Sid Meier's Civilization V

Sid Meier's Civilization V

Covert Operations - Making Spies Great Again
289 Comments
SmokeyGarrett 2 Jul @ 4:14pm 
who ever made this mode, You gotta be a real one to know the craft as you listed. your service is appreciated! C;:steamthumbsup::steamhappy:
Kandor 18 Aug, 2024 @ 9:45am 
Mhmm.. Last response I saw from author is 4 years old, so maybe there is a new version. In case you see this though: If the mod is enabled, but spy is disabled in the game, you don't get spies, but the ai does. Kinda painful :D
Justin 17 Jun, 2024 @ 12:14pm 
could probably use an update but thanks for uploading
DavidBurnsideZF 22 Feb, 2024 @ 10:04am 
When I perform the Pillage Terrain Improvement and I'm successful, one of my own improvements gets pillage instead of the Civ my spy is in.
KoffeeDoggo 30 Jul, 2021 @ 2:47am 
whaaat? you cant do stealth espionage? as you complete a mission and they know that it was you?
KingHippy666 12 Jul, 2021 @ 10:49pm 
Does this work with JFD's stuff? One building is the jail, so would that help EP?
P1xelSm1th 29 Mar, 2021 @ 12:16pm 
This Mod Is Amazing, Thank You For Finally Making Espionage In Civ V Fun
S-Man  [author] 3 Sep, 2020 @ 11:00am 
@Born Down Under - I'm not sure how well it works with VP. IIRC, it should be OK. But, if you give it a try, please let me know what you think. I don't use VP, so I'm not in a position to balance the mod out for it. Feedback from players like yourself really is important if changes are needed.
BornDownUnder 29 Aug, 2020 @ 11:17pm 
This addon sounds great for improving espionage and certain diplomatic aspects of the game!

I am wondering though how does it play with Vox Populii?
S-Man  [author] 11 Jun, 2020 @ 8:59am 
Hello! New version (V6) uploaded. Please see change notes for details. Thanks!
S-Man  [author] 29 Feb, 2020 @ 12:11pm 
@Shavy - it should work with the JEM spy center mods. I think you'll see some duplicate spy names when you have more than 10 spies, but otherwise it should work fine.
S-Man  [author] 29 Feb, 2020 @ 12:09pm 
@STIG - there's a difference between "stable" and "good..." ;)

The mod is stable, crash-wise, usually no troubles with this at all. The "good" part of the problem is what you've pointed out: unknown Civs denounce and poison/rumors occurs way, way too often.

The problem with denouncements is there are very few ways to interact via LUA with the game's Diplomacy system. You can make "suggestions" to the AI, but the tools to get it to actually do something are quite crude and often perform in unexpected ways.

I've been taking a break from modding the past few months, but am almost ready to come back to this one and take another charge at the "premature denouncements" windmill...
xxx78 27 Feb, 2020 @ 11:10am 
Look like a great mod, waiting for next version :)
STIG 26 Jan, 2020 @ 12:27pm 
Hey S-Man! Really like this spy mod in terms of adding more flavor into the spying mechanics. Is the current version stable? I read some of the comments below saying the AI is denouncing way too much and AI poisoning your cities pops down to 1. Really appreciate your mods. I'm trying to have this added in my multiplayer game. :winter2019happyyul:
Shavy 11 Jan, 2020 @ 2:58pm 
Does this work with (JEM) spy center?
S-Man  [author] 17 Dec, 2019 @ 11:24am 
@Magatsu - it's still on the list to work on the next version.

Odd thing - in the last version, I completely removed absolutely ANY chance this mod could cause early denouncements.

And yet, they still occur... X^(

So, hopefully I can find some time to look into this soon, but TBH, I'm not exactly sure what to do to fix this.
xGoDcHiXxX(c -_-) 15 Dec, 2019 @ 5:26am 
Any progress on the denouncing bug? Really annoying. Makes this mod unplayable :( Other than that this mod is very fun and unique.
S-Man  [author] 14 Sep, 2019 @ 12:42pm 
Thanks - look at the slide for the mod - it describes how to turn off notifications. The OPs are still available, but you won't be notified at all.

The notification is only supposed to show when an OP was available. Currently, once an OP is available, it stays available until it is launched.

IIRC, I think I had intended for the OPs to not be available automatically the next turn - so that OPs would be available on a truly random basis. If you didn't launch it, you'd miss that window of opportunity.

