Embassies/Spying useful to you?

[Colonel]

I tend to get useful results after one fail with propaganda but it can be useful when you think one civ is getting to big after it has conquered other civs

 

[Aggie]

Spying is a very nice part of the game and in several cases important. Tech stealing can help you a lot when you are at war with the civ that leads the tech race. And as Arathorn and anarres say it's cheaper than buying AND the money doesn't go to the AI, preventing it to profit from the income. The other spy options are also useful, but rarely used by me.

 

[Oystein]

One rule many people are not aware of. If you fail to plant a spy in one turn, you will automatically fail for the next 4 turns. So, if you fail in 1810 and try again every turn, you will fail every time through 2050.

A have heard that rule many times, but it seems to be inaccurate. Do you know where it come from?

Are u sure Arathorn? Is this on a levels of play?I have have not had this happen to me, I will try once every turn untill I get a spy in. Often I get one in on the first, second, or third turn... When I first started playing I tried a bunch of times on the same turn and that was a waste of money..?

I tested how many times you have to wait before a spy can be planted after a faild attempt.
On chiftan the results was 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,4,4,5,8 and 8 turns, average on 2.7.
On sid, 1,1,1,2,3,3,4 and 6 turns, average on 2.6 turns.

Seems like no diffrence between difficult level. Each turn there is a chance of about 3/8 that planting spies will become posible again. But I made only 24 tests.

I think governments make some difference as to your chance of sucess/failure to don't they?

When it is posible to plant spy, a regular spy have 50% chance of succeding, and a veteran 60%. Communism and fasism have veteran spies.

 

[Grille]

Like digitalgoodtime and Oystein, I have also planted a spy one turn after a failed attempt.

Of course, failing a couple of times in a row might lead to a war declaration in the end. But according to Bamspeedy's attitude test, it needs "10-20 turns" to get rid of the respective temporary attitude penalty, so that does not match with 4 turns waiting time.

When already at war with that civ, you would not bother with it anyways.