Why so few Infiltrators?

[Geronus]

How about destroying paraphernalia? I'm thinking about siege engines in particular here. Not far fetched at all for the enemy to infiltrate the besieger's camp at night and try to light that recently completed siege tower on fire...

Beyond that, no reason healers, scouts and banners couldn't also be targeted.

[Penchant]

What about stealing info from characters? Things like sneaking into a marshal's tent and stealing his reports on the army's combat strength.

[Vellos]

Two things:

One, anything that makes the message system unreliable/suspect is bad for the game. Undermining the trust in the message system is an overall negative thing, regardless of what it purportedly adds to the infil game.

Two: When you are brainstorming infil ideas, please remember that the philosophy on infiltrators is moving *away* from the infil-as-ninja camp, and towards the infil-as-spymaster.

Let infils view secret society guildhouses in regions they are in.

Or at least let them see a number of how many such guildhouses exist.

Let infiltrators message all other infiltrators on the continent.

Let infiltrators cash bonds anywhere.

Let infiltrators see marshal settings.

Let infiltrators see standing orders.

Let infiltrators "hire informants" so they can see messages/events that are sent to everyone in a region for the next few days (so they'd get notices about travel in the area, and receive messages sent to "everyone in..." and get lords' reports, etc).

Just some ideas.

[Sacha]

Let infils view secret society guildhouses in regions they are in.

If that gets implemented, there will hardly be such a thing as secret societies, just guilds with select membership. Realms will just have infils go from region to region to seek out societies and before long none of them will be secret anymore.

[Vellos]

If that gets implemented, there will hardly be such a thing as secret societies, just guilds with select membership. Realms will just have infils go from region to region to seek out societies and before long none of them will be secret anymore.

True.

Maybe just let them view the number of such guildhouses in a region, not their names. Or give them an option to snoop around for secret societies and, if they find one, to request membership. Maybe have some kind of chance of false-positive (I dunno, have like a random secret-society name generator that gives names for fake organizations).

This is sounding increasingly elaborate to code.

But I think a minimum of allowing them to see IF a secret society is present/how many (but not give them a name) would be fair. Maybe even give them an option to send a message to the leaders of said secret society without being a member?

[Anaris]

I like the idea of infiltrators being able to detect secret societies. Right now, if there is a secret society that was founded by a Lord who was later banished for treason, there is no way to detect and destroy it, and ways to do so in a balanced manner have been on my list to figure out for some time now.

But just see them as they pass through? Hell, no! They need to put some work into it! Preferably have some risk, too—after all, if you're poking around in seedy places for long enough, chances are someone's going to want to break your legs. Or your face. Or something else important.

[Anaris]

Let infiltrators message all other infiltrators on the continent.

Let infiltrators cash bonds anywhere.

I like your other suggestions, but neither of these make a lot of sense.

[Foxglove]

I've liked the idea of infiltrators as spymasters since it was first suggested quite a long time ago. To make a change to that sort of role, rather than the ninja-type, I've always thought that they'd need their own class of recruitable NPCs - spies or agents - who would take over most of their current direct actions in the field.

When a spymaster/infiltrator wants to get something done, they'd then have to send out an agent to do it for them. For balance, the agents would probably have to be fairly expensive to maintain and also gain experience like captains do. The more experienced an agent, the more likely they are to succeed. But if one fails in a mission and gets killed the infiltrator has to train another one up from scratch by sending them on basic missions to gain experience before they'd be able to stand a chance of succeeding at anything more difficult. That would introduce a risk factor into deciding who to send on what mission, and also ensure that the spymaster doesn't become over-powered since the NPC agents would probably be killed and need to be replaced with rookies fairly regularly.

I don't really see how changing the infiltrator into a spymaster could work without doing something like that, because a spymaster naturally needs someone to do their dirty work for them.

[Anaris]

I've liked the idea of infiltrators as spymasters since it was first suggested quite a long time ago. To make a change to that sort of role, rather than the ninja-type, I've always thought that they'd need their own class of recruitable NPCs - spies or agents - who would take over most of their current direct actions in the field.

When a spymaster/infiltrator wants to get something done, they'd then have to send out an agent to do it for them. For balance, the agents would probably have to be fairly expensive to maintain and also gain experience like captains do. The more experienced an agent, the more likely they are to succeed. But if one fails in a mission and gets killed the infiltrator has to train another one up from scratch by sending them on basic missions to gain experience before they'd be able to stand a chance of succeeding at anything more difficult. That would introduce a risk factor into deciding who to send on what mission, and also ensure that the spymaster doesn't become over-powered since the NPC agents would probably be killed and need to be replaced with rookies fairly regularly.

I don't really see how changing the infiltrator into a spymaster could work without doing something like that, because a spymaster naturally needs someone to do their dirty work for them.

Now that's the kind of out-of-the-box thinking I'm looking for!

No idea if anything like this is remotely feasible yet, but I definitely like the concept.

[Dante Silverfire]

If infiltrators are to be turned into spymasters, perhaps the whole idea of assassinations should be taken out completely? As long as it stays in, they'll still be considered ninja's in some respect.

[Indirik]

Let infiltrators cash bonds anywhere.

I like your other suggestions, but neither of these make a lot of sense.

This one actually does make some sense. Infiltrators know things like the black market. Bonds could be sold/traded on the black market, but at a reduced rate, perhaps depending on the diplomatic relations between the two realms. The worse the relations, the lower the conversion rate (you're actually fencing the bonds at a "pennies on the dollar" rate), and the higher the risk. Something like this:

Relation	Rate
Federation	90%
Alliance	80%
Neutral	60%
War	40%
Hatred	20%

So, you *could* cash your bonds in a a city with whom you're at war, but you'd have to sell 100 bonds to get that 20 gold you need to pay your men. Expensive, but prohibitive.

[Anaris]

This one actually does make some sense. Infiltrators know things like the black market. Bonds could be sold/traded on the black market, but at a reduced rate, perhaps depending on the diplomatic relations between the two realms. The worse the relations, the lower the conversion rate (you're actually fencing the bonds at a "pennies on the dollar" rate), and the higher the risk. Something like this:

Relation	Rate
Federation	90%
Alliance	80%
Neutral	60%
War	40%
Hatred	20%

So, you *could* cash your bonds in a a city with whom you're at war, but you'd have to sell 100 bonds to get that 20 gold you need to pay your men. Expensive, but prohibitive.

That makes a lot more sense than simply cashing bonds outside the realm. :)

[Sacha]

Assassinations need to stay in the game in one form or another. Throughout history, assassinations have been a widely used political tool. The list of European rulers assassinated during the Middle Ages is quite long, so why should BM be any different?

[Dante Silverfire]

Assassinations need to stay in the game in one form or another. Throughout history, assassinations have been a widely used political tool. The list of European rulers assassinated during the Middle Ages is quite long, so why should BM be any different?

Probably because assassinations never seem to actually remove someone from their positions like they do in real life. Or, perhaps for the reason I stated before, in that people will still see them as ninjas. Or because an assassination deprives people from playing the game, while spymasters do not. Or, because infiltrators are no longer invisible.

[trying]

How about this?
Infiltrators can hire hitmen for gold. The more gold spent the better the hitman(there's your goldsink).
Since the hitmen are the ones doing the job there is no risk in the infiltrator getting caught(there's your low risk infiltrator option).
If the person assassinated has a bounty the hitman gets it.( So people will still want to stab in person)