Somehow, that fix hasn't made it into the mod yet. It's on my list.... 😖
Misha 14 Sep, 2019 @ 12:26pm 
Amazing mod, my only gripe is that the constant notifications about covert operations can be a little distracting. It's rare that I want to use a covert op immediately upon it being available, especially during the early game. Is there any way you could make it like the "you can purchase religious units" notification in that it pops up once it's ready but not every single turn after that?
S-Man  [author] 15 Aug, 2019 @ 1:14pm 
@Quethed - sorry for the delay getting back to you - have been taking a break from modding.

The problem is these denouncements are happening outside of this mod - thru the game's normal Diplomacy system. The last mod update removed all this mod's interactions with the Diplo system, so the erroneous denouncements should have stopped. Unfortunately, they didn't. So, now i have a situation where they are still happening, and this mod did nothing which should cause it.

Looks like I need to go back to the code and see if there's some other source of contamination that I haven't removed yet.
S-Man  [author] 15 Aug, 2019 @ 1:10pm 
@Commissar - I had a similar problem in a recent test game. Most of my cities were population of 20+ but my capital was stuck at 1... 😖

The mod is designed around the "Espionage Posture" concept - so that increasing EP around the capital would help prevent these attacks. I started placing additional units nearby and made sure any EP-friendly building available was built. I also made sure I had my most advanced spy there as well. Once I got the EP to about 75 or so, the success of these attacks dried up and the city grew normally.

But - it does show I need to tweak the system a bit - make the buildings more effective, add more buildings to the list, and set the max attack success odds lower.

I'm working on this in the next week or so. These missions are supposed to me more of an annoyance, not game breaking. Thanks!
CheifCommissar 29 Jul, 2019 @ 6:46pm 
Anyway to prevent spies posioing your wells? mine can't catch them and my 15 pop capital keeps getting poisoned down to 1
Drake4 18 May, 2019 @ 7:19pm 
if this helps fix unknown civ denouncing you: you can be denounced by civs you are at war with, unknown civs, and civs that already denounced you. (any time imaginable)
S-Man  [author] 18 May, 2019 @ 7:31am 
The difficulty in getting a good, extended spying system working is that there are very few methods in the API to directly interact with the game's Diplomacy System. Most of the time, you can give "suggestions" to the Diplo System, but it will quickly overwrite these and do what it originally wanted to do in the first place.

I'll take a look at the code, but I do believe it is quite possible to remove many of the missions while an active peace treaty exists. I'd probably leave Conduct Recon, and Spread Rumors/Propaganda in. Other possible missions might include Pillage Terrain Improvement, Steal Gold, and Sabotage Production, and perhaps a couple more.

If you have any suggestions about the legal missions, let me know. Thanks!
Drake4 18 May, 2019 @ 4:47am 
...and another thing is can you disable spies doing things in peace treaties. stuff like poisoning wells is an act of war irl.
S-Man  [author] 18 May, 2019 @ 1:11am 
@Quethed - remove denouncing? That's the bread and butter of international relations! 😁

Seriously, there are a couple of more things I can try to stop this behavior. If they don't work, I think removing denouncing is probably a really good Plan B.
Drake4 17 May, 2019 @ 8:03pm 
I would recommend to remove anything related to denouncing in the mod. that could fix the bug.
S-Man  [author] 15 May, 2019 @ 4:49am 
@Mr. Midnight/cavvy - thanks for the reports. It looks like my "fix" for the unknown civ denouncements needs fixing... 😢

Sorry about that. I'll take a look at it for the next version. Appreciate the info!
S-Man  [author] 15 May, 2019 @ 4:48am 
@Tassarho - currently, there is a 3% chance of PermaWar as a response to a Covert Op. I've made a note to reduce that to 1% in the next version. I really want to keep it in the mod, but can see how problematic PermaWars can be in a game spanning 6000 years.

I was toying with a idea that the mod would check every X turns (maybe every 10 or 20 turns), look at all the open wars, then a random 50% of the time would remove the permanence from them - if they were permanent. I could add a notification to let players know that "all sides in the conflict have signaled an interest in peace negotiations..." or something like that.

Any suggestions on how to manage all this? I'm open to suggestions for the next version. Thanks!
cavvy 7 May, 2019 @ 5:50am 
Been denounced by every civ I have yet to meet mod has problems
Mr. Midnight 26 Apr, 2019 @ 9:52pm 
@S-Man - I had played it on April 12, the day I posted the comment. Just played it now, clearing the game cache before playing, and it happened again. The game also told me about a civilisation I had met conducting operations on Polynesia (who I had not met). I don't know if that's normal or not though.
Tassarho 18 Apr, 2019 @ 7:15am 
Is there a way to remove the permanent war from international response? It's quite annoying in multiplayer^^'
Sentinel1124 14 Apr, 2019 @ 1:21pm 
Is anyone else subscribing to the mod but nothing happens I.e no download ,no folder in the Mods folder ?
S-Man  [author] 12 Apr, 2019 @ 5:33am 
@Mr. Midnight - the version released on April 8th should have fixed the unknown civ denouncing error. Did you start a new game after this date?

