How does Espionage work?

[CIVLOYALIST]

Hi,

I always enjoy early game, possibly because I get exhausted by late game and the screen gets all very messy.

As a new comer to CIV 6, look at what I have achieved:

There was a great War before my empire takes shape. It was the Sumerian, who declared a surprised war against mine very very early game. Their war-carts are awesome weapon by the way. And I find Archer is the most effective, Spearman is moderately effective.

This is set on KING difficulty. I fought off the Sumerians and now become friends. In CIV 5, it is never this easy to have 4 cities with lots of Gold and no unhappiness. Perhaps, the greatest improvement in CIV 6 is that the unhappiness is more appropriately implement and the game is more balanced and easy to handle.

What I like to know now is how spy works? Is it possible for me to rig the CS to gain much powerful influence over them?

 

[numaru7]

You can use spies to conduct mission in cities other than City States. ( in my opinion sinking gold into CS's was a bad implementation in Civ 5 ). You can only perform mission for City states r use influence points to gain envoys. What missions your spies can perform depends on the districts present in the target city.

 

[CIVLOYALIST]

Slightly off topics, the envoy mechanism is a bit abstract. Actually, what are the definitions of "envoy" and "delegation" in the game? So back to my question above, there are no unit such as spy as in CIV 5, do I get that correct?

My latest achievements, look spectacular, a chain of units lying along the southern border fencing off Arabian possible invasions.

By the way, is it possible to start the game with the Mini Map and World Tracker minimized? Would modifying one of the XML file do the trick?

 

[numaru7]

Slightly off topics, the envoy mechanism is a bit abstract. Actually, what are the definitions of "envoy" and "delegation" in the game? So back to my question above, there are no unit such as spy as in CIV 5, do I get that correct?

Well, you get some influence points over time (can be increased by a change to a superior government or through policy cards) that you can then use to place in City states - these are permanent even if you go to war with the city state (at least when an allied city state of another Civ goes to war with me this is true, i never checked the envoys when i declare war on a city state) - and will up your level with the city state giving you the bonuses listed. Above 6 envoys you actually don't gain anything but are fighting with other civs on who has the most in the city state to become it's Suzerain - i do not know if there is a limit, i currently reached 22 envoys on a city state in a game.

A delegation on the other hand is between Civ's and costs some money and if i'm not mistaken becomes obsolete by a "permanent embassy" (i also think that the civ that gets the delegation receives said money). You basically get vision of the capital - and a better diplo level.


Spies are now physical units that you can move to any city that you have vision of, with the help of a special screen - you cannot move it like a normal unit - and you can perform actions. In your territory you can protect your districts from plunder (campus - tech steal, commercial hub - money steal, industrial hub - prod sabotage) and of course in other civ's cities you can steal techs, etc + listening post and enhance spy level for X turns. Do not that what you can steal correlates to how developed a city is - this is what i noticed anyway: you will plunder less money from a city that does not produce much gold and more from a city that has a lot of it.

P.S. i do not know about the XML

 

[Futumch]

If you're aiming for a Scientific victory, it's smart to have a Spy set in your Spaceport city on counter-spy duties. I lost many years having to rebuild Industrial districts because some rotten French spy snuck in and torched the place. There's a policy card that gives your spies an advantage on your home soil which is worth investigating (Cryptography).
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Cryptography_(Civ6)
You select the mission as "Counterspy" (it looks like the Spy icon in the bottom right info panel). Then tell the Spy to guard the appropriate district.
One final note, if you happen to successfully catch a spy, do NOT trade them back to the relevant Civ! It seems like the opposing Civs can't use a Spy against you while you have one captive.

 

[CIVLOYALIST]

Thanks folks, at long last, I have reached the stage where I was given Spy to create. The new Spy feature is great, more varied tasks and is well simulated closer to reality.
As to Envoy, still a bit off...

Anyway, I need more time to spend on the game in order to get more familiarized with things.

 

[Mort_Q]

. There's a policy card that gives your spies an advantage on your home soil which is worth investigating (Cryptography).
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Cryptography_(Civ6).

Police State (http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Police_State_(Civ6)) does this too, but you take an Amenity hit. Not sure if they're available at the same time.