Spies Are Clutch in Space Race

[Quasimodo]

I just lost a game last night because my spy couldn't sabatoge the production of the last piece that Alexander needed to build his spaceship.

I tried and my spy was caught!!

I was leading in points and there were only 6 or so turns left in the game. My spy failed and he built the spaceship.

Is there a city building that stops spies? I think I remember in III that there was.

 

[JusNaturae]

Spies defeinitely help to stop spies, but I once again I'll reiterate my original point -- you don't have to eliminate the actual SS production to slow down your opponent enough to win the game (unless, of course, he or she is one or two turns away from teh last SS piece). You simply need to blast the production improvements around the city's radius. Not only is it a lot easier (usually 90% likely versus 60% or worse), but it's about 10-15 times cheaper (200g versus, what, 2500 for you to stop the SS production when it was that close to being finished?)

Spies, IMHO, are late game barbarians (that hopefully work for you!). Their primary purpose is to blow up improvements and cause enough havoc to slow a civ's development (in this case to the endgame), without engaging that civ in an all-out war.

 

[Elhoim]

There is no building, your spy failed the check... it´s not 100% success, you can see the success rate in the lower left window.... The number of units stationed on the tile and the presence of enemy spies affects the success rate...

Do you think there should be spies upgrades? Like "Improves Success Rate" or "Lowers Mission Cost"... Is kinda lame that they don´t level up with the missions...

 

[Zhahz]

In my experience spies only destroy partial production and the cost varies depending on the hammer cost of the item that you sabotage. It seems like you only wipe 1/4 of total production per sabotage. For SS parts, that gets to be extremely expensive. Terrorizing their tile improvements is a lot cheaper and can be very effective, especially if they have rail and you're not at war (since your spies can cover a lot of ground per turn), and especially if you have multiple spies going against them.

Spies are good for anti-space race but I usually expect that at least one AI will go for it and a military solution is often more effective (so I'll be prepared with a decent force and transports). If you can do a decent invasion on an AI that's building ship parts they will switch to building units, so you stop all production of space race. I've yet to see them continue building SS when they're being attacked (I usually have spies with my modern armies to scout and check out enemy production).

I don't think spies should get experience and promotions because they're special units, a lot of their activities are passive (like simply seeing the city screen for enemies costs nothing and has no fail chance), they have many roles so they're already brutal, and there's little you can do about them.