So, how do Spies work?

[Krajzen]

I have no time to watch and check all those gameplay videos, and somehow nobody never described espionage system (except "choose how spy can escape" screen) so could somebody please shortly sum up how do they work - here?

1) Since what era and how are they built?
2) How many Spies you can have?
3) What missions do they have?
4) How are they countered?

 

[Mort_Q]

4) Other spies.

 

[chazzycat]

Marbozir gets to spies eventually in his Greece playthrough...maybe around the 10th or 11th segment? Don't have the video in front of me right now, but from my recollection they come around the Renaissance. They are built in cities by production (quite a bit actually) and I'm not sure about the limit.

There is one mission to basically improve the chances of future missions temporarily. This has 100% success rate and seems like a no-brainer.

The other missions seem to be based on receiving the outputs from that city, whether it be gold, science, etc. When picking which city to send the spy, there is a list of cities with icons for which outputs they have. Best guess, this is tied to which districts are present in those cities.

So it's basically a way to trade production and diplomatic risk for the other standard city outputs. With the risk of completely losing the production, of course.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

I hope it's not too luck based o_o

 

[Uberfrog]

From the Catherine de Medici thread:-

So CdM gets her spy at Castles.

The normal spy civics are Diplomatic Service (Renaissance), Nationalism (Industrial), Ideology (Modern), and Cold War (Atomic). Also, you get one at the Computers tech (Atomic).

 

[Mort_Q]

Speaking of districts, I think counter-spying works on a per-district basis.

 

[leandrombraz]

Speaking of districts, I think counter-spying works on a per-district basis.

IIRC you put the spy on a district, then he protect that district and every adjacent district, so district positioning play into the spy system.

 

[Mort_Q]

IIRC you put the spy on a district, then he protect that district and every adjacent district, so district positioning play into the spy system.

Wow. I'm liking this unpacking more and more. Or, at least, I can see myself being annoyed at myself for misplanning districts.

 

[MagicCuboid]

IIRC you put the spy on a district, then he protect that district and every adjacent district, so district positioning play into the spy system.

That's pretty nice for Japan, then. They can presumably put fewer spies on defense since their districts are likely to be denser.

 

[leedss]

From what i see in gameplay.

1). Renaissance,
2). I belive one per tech that unlock spy,
3). Each district in city have action for spy:
- City center: rise lvl of spy action and increase diplomatic visibility,
- Cultur district: steal great work,
- Comercial hub: Earn money,
- Industrial district: Earn production (I'm not sure),
- Campus: Gain eureka for tech that your target own but you don't,
4). You can place your own spy in district, then he protect that district and every adjacent district.

 

[fmm]

The Industrial Zone spy action is "Sabotage Production", I'm pretty sure, which is successful pillages the industrial zone buildings/the district itself.

 

[Mustakrakish]

From what i see in gameplay.

1). Renaissance,
2). I belive one per tech that unlock spy,
3). Each district in city have action for spy:
- City center: rise lvl of spy action and increase diplomatic visibility,
- Cultur district: steal great work,
- Comercial hub: Earn money,
- Industrial district: Earn production (I'm not sure),
- Campus: Gain eureka for tech that your target own but you don't,
4). You can place your own spy in district, then he protect that district and every adjacent district.

That sounds interesting. Not too much and not too "why bother?"

 

[ProMeTheus112]

is defense effective? because if you place your spy someplace to defend, opponent may just send spy in a different location where you have the same kind of districts,
in that case offense is stronger than defense and you'd rather want to use that spy unit to just "attack" as well unless he can actually do something while he defends
I guess defending is like a trap because you can guess and place your spy in most probable location of attack especially against AIs?

sounds interesting though! curious to see all this stuff later, I'll have to spend so much money on a computer -_-

 

[Mustakrakish]

I imagine there might be some passive defense in play. If there is percentage based success rate, then there's probably passive abilities that lower that percentage.

 

[HecatesLover]

Defense works because of the large amount of production it costs to replace a lost spy. Also in the LP's I've seen there doesn't seem to be any indication of if a defensive spy is present. Still I agree it is a bad idea to keep your spies at home until you have found a spy in one of your cities. Because of the spy action that buffs the spy for 24 turns there is a real incentive to keep a spy in a city after you have done something with them so there is a real decision after each action on if you want your spy to move for safety or remain to utilize the buff. France's early spy will get some free unopposed missions because of this which is kind of a big deal.

Also, there is a benefit in moving spies to protect important locations when pushing for victory. Its not exactly a good idea to leave your spaceports unguarded when on the final push for science victory. Also having your culture districts protected during the later stages of an attempted culture victory will likely be important to prevent theft.

 

[Civilization6]

if you wanna counter spies this should do the trick.

roaches, nuke them all.

 

[stealth_nsk]

roaches, nuke them all.

Also, if you nuke your own cities, enemy spies die in them.

 

[Danzo_87]

the counter spying now has a duration on it, so you will be prompt to update your spy on what he should do after he had performed counter spying in your territory for some turns

 

[moysturfurmer]

Spies can disrupt Spaceport operations and recruit Partisans (from Encampments?)

 

[Krajzen]

I hope AI is able to use them both in offense and defense (especially protection of spaceport)...