My Rage Post on Espionage

[General McUgly]

Alright...the title of my post pretty much explains my purpose here. Espionage seems to be a parlor trick to let the AI get a tech out of me every 20 turns. I've played one game and had Germany try to steal from me 3 times(2 times they succeeded, and in a city I had a full time spy countering them). First they steal physics, then merely 5 turns later they steal gunpowder.

...am I missing something here? I posted a spy in one of their cities out of interest and it will take me +50 turns to do anything. What is going on here? Do I have to annihilate all other AIs now just to keep my techs safe? With a 60% of having my techs stolen when I have a spy in, I don't know what else to do...this is ruining the game for me.

 

[joshua43214]

constabulary will slow them down a bit, but I never bother with them unless I am going to build the wonder.
I always toss my first spy into a civ that is far away and will have a tech or two I do not (often as not banking or chivalry), once I get caught I bring him home after he has picked up a level or two. A level 3 spy will kill the majority of enemy spies, though I have noticed that they do a better job once I am two era's ahead - but who cares at that point.

 

[redwings1340]

Is there any particular reason you're hurting significantly from enemy spies? When other civs put spies in my capital I just treat that as an opportunity to get them to level up. When a spy reaches level three, that spy is able to more effectively steal enemy tech, commit coups, and rig city state elections.

Enemy spies don't hurt you, it's not as if you lose the tech when they take it or have any concerns about them being there. It just means the AI techs up a little faster than they would otherwise. If it's ruining the game for you, you can always play on a higher difficulty then go autocracy once you get an ideology. Then you can experience revenge when you're stealing the AI techs with industrial espionage!

 

[General McUgly]

Is there any particular reason you're hurting significantly from enemy spies? When other civs put spies in my capital I just treat that as an opportunity to get them to level up. When a spy reaches level three, that spy is able to more effectively steal enemy tech, commit coups, and rig city state elections.

Enemy spies don't hurt you, it's not as if you lose the tech when they take it or have any concerns about them being there. It just means the AI techs up a little faster than they would otherwise. If it's ruining the game for you, you can always play on a higher difficulty then go autocracy once you get an ideology. Then you can experience revenge when you're stealing the AI techs with industrial espionage!

Its bothering me because I enjoy having a tech advantage...I have a lvl 2 spy in my city and I had two major military techs stolen from me in 5 turns by the same civ. I had planned on making this a peaceful game after starting my first game with G&K installed, but instead I get laid into by a civ I had friendly relations with, had my relationship with a CS ruined that I had spent a good chunk of gold on a turn earlier, and now every civ in the game hates me(again) because I declared war on the two stooges I mentioned earlier.

I'm not even going into the lack of a religious victory...
I'm sorry guys, but all of your suggestions involve using techs I'm miles away from...I have one spy and no access to espionage buildings yet.

 

[redwings1340]

Its bothering me because I enjoy having a tech advantage...I have a lvl 2 spy in my city and I had two major military techs stolen from me in 5 turns by the same civ. I had planned on making this a peaceful game after starting my first game with G&K installed, but instead I get laid into by a civ I had friendly relations with, had my relationship with a CS ruined that I had spent a good chunk of gold on a turn earlier, and now every civ in the game hates me(again) because I declared war on the two stooges I mentioned earlier.

I'm not even going into the lack of a religious victory...
I'm sorry guys, but all of your suggestions involve using techs I'm miles away from...I have one spy and no access to espionage buildings yet.

How big of a tech advantage do you have? I think spies are a good catch up mechanism that benefits players who are behind. If you're ahead in tech, a couple of stolen technologies isn't going to hurt you. If the game didn't tell you that they were stolen and just had a passive scholars in residence style system, you would never even know that the enemy civs are taking advantage of your tech lead, and you'd still be way ahead in the game. Science is everything, and if you have the tech lead, you can do everything. Spies are a way to counter this mechanic, but even with spies, the person with the tech lead is still always in the commanding position, so I don't mind the concept.

