How to plant spies?

[thermos]

Does anybody know what determines whether or not one will succeed in planting a spy in an enemy city using the intelligence agency? Is there any way to pay some extra to decrease the probability of getting the message "Our agent in blablabla was caught and killed. King blablabla was not pleased."?

 

[Grille]

Welcome on CFC, thermos
I haven't seen a thread on chances (real numbers, that is).
However, after not being succesful in planting a spy, you wouldn't have a succesful attempt on trying again within the next couple of turns (4 turns IIRC).

 

[amirsan]

Yup, I always done the mistake and tried planting the Spy the turn after it failed and it didnt work. Hehe...

 

[Beanzy]

I never even bother, cuz my spy always fails and all I get a pissed off ruler. Besides, even if it succeeds, it is not really that imperative, especially for the amount of money it costs for you to do all the espionage stuff properly.

 

[UFDelt]

I know this is cheap but I think having a Spy is extremely important so I just save it before I do it and if I don't get it, then I'll try reload and try it again. Spying is great b/c you know their units and how much they have and gives you the ability to see into cities when you're at war with them so you know how many units you have to devote to capturing a city.

 

[Pal {UI}]

Reloading like that is cheating. Half the fun of the game is in dealing with things that go wrong, and a Civ declaring war when I am not ready because I botched a spy plant is one of the things that makes the game enjoyable.

But if you enjoy it then go ahead! Just don't play the GOTM!

Cheers.

 

[Pongui]

Originally posted by Beanzy
I never even bother, cuz my spy always fails

Originally posted by Pal {UI}
Reloading like that is cheating.

I'm torn. I love espionage, but not as in Kafka's The Castle, with every stab at it a dumb failure. Is it just pure hard luck, or am I missing something?

 

[gen.dragolen]

Sean,

It is just pure luck, with the percentage chance for success determined in part by the people´s satisfaction rating. The premise is that content people are less likely to go for it.

This unfortunately is another area of the game that was given a ´lick and a promise´ when they designed it. There are so many levels where they could improve it and make it a proper part of the game. Ever since there was a Royal Court, there have been spies in use. So to have it where there are no ways to modify the chances for success and having 3 options with increasing costs for diminished chances of success is a joke.

A simple system of being able to pick a city, and bribe a local official or two, or even just to place a watcher or two who could report on building queues or troop movements would make a huge difference. At a more advanced level, agents should be able to forment rebellions, disrupt production, steal plans, etc... much like in Alpha Centauri. And it should not be too hard to code either. Most of the basics needed are already in the game.

I´m hoping that Civ IV will have features like that since they were incorporated into other games like Civ II and CTP2. In the meanwhile, indirect methods are all we have like parking transports off the coast out of cannon range and watch what rolls by...

D.

 

[cavemanf16]

Funny you put it that way gen.dragolen.

I personally never use the Spy function in Civ3 or PTW. What a waste too! Civ2 had a great balance of the Spy and Diplomat units. And when you think about it, many many MANY military "manuals" from long ago (and even not so long ago) that speak of the important usage of spies and 'bribing' those who can be bribed in the enemy's government. Sun Tzu's Art of War and most of the other ancient Chinese war writings discuss this fact and necessity to facilitating a successful campaign against a foe.

I really do hate how Firaxis changed the Spy functions from Civ2 -> Civ3. Anyone got any good links to some 'mods' that improve on the spying functions? (Like "spy" units similar to Civ2)

 

[Norlamand]

I hate the way the current spy function works. Why should mission that costs 1200 gp at one time cost 6000 gp later? Just because I have more money?? The pricing based on a fraction of your bank account is stupid. Each mission should have a cost based on the relative difficulty (say score ratio between civs) with addition funds allocated to increase the chance of success.
That said, it is nice to have a spy or two out there to sabotage the other civs attempts at wonders and the like should they get to them before you can.

 

[Roland Johansen]

There's a thread about this subject in the general discussions forum too. It's called creating spies. I posted a long answer there.
If you want to read it go here .

About the spies in CivII: I really disliked them. They were way too powerfull. You could bribe entire countries using these guys. And there was virtually no way to stop them because in CivII railroads in the other guys territory still work. You could walk through the enemies territory using their railroads and then decide which city to bribe. Of course you chose a city that was in a defendable position. It was easier to bribe cities then to conquer them.

Also I don't like the spy as a visible unit on the screen. Just as I don't like diplomats as visible units on the screen. Thats just not the way spies and diplomats work in "the real world". They don't walk through the city gates and then bribe the city. In my opinion they should be an invisible part of the game like in CivIII. In civIII they aren't implemented perfectly, far from that. But better as in CivII (in my opinion).

In CivIII some espionage missions aren't really usefull. The initiate propaganda mission for instance isn't very usefull. If you look in the other tread in which I posted you'll see that spies can still be usefull for other missions. They're just not the superunit from CivII they used to be.