Is spying horribly unbalanced or what?

[Matthew.]

The whole spy system is structured for the sole purpose of techs being stolen to keep competition close. If you are in the lead (which is often the case on every difficulty other than Deity), then the system is working against you. I don't think it is much to worry about though; it keeps slow civs from falling even further behind.

Works the same way in real life. As much as military/corporations love to try and keep innovations to themselves (either in secret or attempts at copy-right) the fact is knowledge and equipment gets disseminated.

 

[Biologist]

Tech stealing is essentially an advantage to those who are behind in tech, and a threat to those who are ahead in tech. I find it to be an acceptable drawback when I'm in the lead, since I still like using spies to view enemy troop positions; gain line-of-sight for bombardments; subvert city states; and occasionally influence diplomacy. Constructing all the anti-spy buildings in your key research cities and placing a spy in your capital can help a lot. The earlier you position a defensive spy, the better, because it's less likely the computer will have promoted spies that can evade your counterespionage, allowing you to keep taking out their spies.

 

[pspboy7]

Don't forget that the AI probably doesn't just steal tech from you alone. Spying is a great mechanic, especially for keeping you and the AI on an even playing field, even on lower difficulty levels. I mostly find spys are better at acquiring influence with my CS allies though, so I tend to level up my spies in my capital or another important city, and spread the rest in my allied CS.

 

[Galgus]

I had the declaration of friendship first. After the got their spy, they started spying on me while the declaration was still in effect. I denounced them for it and I'm the one that pays the diplomatic penalty. That's messed up!

I agree, Spying should really be more of a diplomatic penalty and a justification for repercussions.

Spying on a friend should be a worse offense than denouncing one by far.

 

[Jacques Lamerde]

It seems to me that if you don't accept, an embassy from another Civ in your capital
that it greatly reduces how fast they steal techs from you. Of course I do realize there are drawbacks to this, such as no RA's. In my current game (King, Continents, everything standard) I am playing as the Celts. I am the leader in Technology just entering the Industrial era in the year 1310. Most other Civs are in the Renaissance era,
I have only once had an unknown spy steal a technology. With no embassies of course I cant do RA's, but none of the AI's are doing them so far either, so staying at the front of the tech race seems like it won't be a problem. I also have a spy in my capital which also helps.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I've noticed that the number of RAs has gone down dramatically since the patch due to the AIs using spare cash to buy units, at least on the difficulty level that I play on.

 

[Peng Qi]

Why whould the Ai spy on you if you have a DOF because it doessn't care about good relations...

I'm very rarely spied on by my friends in Civ. This is because I select my friends carefully and don't accept every offer I'm given.

 

[civ54lyfe]

I've never thought this spy system was a bad idea ... but that doesn't mean that I haven't wanted to tear some AI throats as a consequence

Also I was under the impression that those select of you who play on Imm or whatever consider this mechanic to be vital often times? At lowly prince, if I can build the Nat'l Intel Agency then at that point, I can actually keep a spy in a vital CS who has the uranium.

 

[paceybaby]

You steal from them...they steal from you

If you're bothered about international relations, sometimes its best just pretending you didn't notice and carry on.

 

[jrandrew]

I have been turning espionage off in recent games. It's just not that interesting to me. The interesting parts of the game are those that have interrelationships, trade-offs, and sometimes symbiosis.

E.g. religion has trade-offs and symbiosis with culture. There are bonuses in some cultural policies to religion, and there are some pantheon and also religion beliefs that help culture. But you also lose some other food/hammers/gold by working on religious buildings early on or, say, working a natural wonder that provides faith but less of other bonuses.

Espionage doesn't really add or detract from other parts of the game -- just gives you extra, kind of boring, predictable bonuses. Free tech and sometimes visibility in others' cities. Seems like more work for me to use it than anything else, not much fun.

TL;DR Espionage isn't well integrated into other parts of the game and is kind of boring...

 

[headcase]

Tech-stealing helps civs catch up from behind, which addresses most of the concerns raised in the thread. This could change, but only if they make a more robust catch-up system besides techs costing slightly less when known by other civs.

Don't do the 3 strikes rule. Always forgive them. If you want to go to war with or denounce them, do it whenever you're ready. I'm pretty sure (not positive) that the warmonger hate put on you isn't lessened if you declare over a spy; if anyone knows otherwise, please correct me.

The "warn" option is only useful if you're trying to get them to go to war with you. Not even sure if it helps with that.

