Could someone please explain how to defend against spys. We (my friend and I, we were playing a MP game) were having difficulty figuring out exactly how to maximize chance for failure of enemy spies. We just assumed keeping your own spies in a city would make it harder to sabotage, is that how it works, or is ther more to it?

And, is it possible to see/expose enemy spies at all? or is just a matter of luck with them failing their mission?

Thanks in advance.

fortify units and spies on the tile is basically it, and frankly it doesn't garuantee anything, i've only once seen the "we have captured and liquidated and enemy spy" msg

Could someone please explain how to defend against spys. We (my friend and I, we were playing a MP game) were having difficulty figuring out exactly how to maximize chance for failure of enemy spies. We just assumed keeping your own spies in a city would make it harder to sabotage, is that how it works, or is ther more to it?

And, is it possible to see/expose enemy spies at all? or is just a matter of luck with them failing their mission?

Thanks in advance.

Your first responent pretty much covered it, with one exception. You can find enemy spies by using the F5 key. You can't so anything to them, but at least you will know when to guard something by judging how close they're getting. Keep in mind that some of us consider that the F5 tracks them as being a bug, so any future patches may remove that capability.

F5, eh?

Thanks for your help guys:goodjob:

obviously your military advisor should only see what you can see too! It IS a bug, and using this is an exploit.

You can find enemy spies by using the F5 key. You can't so anything to them, but at least you will know when to guard something by judging how close they're getting. Keep in mind that some of us consider that the F5 tracks them as being a bug, so any future patches may remove that capability.

That's a bug alright. What's the use of an invisible unit that can be seen?:crazyeye:

That's a bug alright. What's the use of an invisible unit that can be seen?:crazyeye:

Yeah, but I was also thinking that if the enemy spy were within range, whatever that is, that you could actually see it on the board without F5. If that is so, that they meant for us to see it on that level and we cannot (and I know from certain experience that you cannot), then seeing them through F5 isn't necessarily so bad. Besides, if you were to guard your more prominent possessions closet to the border, the only objects of worth for the enemy spy may be within your civ's more interior reaches. If it came down to that, and you were being watchful, you could still tell the relative whereabouts of it by virtue of you having spotted enemy units on watch, and though you would not see the unit, you would see the screen readjusting as it tracks a unit you cannot see; obviously being a spy.

how to maximize chance for failure of enemy spies.

As Crighton said, fortify units and spies on the tiles you want to protect. Many people have reported that even with massive stacks on critical resources, spies were still able to repeatedly destroy the improvements.

I've not tested it myself, but I remember reading another post that said having a spy on the tile drops the chance of success by 50%. For instance, if the spy's chance of success is 20%-70%, that means the spy has a 70% chance of success if there is no counter-spy in the tile, and a 20% chance of success if there is.

In addition to what Crighton said and slightly off topic is to have a ready force of workers standing by at critical resources so you can repair any damage from an enemy spy in the same turn.

As Crighton said, fortify units and spies on the tiles you want to protect. Many people have reported that even with massive stacks on critical resources, spies were still able to repeatedly destroy the improvements.


Yeah, this is what through us off. He stacked a huge army in his city, along with all his spies, and I still saboged production in the city twice in a row. I was way behind and bought alot of time by sabotaging his Apollo Program.

In addition to what Crighton said and slightly off topic is to have a ready force of workers standing by at critical resources so you can repair any damage from an enemy spy in the same turn.

Good luck. You're going to be paying through the nose for that convenience. That would take 25 workers to do it in one turn.

Good luck. You're going to be paying through the nose for that convenience. That would take 25 workers to do it in one turn.

I've done it before, it's really not that hard. By the endgame there are often times when your workers literally have nothing to build so why not organize them into repair crews and station them at key locations?

Where did you get the 25 workers figure from? How many improvements takes 25 turns to build? You will need one worker for each turn that the improvement costs to construct in order to re-construct the same improvement in one turn.

X turns to build = X workers in the repair crew = it can be rebuilt the same turn it was destroyed by the enemy spy.

