Creating spies

[Wardog]

I would like to know if there is a more appropriate moment in the game to plant spies.

I ask this because it seems impossible to create them on the modern ages against the most powerful civilizations. At least on high levels.

For example, I'm playing a game on emperor, and I'm the second most poweful civ in the game. The Greeks are stronger, we both have the Apollo Program but there is no way for me to find out how they are going with their spaceship.

I tried to create a spy three consecutive times without success and, after that, they declared war on me. Then I tried again more than 10 times, and my "agent was caught and killed". I think I can try for more than 1.000 times and I will always fail to plant a spy.

Any thoughts?

 

[Raijer]

To be honest, I have the same problem. That's why, now, I only use spies to provoke another country into declaring war on me. It seems to be the only thing they're good for.

 

[ivory]

I read in another thread not long ago (but did not find it now) that if you do not succeed at planting your spy, you need to wait for four turns before trying again against that civ, as they will be in a heightened state of alert and catch all attempts.

 

[Roland Johansen]

If you fail to plant a spy with a civ, then there is 0% chance that you succeed to plant the spy that same turn with that same civ. In 2-4 turns your chances to plant a spy are normal again. This information is from the readme file that everyone got with the game.

So wait a few turns and try again. If I do this I have approximately 50% chance of succeeding at any try.

This is the same with some other spying missions. Steal plans and steal tech I believe (I'm not sure).

The usefull elements of spying are
1) see their total militairy size with the militairy advisor (automatic when spy is placed)
2) ability to investigate city when at war (always succeeds), to know how many units are in the city or something else you want to know.
3) ability to steal tech when at war (techs become very expensive in the late game, but stealing cost the same at every point in time). Sucess chance about 50+%
4) ability to see the progress of the space race.
5) steal military plans to see the placement of their complete army. This is expensive (depending on the amount of units the enemy has), but can be very usefull if you plan a total nuclear attack combined with a total blitz-krieg. You want to know the placement of the enemies units, especially their nukes so that you can destroy those before they retaliate. Success chance 50+%
Remember, nukes aren't destroyed by a nuclear attack, so you have to destroy them in a blitz krieg the same turn to avoid retaliation.
6) Anger the AI civ, so they declare war

Not so usefull:
1) initiate propaganda (very low success chance) It can be usefull if the other is in anarchy. Then the sucess is much larger. Chances are better if a more representative/modern government uses this against a less representative/modern government. It can be succesfull at the second or third try in one turn in the same city. Price depends on size of city (mainly).
2) sabotage production. It's only usefull in a close spacerace or wonderrace, I think.
3)expose enemy spy (if often fails and fails automatically if the enemy hasn't placed a spy with you)

Good luck.

 

[samildanach]

I usually attempt to plant spies at two different times in the game. The first occassion is if I have beaten the AI civs to espionage and have built the intelligence agency before them then I will attempt to plant spies before they build their agencies.
I seem to have more success at planting spies before the AIs have the agency ( or at least before I think they have the agency).
The second occassion is on the event of an AI capital falling (the most likely site for their intelligence agency) during an AI war. To the best of my recollection this second method has never failed me.

 

[Wardog]

Thanks everybody for the replies. Very helpful informations.

 

[Moss]

One thing I don't like is that more often then not, the enemy exposes my spy, but I have never exposed of an enemy's spy.

 

[bewareofgnomes]

why do it when they dont have an intelligence agency? does it help the odds or something

 

[samildanach]

Originally posted by Bewareofgnomes

why do it when they dont have an intelligence agency? does it help the odds or something

It seems that having the agency may be a factor in whether a spy mission is successful or not, however it may just be coincidental. As for planting spies when an AIs capital has fallen, there could be a number of reasons why planting a spy then may be more successful such as the effects of war weariness on the happiness of AI civ possibly increasing prob. of success. Or the cumulative effects of war weariness forcing the AI government into anarchy or a change of government which may make it easier to plant spies. Someone will have studied the mechanics of planting spies in detail-I haven't , what I,m writng is purely anecdotal. Hopefully with the search function enabled with the server upgrade we will be able to search the Great Library again