I'm not sure I like the idea of having to assign any of my heroes to do espionage, tying them up on essentially trivial tasks. Being a huge fan of the underhanded game, though, I'd love for there to be specific actions for them to perform in relation to assassination, stealth, and so on.

I'm hoping for Elemental to really allow you to play that kind of underhanded game, hit-and-run tactics, cloaked units, and so on.

I think I'd prefer for there to be scrying magic than bog standard espionage. Although invisible spies could also be cool.

Counter with magic that block scrying and we are back to old school spying.

Beside the quest victory will require some infiltration as you might need to explore a dungeon deep inside the enemie territories.

On further tough I can defitnaly see magic being used to aid in any possible operation. For example you can either have an 'agent' inside the enemy keep or have your own wizard make a magical statue that can 'see' for you and thats what happens to be sent to your enemy as a gift.

We all know that when you army's meet we get a combat encounter how about something similar for spionage? Example as your hero and some of his men go in to assasinate enemy uber general. The have a field to cross and camp to inflitrate  w/o sounding an alarm and reach their target. This could be layed out like a battle grid. Just an idea.

I thought that in Civ4 BTS the espionage system was a bit heavy handed. I'd love to see a subtle and balanced system that could be ignored- espionage should be a minor aspect of the game. By no means should it be allowed to balloon in importance past a tool in your arsenal into a staple of your Civ.

Bears wielding daggers?

I thought they had 10 built in daggers for nails - silly me...

Its not so much an idea, but rather just a comment.   I know some of my more hardcore Civ 4 fan friends hate the espianoge in that game because once the expansion pack added it, you could no longer view the world without putting an annoyingly hefty amount of resources into covert ops.  While adding an interesting element to the game, the inability to turn it off also made it very frustrating.Its like if you are not counterspying, then you are pretty much screwed.  While that is pretty realistic, its a shame to those who do not wish to deticate a bunch of resources to it, since it becomes a core mechanic with as much as it does.    Simple spying, like just being able to know what an enemy is casting x-turns after they start may be all we really need.

Maybe not "the" question, but certainly a major basic parameter for how the rest of the stuff might work. Things could be wildly different depending on whether channelers might normally have full knowledge of any land or unit they've imbued with essence or whether the process of that essence transfer leaves no enduring connection.

For me, the question of making hero units the core of any intel/covert ops system really depends on how common hero units will be on the largest maps and how long it will take them to move around in a typical 'hot zone.' If hero units are relatively numerous (e.g. several tens of them by late mid-game), I wouldn't have a problem if getting intel or assassinating an enemy hero required a hero unit.

At the moment, I quite like the idea of map units for this part of the game, but I think I'd prefer them to be 'regular' units and not the questing heros. Building spy-blinds in the wilderness, opening a frybread stall in an enemy city's market and just listening, or even poisoning the toasting cup at an enemy hero's fete could all be done by a less-than-hero unit with the right training and gear.

I also am greedy enough to want both unit-based stuff *and* channeler magic for things like that watchful statue _D7_ mentions.

I think there should be no fog of war within some range of population centers and watchtowers - like in galciv 2 (planets/starbases have an LoS). But I think it should be a pretty significant range. Could be explained away as travelers talking about what they saw, indirectly reaching your channeler's ears. It could even scale with population, to a limited extent (could be logarithmic growth, for example). That way a 1 million population city wouldn't be able to see half the world - in fact it'd hardly be able to see more than a 100k pop city would see.

Scouts would have to patrol or be stationed at key locations that aren't covered by that default LoS. And just because there's no fog of war in those regions doesn't mean things can't be hidden by you - stealth units, concealed objects or structures, and anything magically enchanted to avoid detection should be much harder to detect.

Ok the discussion got me thinking. I like the luckmann's idea of 'watchtowers'. The can behave as LOS stations, that lift the fog of war around them depending on how upgraded/well constructed they are. This would also open up the possibility of placing towers at the border to observe the enemy movements or having a 'stealthy' tower that you could place in enemy turf. Now these could just give you simple information. For example "Farsight tower reports a large enemy army of well over 10,000 men marching towards <insert city name>" which would not be the same as having a detailed breakdown of numbers or units types.

I also like this idea. Esentially you could create 'inflintration units'. Who better to find enemy info if one of your units happens to run the local bar? Another could join their army and perforn sabotage depending on the orders you left this particular unit. One could be a sculptor who has magical training to make some very intresting statues...

I still some missions should be done by major heroes. Especifically theft of major artifacts or assasinations of other heroes.