Why is AI sometimes SO SUCCESSFUL at spying?

[Sherlock]

I put my agent in my capital and yet everyone is stealing stuff left and right from my capital.

Sometimes this happens. Sometimes it doesn't.

????

 

[Princeofnigeria]

Your worship of false gods has not gone unnoticed. The Random Number God shall not tolerate your insolence.

 

[chazzycat]

if you win the first attempt and get promoted, you're likely to keep winning. So it's all about the blind luck on that first attempt.

 

[Chabshaile]

Yeah I had a tech stolen so moved my spy into capital, next thing I know France and Portugal are taking turns sending spies to meat a knife in their throat. Keep laughing every time they apologize and I just wait for the next one to murder.

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Whenever you kill an AI's spy, you have the option of forgiving them or not.

Why is there not a third option: "Thank you for leveling my spy up. Sucker"

 

[NKVD]

What are the odds in the XML files for stealing vs the level of the spies ?

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

It's a very low-strength move to assign your first spy to defense. If he doesn't kill a spy, he'll be outclassed and now it will just be ever harder for him to, in turn, steal a tech, or do any good defense as chazzycat says. It's also a passive option, where your spy might never promote, while rival civs promote their spies off each other, then come for you. As well, City-State actions give strict priority to any higher level spy over a lower level one.

Being the tech leader makes it difficult to have competent spies. The Order ideology shores this up somewhat. But really, the only vaccine is to send your spies afield to steal a tech in the hope of leveling as soon as possible. Once you've reached Agent level, you can decide what you actually want to accomplish with your spy.

 

[docbud]

I get that quite a bit as well. I've found that when I put a constabulary there, I eventually start killing their highly promoted spies left and right. Makes me feel really good when I do.

 

[joncnunn]

It's not the AI as this also applies to the human.

Basically the chance of stealing a tech is 100% if the spy didn't die before then in Civ V. (As long as the defender has a tech that the attacker doesn't)

The only thing good at killing enemy spies is a promoted spy. So, they will steal techs left and right against your raw recruit until he gets lucky.
Constables are needed in the capital, but only to give your defending spy more attempts.

 

[Mutineer]

build building that give protection if you are tech leader and try to put you most promoted spy there, or just put there first spy straight away. you started on = levels of spies so you have good chance to kill initially

 

[Xiao Xiong]

There is a bug. I had a fully leveled up spy in a capital with a constabulary, police station, and great firewall. Guess what? They still stole my technology.

 

[LoneRebel]

There is a bug. I had a fully leveled up spy in a capital with a constabulary, police station, and great firewall. Guess what? They still stole my technology.

Perhaps they stole it from another city, not your capital?

 

[Memoryjar]

A long time ago, I stopped to let my spies in my cities. AI loot my technologies, again and again.
I'm still tech leader and my spies make quick succession of coup and rigged election.

On low level, I let sometimes my spies in best city for level up. After level 3, I don't care about technologies steal. I annoyed when an AI stole a tech when I have a spy in the city because I loose a promotion, not for the tech : you'll reach scientific theory in 2 turns, Napoleon stole your astronomy, good for him.

 

[Halcyan2]

Constabulary, Police Station, and Great Firewall simply increase the time it takes for a tech steal attempt. Once they have enough to try an attempt, the % chance is normal, relative to the spy levels.

What this means is that Constabulary, Police Station, and Great Firewall lead to fewer attempts to steal (because each one takes longer), which leads to "fewer" opportunities to level up.

If you want to level up, you actually wants lots of civs trying to steal lots of tech from you all the time.