Enemy spies stealing gold

[Tuvok694]

I had to give up some games because enemy spies stole my gold.
I wonder if this is supposed to be this way or if it is a bug:
The situation is like this: I have about 200 gold and my income is about +10 gold per turn. Now a message says that an enemy spy has stolen (?) 650 gold from me. How is this possible because I have only about 200?
Although I try to maximize the gold per turn income, two rounds later I have zero gold and the game starts disbanding units. And it's not the weakest units that disappear but mostly the best units. Some rounds later, my strongest 5 plus x units are gone, and I am so weak that the AI can wipe me off the map. The game is lost.
In my recent game, I even had an own spy with one promotion in the capital's commercial hub and my gold was stolen anyway.
This does not happen extremely often, but when it happens, it is almost always fatal.

(I hope my description of the problem is understandable, English is not my native language, sorry.)

 

[magha77]

It's annoying but balanced by virtue of your ability to do so as well. Towards the end game- I always have a few spies protecting my commercial cities and one out there trying to take from my nearest rival.

 

[SxSnts9]

What level are you playing at? I play at Emperor and I rarely have my gold stolen from me, with or without a spy protecting my commercial hub. Even when they do steal a large chunk of change my economy is pumping out so much GPT by then that it doesn't cause me much of a problem. Maybe throw in an extra harbor/commercial hub where you can. Gold is by far the most important map resource in my mind so don't be afraid to rack it up.

 

[Tuvok694]

I only play at level king, and yes: I know I am weak. Nevertheless, I am aware of the importance of gold, but sometimes you have to concentrate resources on other things.
Anyway: If I have 3000 gold or more, then it doesn't hurt much when they steal 500. I am interested in the game mechanics: what determines the amount of gold that can be stolen? I could live with it, when I had to play several rounds with zero gold, and my "debt" would be taken from the "gold per turn" that I earn every round. But instead I lose unit after unit and then there is nothing to be done about it (changing civics would also cost gold, and disbanding units myself doesn't help either because I get no gold for them).

 

[lordhaw]

I've never run into that specifc situation myself. I've had gold stolen but it's never set me back because I managed to have large gold reserves. I have spies doing counter-espionage on commercial centers and they usually catch the perpetrators when they do try. I also have a spy on my spaceport if trying for a science victory and sometimes on my campus district if I don't want attempts to steal tech...though I've found the AI doesn't really steal tech much. Most activity has been either attempts to steal gold or to sabotage my industrial districts in most of my games.

 

[bcaiko]

They can steal more than what's in your treasury and cause disbandment of units? Wow, that's ridiculously destructive.

The OP didn't have to play poorly to get in this situation, either. What if the turn before, you'd had a sizable treasury that you used to upgrade your units on the path to Domination? That'd be a fair and smart use of your treasury. Then the next turn, the AI roles with RNGesus to destroy your remaining money on hand and manages to get some of those units disbanded, even though your economy is doing just fine.

I would certainly ragequit. Seems to me that the OP has a point to ask if this is working as intended. They specifically avoided this kind of gameplay when they implemented spies in past versions of Civ.

 

[SxSnts9]

I was under the assumption that the amount a spy steals is equal to something like 10x your gpt. So if your GPT is 100 he'll steal 1,000. I read this somewhere a while back though so no guarantee if that is correct. It seems off since OP said his gpt was 10 and the spy stole 650.

And I never said your play was weak. I was just saying that the best way to deal with this possibility in the future is to have a healthier economy. 10 GPT by the time spies start coming into play is very, very low. My advice to help with this was to put more emphasis on Commercial Hubs/Harbors for trade routes and GPT generating buildings. I must have misunderstood you and thought you were looking for advice.

Having so much (Relatively speaking) stolen could be a bug, but I haven't seen it discussed before.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

It steals 100% of the gold output of the commercial district being infiltrated over the duration of the operation, so they cannot steal more gold than you make. As the number of cities and commercial districts increases, you won't have enough spies to cover all of them, but it doesn't matter as much if you get hit because each commercial district is a smaller and smaller portion of total income. Don't skimp on spies.

 

[craney1987]

It steals 100% of the gold output of the commercial district being infiltrated over the duration of the operation, so they cannot steal more gold than you make. As the number of cities and commercial districts increases, you won't have enough spies to cover all of them, but it doesn't matter as much if you get hit because each commercial district is a smaller and smaller portion of total income. Don't skimp on spies.

this.
there have been a few posts like this, and it seems to me that the problem is that you've probably spent money the turn before, which lowered your treasury below the total output of the district attacked. This is why your treasury went into negative and your units began to disband. As for which units, im not certain, but it seems logical that the game disbands units with highest maintenance cost first. These are more than likely to be your strongest units

 

[lordhaw]

Hmm...that is interesting. I never realized it would work this way as I am a heavy counter-espionage player so they never seem to get much from me when they do hit. That's pretty rotten...but highly effective I must admit. I wouldn't want it to happen to me though.

