Spy detection

One point on the 'Switch' I believe you can only get then to change to Your Civics, so unless you are spiritual, you can only force them into a 'bad civic' if it is a civic that is bad for them but good for you.

I agree that the use of the 'Switch' is limited (although greatly strengthened by the spiritual trait and the Christo Redentor world wonder). Still, that doesn't mean that in the cases that it can be used, its cost should be related to the damage that it causes. That is not the case now.
 
No, that's a horrible choice. You should use both of them for Scotland Yard(s). The idea is that you are going with a spy economy. That means you are cranking your espionage slider, which means your top cities are generating (or should be generating) a lot more than the +12 eps you are going to get from settling. The only time you want to settle a GSpy is if you are not running a spy economy, and just want some extra eps to do a few spy missions.

Bh

I won't argue that if you are going for a spy economy that you should use them both for Scotland Yards. But the guy I was quoting said that he was just using specialist spys for his EP. He was ending up with two great spies expended in the same city. If that is happening early game then you should settle the first one and build Scotland Yard with the second.
 
So these calculations all involve the total number of EPs you've generated, regardless of how many you spent? I.e. if I generate 1000, and spend 200 on a mission, is the game still working with 1000 for purposes of detection?
 
it would be nice if someone could write a spy summary in English

lol :lol: , I agree. For strategy games mathcrafters are an exceptional resource of information.... but they're also the hardest to understand.

I read and re-read the article trying to work it out, but the complete formulas just do my head in :crazyeye:

Lets try to sum up, please correct me if I'm wrong in any of these statements.

- Open borders decrease detection chance / close borders increases detection

- A spy unit / security bureau only increases detection rates for the tile they occupy. (no adjacent bonuses)

- While building a security bureau in a city increases detection rates, the building itself acts as a spy unit in that city. Having a spy (or multiples) stationed in the same city will not increase detection rates, the bonus is a fixed value.

- As above, multiple spies on the same tile do not provide cumulative bonuses.

- Performing counter espionage against a civ, increases your detection rate of their spies. This is bonus does not stack, ie: performing multiple counter espionage missions will not continually increase your detection rate of their spies, the cost of missions against you will keep increasing though.

- As a general rule, the more espionage points you have generated. The greater chance you will detect enemy spies, as well as have your spies go undetected. (this is based on the ratio of your total EP vs their total EP)



i think that is the basics of it ????
 
Lets try to sum up, please correct me if I'm wrong in any of these statements.

- Performing counter espionage against a civ, increases your detection rate of their spies. This is bonus does not stack, ie: performing multiple counter espionage missions will not continually increase your detection rate of their spies, the cost of missions against you will keep increasing though.

you can't run a second counterespionage mission until the first one has "expired". that's 15 turns on epic, i think 10 turns on normal. so it's impossible for either part of the bonus to stack.
 
So these calculations all involve the total number of EPs you've generated, regardless of how many you spent? I.e. if I generate 1000, and spend 200 on a mission, is the game still working with 1000 for purposes of detection?

I believe so, yes. The amount of points you have against a single civ is only relevant for obtaining passive missions (city visibility, demographics etc.) and denying others from reaching them against you. It also allows you to conduct active missions.

Aside from that, everything appears to be tied to the total amount of points you've generated in the game. This includes everything from detection rates, offensive active mission success, active mission defense, even the active mission cost modifier.

What all this basically means is espionage is horribly documented in this game, because when I first got it, I didn't think it worked this way. I think back when I was trying to figure out why my missions cost more even though I had more points against a particular civ. I never dreamed, or read, that this number was tied to total points obtained.
 
What all this basically means is espionage is horribly documented in this game ... I never dreamed, or read, that this number was tied to total points obtained.

Ditto.

zehn
 
Awesome article, many thanks.

Swich civic is ripe for abuse, I learned all about it back when corporations where ripe for abuse. Id give them all my fish but one and expand sushi co. They always went to Mercantilism, so I always took them back to Enviromentalism (this plan still works, but not nearly as well)
Thank heavens it takes them 5 turns to have the opton to switch back. It is a bit overpowered all the same.
 
I can't thank you enough, Bhruic. I went from knowing almost nothing to know almost everything.

Just one question: Is a counterespionage mission's effect empire-wide or limited to a single tile?
 
Empire wide.

You dont run a Counter Espionage mission on a tile, you run it on a opponent.
 
This is a great thread :) Found it via google while editing my xml globals.

Does anyone know what "USE_SPIES_NO_ENTER_BORDERS" does? Is it even functional? Add a mission or just makes espionage useless? It is the last entry in my globaldefines.

Thanks
 
I know by hearsay that the manual mentiones the "Spay Can not Enter Boarders" passive "mission", which - so it seems - got purged from the release game. Apparently this is a leftover. (What file you have find it in, btw ? I don't seem to be able to locate it...)
 
The (by now horribly outdated) manual mentions:

"Kill Spy" Active mission: "Kills all spies within your spy's visibility. Can only be used within your own borders."

"Spies Cannot Enter Our Borders" Passive mission: "Spies from the Civilization against which you have gathered sufficient points cannot enter your borders."


The first one sounds interesting...the second, not so much.
 
I know by hearsay that the manual mentiones the "Spay Can not Enter Boarders" passive "mission", which - so it seems - got purged from the release game. Apparently this is a leftover. (What file you have find it in, btw ? I don't seem to be able to locate it...)

G:\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\GlobalDefines.xml
 
Hmmm... perhaps changing that to 1 (or maybe something else... :confused:) will reallow the mission... Cant try right now (nor am i too curious about it...)

Agree with jpk at the "Kill Spy" mission sounding much more interesting.
 
I'm pretty sure the "kill spy" mission is a leftover from the time when spies could actually see other spies.

Bh
 
x0.75 for equal culture (0.5 if their culture/mine=0: 1 if my culture/thiers=0)

I never see the culture ratios affect the cost modifier. It does not show up when you move the mouse over the steal tech cost for example. Are you sure you are interpreting the code correctly?

What I see is a city culture modifier. When I do the culture spread mission, further missions are reduced by approximately 2-4-6-8% etc depending on how many times you run the culture spread mission.

When I do the calculations for a tech stealing mission, my result is usually %1-2 more expensive then the actual steal cost. Even if I include all rounding into my calculations, still I am getting a bit higher than the actual base cost. Do you have any idea what might cause this?

(I did not include the culture modifier, and I have 30% culture inside the city. 69% culture belongs to AI) Even I included a culture modifier around 85% according to your formula, then the my calculated mission cost would be much cheaper than the actual mission cost that shows up in the game.

Is there any way to learn the plot culture of a city?

edit: ok, I found Krikkitone's answer to this question on some other thread called "Culture Spread mission." The culture ratio reduction is always there, but when it is very negligible roughly 0-1-2%, it does not show up when the mouse is moved over the mission cost.
 
If I understand the little I read, the active visible radius of my spy trying to discover AI spies is only the square it's in? It cannot see into adjacent squares, only its own square?

So if I wanted to build an anti-spy net, I have to place them on every square?
 
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