intelligence actions cost are too expensive

[shadid1584]

Don't you think that in civ3 intelligence is useless because the cost of their missions are too expensive?

 

[SirJethro]

I think the "Investigate City" costs are reasonable. Everything else is too expensive though.

 

[Pillager]

Yes, plus the fact that I don't think it's successfull often enough. I think CivIII is great, but they really messed up the espionage side of the game.

Has anyone ever caught the AI in the act of placing a spy in your capital?

 

[Yndy]

I have to disagree with you guys. I also thought that the use of intelligence to be to costly and stopped using it. So one day a friend came to me and said: "Instead of paying 300 gpt for combustion, why don't you steal it?" "Too expensive", I replied. "Check it out", he said.

And I was staggered to see that it was 4500 gold to steal it. And the money wouldn't go to the AI but would be lost, which is an important advantage, as you don't support the AI.

It also happened that after stealing two techs in the same turn (I had a huge gold chest but that's another story), I got another one free (sort of a bug maybe?).

Yes I caught the French twice trying to put a spy in my capital but I think the AI only carries intelligence missions if it has a certain amount of money. Anyway why put a spy if they already know how big and where my troops are (I think AI knows this).

And I use investigate city quite often in the modern times war as well as for Wonder races.

 

[billindenver]

Some missions should be expensive, like stealing techs and subverting cities, but something like attempting to destroy improvement should be more reasonable and have better chances of success. It's VERY rare that I ever have enough gold to attempt a mission, and the few times I have, the missions have failed.

 

[Thunderfall]

Espionage is only useful during the Spaceship race. In the last game I played, I managed to steal nuclear power from the Persians and then researched The Laser myself. I finished the spaceship just 1 turn ahead of the Persians.

 

[JoeM]

I agree the costs are too high and also dislike the idea that espionage is somehow a modern phenomena - even a passing interest in history lets you know spies have been around since the year dot.

 

[Panda]

In one game only have I managed to flip a few small cities (< size 4) using propaganda.

I find spys useful for gaining info on my enemies miliary strength, though. Even if it's depressing to know you're still have to take out 117 Mech Infs.

 

[Eowyn of Rohan]

I know the AI uses espionage if it's planning a war. I tested this: once as the Babs I had a large culture border on all my cities [too far away to see the actual city even from a mountain just outside the border] and yet the AI unerringly sent the cavalry stack straight to the ONE city I purposefully left empty.

I can't think of any way they would know that without cheating or spying.

 

[Grey Knight]

Actually, it's cheating in that case. The AI will use espionage, but knowledge of where all units are is a "free" advantage the AI has at all levels.

Cheers,
Shawn

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

I guess i am the only one who loves espionage. Every game i always save money for stealing techs and sabotaging production. A little sabotage at the right time can win you the space race or let you get a wonder before the AI.

 

[Graeme the mad]

I dont think its too expensive - if it were you would be using it willy nilly all over the place and that would be silly - tech stealing cost about 5000 gold and since mostly im getting around 50 to 1500 gpt in that time its at max ten tuns (starting from zilch) before I can steal a tech - that aint too much really

 

[Gothmog]

Another thing is that you can get more than one tech from one mission. I recently got three. I was maybe 5 or 6 techs behind at that time and already at war with the victim. The mission only cost 1500 gp and I got Motorized Transportation which saved my behind. This was on a Diety leve game and so I would have to say that espionage is far from useless. Like most other things in civ3 context is everything

 

[cgannon64]

Far too much. The only things I occaisonally do is steal techs and investigate cities---the rest are just insane.

 

[satchel]

At first I was tempted to say "it's too expensive." After all, in Civ II subverting cities was my principal conquest strategy, and in Civ III I have never once done it, nor stolen a technology. However, the excellent comments in this thread have me rethinking that position. Spy missions *shouldn't* be as easy as they were in Civ II. There, they were practically an afterthought. It's interesting to me that to use espionage in Civ III you have to do some thinking and planning, i.e. save up the cash to make it happen. I will consider that in my next game.

 

[foodguy]

i agree with satchel. in civ2, i played the "painless conquest" method of building up a big war chest and then sending the spies out. there would usually be a couple of expensive cities, then i'd be picking up towns for $200 to $300 per. that's not realistic. the combination of higher expense and the corruption charges in civ3 really argue against a world domination kind of game. i'm in awe of those who can pull it off, but i only win by spaceship or diplo.

 

[Yzman]

I agree that it should cost the ay it is now. If it was cheaper peaople would never reearch and would only steal. The people that research have to pay out large amounts to reasearch it so why should you not have to pay large amounts to steal it? Make it to easy, and no one would ever want to research, even though most people(including me) don't research on the high levels.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by Pillager
Yes, plus the fact that I don't think it's successfull often enough. I think CivIII is great, but they really messed up the espionage side of the game.

Has anyone ever caught the AI in the act of placing a spy in your capital?

I have never caught the AI in the act of placing a spy (although I have been caught a number of times). However, I do risk flushing out spys occasionally. I am pretty sure the AI steals tech from me (although again I have never caught him in the act) especially if the civ in question is more powerful than I but behind in tech. So if I get a tech that conveys a significant military advantage and I want to use it to bring down the current most powerful civ I will often try to flush out his spy. If I am caught then the war begins a bit earlier than I wanted. Sometimes the other civ will just threaten retaliation and cancil trade deals though.

Does anyone know if flushing out enemy spys causes a stain on ones reputation?

As far as too expensive, the AI values tech very highly in my estimation. They often want 3000 gp or 200 gpt for one. This is on the order of the cost of a "safe" mission and as I noted before sometimes you can steal more than one tech on one mission.

 

[Gothmog]

Oh, and I too played the spy conquest in civ2. Usually when the game was already in hand and I wanted to really dominate. But sometimes it could be used to come from behind in the end game. I am glad this was made more expensive and changed mainly because the AI never took advantage of this tactic (in civ2).

 

[bbaws]

Deliberately getting spies caught is the best way of starting a world war when there are a lot of contradictory MPPs in operation. Simply spy on your target, get caught, let him attack you. Presto all his MPPs turn to Sh** coz you've bought MPPs with his long time allies. The savings from that alone make up for the expense of successful spy missions.
I agree completely with the high cost of techs, if you want them cheap you buy them above board. If you want them and don't want to strengthen your foe hang the expense.