How are Spies useful?

[Plankhead]

I know spies have to be useful somehow. Could someone please tell me? Does anyone use them?

 

[Vizzini]

Spys are completely invisible and cannot be detected except by enemy spys (very low probability of that happening from what I've seen). You can freely roam other Civ's territory with impunity.

Coolest "free" thing it can do is when a spy enters a city you can see what it's building and how long it has to completion. In a space race this is critical intel that you can't get any other way.

Things to do with your spy: For 200ish gold you can blow up the improvements on a tile. This might not seem like that big of a deal.. until you realize what the loss of Oil or Aluminum might do to a civ during a modern era war. (And of course the biggie: Uranium)

If an AI is outracing you in the space race you can also blow up production in the enemy city. This is very expensive, roughly 3x the hammers the city has "banked" for its production in gold. e.g. if they've built 1000 hammers worth of a part already it'll cost you around 3,000 gold to blow that production... but if you do you've set back the AI a massive amount of hammers!)

Spys can be very useful, but they're very situational. Used effectively and proactively they are perhaps the most important units you will ever build.

 

[Astax]

Dunno about the spy revealing spy, but a spy can be discovered by a military unit if one is present at the place fo the sabotage. So if you use a spy to sabotage oil well and there was some marines there they have a chance to catch your spy in action. Which will destroy your spy.

 

[Vizzini]

Dunno about the spy revealing spy, but a spy can be discovered by a military unit if one is present at the place fo the sabotage. So if you use a spy to sabotage oil well and there was some marines there they have a chance to catch your spy in action. Which will destroy your spy.

True - but only if you try to sabotage with enemy units there. Otherwise the presense of other units with the spy is not a concern.

Supposedly your spy can expose an enemy spy by just being in the same tile, but mine have never spotted an enemy spy. I may just be unlucky of course.. anyone have any luck with that aspect of it?

 

[R3dKnight]

It's a pain in the ass to produce spies and use them passively. I'd much rather just rush 3 workers to re-work the improvement than camp a spy there.

Spies are better at being used actively. If you really want to cripple a Civ without starting a war, there's no better way than spies.

 

[alerum68]

Today I decided to play around with spies, and found them great for crippling AIs that I'm at peace with. The chance of success was usually between 40-70%, but I had alot of successes. The only problem I found was that after pillaging for a while that I was no longer able to do pillage improvments against that civ.

How are they doing this? Is it something they built, a tech they learned? I thought it may due to being caught, but with one civ that I was no longer able to pillage, I hadn't had a spy caught. I read both the manual and civlopedia. Any ideas on why this is happening?

 

[weasel77066]

Well I have always found a way to screw the AI one way or the othrer. Spies are good. I use them them hunt down the wonders and when I find-em it gets messy. When Im competing for a wonder, I sabotage hammers in the oppoising city. It costs less gold, the chances (of success) are much greater, and its a hell of alot of fun.
One thing I found out is you are limited in spies.. (its like 4 or 5) and that screwed me up to start, but now I got it. Also- I think if they have a spy to catch you. then your spy will be dispanded. (I'm not sure about that, but it really looks like it) Ive had three spies vanish for no apparent reason.

 

[rabottens]

I enjoy using spies. It can make a difference in a close space race. Not only do you see what your opponent is working on and how far he has to go but you can also attempt to sabotage his production. I have found it worthwhile to infiltrate a neighbor who I don't trust as the spies are quite effective. If you find yourself losing ground to an opponent spies can help equalize your neighbor.

 

[jeremiahrounds]

Spys might be caught if you pillage in the same square as a unit. But mine werent caught when i pillaged in squares without units. That makes them pretty cool in war time as the AI seems to be slow to make them.

 

[Berge20]

Today I decided to play around with spies, and found them great for crippling AIs that I'm at peace with. The chance of success was usually between 40-70%, but I had alot of successes. The only problem I found was that after pillaging for a while that I was no longer able to do pillage improvments against that civ.

How are they doing this? Is it something they built, a tech they learned? I thought it may due to being caught, but with one civ that I was no longer able to pillage, I hadn't had a spy caught. I read both the manual and civlopedia. Any ideas on why this is happening?