 

[joncnunn]

On Spying:
1. I think it should be considered a betrayal to spy on someone you have a DOF (like it is for DOWing someone you have a DOF with)

2. I think the AI should get upset with a player who successfully stages a coup of one of their city state allies.

3. It appears weighted too heavily to the attacker.
(Instead of current, it should require a level 2 spy to steal a tech from a city defended by a level 1 spy; require a level 3 spy to steal a tech from a city defended by a level 2 spy; and be impossible to steal a tech from a city defended by a level 3 spy); the attacker instead of always going to the capital should instead try to go to another city where there is no defending spy.

 

[Furycrab]

They made the tech tree longer to complete and put in spies as interesting methods to scout and as a method to catch up on tech. They made it that way so other ways of playing the game that don't involve going all out for tech could possibly work.

If you are the tech leader, getting stuff stolen is going to happen. It's not exactly imbalanced if when placed in the opposite situation you can do the same to them.

 

[Bex]

If you are the tech leader, getting stuff stolen is going to happen. It's not exactly imbalanced if when placed in the opposite situation you can do the same to them.

If a feature is detrimental to tech leaders out of proportion to the other civs, just so other civs can catch up, then the feature isn't balanced is it? If you like it being unbalanced, that's really a different argument.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

The problem with spying is that it is determined by the enemies science rate per city.
A wide player may be far more advanced but trying to steal from them is futile.
100 turns per tech on quick. The same tech would take 5-7 turns for someone going tall. In fact spies benefit wide empires a lot.
There are a few reasons for this.
1. wide empires are harder to scout.
2. each cities potential is very low so tech stealing takes ages but they tech fast as a whole.
3. Spies placed in cities does not slow down tech stealing, it only kills the spy in 45% of he cases and it is purely based on a die roll.(a very important die roll that is!)
4. ignoreing early techs will speed up tech stealing if your opponet has them and costly techs. so a player might steal the costly techs and get the earlier techs faster then normal.
5. It crushes tall civs as a whole as tall civs really only have a tech edge in the renesainse, after that wide beats them hard in all categories.

As a whole i would say spying is a major penalty to tall civs and insignificant to wide tech leaders.

 

[Bex]

As a whole i would say spying is a major penalty to tall civs and insignificant to wide tech leaders.

Interesting... I guess that's why I found the thievery rate ridiculous; I usually only build one city.

I'm just grateful they included the option to turn espionage off.

 

[headcase]

If a feature is detrimental to tech leaders out of proportion to the other civs, just so other civs can catch up, then the feature isn't balanced is it? If you like it being unbalanced, that's really a different argument.

It appears the devs are trying to counter-act unstable equilibrium, which Civ games have in spades. If not spies, something needs to deal with it. If the AI were a little more focused about banding together and slowing down runaway civs (both human and AI), that might be an alternative.

 

[jjkrause84]

Civ 2 handled it better... catching a country stealing technology from you was a free declaration of war... had no impact on what other countries thought of you.

Wars are already pretty 'free' in Civ 5....the removal of war weariness was a horrible oversight.

 

[RedFuneral]

My problem with the spies isn't in the tech stealing but with the coups. Whenever I go to do one it tells me I have 11% chance of success, and if I lose my spy dies(this is with a special agent). 5 turns in a row now I've lost a city-state to a coup... to the same AI player! I've emptied my treasury re-allying them each turn only to finally give up when they dragged the city state into a war that ended in it's destruction. How could they be pulling off coups that often? They obviously get much more than an 11% chance.


On the tech stealing front, I see that as realistic. DOF are hardly alliances, more like uneasy truces to deter other nations aggression in the area. Like in real life most 'friendly' nations are always trying to one up each other. I think a good balance would be for a caught spy being an opportunity to either extort something from the AI(to keep it quiet) or to incur a minor diplo penalty for them with all other civs. To keep it balanced, the penalty should only hit if you've already asked them to quit spying on you and they agreed.

Should be same with the missionaries and prophets too, I had the same AI that took the city state agree to stop sending them only to send 3 of them(at once!) 10 turns later. My religion was wiped from the map and I was punished for denouncing him.

 

[playshogi]

My problem with the spies isn't in the tech stealing but with the coups. ... 5 turns in a row now I've lost a city-state to a coup... to the same AI player!

Was it Monty? Even when I had Monty down to 1 city, he was annoying me with coup after coup. So, I had to take him out permanently and the coups stopped.