Does the AI ever fail at espionage?

[roscoepfox]

Does the AI ever fail at espionage? Every espionage mission against me succeeds and it doesn't look like there's anything I can do about it. It's frustrating. At least in Civ 6 you could ask them to stop spying. (not that the AI listened) and you could "capture" the spy and ransom them back.
In Civ 7 they might as well just say "We're giving the AI this tech you have".

 

[billmason]

Yes, I've seen it happen multiple times.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I have seen the AI fail numerous times, as posted, in all kinds of espionage actions. Further, I don't ever remember seeing them succeed if I had a "counterspy" action going against them.

On the other hand, even my Allies will attempt espionage actions against me if I'm ahead in Science/Civics, so you basically have to start a Counterspy move against everybody in the game to really make it work perfectly. But their investment in espionage normally doesn't gain them much (mind you, I have not played against Tubman very much)

I find that although espionage can be annoying, it has never made that great a difference: since they cannot share tech or civics they obtain either by research or espionage, the AI Civs can never catch up if you have a solid lead: they spend X turns grabbing a single Tech or Civic, but in the same X turns you've already researched one new tech and civic, and sometimes two each - they can never really catch up with espionage alone.

 

[Siptah]

Does the AI ever fail at espionage? Every espionage mission against me succeeds and it doesn't look like there's anything I can do about it. It's frustrating. At least in Civ 6 you could ask them to stop spying. (not that the AI listened) and you could "capture" the spy and ransom them back.
In Civ 7 they might as well just say "We're giving the AI this tech you have".

The Ai fails often. Your defense is counterspy, which can be found in the diplomacy menu.