Do you have enough funds to proceed with the sabotage?
Took me a while to figure out that it costs money. Ran through the manual and boards before I found it. Lol, felt so dumb.

I was like "WTH" I've been doing it and nothing has changed, why is it dark now?!? Um, Berge....your treasury is empty.

 

[spiceant]

i find spys usefull when i am at war with a civilization that doesnt have the SDI.
the spy is the only unit that can get in and point out a tres bien location for a nuke.

edit: provided that the civilization has enough defense against ordinary units like helicopters.

 

[alerum68]

Do you have enough funds to proceed with the sabotage?
Took me a while to figure out that it costs money. Ran through the manual and boards before I found it. Lol, felt so dumb.

I was like "WTH" I've been doing it and nothing has changed, why is it dark now?!? Um, Berge....your treasury is empty.

It could have been. It hasn't happened in quiet a while, and have been in future tech so pulling in alot gpt per turn, more then enough to cover all spy actitivy. And at the time I was in a space race with another civ, and larger projects like sabotage. I'll have to keep an eye and see if it happenes again and if that is the cause. Thanks!

 

[anton_z1]

Plant a spy in a holy city and you can get access to the info of a whole civ and more. Great ways to get the whole map.

 

[Magnus Maximus]

I like spies for all the reasons you guys mentioned...but I have never caught an enemy spy with my spy either....

(it would be a good opportunity to have an animated Spy vs. Spy cartoon pop up!)

 

[Magnus Maximus]

I like spies for all the reasons you guys mentioned...but I have never caught an enemy spy with my spy either....

(it would be a good opportunity to have an animated Spy vs. Spy cartoon pop up!)

 

[BaneBlade]

I like spies too, for the aforementioned things, especially since i never build a spaceship and they provide a possibility to hinder AIs with theirs. But imho they are too weak, they come to late, and their actions costs TOO MUCH. I use them regularly as scout for my nukerush, in this case they are pretty good, nothing to complain. I did ressource-denial with them, and there begins the pain for me, in modern age most civs are able to rebuild destroyed improvement nearly every turn, so it gets really expensive. Example where i did this: Enemy AI alone on other continent, i had a slight lead pointwise, think it was around 1990. Much of his units not upgraded, afaik Ai will keep them this way and upgrade them all after 1-2 turns of war. So i decide to take him out and denial him the possibility to upgrade to accomplish this. Targets were: 1Offshoreplatform, 2 inlandoil, 1 Uranium, 1 Aluminium. I took one carriergroup on the offshoresource, destroyed one oil with gunships first turn(guarded it with sam/mech/armorstack), the other sources with 3 of my spies, so one spy was free to spot for nuketargets. The game continued in this way for ca. 15 turns, sabotage/he rebuilds same or next turn, repeat... One spy fails/get caught, lucky me i can nuke the source, some turns later, second spy fails, doh. All i achieved through the expenses(200-400 gpt, one idle carriergroup, 3 idle landunits, 2 death spies) seemed pretty much nothing when he upgraded all his units at once and subsequently battered my bridgehead and conquered his city back(the one i did not raze for airlift/forward base). Spies are too weak/expensive imho for everything else than scouting. And even for that your normally better of with a strong airforce, except(like in my example) when you cannot reach your targets.

 

[GinandTonic]

As a side note, put a spy on a sub and pillage those oil rigs... No way for them to work out who was responsible. In an oil denial removing worldwide surpless is vital so they cant just trade for it.

Also if you notice that either their health or happy is lower than the other a program of eliminating those resorces can really set them back. Even if they have lots of a resorce making them cancel deals w the other ai's hurts relations - assuming the inter ai relations are propperly modled.

 

[cfcsvanberg]

If they want to rebuild their resources they have to go outside with their workers, and probably a few units to protect them. That's when you send in the helicopters and waste the workers.

 

[BaneBlade]

Normally i would do so, problem was except the offshore and one other oilsource they were even out of reach of my airforce, and the stack gunships i used initially got killed(saminf) before he was halfway through..