No Espionage Missions?

[Alexsy]

I have recently constructed an intelligence center in one of my cities. I can plant spies. In fact, i have spies in all of my opponents cities. But I can't execute any missions like propaganda, steal plans, etc.

I'm playing vanilla, v1.21. Any thoughts on what's going on here?

 

[AlanH]

No idea. I've almost never played 1.21, but I don't remember that being recorded as a bug in it. I never use espionage in 1.29 either, so I know nothing of its prerequisites or whatever.

 

[nmcul]

You're not missing much, pal! Basic installation gives you enemy unit lists and Space Race info. Steal Technology and Investigate City can be run by embassies and the rest of this game's laughable espionage is so expensive that it really does not pay off to run advanced missions. Of course, that's just one man's opinion.

 

[AlanH]

@nmcul: Agreed. On the few occasions when I've reached that phase of the game the combination of the cost of the optional techs required, plus the silly prices, plus the high risk of failure, made it all seem a waste of money.

 

[kelvSYC]

Stealing plans is, IMO, the only mission that is worthwhile. Stealing techs or world maps is not worthwhile as generally you can get them through diplomacy at a much cheaper cost. Whenever I play, bribing a city isn't going to work unless the city is really close to your capital and you have a 4-1 or better culture ratio.

Anyways, by the time I can get to building the Intelligence Agency, I usually have the ability to crush the AI, although spearmen killed five of my full-health veteran MA once...

 

[AlanH]

Well, I'm sure Alexsy's very interested in our views about the relative merits of espionage, but that isn't his question! We're no nearer to solving the root problem, which is that he seems to have a defective installation. I doubt if it's a fundamental flaw in the Mac version, as we'd have heard about it before now. So either Alexsy is playing a defective modded scenario, or his software installation is faulty, or he has a corrupted game file.

If this failure is happening in multiple standard random games then I can only suggest reinstalling Civ3, taking care to backup the Saves folder. If it's only happening in one specific random game that maybe that game file is corrupt. If it's only happening in a specific scenario then maybe it's a faulty scenario.

 

[kremlac]

the only use i ever have for espionage is tricking some of the more warlinke civs into declaring war on me.