The worker system is fine for resources and tile improvements, but it still can't make up for having a project being wrecked a couple of turns before completion. It seems the best way to deal with that is to position spies in your important cities and hope for the best.

I've done it before, it's really not that hard. By the endgame there are often times when your workers literally have nothing to build so why not organize them into repair crews and station them at key locations?

Where did you get the 25 workers figure from? How many improvements takes 25 turns to build? You will need one worker for each turn that the improvement costs to construct in order to re-construct the same improvement in one turn.

X turns to build = X workers in the repair crew = it can be rebuilt the same turn it was destroyed by the enemy spy.

That would be the all-important oil derricks (25 turns), which seems to be the only resource the AI is interested in destroying by means of spies. Myself, I probably never build more than 5-10 workers, and if I get any more it's only because attacking netted them as spoils, and at some point I'm disposing of them to save money. I suppose if you literally have nothing for them to do that would be the thing to do, but that would need 25 to do it. I don't think I care too much for that strategy, particularly when I consider how easy it is for me to dismantle an AI oil resource and how long it takes him to get it up again. Even though I limit my number of workers, considering what I just said, it's also obvious that I should not exactly overpower getting it operational again; Five guys, tops (though I think I've been doing that without guidelines anyway).

That would be the all-important oil derricks (25 turns), which seems to be the only resource the AI is interested in destroying by means of spies. Myself, I probably never build more than 5-10 workers, and if I get any more it's only because attacking netted them as spoils, and at some point I'm disposing of them to save money. I suppose if you literally have nothing for them to do that would be the thing to do, but that would need 25 to do it. I don't think I care too much for that strategy, particularly when I consider how easy it is for me to dismantle an AI oil resource and how long it takes him to get it up again. Even though I limit my number of workers, considering what I just said, it's also obvious that I should not exactly overpower getting it operational again; Five guys, tops (though I think I've been doing that without guidelines anyway).

25 turns just doesn't sound right. I've never had a work crew that large and I've repaired oil wells in one turn lots of times. I always play on Marathon/Huge/Emperor so my build times should be comparatively slow. By the time you get to where you can build oil wells your workers should have been sped up to where it shouldn't take 25 turns to build anything I can think of.

I'll do some research and find out the exact time to build a well in the modern era with non-Indian workers.

The AI only sends out one worker to repair damage and that is a totally different topic.

What difficulty level do you play on?

EDIT - Is the 25 turn figure an exact amount from the game or something you guessed?

I though oil takes 15 turns to build with one worker. (Depends on game speed. I think 15 is on epic)

About the spys, there is not much you can do. Their should be, but their's not.

25 turns just doesn't sound right. I've never had a work crew that large and I've repaired oil wells in one turn lots of times. I always play on Marathon/Huge/Emperor so my build times should be comparatively slow. By the time you get to where you can build oil wells your workers should have been sped up to where it shouldn't take 25 turns to build anything I can think of.

I'll do some research and find out the exact time to build a well in the modern era with non-Indian workers.

The AI only sends out one worker to repair damage and that is a totally different topic.

What difficulty level do you play on?

EDIT - Is the 25 turn figure an exact amount from the game or something you guessed?

The 25 turns is precisely what the game shows whilst playing on noble marathon. That's probably where you're seeing the difference, the marathon thing. Also, though probably not the case with yourself, some of the builds are quicker anyway because the work that was done on it was left over from the unit(s) that were working on it, getting attacked, because what's put into it is left behind instead of reset when the work is interrupted. OTOH, I'm not sure what the repair rate of the modern age is in relation to fixing one of those things. You would have thought that I had modern age workers doing the repairs, and when I sent two guys over there for example, that amount of turns dropped to 13. Every worker added to that dropped it accordingly. Unlike roads for example, perhaps since the oil wells are made in the same age when the workers get better, it doesn't reshift it's ratio because it's assumed that to have the wells you have to be in that more advanced worker age. Roads, have to span several ages so of course their build rate would drop as the workers get better. Just a guess though...

At least they could detect other spys and should be harder build them, maybe a specific GP only given by the respective wonder. I dont like the way he is implanted in civ4.

Chieftain normal



non indean workers take 10 turns to biuld wells