Is so, it would be best to clear the game cache, then try again with a new game. If the problem persists, then maybe I didn't fix the problem... :^/
Mr. Midnight 12 Apr, 2019 @ 1:19am 
Civilizations I haven't met keep denouncing me randomly and it says they are 'emotionless' ??????

I have other mods active such as more luxuries but I don't understand how that would cause civs to randomly denounce me. Plz fix! (playing on mac)
S-Man  [author] 8 Apr, 2019 @ 8:05am 
Version 5 is now published! Please see Change Notes for more details.

And thanks to everyone who provided suggestions/bug reports - I think this version fixes a lot of the previous headaches.
劉秀 8 Apr, 2019 @ 12:16am 
a clearly reminder will be better , sometimes we don't know what we did will affect diplomacy , and did AI realise our operation or not :(

S-Man  [author] 5 Apr, 2019 @ 10:49am 
Greetings, everyone. I'm in the process of updating this mod (finally!). The main goal is to remove the denunciations from unknown civs, a few other QoL fixes, plus ensure full compliance with my main World at War mod.

If you have any last-minute suggestions, now is the time. Can always leave something here:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1293662755/1700542332314420075/

Thanks for your patience!
tipobaha 21 Feb, 2019 @ 8:59am 
I'm gonna try tonight. thanj you again.
S-Man  [author] 21 Feb, 2019 @ 8:21am 
@tip - the answer I've offered a few times is this:

**************************

I'm not sure about compatibility with VP. That mod is quite extensive and touches so many aspects of the game, I can see how it might be a problem.

OTOH, if VP doesn't replace the "Espionage Overview" UI (and almost no mods do), then the mods should work relatively well together.

If you do test it, I'd really appreciate it if you can send me a note back about how well they play together.

**************************

Up until now, no one has came back with an answer. Could be it works, and they were too busy to respond. Or it choked, and they were too mad to come back...?
tipobaha 21 Feb, 2019 @ 7:55am 
one last question, i know you got this so many times, is it working with VP ?
tipobaha 21 Feb, 2019 @ 7:40am 
omg thank you so much :faceWorker:
S-Man  [author] 17 Feb, 2019 @ 8:44am 
Sorry for the delay, everyone. The World at War WW2 Scenario - that should have been done in mid-January is still giving me fits, and proving to be the best time sink I've encountered in quite a while... 😫

I do expect to get back to this mod "eventually" but not until that other mod is finally nailed to the floor...
tipobaha 17 Feb, 2019 @ 7:14am 
waiting for the update dude ! it's great.
RutraNickers 1 Feb, 2019 @ 7:55am 
I see you're planning to update this mod and probably haven't the time for, I'm just posting this to say that I really like this mod and you're doing a great job with it so take your time and don't rush things, love your work mate.
S-Man  [author] 30 Dec, 2018 @ 11:19am 
Hello, Everyone! I'm planning on updating this mod in a few days, so if you'd like to recommend any changes, please go to this link and leave a message. Thanks!

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1293662755/1744480967023988262/
Protokro*OK* 29 Dec, 2018 @ 4:11am 
Good idea but it has some bugs. For example civilizations who ı did not met denoucing me. Chance must be shown when we look at espoinage menu. There is always same chance value even ı send better spy to city. For exampe, for poison wells there is always same chance to succsess shown in espoinage(%55 always). actual chance must be shown on espoinage to make more accurate desicions
heztwan 18 Dec, 2018 @ 10:53am 
This actually seems like a must-have, right next to infoAddict and City-State Diplomacy. I have just tried a little with it so far, but I already love it.
That being said, I did run into a few bugs that I would love it if you could take a look at. First and formost, the AI players now greet me with denounciations before I have met them, then they introduce themselves. Somewhat hard to play like that...
Also, I looked to see what the different covert ops costed and then pressed not to assign an operation. Then the menu emptied but did not dissapear, preventing me from seeing the espionage "page". Anything I'm doing wrong? The mods I use are mainly civ-mods and small tweaks. The larger ones are CSD and InfoAddict.
Great mod! Keep up the good work!
CheckersNotChess 29 Nov, 2018 @ 1:27pm 
@S-Man - after some testing, this mod relibablely conflicts with After the Revolution and is causing the text error. In retrospect that should have been obvious I guess.
CheckersNotChess 29 Nov, 2018 @ 12:39am 
@S-Man - I've been getting the TXT_KEY_COVERT_OPS_MISSION_TITLE bug. Cleared cashes and reload several time with no fix.