Noble Norbert
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2007
- Messages
- 8
An enemy spy is running wild...
- Thread starter megaclom
- Start date
Greeneyedzombie
King
Sometimes, you know who was spying on you. You get a message saying a spy from that civ was caught spying on you.
But it sucks there are no consequenses for the ai spying on the player.
jpinard
Martian
I think the same thing. One game (pre 3.13) I loaded a city with 15 spies (and almost no anti-espionage buildings). Spionage at 10%. It got hammered by enemy spies, and and I never caught a single one.
_alphaBeta_
King
Yes, I have an example at the other extreme. If you're on a continent with only a couple other civs, chances are most of the enemy spies are going to be from civs on your continent. In my previous game I devoted all of my espionage points to just them, and had substantially more EP against them than them me. I'm catching load of spies, with little to no spies of my own.
Therefore, it looks like the espionage point ratio is at least a determining factor, and it could be the only determining factor.
Still, it would be nice if we could confirm this beyond the casual observation we're talking about.
Bushface
Deity
I don't think that putting a lot of spies in your city has a greater anti-espionage effect than just one, in much the same way as one medic unit is as good as many, but I do think that one resident spy provides some protection. However, even if you have a resident spy, a massive EP advantage, have performed a counter-espionage mission, and have an Intelligence Agency and a Security Bureau, enemy spies can, and do, get through occasionally.
Mine, though, get stumbled upon even when they're not in an enemy city and there are no enemy units nearby, not even workers.
Mine, though, get stumbled upon even when they're not in an enemy city and there are no enemy units nearby, not even workers.
KMadCandy
giggling permanoob
i'm looking at the 3.02 .xml which has this for spy:
<bSpy>1</bSpy>
<bSabotage>0</bSabotage>
<bDestroy>0</bDestroy>
<bStealPlans>0</bStealPlans>
<bInvestigate>0</bInvestigate>
<bCounterSpy>1</bCounterSpy>
spy and counterspy are of course 0 for all other units. i don't read code so i can't tell you what that counterspy flag translates to as far as game mechanics. you'd do much better puzzling that out than i ever could
edit: did a quick test changing workers to have a 1 for counterspy. the description of them in the pedia and when hovering over the build option didn't change, so it's not just there to call text (if i'm interpreting that right). i don't think it means "can perform counterespionage" since there aren't similar flags for "can steal tech" etc. OTOH, StealPlans and Investigate look like leftovers from the pre-BtS days, those were old spy abilities. what do i know *giggle*.
vilemerchant
Prince
I agree it would be nice if someone can 100% confirm if having spies sit around in all your cities actually does anything. I'm starting to think it's just a waste of time and unit expense..
I assume one can verify this by keeping a close eye out for caravals near your coasts, since enemy spies have to physically get to your land in order to perform active missions against you. At least this is one possible advantage if you are somewhat isolated.
The War Academy is getting very, very stale... I eagerly await the detailed mechanics and strategy article on espionage to be there someday!
KMadCandy
giggling permanoob
i still don't know whether having a spy in the city is helpful, i tend to have them stationed there when i have the time/hammers. but something happened just now that i thought was interesting and worth opening this thread again. i just caught a spy near one of my cities "due to heightened counterespionage efforts". but i don't have a spy in that city or anywhere near it, and my slider is at 0%. so i'm not sure exactly what it means by my efforts?
it was near the city, not inside it. when i clicked the log the tile was where that windmill is, i have 3 troops stationed there but no spies anywhere within 20 tiles. the city does not have a security bureau (the one that helps thwart spies). the only slightly related spy building i have is a barracks, since i got an event that let me pick +2 espionage points for all barrackseses. haven't even gotten around to a courthouse yet
.
my slider is at 100% gold atm building up money for upgrades, maybe rush buy since i have CR, i'm about 10 turns from winning culture but Mehmed decided to get froggy. my city has only a rifleman and a fighter in it. the spy i caught wasn't Mehmed's (who i'm at war with), it was Darius's, who's fighting in the war on my side.
i have almost exactly twice the EPs vs Darius that he has on me (3476 to 1724). i'm earning 159/turn towards him from buildings/specialists, so points are coming in even tho my slider is at 0%. and i am doing a Counterespionage against all rivals every time the previous one wears out, according to the text that just doubles the cost of their active missions against me, but maybe it heightens the "counterespionage" mentioned in the log.
here's the city, so you can see i don't have the bureau or even a spy stationed there. but whatever i do have was enough to not only catch him, but let me know whose spy it was.
it was near the city, not inside it. when i clicked the log the tile was where that windmill is, i have 3 troops stationed there but no spies anywhere within 20 tiles. the city does not have a security bureau (the one that helps thwart spies). the only slightly related spy building i have is a barracks, since i got an event that let me pick +2 espionage points for all barrackseses. haven't even gotten around to a courthouse yet
.my slider is at 100% gold atm building up money for upgrades, maybe rush buy since i have CR, i'm about 10 turns from winning culture but Mehmed decided to get froggy. my city has only a rifleman and a fighter in it. the spy i caught wasn't Mehmed's (who i'm at war with), it was Darius's, who's fighting in the war on my side.
i have almost exactly twice the EPs vs Darius that he has on me (3476 to 1724). i'm earning 159/turn towards him from buildings/specialists, so points are coming in even tho my slider is at 0%. and i am doing a Counterespionage against all rivals every time the previous one wears out, according to the text that just doubles the cost of their active missions against me, but maybe it heightens the "counterespionage" mentioned in the log.
here's the city, so you can see i don't have the bureau or even a spy stationed there. but whatever i do have was enough to not only catch him, but let me know whose spy it was.
