Spies discussion

[jozef57]

I find siphoning funds is the most reliable way to get a spy promoted. Chances are the amount of gold you get won't be significant, though maybe enough to buy a builder or two, but the odds of success are always the best, often 80% or more. On the other hand, you don't have to send them to a capital to gain promotions, as capitals are usually better guarded. Sadly though, like apostles, the promotion choices you get are a random selection of three from the (I think) eleven possible, and none may be what you want at the time or meld with your playing style.

Does anyone ever trade for spies, either foreign ones that you've captured, or your own that languish in some foreign jail?

yes i do trade for both

 

[Tech Osen]

LOL yes i did this too few times but had second thoughts when the partisan barbarian started raiding my own emipre too, that was a bit of a setback

I often can't find any AI cities with neighbourhoods.
Rocket sabotage still seems broken/overpowered, AI doesn't seem to repair them once pillaged. I've seen them build new ones without repairing the old ones.

 

[Art Morte]

Neighbourhoods = partisans, that's a bit of a funny equation. My image of Civ 6 neighbourhoods are these middle class cul de sacs. A spy then going door-to-door there asking "excuse me, would you like to join our rebel movement and take up arms against the government? No? You got to take the kids to their soccer training and wash the Volvo? All right, I understand, have a nice day!" Yeeeeeeeah, sounds about right...

 

[Archon_Wing]

It really does seem weird that having some districts in your city actually makes you more vulnerable to that kind of stuff, and it's not like building neighborhoods is that useful to begin with.

Anyhow, got around to some heavy spy play with the diplo cards. Art kinda sucks to steal, but that does beg the question; where does it go if you can't actually hold any slots? If I had known better I wouldn't have bothered with the space crap and trying to buy through useless GS's and just done culture.

 

[Hypernova]

The documentation states the max spy level is 4 and I can confirm this likely effects your spy ability too. If you look at my master spy choices they all level out at 90% and so the best promotions are not the ones that increase your chances of doing things.

If nothing else, your excess levels should at least counter an enemy's Cryptography policy card.

Some wild guesses:
1. The escape methods' danger is represented by a level penalty (escape by air means that you escape like a spy of -3 level). So an ace driver could escape by air better than a novice spy escapes by car.

2. The level cap only limits what you can get via experience. A level 4 Cat Burglar operates as a level 6 spy though. If you don't notice any improvement from (effective) level 4 onward e.g. between a Cat Burglar of level 2 and one of level 4, this is because the displayed probabilities only take into account what you know. Your level 6 spy however has a much higher chance to evade a hidden counterspy than your level 4 spy.

Bumping this thread because I've searched and can't find a definitive answer to this question of if the "+2 levels" promotions actually do anything once you get to the top level of master spy. This would greatly affect how I pick promotions, if all the +2 levels promotions become useless once the spy gets to top level, that makes them much less valuable. Anyone know if the level cap also applies to promotions, or if like Veronica says you might be able to have a spy operate at level 6 through promotions?

 

[halfhalfharp]

Reference from my guide for France:

Being unable to compete enough wonders nor having a great location for Chateaux? The AIs are proceeding tech and Civs like rocket? Don’t worry, its not the end of the world. CdM still has tactics under sleeves. Here we have the magnificent great work thieves spies to help. The scouting in previous eras now yields to give a list of enemy cities for us to exploit.

Espionage is the core of everything in higher levels from immortal. AIs will enter atomic era while we are still struggling with industrial wonders. Forget the wonders if we want to target an immortal victory. Thus a group of well trained spies will be a matter of life and death.

Our first spy comes at castle tech, with a free promotion. Depends on what promotion she (CdM’s spies are all lady in waiting) has, we shall assign her to different posts. The promotions in yellow are essentially powerful.

Ace Driver : Make her do anything you want. She will be safe.
Cat Burglar: Make her steal Great Works. Highly recommended for France.
Con Artist: Make her Siphon Funds
Covert Action: Make her Foment Unrest
Demolitions: Sabotage Production
Disguise: This promotion should be taken in later game, not now
Guerilla Leader: This promotion is less useful, at least not now.
License to Kill: Make her Neutralize Governor
Linguist: This promotion should be taken in later game, not now
Quartermaster: Make her stay in base for counterspy
Rocket Scientist: This promotion should be taken in later game, not now
Seduction: Make her stay in base for counterspy
Smear Campaign: Put her to CS and wipe out your foes’ envoys.
Technologist: Make her Steal Technology.

Because we only have one spy for instant, it is better to gain resources before executing any real mission. Our current aim is to train our lady in waiting to a master spy with the yellow promotions and prevent her from being discovered.

