Dealing with Spies

[yanner39]

In my current game, Prince level btw, I am ahead in techs, land, pop, etc...This info is probably relevant to may question, but I struggling with keeping spies from poisoning my water supply. I mean, I place a spy in my capital, boom, poisoned water supply.

I'm on a continent with Isabella (cautious) and Brennus who is my vassal. I try and run counter-espionage missions against Isabella every 10 turns. Should I also do it against Brennus? Can the vassal attack the master with spies?

Also, I have met the other continent and haven't run counter-esp against them. However, I am placing spies in my cities so I don't get it.

What determines if a AI attacks with a spy? Will a Please or Friendly AI attack? Plus, it seems to always be poisoning the water supply. Rarely would they steal techs or something.

Anyways, the spy aspect of the game seems to be broken. Not the fact that you seem what the AI is up to or seem demographics, what they are researching. But the fact that in the absence of war, they can really mess the game up for you.

I know when a spy mission fails, I try and see which AI is attacking. Should I DOW when I find out which AI is doing it?

 

[kossin]

Few things:
-keep a spy in your cities before Security Bureaus are available
-run a counter-espionage mission. The AI does not perform any espionage action as long as it doesn't have full reduction costs (I'm taking this from bestsss). As long as you keep running them, you should be ok.

 

[drlake]

In my current game, Prince level btw, I am ahead in techs, land, pop, etc...This info is probably relevant to may question, but I struggling with keeping spies from poisoning my water supply. I mean, I place a spy in my capital, boom, poisoned water supply.

I'm on a continent with Isabella (cautious) and Brennus who is my vassal. I try and run counter-espionage missions against Isabella every 10 turns. Should I also do it against Brennus? Can the vassal attack the master with spies?

Also, I have met the other continent and haven't run counter-esp against them. However, I am placing spies in my cities so I don't get it.

What determines if a AI attacks with a spy? Will a Please or Friendly AI attack? Plus, it seems to always be poisoning the water supply. Rarely would they steal techs or something.

Anyways, the spy aspect of the game seems to be broken. Not the fact that you seem what the AI is up to or seem demographics, what they are researching. But the fact that in the absence of war, they can really mess the game up for you.

I know when a spy mission fails, I try and see which AI is attacking. Should I DOW when I find out which AI is doing it?

Spies in your own cities are only a partial defense, so don't expect that to eliminate the problem.

You are targeted because you are at the top in tech, power, etc. I haven't paid that much attention to the conditions under which other civs use spies against me, but I have seen civs at Pleased do it. Don't assume it is a civ on your continent, though. No idea if a vassal can use espionage against its master.

No idea how AIs decide what to do for a mission. It might be AI dependent, since sometimes I get a rash of improvements sabotage, sometimes it is poisoning the water supply, and once in a while I get a tech stolen.

I wouldn't recommend a DOW unless you are ready to go to war. It won't help you at all with this particular problem.

 

[Lone Wolf]

AI's poisoning water supplies is annoying and pointless for them. It probably hurts them more.

 

[Bezurn]

Check the Espionage screen to see if any other nearby civs have a EP parity with you. If so put a higher weight on them to help by making their missions more expensive to perform. Bump up the espionage slider by a bit after making this adjustment. Since you have a tech lead and leading in every other category it won't hurt you too bad.

 

[Sydney Posada]

I used to get really annoyed when Spies were dicking around with my improvements or poisoning my water supply, but after a while, I realized that the damage was pretty minimal when all's said and done. 8 unhealthiness is not nearly as bad as 8 unhappiness, and at most you'll probably lose one population point. Also, by the time Spies really figure into the game, you should have a ton of workers sitting around doing semi-pointless things; it's pretty easy to get a gang of 4 of them to your sabotaged improvements and fix them in 2-3 turns.

Although, to be honest, Security Bureaus do go up in most of my cities at some point, after relevant economy/growth buildings and if I'm not in war-prep mode. I like having free Espionage points, and Security Bureaus give a decent defense against spy hijinx.

 

[Balnor]

Can the vassal attack the master with spies?

What determines if a AI attacks with a spy? Will a Please or Friendly AI attack? Plus, it seems to always be poisoning the water supply. Rarely would they steal techs or something.

Yes, vassals can run espionage missions on their master. In my experience, they will only do detrimental stuff (like poisoning water or destroying buildings) if they're displeased with you, so annoyed or below. I'm not certain of the game mechanics here though, it just never happened to me with higher standing.

They will, however, steal techs even if in good relations with you, after all that doesn't really hurt you but rather help them. They rarely do that though, probably because they favor doing silly things like poisoning water when they don't like you

Anyways, the spy aspect of the game seems to be broken. Not the fact that you seem what the AI is up to or seem demographics, what they are researching. But the fact that in the absence of war, they can really mess the game up for you.

I know when a spy mission fails, I try and see which AI is attacking. Should I DOW when I find out which AI is doing it?

Just don't get too caught up with it, placing a spy in every city to maybe prevent any bad things happening (it doesn't always work, it's just a higher chance for them to get caught) is generally not efficient. With the hammers you need to build all those spies, you could have instead started on an army to capture them, or used the hammers in researching techs that you can gift to them to improve your standing.
If they keep focusing their missions on a select few crucial cities of yours, maybe put a spy into those, but never into all.

In the end, espionage the way the AI uses it is annoying, but hardly ever game-deciding.

