RANT: espionage

[Renata]

Never try to plant a spy within about the first four or five turns after a failed attempt. It's a guaranteed failure. I don't remember the details, but if you try to plant one and fail, you get "locked out" for a while. That means you don't have the usual 50% or 75% or whatever-it-is chance of succeeding, you have 0% chance of succeeding. There's a chance every turn for the "lockout" effect to go away, but it doesn't add up to a *good* chance for it to be gone until about four or five turns have passed.

No other spy mission is subject to this, just planting a spy in the first place.

Renata

 

[vmxa]

If a spy plant fails you will get a flag saying so. You can't plant a spy when flagged. There is a chance of 1/3 for the flag to disappear each turn. Failing other spy missions, does not trigger the flag. You can plant a spy the same turn your spy has been exposed by a failed mission.

 

[Renata]

What do you mean by a flag? Is something actually visible on screen somewhere? That'd be new to me if so; I've never noticed.

Renata

 

[wilbill]

It's nothing visible on the screen, it's a "flag" in the software. The game uses it to "remember" that you failed in planting a spy.

 

[Grille]

What do you mean by a flag? Is something actually visible on screen somewhere? That'd be new to me if so; I've never noticed.

Renata

Umm, no banner flying in the wind or so.
"Flag" as in, hmm... "attribute"; if that makes sense.
You could succeed on a plant attempt one turn after a failed attempt, but the chances are slim because of that penalty flag.

 

[Renata]

Ok, that's what I thought. Just the way vmxa worded it made me wonder if I were missing something obvious.

Renata

 

[Ansar]

I sure wish espionage would allow you to steal resources (just a small handful, please). I'm a peaceful builder and would rather go for a spaceship win, but it seems like in every single game I'm missing just rubber and it's all on another continent. Yes, I almost always have a good military, but I don't really want to start a war...I want to build...and it's so much harder to fight a late war without the units that need rubber.

yea same here, but with uranium its my problem, never have an uranium.

 

[commodified]

Is there an espionage calculator on this site anywhere? What do the three levels of caution when stealing tech really mean?

 

[brennan]

Immmediately = you will get caught
Carefully = you will get caught
Safely = you will get caught.

There is no more helpless feeling in civ than running espionage missions, they seem totally unreliable. You do not even get an estimate of your chances of sucess before the superpower next to you decides to batter you senseless for being rude. And this was an improvement.

 

[commodified]

That's about how I feel. I like your sig--the world's wine supply?

 

[Gato Loco]

Espionage is definitely worth it. Knowing how many tanks the enemy has is a godsend, as is knowing where the bombers are based. As for the other missions, I'm just glad you can't bribe cities like in Civ2. And stealing tech is much less efficient than rush-building tanks with the gold instead, capturing cities, and then extorting the tech in a peace deal.

 

[Mupetti]

Stealing techs in modern age seems to succeed very often, almost every time. Its definitely worth it, since buying them would cost something between 4-15k.

 

[brennan]

Hey I could easily have had 'must control world ivory supply', what are you saying about me, grr, were you in the middle of town at about 2:30 last Friday? It wasn't me it was my evil twin honest.

Save the Elephants

On my current game my rep is spotless, have won 5 wars (all started by my idiot neighbours) and want to go to war with France (now my nearest weak neighbour). Have been planting spies, stealing plans, disrupting production, using propaganda etc etc for last 6 or 7 turns and keep getting caught and she B%$£@y well won't declare. Chicken.

Ho Hum. Researching Mass production in 4 turns. Ah tanks

Diplomacy is irrelevant