In R&F, every level of visibility to a foe will grant +3 combat strength to military units. Therefore, if we sense that war is to come, we should send a lady-in-waiting to operate "listening to post" prior to a DOW. That should give a slight but important difference in defense. (+6~+9 combat strength in total).

Quartermaster is among the most powerful promotions here. It can boost every spy operations by 2 level, rendering all specific promotions less necessary, other than linguist, and ace driver. But in these early days, no one else owns a spy. Therefore, we’d better try offensive operations first. The intelligence agency in government plaza is a bread-and-butter to spies missions too. Make sure that we build one when we are not busy with wonders.

Foment unrest allows spies to lower enemy city loyalty. But flipping cities is not that easy in most circumstances and we don’t have proper siege technology to grab free cities (it is away from both military science and flight). Thus flipping cities is not encouraged now. This mission can instead be a step-stone to train the spy for other useful promotions.

We can build 2-3 spies in the mid game. Once a spy has the quartermaster promotion, place her in a home city. Then use the other spies to target enemy’s cities to steal great works and syphon funds. Check who is currently leading cultural on the leader-board. Then check if there are great works steal-able in their cities. Some AIs may be willing to trade their great works with 400-500 gold, so syphon funds is a feasible way to earn more. (lol we use the gold stolen from them to buy their great works, such a marvelous deal.)

Kongo and Russia are the 2 civs that have very high possibility in owning great works.
Try to scout all of their cities and target them as priority.

Please take note that spies missions have a fairly high chance to fail and this will make our lady-in-waiting killed or imprisoned. Being killed is fine, as we just need to build another. But if she is captured, we will need to pay ransom to redeem her, or else we will have a non-functional occupied spy slot.

Moreover, this will harm diplomatic relationships. If this happens to our enemies, its always okay. But if this happens to a befriended civ, this could cause trouble in future attempts to fix the relationship, risking a breaking in alliance/ potential invasion.

If there are 4-5 great positive (green) diplomatic modifiers but only 1-2 little negative (red) diplomatic modifiers, its still worthy to risk it. Even if the spy is captured, a friendly civ will offer a lower price in redeeming the spy. Choose "ignore request" to minimize the impact of spying on alliance.

After we have got enough promotions, we can do whatever the condition demands to fit our goals.

 

[Victoria]

Bumping this thread because I've searched and can't find a definitive answer to this question of if the "+2 levels" promotions actually do anything once you get to the top level of master spy.

Oh yes it does
I have been working on spies a while, see useful posts in my signature for more detail, Spy-info at the end of the line

Its about counterspy, detection, escapen cards. There are quite a few negatives for you. Also for example being able to escape using a boat or plane rather than on foot is something I would only try with a level 8 spy unless france

 

[Ansive]

The success rate of a mission is decided when you start the mission or when it ends?

If I only have 7 turns of listening post and a mission will take 8 turns will I keep or lose the +2 level bonus?

The same for policy cards, it is enough to take Machiavellianism and start the missions, or do I have to keep the policy slotted until the mission ends?

 

[local_hero]

If the Terracotta Army hasn't been built already, you can get a 4th promotion for your master spies too. Don't know if it does any difference for success rate and escape chance though.

 

[Slip de Garcon]

From the wonders thread, this is how I use spes:

Great Zimbabwe: You build it, put all your trade routes in that city and a spy on the commercial hub and the AI literally can't top themselves trying to steal your money. So you soon end up with 3-promotion spies.

You have to be a bit careful as sometimes you'll get two attempts per turn so your spy will end up in the city centre when the 2nd attempt hits. So my preferred method is to have a district or the centre adjacent to the commercial hub so you have double cover.

The added benefit is you can capture a huge number of enemy spies. I've had up to ~20 in jail!

I tend to go for science victory, so in the late game I end up with a handful of super spies going round sabotaging everyone else's space programme, and they have no spies to resist me. Mwa ha ha.

 

[kaspergm]

You have to be a bit careful as sometimes you'll get two attempts per turn so your spy will end up in the city centre when the 2nd attempt hits.

That, btw., is a classic small piece of really bad game design. Why on earth do they code it so that your spy is taken out of action and moved to city centre when they succesfully counter a spy attack?

 

[Slip de Garcon]

That, btw., is a classic small piece of really bad game design. Why on earth do they code it so that your spy is taken out of action and moved to city centre when they succesfully counter a spy attack?

Ideally I try and have my Commercial Hub next to the city centre - though I'm not sure it makes any difference.

I'm sure the air defence used to work like that in one version of Civ, i.e. once a fighter had intercepted once it was like "back to base for me!".