Clueless about espionage - any tips?

[Simon Appleton]

I'm just getting into BTS, but have been ignoring espionage as I don't quite understand it. However, I am now at war with the Zulus and their poisoning my city wells is having a devastating impact. Can anyone give me a few tips or a link to a pre-existing discussion of espionage?

In response to the poisoning, I have:

(1) placed a spy in each of my cities to try to foil Zulu spies (I get messages that spies have been spotted in city X - can I do anything to catch them in response?). But it has not stopped a second poisoning incident.

(2) put Shaka on +1 in the espionage screen, so I think in future all my espionage points will go on him rather than the other civs who I am not currently worried about.

I am still spending 0% on espionage, but seem to get some espionage points.

What more should I do? I notice a counterespionage mission in the espionage screen, but am not sure how to use it. It seems to be linked to Zulu settlements when what I want is to protect mine.

Any tips for the clueless?

 

[Donderwolkje01]

i did this in my last game.

i put i spy in each city. that stopped a lot of spying attempts. if you look at the messages you sometimes get information of who the spy belonged to. send a spy to that nation and do a counter-espionage mission (also increase spypoint spending for that nation). if you want to protect yourself against espionage from the zulus send a spy to one of shaka's city and perform the counter espionage there.

also don't put one nation on +1 spending but look at your map, your tactic, and who is spying on you and put them respectively on +5 +4 +3 and and a bunch on +2 +1, if not you end up spending no espionage points on these last nations and you will become a real easy target.

also build more espionage. i usually put th slider on 10%-20% and try to build all the espionage buildings (jails, security bureaus, scotland yard, and a few spy specialists).

hope this helps

 

[sourboy]

so a spy in each of your own cities helps keep them protected from say, water poisoning? what about on tiles, will a spy on your own resource help prevent sabotage?

when you send a spy on a counter-esp mission, does it matter which city you send it to? capital or any will do?

 

[DomA]

A few pointers :

- A spy in each city help
- If you get a green message that a spy was spotted it's good - it means the attempt has failed. Some AI seem to gamble a good deal with their spies when they have very bad odds - meaning most of their attempts fail and only a few get through.
- Some buildings, like courthouses early on, help build espionnage points, and later Security Bureaux help protect yourself. There are also Intel Agencies, and jails that come into play. Unless you play on isolated islands, I find it's not really a good idea to leave the esp. slider at zero (that's the source of your problem with Shaka - check your ratio against him - you must have let him seriously outpace you - even if you don't want to perform missions, you need the EPs to block your rivals and to perform passive actions, like seing their research etc.). The better your ratio against a rival, the more costly and less effective his espionnage against you will be. At the low levels I play right now leaving it at 10% once the first spies appear seems enough not to have to worry too much about spies in most games, unless someone inflitrated my civ with a Great Spy.
- If you can manage to build a GS, infiltrate Shaka's civ and your espionnage problems with him will decrease significantly or even disappear.

 

[Ishkinae]

Is there any information, such as an instruction manual for Bts. Civ iv came with a 4 part manual, but I couldn't find anything on the Bts disk.
I am also having hassles with the whole spy thing, it always seems that the other civs ratios are larger than mine.
Any info on where I could find some instructions re: the newest additions of civ iv. spies, colonies, etc. Cheers...

 

[Empiremaker]

Try the civilopedia under BtS concepts. That is an actual manual. And CFC is the best manual ever.