 

[steveg700]

On a related tangent, has anyone ever actually had a spy steal a great work of art?

Seems patently unthematic to me for a civilization game--I doubt purloined works from the Louvre will pop up in the Uffizi--but it's hardly the silliest aspect of espionage in Civ VI.

 

[VeronicaCardican]

In my latest game I've been stealing more than half a dozen great works from Russia and it took them two centuries to find out that it was their good friend and ally Brasilia who did it. Quite a fun part of the game.

As far as stealing money goes, mind that the raw output of a commercial hub can be way above your income per turn since the former is revenue and not affected by expenses. I can have three districts producing a hundred coins each and still run an economy of +- 0 gold per turn and if I have less than 500 gp in treasury, a typical spy will run me into a deficit.

The most promising way to heal such an unfortunate economical wound for me is to initiate talks with other civs and sell them stuff. Somebody is bound to have gold lying around and there is always something they want. Giving up those somethings might be the lesser evil when compared to the massive demilitarization due to a budget deficit.

 

[Haig]

I like the Civ VI espionage, my favorite is creating rebels in enemy lands, very satisfying..

Kind of like Lawrence of Arabia or Che Guevara causing havoc.

 

[Victoria]

I play France for fun, and the spies are good once you have a few and they start being successful. You steal gold until you get a promo amd if one of the promo's is great works then yeah I def take it. Especially combined with spies operate at +2 levels. I have been on the other end of this and lost 5 great works before I killed them.... there needs to be an option to kill a captured spy, maybe with some visibility for graphicacation.

I still am confused by these odd threads because there may be a bug there. I mean +10 GPT is not enough for the AI to steal 650 from one city.... is there a save?

 

[craney1987]

As far as stealing money goes, mind that the raw output of a commercial hub can be way above your income per turn since the former is revenue and not affected by expenses. I can have three districts producing a hundred coins each and still run an economy of +- 0 gold per turn and if I have less than 500 gp in treasury, a typical spy will run me into a deficit.

@Victoria I think this. A commercial hub with market bank exchange. Double adjacency bonus, double building bonus would be outputting quite a bit more than 10per turn.

havnt tested it though

 

[Victoria]

Sure @craney1987 but @Tuvok694 said his income is +10 GPT and one has to believe those asking for help.
One cannot remove a bank and exchange easily so perhaps as gold stolen is worked out at the beginning rather than turn by turn they may have had peace deals and trade routes that have changed.... but 694 is a lot.

I am still waiting for the right opportunity to exploit this as I see fun to be had. Go to war with someone, then drop an expert thief in their high earning city. Get peace before their work is done and empty their treasury during the peace deal.

 

[craney1987]

I think maybe we need clarification on where the 10gpt came from? @Tuvok694 Is this the gold generated by the district or your final gpt reported at the top of your game screen calculated after expenses?
@Victoria I agree those buildings can't be easily removed. I think the confusion everyone feels is from where the money is calculated.
would peace deals affect this? If the money is stolen from a commercial hub? I have to admit money stolen from me has been few and far between, so I haven't really had an urge to check this.

 

[Victoria]

Yes the killer is the gold stolen is calculated up front and only based on the city you are in. I do not believe peace deal money is attributed to your cap so I guess trade deals... something feels wrong... 10. GPT is too low for 694 and indicates they made a big deal with someone which is sucking all their cash

 

[VeronicaCardican]

Yes the killer is the gold stolen is calculated up front and only based on the city you are in. I do not believe peace deal money is attributed to your cap so I guess trade deals... something feels wrong... 10. GPT is too low for 694 and indicates they made a big deal with someone which is sucking all their cash

It would hardly matter if expenses are due to trade deals, unit or building maintenance.

The problem is that expenses are calculated empire wide and don't affect the localized yields of commercial hubs at all.

If I run income 1000 and expenses of 1000 I have a net income of 0. Yet my commercial hubs still make money for they are one of the main sources of the 1000 revenue I got. Thus a spy could steal money although technically I have no income as far as the civ as a whole is affected.

Besides, we'd need to know the enemy spy's mission duration in order to calculate exactly how much they are supposed to steal.

And finally I suspect that the description is off. It may well be that a spy gets to steal all the income of the city where the commercial hub is located and not just the district's income itself.

 

[Victoria]

So the bottom line is if you run your cash flow close to the bone and do not protect yourself with spies you are very likely to get into this situation?