Spoiler screenshot (with excuses for why i settled such a terrible city) :
. and if it turned out he was going to use my borders as a staging area for a war on persia instead, that would make me declare war but big deal, only those 2 cities to worry about and most folks don't like him so no fear of -1 DoWd our friend with anybody i care about.
DrewBledsoe
Veteran QB
In my current game, the Russians have destroyed the same farm now over a dozen times. They originally knocked it down from a town to a nothing, I kept rebuilding a cottage, they kept destroying it, so I gave up and decided to farm it. Its now the late modern age, and I have 4 workers in the related city just to rebuild that farm. I have approx 50 times more ep with them than they do with me, and all counter and esp buildings.
Take it from me, there's nothing you can do if they want to act as terrorists. Its like playing a toddler in a particularly bad mood. I hate espionage..........
Take it from me, there's nothing you can do if they want to act as terrorists. Its like playing a toddler in a particularly bad mood. I hate espionage..........
At some point I saw a thread where a fanatic had done a bunch of experiments with this using the world builder.
He did something like:
put 1 friendly spy in a city, took an enemy spy and tried to do some espionage action. Repeated it 100 times and got a % times the enemy spy was caught.
Then did the same thing for 0, 2, 3, friendly spies stationed int he city.
The upshot was you can station spies to thwart enemy spies performing espionage on that city, the more spies you have the better job they do, but it does not get better per spy liniearly.
I don't typically have the extra spies to do this though
Can't find the thread either...
He did something like:
put 1 friendly spy in a city, took an enemy spy and tried to do some espionage action. Repeated it 100 times and got a % times the enemy spy was caught.
Then did the same thing for 0, 2, 3, friendly spies stationed int he city.
The upshot was you can station spies to thwart enemy spies performing espionage on that city, the more spies you have the better job they do, but it does not get better per spy liniearly.
I don't typically have the extra spies to do this though
Can't find the thread either...
jpinard
Martian
At some point I saw a thread where a fanatic had done a bunch of experiments with this using the world builder.
He did something like:
put 1 friendly spy in a city, took an enemy spy and tried to do some espionage action. Repeated it 100 times and got a % times the enemy spy was caught.
Then did the same thing for 0, 2, 3, friendly spies stationed int he city.
The upshot was you can station spies to thwart enemy spies performing espionage on that city, the more spies you have the better job they do, but it does not get better per spy liniearly.
I don't typically have the extra spies to do this though
Can't find the thread either...
So barring 2,3,4+ spies ina c ity, did having just one make a noticeblay large impact on the # of spies caught?
I found the thread I was thinking of, but it wasn't exactly as described, namely not in cities (although maybe that doesn't matter?) and it leads to a lot of other threads that seemed to be contradictory in places. Not up to sorting it out right now. But have a look:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5827476&postcount=11
The thread it points to has more good info, people hacking the SDK to see what they can make of the actual calculation and such.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5827476&postcount=11
The thread it points to has more good info, people hacking the SDK to see what they can make of the actual calculation and such.
_alphaBeta_
King
Thanks for the link. All the information seems conflicting at best. The experiment you link to seems rather convincing, but others are talking about having their own spies EVERYWHERE and still having successful missions against them.
This is really frustrating that we can't trust the manual on this. It was obviously printed before the game was finalized. The civlopedia isn't much better on the subject.
This is a big part of gameplay, and no one seems to know how it really works.
This is really frustrating that we can't trust the manual on this. It was obviously printed before the game was finalized. The civlopedia isn't much better on the subject.
This is a big part of gameplay, and no one seems to know how it really works.
bmarnz
Prince
When you catch a spy, look closely at the message. Three different messages.
1. stumbled upon - caught by ep
2. caught by counterintelligence agents - caught by counter intelligence building/spy?
3. due to elevated counter espionage efforts - caught within 30 turn window after successful counter espionage mission
1. stumbled upon - caught by ep
2. caught by counterintelligence agents - caught by counter intelligence building/spy?
3. due to elevated counter espionage efforts - caught within 30 turn window after successful counter espionage mission
_alphaBeta_
King
At my request Bhruic (Unofficial BTS 3.13 patch author) has researched how this works in the code. See his strategy article writeup here. 
