Hi!
At first i didn´t like the new espionage system, and I didn´t bother invest in espionage buildings and points. I was however forced to because the AI used spies alot and it started to become annoying. I now use Spies alot and here is somethings I learned on how to use the spies most effeciently.

1) Invest at least 10% of you gnp in to espionage (i have min 20% unless i compete for a tech).

2) Build courthouses, jails and other espionage genereting points as soon as possible.

3)Focus your espionage points on the oppnent that are most hostile upon you (the one that is most likely gong to atack you) or the opponent whom you wish to attack. Do not waste espionage points on freindly civs whom you are fine, priotize.

4)Try and generate a great spy to use against your opponent (espionage more succesfull).

5)Use you spies to sabotage your enemies cities-->towns-->hamlets (in that order). The less money they generate the less espionage points they can use against you and the more succes you have on your espionage missions. Another great side effect against aggrasive civs is that they will not afford to sustain their huge armies, their economy willl go broke and they will start to fall serioslly behind in tech. Don't bother with the other improvements their workers will improve them shortly after, but towns, hamlets etc, take long time to mature.

6) Now you can start destroying their infrastructure, start with their espionage generating buildings (to have even better succes in your espionage) and then go after their forges and facotries (don't bother with banks, universities etc. cause they don't generate much money so they can benefit from them (no cotages hamlets etc) unless its a holy city with a shrine.

Now you enemy are ready to be attacked as they don't have as big an army as theyu would have had plus they have a lower production. Before you attack remember to find their strategic ressouces wich you need to sabotage after the war has stared.

Same startegy can be used to a pacifist sceince run away civ like Ghandi and Mansa Musa, just destroy their cities, town etc.

Ofcourse you need alot of spies to get an oppnent down on his knees quick, but they are cheap and they return after a succesfull mission. You can bankrupt an oppnent less then 15 rounds (standard size civ on standard map) and faster if they have railway.


Note that this startegy can be looked upon as a taking advange off a broken fetaure but never the less you are free to not follow the strategy.

I'd say go for the courthouse they are using Corps. The ability to increase just their corp maintenance by at least 1.5 to 2 times, not to mention all other maintenance costs that happen. coupled with the inflation rates late in the game, they will suffer horribly.

Another handy tactic, just in case you tried to do the DOMINANT STRATEGY(tm) and axe-rushed yourself into bankruptcy, is to pile in great people points in your capital to get a great spy.* Take him to the, now quite advanced, neighbour and infiltrate.

Viola, you now can steal a load of techs and claw your way back into contention while your economy recovers through judicious usage of cottages.

*You obviously would have had no time for building 'girly wonders' while you employed the DOMINANT STRATEGY (tm) so the Great Spy will be 100% certain of being born. Fail-proof plan, ahoy!

:crazyeye:

a great spy infiltration early in the game = 5 to 6 free techs. starting around education, nationalism, infiltration becomes less useful for stealing techs. only 1-2 techs could be stolen with the points from infiltration. so join your great spy, then try to get a scotland yard with another one.

a great spy infiltration early in the game = 5 to 6 free techs. starting around education, nationalism, infiltration becomes less useful for stealing techs. I've never infiltrated with a great spy, but can it deliver so much? :eek:

With an early great spy you can use spies to take down city walls (incite revolt), making conquest much easier. I used this with Sitting Bull and the Great Wall. I could skip construction and used spies instead of catapults.

I usualy use my spies right before im going to invade someone, i destroy their iron/copper (i have disabled the poison water and make everyone angry missions as they to powerfull on marathon)
Then my spies sabotage or cause anarchy to slow the enemy making units.

Another handy tactic, just in case you tried to do the DOMINANT STRATEGY(tm) and axe-rushed yourself into bankruptcy


Did someone say DOMINANT STRATEGY?

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/5036/kekegb5.jpg

I also found it to be effective to put some of your own spies in your own cities. The increase the chance of foreign spies to be caught.

That screen shot is hilarious:lol:

I only ever use spies in my own territory now. Usually 2 spies are placed in my main cities, 1 spy in every other city and some spies spread over my borders. I don't bother with missions any more.

That screen shot is hilarious:lol:

I only ever use spies in my own territory now. Usually 2 spies are placed in my main cities, 1 spy in every other city and some spies spread over my borders. I don't bother with missions any more.