Check the Espionage screen to see if any other nearby civs have a EP parity with you. If so put a higher weight on them to help by making their missions more expensive to perform. Bump up the espionage slider by a bit after making this adjustment. Since you have a tech lead and leading in every other category it won't hurt you too bad.

AFAIK only the espionage points spent (when running missions yourself) help make your consequent missions cheaper, the espionage points you assign (on the espionage screen) dont have anything to do with that (apart from allowing you to run more missions obviously). Again, just from my experience, but pretty sure about that.

Edit : Actually, I just remembered getting a huge discount on missions after using a Great Spy on someone, so maybe I was wrong on that. I'm pretty sure running actual missions has an effect there as well though.

 

[Jaybone]

If I'm ahead in power and tech, they better be poisoning me if they're non-vassaled and on my continent because a technologically advanced SoD is coming their way very shortly

 

[Khan Quest]

Another thing I do is keep privateers in the coastal cities nearest other landmasses and sink every spy-carrying-caravel I see.

 

[misterfilmgeek]

In my current game, Prince level btw, I am ahead in techs, land, pop, etc...This info is probably relevant to may question, but I struggling with keeping spies from poisoning my water supply. I mean, I place a spy in my capital, boom, poisoned water supply.

Anyways, the spy aspect of the game seems to be broken. Not the fact that you seem what the AI is up to or seem demographics, what they are researching. But the fact that in the absence of war, they can really mess the game up for you.

I disagree that it's broken. I used to think that when it was just annoying. And that's all spy attacks are: annoying. Just place a Spy and a Bureau in your most important cities, run the spy slider at 10% some (or often depending on your play style) and make it expensive for them to run missions against you. Remember that they spend points on each successful mission, which makes missions against them cheaper and allows you to see their research sooner. I've never had a spy attack, or even several in a row, affect the outcome of the game by more than a turn or two.

 

[misterfilmgeek]

Another thing I do is keep privateers in the coastal cities nearest other landmasses and sink every spy-carrying-caravel I see.

That is an excellent use for Privateers!

 

[Paboots]

AFAIK only the espionage points spent (when running missions yourself) help make your consequent missions cheaper, the espionage points you assign (on the espionage screen) dont have anything to do with that (apart from allowing you to run more missions obviously). Again, just from my experience, but pretty sure about that.

Edit : Actually, I just remembered getting a huge discount on missions after using a Great Spy on someone, so maybe I was wrong on that. I'm pretty sure running actual missions has an effect there as well though.

Espionage points you assign do effect the cost of any offensive mission you run.

If I remember correctly, I have also seen a breakdown of the game mechanics on CFC that shows that only the TOTAL number of espionage points you have (against all opponents) counts when defending against espionage missions, not how many points are assigned to the attacker. Unfortunately I cannot find that post.

From my own standpoint the best way to deal with obnoxious espionage attacks is with offense:
If war is advantageous and well timed, send in a SOD.
If war is not advantageous, or it is not the appropriate time, use all those "defensive spies" and be even more annoying than the AI. And be organized about it. If your opponent has towns, send in two spies per town tile, then take out the town and the road. One spy can destroy a town in one turn at a very low EP cost. It will take the AI quite a while if they 're-cottage' the tile to recover. The second will take out the road, slowing down their recovery even more. But don't just leave that spy sitting in the your city for defense...the 'protection' is just nor worth it. Kill their cottages and they'll have no more EP to spend.

 

[dirtyparrot]

The BUG mod allows you to see the delta EP between turns. So you can know who is poisoning your wells. Spies are only partial protection.

 

[whats a navy]

If you are ahead in them in land, power, and tech then just go out and conquer your continent. Then set up a naval defense so no spies can get to your landmass. If its still happening its your vassal and you better be building those security bureaus.

 

[fenix_27]

Can someone point me to a thread where the whole espionage mechanics are explained. Has anyone gotten this info?

 

[Cius]

Good thread to read. Spying actually irritated me enough that I started playing Warlords instead of BTS. This gives me some good tips on what to do about it. Thanks!

 

[DreamworK]

i don't understand why people are stressing out so much about these spies...

in the vast majority of my games, i usually do not get peace-time espionage against me unless i am leading very far in tech--in which case winning the game is almost entirely certain and the amount of difference espionage makes in the game is close to 0%

albeit it is extremely annoying knowing that someone stole your tech, or they keep poisoning your water supply...it usually isn't enough of a threat to justify diverting your hammers into defensive spy production or also building a security bureau in every city

i don't even bother spending hammers on espionage buildings unless i am far enough behind in tech to justify a tech-stealing spree from an advanced, nearby ally with open boarders and trade routes (even better if they have my religion). even then, security bureaus would be built last due to their expensive cost and smaller offensive benefit to int agencies

whenever i'm playing during medieval or renaissance eras and i repeatedly see poisoned water or failed spy attacks in or near my cities, i smile at the fact that the ai is spending their hammers on spies rather than building up an army which will make their cities harder to capture. FURTHERMORE, if they are poisoning water, fomenting unhappiness, and destroying improvements (other than towns, it's not even that annoying)--then i am also happy at the fact that they will have less EP to devote against me if they want to steal a valuable military tech (especially defensive ones like engineering)

so as many of the people above me posted, i also agree that foreign espionage against the player is not something to really lose sleep over. yeah, it's annoying, but it's not nearly as annoying as having the same ai issue a DoW and steamroll your border cities...