Experimental 0.17

Hello everyone. Today I am releasing some of the major changes from 0.17 into the experimental branch. They will stay in this branch until I can ensure that they are balanced and stable enough for newer players.

Espionage

The big new feature is espionage. Espionage is controlled by espionage offense and defense, as well as diplomatic capacity.

When you spy on people, you gain a certain amount of influence each year, and you can stockpile 25 years worth of influence. You can use influence on operations, which require you to have a certain amount of influence and cost a certain amount when used.

Some operations are instantaneous, and others are continuous. Continuous operations usually grant modifiers to you or the enemy based on what they are. These modifiers are based on certain conditions specific to each operation.

For example, Siphon research allows for you to gain research speed based on how much more technologically advanced the person you are spying on is than you are. This is useful if you are a low literacy country like India.

Some operations are more destructive than others

Favors

Favors are a new mechanic for diplomacy. They can be granted at will to other powers, but beware that every favor you owe to another civilization will cost you if they decide to redeem it in a way you do not like. When you interact with another country that you have favors with, you can leverage your favors to make them accept your proposals or pay that much stability. While this may not be powerful with only 5 favors, if you have 50 or 100, you can essentially force other countries to do your bidding.

Every Favor counts as +1 for AI acceptance

Changelog

• Bug fixes

• Defensive culture trait no longer gives 2000% entrenchment

• You can now send resources to other countries

• Buff to AI situation

• Reduced number of regions in space

• New "Power meters" around planets to show who is present on them

• Reduced stuttering from AI operations