removing espionage

[Burning_Star_IV]

Now i don't know how anyone else feels about it, heck i don't know if there's a discussion topic about it (sorry too lazy to look harder), but face it, espionage is just plan terrible. Honestly, every time i bother to send a spy into an enemy city they have 20-30% on espionage (and barely 40-50 on research). Almost every game i become absurdly advanced, to the point where it's annoying (ex. emporer on persia earth map, 7-8 techs ahead of all long before medieval, normall i'm barely that on prince, ect.). And then, to make up for the imminent lack of economy because of their high spy point percents, i lose a tile improvement or get city poisoned every 5-10 turns, which is highly annoying.

So is there by chance any way (I seriously doubt it) to go into the code or something and remove the spy unit or the ability to put points into espionage? like a mod or something dunno, thatd great. Becuase right now, it's just so damned annoying! And if none knows how to remove or limit it, does at least one person agree?

 

[Enigma256]

do you have the Solver patch?
that fixes the "AI Spy" (get it? ) a little bit.

 

[psob2]

don't like spys either

nerfed them by going to(i have XP, Vista's path may be different):

C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Gold\Beyond the Sword\Assets\XML\Units\CIV4UnitInfos.xml

in the BTS CIV4UnitInfos.xml look for the spy section, its near the top. just below scouts and explorer. used notepad to change bRivalTerritory and bInvisible both to 0. still see spys from the ai's, but they don't seem to be able to do anything

 

[dante alighieri]

It wouldn't be so bad if there was some way of telling which AI was doing it. I think after the industrial era at least there should be a bigger chance of a spy getting caught and their identity known. Then you should get the option to close borders or declare war, If you close borders enemy spies should be visible or the price for using them in EP should go up.

 

[Nay]

hes not annoyed by spy activities, but the lead he gains from AI-spy-usage.

It sacrifices large amount of ressources towards espionage, thus crippling themselves.

I recommend immortal setting.
Moved up after the last 8 decisive wins on emperor, now i have a seriously hard time.

 

[Desert-Fox]

Annoying is that you can nothing to do to stop them... I'm not sure counterintelligence works on defending tile improvements or not but the coward spies should not be so invincible.

And when you have closed borders, spies should have higher chance to get caught/revealled nationality.

 

[Enigma256]

just invest more in espionage, and that will stop them.

on Noble it is enough to have a dedicated city, with all spy specialists, Scotland Yard and all Great Spies settled.
with that i can see all their cities and most spies are caught before they can do anything.

the AI spends their points on missions, so it is really easy to be ahead of them in espionage.

 

[Nelgirith]

I have used a radical solution :

Open the Assets/XML/Units/CIV4UnitClassInfos.xml file and modify the spy infos

<UnitClassInfo>
<Type>UNITCLASS_SPY</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_UNIT_SPY</Description>
<iMaxGlobalInstances>[B]0[/B]</iMaxGlobalInstances>
<iMaxTeamInstances>[B]0[/B]</iMaxTeamInstances>
<iMaxPlayerInstances>[B]0[/B]</iMaxPlayerInstances>
<iInstanceCostModifier>0</iInstanceCostModifier>
<DefaultUnit>UNIT_SPY</DefaultUnit>
</UnitClassInfo>

Spies simply can't be built anymore and the only unit able to do espionnage missions is the Great Spy ... but it's not like they're very common

 

[Enigma256]

will that stop the AI from putting the espionage slider over 0%?

 

[anth]

Yeah, that's the crucial thing. If the AI is spending commerce on espionage and not actually using it (and you're not spending commerce on espionage) then that's basically cheating.

 

[Desert-Fox]

In next patch AI will use less commerce in espionage and uses esp more in stealing tech.