would espionage be the method for stealing great works?

No, spies are already too ubiquitous, too powerful in stealing techs and nearly invincible. Why give them more power?

The only way one should be able to steal Great Works is by military force.

Maybe spies are getting nerfed in BNW?
 
I don't even know if "nerfed" is the right word. Spies don't really seem to be overpowered or underpowered, just not well-implemented.

"Overhauled", hopefully. If not that, then "tweaked".
 
Maybe spies are getting nerfed in BNW?

I don't know. At first I didn't play with Espionage on because I very much hated the way it was done in Civ4. But when I saw in MadDjinn's video how easy it was to steal techs, I went with it.
 
From a gameplay point-of-view, espionage is in bad need of an overhaul. It's just a woefully inadequate system that's unplugged from the rest of the game's mechanics and basic concepts of give-and-take. Since a civ can't do much with tech or sopols or other resources to become specialized at espionage, nobody can ever have a major leg-up on anyone else. It's a pointless tug-of-war where nobody can sustain an advantage in leverage.

It would suck to expend a great person just to have your benefit of that expenditure yanked away by someone's spy (costing them effectively nothing to do so, whether they succeed or fail). Then again, due to the aforementioned lameness of espionage, you likely as not can just steal it back 10 turns or so later. And then it gets stolen again, and you steal it back, and you steal somebody else's painting, and they steal it back, and on and on.
I agree with you on the need for a better connection between Espionage and the rest of the game, but the scenario you just described does not sound in any way rewarding or entertaining. There's no point in spending your Great People on Great Works if you can just steal them from someone else.
 
The thing about moving Great Works around is, as someone mentioned, that while it works for pieces of physical art, it doesn't work so well for Music and Literature. How do you steal Great Music from another civilisation? I think the point is not that these works are on show in this city, but they represent that this is the civilsation where they were created, they are an important part of this civilisation's culture and that can never be undone.

That said, I'm not entirely sure of what moving Great Works around is supposed to represent in this context (if it is possible at all), but I think stealing Great Works through spies or conquest just doesn't work, conceptually.
 
I can only imagine artworks conquered by military force also. Stealing with espinage is a way to conduct diplomacy as terrible as piracy or raizing city-states for free. A reputation of robbery among nations does not sound like a way to motivate tourists, but a way to isolationship.
 
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