A Use for Spies!

Silverman6083

Silverman6083

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I often find, and alot of you often find, that spies become rather worthless. If your the tech leader, than you could defend your cities, but then again you could just build constabularies and police stations, even if you are stealing techs it takes far too long to be useful. The other large use is for rigging city-state elections or coups. While this is all fine and dandy, if you don't want to play that game, or if there is an Alex in your game, I found a genuinely useful thing to do with spies! If you are at war with a civ, or are about to be at war with them, and you want to check out their military and/or its movement, just plop your spies in all of their cities! Then you have a almost complete information about their troop movement. I find it very useful, and it has helped me in quite a few wars. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
 
As long as the enemy doesn't have a lot of cities and/or you don't need those spies in City-States to keep them allied, then yes, it's a good tactic.
 
I use it to keep tabs on wonders and spaceship part production too. Several times, spies have clued me in that I'm going to lose a wonder and allowed me to switch before I wasted too much time. The periodic notifications about your target's plans are nice too as you get positive diplo points for sharing it with other civs. Really helps make friends.

I have also used it on warmongering neighbors to try to predict troop numbers, movements, and when they will attack. On my Deity game the Aztecs had nukes and were trigger-happy. I watched them like a hawk as I built the last few spaceship parts. It is a very good use.

I've actually found the city-state rigging to be very helpful though. If I have a rigger there I do not have to worry about staying as allies UNLESS there is Greece, Venice, or Austria. On a huge map it's unlikely that any one will be able to dominate all CS's though, so it's still useful...just less of a sure thing.
 
BNW added a major new use for them : turn into Diplomats

Diplomats give you votes for Diplomatic victory (with Globalization)

And they reduce the different ideology penalty for when you are going for Cultural victory
 
Silverman6083 said:
The other large use is for rigging city-state elections or coups. While this is all fine and dandy, if you don't want to play that game, or if there is an Alex in your game, I found a genuinely useful thing to do with spies!
Click to expand...
Why would you not want to play that game? Keeping a CS as your friend/ally with little effort is good for any victory condition. Usually my first spy is the only one that can effectively steal/protect my techs, so I just send all the junior spies to strategically important city states to boost my influence while I focus on my own cities. If I go for diplomatic victory I'll relocate them to other civs as diplomats 8 turns before the winning UN session (with Globalization, of course).
 
I generally steal one tech with my first spy, then settle them down in my capital as defence. The rest I use as diplomats. I guess I should look into the city-state thing more. I've only done it a couple of times.
 
joncnunn said:
BNW added a major new use for them : turn into Diplomats

Diplomats give you votes for Diplomatic victory (with Globalization)

And they reduce the different ideology penalty for when you are going for Cultural victory
Click to expand...

You also need a diplomat if you want to buy World Congress votes from a civ. And World Congress votes can be fairly cheap.
 
Spies are excellent for LoS as OP pointed out. You can blitz an enemy with artillery/bombers & other more than 2 range units without a spotter.
 
Babri said:
Spies are excellent for LoS as OP pointed out. You can blitz an enemy with artillery/bombers & other more than 2 range units without a spotter.
Click to expand...

On immortal level play, this is about the extent of my spy as scout. I generally know what wonders are safe to get. I keep a few lookouts to see if there is an army marching on me. What else would I use them for other than LoS for my blitzkrieg?
 
In my immortal games there are lots of coups against my allied city states so i use my spies there. Early on i use spies to steal techs but when it starts to take too many turns to steal techs i move on to city states. That civs are planning attacks on me all the time is nothing i need spies to report on.
 
What is the total number of spies you can have in an entire game. I don't think I have had more than 4-5. I like using them for CS since I have not developed my skill level pass level 3. So yes...I am one of those who usually had the tech lead. Therefore stealing new techs doesn't do much for me and it takes way too long. Playing on harder levels I know this would change. I also like to keep a spy in my own capital to prevent other civs stealing techs from me.

Brew God
 
brewgod said:
What is the total number of spies you can have in an entire game. I don't think I have had more than 4-5. I like using them for CS since I have not developed my skill level pass level 3. So yes...I am one of those who usually had the tech lead. Therefore stealing new techs doesn't do much for me and it takes way too long. Playing on harder levels I know this would change. I also like to keep a spy in my own capital to prevent other civs stealing techs from me.

Brew God
Click to expand...

You get 1 spy per era starting with the Renaissance (which you get when any civ hits the Renaissance, for later ones you have to hit the era yourself). So you get 5 normally (Renaissance-Industrial-Modern-Atomic-Information), an extra one if you build the National Intelligence Agency, and England gets another one at the start of the Renaissance from their UA.
 
I think one important thing to note about spies is that their implementation is much better in civ 5 than civ 4. Their passive implementation is the way to go, as you can keep your focus other important stuff rather than baby sitting a couple of whiny spies.

Sent from my One V using Tapatalk
 
In general, I agree. The implementation is better. But Civ 4 spies could do more. I miss sabotage missions.

One thing I'd like to see is using spies to steal Great Works. That'd be fun. :)
 
happyturtle said:
One thing I'd like to see is using spies to steal Great Works. That'd be fun. :)
Click to expand...

Be careful what you wish for...

I've seen this request a couple times now, and I have to vehemently oppose it. Think about the ratio of spies that can be taking your works vs. the number of spies you have to defend with. At least when they're after your techs you don't lose the tech.

Second, think of the Coup mechanic and how the AI seems to cheat like a [EXPLETIVE DELETED]. THEY can coup from massive differentials with what feels like a 90% success rate, but your 85% chance with your Special Agent fails one time out of three. Now imagine that when they're stealing all your artwork, you can't steal it back, and you can't even cash-buy it back.

No thanks, count me right out if they implement Great Work stealing.
 
If you have a tech lead, then you may have military inferiority just based on choices. You'll need your spies to watch your neighbors.


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