For diplomatic purposes, I have found that diplomacy is somewhat difficult to learn, but once you learn it, it makes a lot of sense. Declaring war by itself doesn't lead to huge consequences, but taking cities and declaring friendships with civs that hate each other does. The declaring friendships part was the hardest for me to get. If you declare friends with everyone, everyone will start hating you because you are friends with their enemy. In the civ world, nobody likes Sweden (which is way too accurate if you abuse their UA to become friends with everyone). On the other hand, denouncing a civ that a few of your potential friends don't like can earn you allies.

 

[FeiLing]

Just let them steal the techs. If they are on the same tech level than you, they might research one you don't have by them,selves which then you can steal from them effectively letting you finish the game earlier than if you prevented them from stealing.
Also 1: Counterspy
Also 2: The more science a city produces the faster techs get stolen. A human usually concentrates all science to the maximum in his capital while an AI doesn't do that as well (like no Academies ever).

What REALLY PISSES ME OFF concerning espionage is the AI constantly making coups which put myself to 0 influence. If you'd try that, it's a 0% chance for sure (and I keep failing with 85% chance anyway). This seriously needs to be fixed. The idea to swap the current allies and the coup'ing civs influence is an awful mechanic in the first place, should be a defined number of points instead like a change of -20 for the one and +20 for the other civ at max. Not -85 for the one (the human) and +85 for the other (an AI).

 

[General McUgly]

How big of a tech advantage do you have? I think spies are a good catch up mechanism that benefits players who are behind. If you're ahead in tech, a couple of stolen technologies isn't going to hurt you. If the game didn't tell you that they were stolen and just had a passive scholars in residence style system, you would never even know that the enemy civs are taking advantage of your tech lead, and you'd still be way ahead in the game. Science is everything, and if you have the tech lead, you can do everything. Spies are a way to counter this mechanic, but even with spies, the person with the tech lead is still always in the commanding position, so I don't mind the concept.

For diplomatic purposes, I have found that diplomacy is somewhat difficult to learn, but once you learn it, it makes a lot of sense. Declaring war by itself doesn't lead to huge consequences, but taking cities and declaring friendships with civs that hate each other does. The declaring friendships part was the hardest for me to get. If you declare friends with everyone, everyone will start hating you because you are friends with their enemy. In the civ world, nobody likes Sweden (which is way too accurate if you abuse their UA to become friends with everyone). On the other hand, denouncing a civ that a few of your potential friends don't like can earn you allies.

Just a few techs ahead...I was the only one with gunpowder units and I have cannons. Now I also have riflemen. Everything except stop surrounding civs from taking away my tech advantage in military...the only way to stop that is to destroy them before they can use it against me.

Well I didn't make any new declarations of friendship, but Sweden was one I was friends with. I actually attacked two nations Spain had been at war with and they denounce me right I after I declared it. Now Sweden hates me too. But I did raze a civ's last city and capture a city state before that happened.

edit: Is there a bug with the mechanic that calculates whether a CS fears your military? I have the strongest military in the game and still no CS fears me.

 

[Walter R]

edit: Is there a bug with the mechanic that calculates whether a CS fears your military? I have the strongest military in the game and still no CS fears me.

It's not how big your military is it's your military proximity to the CS - a couple of units close to the CS is usually more than enough to see that they "recognise your military strength", even if they're allies.

 

[General McUgly]

It's not how big your military is it's your military proximity to the CS - a couple of units close to the CS is usually more than enough to see that they "recognise your military strength", even if they're allies.

Hm...well I had every tile surrounding their cities, two tiles out filled with musketmen, cannon, crossbowmen, and knights but they still had the "we're not afraid of you thing.

On a side note, is G&K the expansion that adds external trade routes or do I need BNW?(which unfortunately wasn't included in the gold pack upgrade I bought...)

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

also found espionage as a whole annoying. Found a solution: before starting a game, advanced settings: turn espionage off.

 

[Walter R]

Hm...well I had every tile surrounding their cities, two tiles out filled with musketmen, cannon, crossbowmen, and knights but they still had the "we're not afraid of you thing.

On a side note, is G&K the expansion that adds external trade routes or do I need BNW?(which unfortunately wasn't included in the gold pack upgrade I bought...)

Must have picked a real hard-case CS then! Or a mindlessly optimistic one...

