National Spy Agency...why?

[BroOfTheSun]

Does anyone build the National Spy Agency? I never build it in any of my games because
I need both constabulary and police station in every city (which is a lot of hammers and maintenance), and I would rather spend those hammers on more important builds.

The requirement to get the NSA seems way too excessive to build, just for an additional spy late in the game which will get used as a diplomat anyways (and upgrade existing spies).

Why wasn't this updated in the last big patch?

Also, I pretty much always play wide. So building constabularies and police stations in all my cities is even more of a waste, besides the hammers and maintenance. All my other cities besides my capital have no tech steal potential. So AI isn't going to put spies in my other cities. All those extra constabularies and police stations are just a waste. NSA not worth it in Civ V.

 

[civ54lyfe]

Also, I pretty much always play wide.

There you go.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

There you go.

Yup...maybe it makes sense playing tall. But you still have to build constabularies and police stations in every city, which are useless in other cities besides your cap/main science city. That is my main gripe with NSA.

 

[redwings1340]

I build it kind of late sometimes if I'm in 3 or 4 cities. Getting an additional spy and leveling up all your current ones is very good, and I'll easily spend 8 turns and a couple thousand gold late game to do that. But yeah, I would never build a constabulary or police station otherwise.

 

[seasnake]

The real problem here is that constabulary and police station don't offer any other kind of benefits. If they did (happiness, for instance) and offered no maintenance costs than it would make sense to dedicate hammers to them.

 

[jlim201]

Wouldnt it be better to require Constabularies?

 

[Strategist83]

I used to more or less agree with OP's points. I've formerly suggested that the requirement be lowered to Constabularies in all cities, as well. However, I'm starting to lean towards it being fine as is. Thing is, OP is wrong about these buildings being useless in non-capital cities - precisely because players will protect their most science-productive cities with spies it can make sense to NOT send spies there and target secondary cities instead - since this will greatly reduce the risk of your spies getting killed, losing all XP and also granting enemy counter-spies lots of XP, it can easily be worthwhile. The Constabulary/Police Station thus becomes a necessary and valuable building for counterespionage.

Also, OP is wrong about the NSA not being worthwhile - the benefits of an extra spy to your [very limited] arsenal of those, getting ALL your spies levelled up AND increased empire-wide counterespionage makes this national wonder *extremely* good. It's true that it's a huge hassle getting it built if you're trying to go wide, but that's probably precisely justified as a means to balance tall/wide (same applies to the Visitor's Centre, which is really powerful, too).

Finally I should point out the same thing that gets overlooked in just about every thread on this site: Against the AI, balance doesn't apply. If you were playing human opponents chances are the tech race would be much more even which means defending against spies is much more important. Also, humans wouldn't simply stick their spies into the same obvious city time after time for your counterspy to kill. This is the situation the Constabulary/PS are balanced around, and here they're worth both the +1 gold upkeep and the [rather significant] production cost. No, these buildings don't help you in any way, but in Civ V harming the opposition is as important as helping yourself!

If I were to change anything, I'd probably remove the gold upkeep from the Police Station (not the Constabulary!). That would put it more in line with the Hotel. Alternatively, it could be the NSA wonder itself that had the added effect of removing upkeep from these buildings.

 

[Splify60]

I actually build the NSA almost every game (deity level) and find it extremely valuable.

Although I agree that the cost is kind of high, the extra level on each spy makes it well worth it for one major reason, couping. I coupe CS's ALL the time and that second level makes a huge difference with this.

If you don't coupe currently, I highly recommend it, late game it saves a lot of money when the AI is crazy rich and buying all the CS's. Almost enough to justify the cost of buying the constabularies and police stations that you need, which is usually what I need to do in at least one city.

Of course, I am often going tall, more than 4 cities it's probably not worth it...

Big thanks to Maddjinn for showing this is an Deity LP video, as I NEVER built NSA before that.

 

[reddishrecue]

^^NSA is a good building for couping like mentioned above by splif.^^ Along with this, there are also other benefits that the NSA provides such as an additional spy and a promotion to all your recruit spies to agents. These 2 alone are already good attributes from the NSA. This is a lot better than the Heroic Epic which is easier to build. The NSA also provides +1 happiness with a social policy, Universal Healthcare. NSA is a lot easier to build when you have a small empire, sort of like building the National College early when you have fewer hammers.

 

[Quineloe]

The real problem here is that constabulary and police station don't offer any other kind of benefits. If they did (happiness, for instance) and offered no maintenance costs than it would make sense to dedicate hammers to them.

This is the reason I don't even build them on a 4 city tall empire. You only "need" these buildings when you're ahead in tech, and you only need them in two cities. They offer nothing in the other two but maintenance.
and even then it's questionable, because usually the AI that requires tech stealing is already way behind anyways.

 

[joshua43214]

It is a very powerful building, and I build it frequently.

It is a must have for OCC CV's for sure, it only takes ~3 turns to build and gives you the extra diplomat/spy for coups.