Feature Request: Spies Technology

Age of Empires: DE I - Discussion
#1

Right now, many games end with heroic quests for the last hidden villager of your opponent.

I would like to see a technology similar to Spies in AoE II and AoE III, and Omniscience in Age of Mythology.

After researching Spies, the Line of Sight of your enemy is shared with you. This way, you can easily finish off the last few units without having to scout the entire map. If it’s the same as in AoE II, it would be 200 gold per enemy villager, with a minimum of 200 gold and a maximum of 30,000 gold.

Adding this technology to the Government Center would make the most sense. Devs would have to disable it for some of the campaign scenarios of course, especially those where you start in Iron Age.

Any thoughts?

5 Likes
#2

It is an excellent idea. The last games I played ended half an hour after the enemy had already been crushed, but as a sore loser he was still running around the map.

it is very necessary to add this, along with the flare function.

3 Likes
#3

This would DEFINITELY be nice as a cheat code.

I’m not sure of it as being implemented as a technology, though, since it would involve some strange stuff. Makes me think about the Afterlife technology, and how it works similarly, but with priests’ LOS.

If it’s called Omniscience instead of Spies, I would agree, since the name alone would link up some kind of knowledge from a higher power/being. Like “Omniscience allows the player to share exploration with your enemies, thanks to the gods” (or something like that).

Good idea indeed. Makes more sense in Age 1, Mythology and Age 2, but not Age 3, though, since religions in the epochs covered were actually fading in imporance and science and technology (took place) were at their most relevant times.

Oh yes… [Feature Request] Minimap Flare

#4

It shouldn’t be too difficult to implement. It’s basically the same as the Writing technology, but for enemies instead of allies. Icon can be copied from AoE2.

Of course, there are some small issues: a tech with a variable cost (which is unique in AoE), adding it to the tech tree, disabling it in the campaign scenarios. But it should be easy to implement, I think.

3 Likes
#5

Not bad idea. I have also found myself in such situation but against AI. And using “reveal map” and “no fog” cheat doesn’t feel right.
But when we are talking about cost then 200 per villager in aoe1 is too much 100 would be better. Since gold in Aoe 1 is much more limited than in Aoe2, where you can use markets, relics, or better trade without giving your own resources for gold and gold tiles in aoe2 yield more gold than in aoe1.

2 Likes
#6

The cost is not a good idea, considering gold doesn’t have same value as AOE2’s.

I think it would be a better condition to have a check on how much % of population the ennemy has compared to world population. For instance, if you are down to 5% of the world population, your position could be automatically revealed.

1 Like
#7

Sure, we can discuss about the cost. In AOE3 it is 75 per enemy unit, in AOM it is 100 per enemy unit. But in AOE1 gold is very valuable compared to the other games.

I think you have to make a balance between 1) making sure it is affordable at the end of the game when the opponent is hiding a couple of units across the map, but 2) making it expensive enough to avoid it being used mid-game. That’s also something to consider, in a 1v1 50 pop game Spies might be too affordable, especially after a good raid (which is easier in AOE1 than in AOE2). Personally, I think it is OK to make it expensive, even if that means you sometimes can’t research it when you should be able to (e.g. when the map ran out of gold). That’s better than making it too cheap so you can sometimes research it when you shouldn’t be able to research it (e.g. mid-game).

That being said, the most important thing for me would be to simply have it in the game. The exact gold cost, and whether the gold cost is per villager or per unit (or percentage of world population as you suggest) is basically all fine for me. That could always be changed in a later patch anyway.

2 Likes
#8

Big +1 please, just played one in matchmaking and the dude got harshly defeated but hid in some corners and forests, very annoying

2 Likes
#9

I can’t remember if it’s Starcraft or C&C where you automatically can see all their units if they don’t rebuild their base within a certain window of time. I recall that the window felt a little short, but it’s hard to imagine a player coming back from that after getting crushed. Some other metrics could also be considered, like number of houses or total population.

1 Like
#10

I think it is WarCraft 3, not sure though.