If I understand your question correctly it isn't G&K (but your phrasing is a little ambiguous)

 

[General McUgly]

also found espionage as a whole annoying. Found a solution: before starting a game, advanced settings: turn espionage off.

I've never see a setting to turn off espionage, even under advanced settings. Is that added in a mod?

edit: There it is...under No City Razing. Haha Good advice Darth.

Must have picked a real hard-case CS then! Or a mindlessly optimistic one...

If I understand your question correctly it isn't G&K (but your phrasing is a little ambiguous)

I know...maybe it was an event that happened earlier? The CS asked me to protect them after a tribute attempt by Germany, and I did. It said after that they would be more resistant to tributes.

My phrasing can be problematic..but yep I meant were foreign trade routes a feature in G&K. So they're added in BNW?

 

[kojax]

Alright...the title of my post pretty much explains my purpose here. Espionage seems to be a parlor trick to let the AI get a tech out of me every 20 turns. I've played one game and had Germany try to steal from me 3 times(2 times they succeeded, and in a city I had a full time spy countering them). First they steal physics, then merely 5 turns later they steal gunpowder.

...am I missing something here? I posted a spy in one of their cities out of interest and it will take me +50 turns to do anything. What is going on here? Do I have to annihilate all other AIs now just to keep my techs safe? With a 60% of having my techs stolen when I have a spy in, I don't know what else to do...this is ruining the game for me.

How big is your capital city?

How big is theirs?

The bigger the city, the faster you can steal techs from it.

 

[jlim201]

If you are playing Domination, you tend to research the bottom of the tech tree first, and with spying, it is easier to catch up on those skipped techs. When playing peaceful, military techs can sometimes lack, creating the same effect

 

[General McUgly]

How big is your capital city?

How big is theirs?

The bigger the city, the faster you can steal techs from it.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but my city was much bigger. I was using the tradition tree so I only founded 4 cities of my own and I had a few maritime city states.

If you are playing Domination, you tend to research the bottom of the tech tree first, and with spying, it is easier to catch up on those skipped techs. When playing peaceful, military techs can sometimes lack, creating the same effect

Since I've never heard of Domination I'll assume I'm not playing it.

Unless domination is the main game type?

 

[redwings1340]

Domination just means going for a domination victory (capturing every capital) as opposed to a more peaceful victory (science, diplo, culture).

 

[Plumfairy]

What REALLY PISSES ME OFF concerning espionage is the AI constantly making coups which put myself to 0 influence. If you'd try that, it's a 0% chance for sure (and I keep failing with 85% chance anyway).

Yeah, this is really annoying, but I'm pretty sure the AI is playing by the same rules you are with regard to coups. I think the AI is buying influence until they're just a little bit less than you, and then they're committing coups. In theory, you could do the same thing to him... but it requires a ton of micromanagement and is kind of a pain in the butt.

 

[isau]

The AI and the player play by the same rules for spying. Spying is there to slow limit how far runaway civs can get ahead. IMO turning it off makes the game way too easy on whoever ends up as the breakaway.

If you keep placing spies and find they take forever to steal something, it's because your science is ahead. Place the spy in your capital to limit other people but realize they will still steal some things.

If you are consistently finding yourself way far ahead of other civs and with nothing to steal you may need to increase difficulty. On higher difficulties you will occasionally be the person stealing 5 techs in 40 turns. You'll have to, to survive.

 

[Idleray]

Sigh. The AI stealing techs from you is "ruining you enjoyment of the game".

Really.

How is it then that I can win a game while behind on tech all the way up to the end?

So your first problem is a mind-set issue. Sure it's somewhat annoying but nothing to get this upset over. A spy posted in your capital with a constab is basically going to ward of 90% of tech stealing.

The 2nd problem is looking at this in real terms: Tech advantage is only as good as your ability to capitalise on it, and that means having enough production and gold to get the goodies that a Tech advantage offers. If you're still ahead on those counts, then it doesn't matter how much the AIs try to catch up in tech.

 

[njmfff]

Tech steal don't bother me that much. I really don't care if AI manages to still Optics from me while I am in Industrial (just example).

but what pisses me off is the fact that AI has a chance to coup CS with like 15%, and I get 1/4 faisl with 85% !