Spies flee cities "because a new empire is in power there" when there is no change in ownership.
In my case what changed was that the AIs I spied on made an alliance with EACH OTHER (not me).
Then it happened again when a friendship expired with an AI I spied on (with me this time - but FRIENDSHIP, not ALLIANCE) .
So it seems to be related to changes of diplomatic status between the AIs and someone else, not necessarily the player.
I'm aware of recent change to ban spies on allies, so I stress: there was NO ALLIANCE between me and spied on factions, at any point in fact.
Nor, to repeat, was there any ownership change of the cities where spies were posted. No wars were going on, no loyalty flips.
I've found the same issue reported in these reddit threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/jhts70/a_spy_issue_since_the_latest_update/
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/jhdfyf/spies_deciding_to_escape_for_a_fake_reason/
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/jjp6t5/spy_bug_on_new_update/
And here on CivFanatics:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/all-my-spies-fled-the-same-empire-every-few-turns.663981/
In my case what changed was that the AIs I spied on made an alliance with EACH OTHER (not me).
Then it happened again when a friendship expired with an AI I spied on (with me this time - but FRIENDSHIP, not ALLIANCE) .
So it seems to be related to changes of diplomatic status between the AIs and someone else, not necessarily the player.
I'm aware of recent change to ban spies on allies, so I stress: there was NO ALLIANCE between me and spied on factions, at any point in fact.
Nor, to repeat, was there any ownership change of the cities where spies were posted. No wars were going on, no loyalty flips.
I've found the same issue reported in these reddit threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/jhts70/a_spy_issue_since_the_latest_update/
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/jhdfyf/spies_deciding_to_escape_for_a_fake_reason/
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/jjp6t5/spy_bug_on_new_update/
And here on CivFanatics:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/all-my-spies-fled-the-same-empire-every-few-turns.663981/
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