production for Wonders for each Agent at Headquarters.
Propaganda: +2% Health for each Agent at Headquarters.
Operations Support: Lowers the risk to Covert Agents doing Operations for each Agent at Headquarters.
Operations Reconnaissance: Increases the chance of Operation success for each Agent at Headquarters.
There is a series of quests (beginning with "For Your Eyes Only") involving the Culper Ring, which will award additional agents and ultimately the Culper Lodge, a building which levels up your agents.

Will Miller:

One of the systems we're really excited about is the white hat black hat covert ops. It takes espionage from Brave New World and expands it quite a bit. You can do many, many more things with spies when you get them in cities and things like smuggling from them and stealing their research and technology to things like planting the Dune thumper device in their city and having worms pop out. Only the Harmony player can do that. Or setting off a nuclear explosion, a dirty bomb in their city. There's some stuff that's white hat stuff that's done peacefully, that's not detrimental to the other player but is still clandestine, so if the AI catches you doing it they're not going to be pleased about it, but it benefits you and doesn't harm them as much. Then the more clandestine activity happens in a city, we call it intrigue, there's an intrigue level that increments. Once that gets real high you can start doing things that are more directly offensive, like detonating a bomb or sending the aliens to attack. You telegraph that the - there's a part of the HUD that's your intrigue. Once it gets to a certain threshold you can see, you don't know who's doing it, but you can see that there's a lot of intrigue going on, so I'd better put counterspies in here, or I'd better build the office of homeland security to clamp it down. There's several ways, virtues, buildings, even satellites can assist you in defending yourself against covert action.

If an agent is killed, can it be replaced, or does that permanently remove on agent from your potential pool?

[sisko]

we don't have an answer to that question in the video.
but considering that spies aren't produced like other units, there's a strong possibility that once eliminated, you cannot replace them.