Some questions about espionage

[bode404]

Well, at first sight, I thought Espionage was greatly overrated in BtS, but after a good attempt, I started to like it. Those spies are not only useful, but fun to play with
And now, the questions:

- Do I get a message when a enemy spy do some harm? I've only got messages about enemy spies being caught near my cities.
- Sometimes, my spy is caught before even doing anything. Other times, he is caught after his job is done. Will I get a diplo penalty from the targeted civ on both cases?
- Spies can thwart enemy spies. Ok. So I put one sitting in almost all of my cities. Is this any good?
- Is it worth to build spy points-generating buildings evereywhere? I seem to always want more espionage capacity.
- In my current game, I'm around 1700 and still didnt get a Great Spy (I didnt even try). Do I get much of an advantage popping one early in the game? (comparing to other kinds of GP)
- Is it worth to stimulate revolts in enemy cities? I think that option is way too expensive for 1 turn, compared to the much cheaper 8 angry faces.

 

[Percy]

- Do I get a message when a enemy spy do some harm? I've only got messages about enemy spies being caught near my cities.

You've got something like "a pasture was destroyed by enemy infiltrators".

- Sometimes, my spy is caught before even doing anything. Other times, he is caught after his job is done. Will I get a diplo penalty from the targeted civ on both cases?

I believe you get a penalty everytime your spy is caught. Or maybe you only have a chance of getting one, depending of whether the other civ identifies the spy or not, much like you sometimes thwart spies without knowing their nationality.

- Spies can thwart enemy spies. Ok. So I put one sitting in almost all of my cities. Is this any good?

I believe it is, i do the same.

- Is it worth to build spy points-generating buildings evereywhere? I seem to always want more espionage capacity.

Same here. I'm not sure how optimal it is, but well, generally by the time there are only espionage-specific buildings, the game is decided anyway.
Also, it seems the Spy specialists are great specialists, providing +1 beaker +4 EP, or 5 commerce.

- Is it worth to stimulate revolts in enemy cities? I think that option is way too expensive for 1 turn, compared to the much cheaper 8 angry faces.

Revolts eliminates the cultural defence of a city for 1 turn. Do that before launching an assault, and you have less of a need for siege units.

 

[Molon Labe]

I like the espionage addition. I think that people who don't are generally the long term civ players who see it as something foreign to the game. I played two games of Civ III, bought Civ IV and only really started to get into it with Warlords. So I jumped on BtS and love all the changes.

Prior to a war, I send spies to the enemy cities. By the time my stack gets there my spy has the -50% bonus and I have them incite a revolt. Siege units attack defenders right away and the stack goes in for the kill with minimal losses. I've wiped out rival civs with negligible losses. That incite revolt is priceless when attacking.

Of course, sometimes the spy is discovered or sometimes the revolt doesn't happen and then I have to do it the old fashioned way. But I think the true power of the spy is in the revolt. The poison water puts a small cramp on an opponent, the revolt gives me the city.

 

[Polycrates]

- Sometimes, my spy is caught before even doing anything. Other times, he is caught after his job is done. Will I get a diplo penalty from the targeted civ on both cases?

Very occasionally. The chances are so low that it's really only massive espionage campaigns that will have a significant effect.

- Spies can thwart enemy spies. Ok. So I put one sitting in almost all of my cities. Is this any good?

Seems to be.

- Is it worth to build spy points-generating buildings evereywhere? I seem to always want more espionage capacity.

It's best to concentrate them, since they reinforce nicely. In one city, courthouse+jail+security bureau+intelligence agency=44EPs per turn. Running spy specialists in that city can be worthwhile too

- In my current game, I'm around 1700 and still didnt get a Great Spy (I didnt even try). Do I get much of an advantage popping one early in the game? (comparing to other kinds of GP)

They're VERY good early on and let you steal masses of tech. Very hard to get though (unless you get the great wall) since you can only ever run one at a time before constitution. Consider having a city constantly running a single spy specialist as soon as you get CoL

- Is it worth to stimulate revolts in enemy cities? I think that option is way too expensive for 1 turn, compared to the much cheaper 8 angry faces.

It's very worth it if you want to take that city and siege isn't an option.