I don't think placing spies in your own cities has an effect. but proof me wrong!

I don't think placing spies in your own cities has an effect. but proof me wrong!

It does, it increases your chances of catching an opposing spy once they're in your city.

If it doesn't, it doesn't, but I'm lucky if the AI now gets two successes using this tactic.

Isnt it easier to sent a spy to an enemy city and use counter espionage

Isnt it easier to sent a spy to an enemy city and use counter espionage

I wouldn't say it is easier, consider you need to get a spy safely to the enemy city and you will need to put a number of espionage points. Not too mention that you need to do this for all you enemies and neighbors.

If you just put a spy in all your important cities you will experience that enemie attacks are more easily see and stopped.

Isnt it easier to sent a spy to an enemy city and use counter espionage

Can't be arsed sending spies all across the globe. If I'm going to send anything, it will be my military. A civ can't use espionage against you once they're wiped off the map.

It certainly does increase the chance of spies being caught. I recommended my wife to place a spy in her border city and I then tried to do my 'camp until it's reduced by 50% and then steal all her techs', which I had been doing successfully since the Great Wall.

This time my spy was caught one turn after moving there!

I've never infiltrated with a great spy, but can it deliver so much? :eek:

indeed. try it :D

Spies make war so much easier. Incite a 1-turn revolt in a city and observe that its cultural defense drops to 0%. Now instead of spending turns having your siege weapons bomb it down to 0%, you can just send them in for collateral damage and carry out the main attack. War becomes much more efficient when you add a little spy power.

I've never infiltrated with a great spy, but can it deliver so much? :eek:

Not sure if it scales by game level. At Noble, you receive 3000 points which instantly gives you all the passive missions - meaning, you can see 100% into all of their cities.

at first I did not become very involved with espinage, but when i played a game i realized that my capitol city went from population of 11 to about 3 in a handful of turn, the ai was using some kind of propaganda or something in my city,(caused unhappyness0 after that i saw the potential of them but i myself have not been able to affect the enemy as well, as they effect me, mostly because i am bad when it comes to managing my own cities, but i will soon change my game play.

im trying to put unhealthy and unhappy missions in the same city, and then destroy all of that city growth buildings granery aquduct, my goal is to lower the population, but i am realy wanting to cause a meltdown in a nuclear powerplant.

The AI poisoned my water supply and ran my city's population from 7 down to 1 pretty quickly. That is one mission that seems beefed up over the good old days of older Civ versions. (Edit...there is a debate about this being a bug--I play marathon speed and the poisoning and unhappiness missions are deadly on that speed).

I also noticed a note about using spies defensively that shows up as a hint while reloading a save game. I haven't read it since it went by so fast, but it said something about putting spies in your cities to stop enemy spies.

I noticed some options I was expecting to use were not available. For example, I had originally thought that we would have an option to Block Enemy Spies From Entering Our Borders and regular spies would be able to see othere spies and have a "kill them" option. If it was truly intended for theses options to be removed, then I feel the cost in EPs should probably be increased significantly so that both we and the AI can not spam spy missions in a short period of time or the percentage of success should be lowered and increase incrementally the longer a spy doesn't move just like the cost decreases. Also I have seen it stated in another post about no Diplo Penalties for the AI getting caught and that should be addressed as well. And finally, spies traveling through Friendly Civs cities WITH open borders should not be caught. If anyone was wondering about that, they can be caught.
Oh yeah, on slight tangent, I noticed that with the No Tech Brokering option checked, stolen techs are considered researched and other Civs will badger you with Demands and tech trades. I wondered if that is intentional or a bug?

I found out that spies is also great to be used in culture wars. Now many more of your cities can help a border city to win its culture war against an opponents sorrounding cities. Concentrate on culture buildings on the border city while your other cities are building spies and send them over to the opponents cities sourounding your city and use them to destroy the culture buildings. And use the espionage slider instead of using the culture slider. Because when you use the culture slider all the core cities you have will waste their culture points because they don't need the extra culture but when if they instead generate espionage points then they can be used to destroy more culture buildings faster than the opponent can rebuild them. You can also very easily flip a city this way.

I prefer to settle my first Great Spy in the capital, and building the Scotland Yard with my 2nd. Settle 3rd, and you have 60 EP per turn with just palace and courthouse at 0% Espionage slider from the capital alone.