 

[SealJuice]

If you make a great spy into a specialist, does he protect the city from enemy spies as well?

 

[Percy]

If you make a great spy into a specialist, does he protect the city from enemy spies as well?

I don't see why he would. Only the Security Bureau or an actual Spy (as in the unit you can build) are supposed to.

 

[uncarved block]

I'm crazy for getting all the info possible on my neighbors- at least early on- and Spies are great for opening up civs (like the Japanese) who aren't exactly sweetness and light to others. Especially handy if you suspect an invasion is on the way; you can get several turns of advance defensive preparations if you're paying attention.

You don't mention what level you're playing at, but one trick you can try, if you're playing Noble as I do, is to turn your Espionage slider to 100% against one AI for a turn or two, then go back to normal. If you've got a couple Courthouses and maybe a specialist or two, you should be able to pick up a lot of ground against one enemy without losing to much ground against the rest. More points accumulated, without too much of an investment in production or research. Juggling the weight ratios has worked for me too: if you have Monty on the board, or some other threat, put a 2 on him, a 1 on a couple other AIs, and nothing for those civs far away or not much of a threat. Now, you won't want to do this for the whole game, but in 30, 50, even 100 turn blocks, it's worked out well enough for me. Will it work on Prince? Guess I'll find out soon enough, unless the teching by the AI is improved in a patch soon . . .

 

[Tyrael]

Actually I find that in the early game you want to invest your EPs in further away Civs. The ones nearest to me always seem to die off for some reason...

 

[sourboy]

What is this ratio thing with spy points? Does it matter in missions for/against? Also, why is there sometimes a spy icon next to the rival civ's names in the lower right point window?

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Ratio is how many points they have built up towards you compared to how many points you have built towards them.

The Spy logo is to say that you can see their demographics...

 

[sourboy]

do the points matter other than "hey they have a lot of points there, maybe they plan to use them"? do they factor into success rates directly, or nothing more than available points for missions?

 

[Molybdeus]

Spying is incredibly powerful. The difference between it and other features is that you want to use spying in short bursts rather than running the espionage slider at 20-30 for most of the game like the AI often does.

For example, in one game I used the extremely potent Poison Water/Foment Unhappiness missions to reduce my most powerful competitor's population by two thirds. His score dropped 400 points from around 1933 to something like 1520. And this was using maybe twelve missions total.

Other powerful missions are:
* Stealing treasury right after an opponent establishes a trade mission with a great merchant.
* Cause a revolt in a city you are attacking, thus instantly dropping the cultural defense.
* Using a great spy to improve your spying bonus against a civ with a massive tech lead and then grabbing 4 to 6 techs from them.
* Foment Unhappiness/Poison Well on a city building a wonder you want to complete first.

Those are just the ones I have used. I'm sure that you can find others. The key point, though, is that you don't want to invest too much in espionage points on your slider. A few key missions can make a huge difference, but you don't want to have to sacrifice science in the long term.

 

[sourboy]

So like in Civ 3, when your tech is 1 turn from discovery, drop your science% down as far as you can, and use those additional % in spying, for the occasional boost?

 

[Percy]

Yes and no. Beakers carry from one tech to another, so if you don't lower your slider, you will get the beakers for another tech. If you just want THIS tech in a hurry and the next one can wait, you can do what you said.

 

[Molybdeus]

So like in Civ 3, when your tech is 1 turn from discovery, drop your science% down as far as you can, and use those additional % in spying, for the occasional boost?

Yes. Basically, you don't want to invest more in espionage than you need. If you only need 500 espionage points to gain a favorable espionage ratio (so you can see the production in that enemy's cities) then you don't want to pay for 2,000 espionage points.

Setting the espionage slider to 0% and then jacking it up to 100% for a couple of turns lets you more accurately hit the number of points you need.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

Another thing that will help you is running Courthouses like you would anyway. 2 EP each per turn helps slightly. The Spy specialists will increase that too. I settle my Great Spies to boost my Espionage production throughout the game...

 

[WTBCzero]

If you were in a multiplayer game with humans and AIs, i guess a good strategy would be to focus all your espionage points on the human players and ignore the AIs as the human players pose a larger threat.


Trouble is, attacking a AI without knowing much about the size of their army could be a costly mistake...