Spies not very useful

[BAD MOJO]

Spies on civ 4 are much moe limited than in civ3.
They have two cammands sabotage or steal plans.
I miss the steal tech
On my last game I was ahead but not by much and all of the sudden one of the other civ started pumping out space shuttle parts. I sent two spies to sabotage that particular prduction so I could catch up but it turns out that is not only extremely expensive it really doent halt the production all the way so you end up draining your traesury just trying to stop him from completing the space race.
I was so worried about stopping him, I didn't realize the one that was second was now first in points. Ended up loosing on time victory

Has anyone used spies more productively if so please post

 

[southafrica]

They are nice when you go around destorying all their improvements...

 

[Melkus]

They just won me a game- not in a particularly brillant way though. Frederick and me were locked in a tight space race down to the last part.
I sent a spy over, found the city where the engine was built (It turned out we both had the same number of turns to finish the thing.) and sabotaged it.
The lady was caught, so I had to put the research slider to zero to raise money and send another one, but I won.

In most situations, sabotage is useless. Very expensive with little effect, and the risk to get caught is not huge, but it's there. The ability to permanently observe an enemy city by putting a spy in it is nice, much more practical than before. I usually let 2 or 3 of them wander around in the endgame.

 

[warpstorm]

You would probably have been better off trashing his tile improvements.

 

[BLiTZWiNG]

The importance of information cannot be understated.. Your spies can get you this information... for free without risk!

Knowing where your enemy is, and what forces he has is a huge advantage. Wars are not won with big guns, but with good planning, information and communication. You need to read The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.

It seems to me that you're looking for an "I Win" button after discovering the enemy has beaten you...

 

[TigrisJK]

It seems to me that the effort one goes to get Scotland Yard, then spies... is rather silly. By the time I have the turns to waste in any city to get Scotland Yard against an aggressive opponent (and if I have no aggressive opponents then I am certainly building up culture or an army... to become that aggressive opponent as it were), I can simply build a fighter or bomber and use it as a reconnaisance unit.

However, BLiTZWiNG is correct, foreknowledge of your enemy is vital. When I found out my friend had a severely underdeveloped navy and pushed his far units in his far coast towards the front (we were playing an allied game until we had demolished all the AI civs, then went at each other), despite the fact that he had stockpiled nukes (and I had not) from strategically placed reconnaisance units, I piled in whatever units I could spare from defending into a single transport and took as many of his undefended cities as I could.

Of course, his railroad mobility thwarted most of my attempts, but even in being able to raze two of his cities forced him to have to redirect forces from the front to defend his rear flank. AND I eventually was able to trash his sources of Uranium.

Then I rush-built a bunch of ICBMs, nuked his towns to prevent a higher production rate than my own (pretty much the same at this point, since he'd been nuking my towns), and watched nervously at my waterways to ensure he wouldn't attack my emptied rear flank.

Mobility and information, even vastly unnumbered, can save the day.

Then I won a time victory. It kind of took the flavour out of the war. =)

 

[Sir Dryden]

I will have to say that I agree - to a certain extent - that the spies are not nearly as useful in Civ 4. While I understand that information is vital to a modern army - and of course a modern war should it occur - I don't see how simple location information can win a war for you. The sabotage ability is hit or miss, and there is nothing else the spy can do. What about secret tech trading? What about inciting revolts? What about all those non-violent things that spies are so good at? Also, why do they come so late? Spies and saboteurs have been around for centuries. They should have added a very weak version of the unit for the medieval era, that could poison people and all that good stuff. Then later you grow out of that and move to non-violent spies. That's just my thought, though.

 

[Randle]

The ability to permanently observe an enemy city by putting a spy in it is nice, much more practical than before. I usually let 2 or 3 of them wander around in the endgame.

Spreading your state religion is a lot less risky of a way to observe the enemy.

 

[SuperSloth]

i got half the continent scoped out just by using an army of buddhist missionaries. they are cheap and no risk at all. the only problem is trying to get open borders.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

Ummm how can you when you are only allowed a limited no of missionaries?

 

[Zhahz]

Spies not very useful

I completely disagree. You have tons of units for doing damage. Use your spies to gather info that you cannot obtain in any other way, and use them to subtely disrupt your enemies (that might not even know they're your enemies).

The importance of information cannot be understated

Exactly.

 

[Aleph]

I love the new spies! Some have mentioned converting cities to your state religion (provided you founded it) and this is effective for knowing what is going on in those cities...but missionaries are not always successful at founding your religion. Spies are never unsuccessful at passively observing a city...and there's no limit to how many you have.

 

[BearMan]

If you do not have :
(1) The same religion as your opponent.
(2) Overwhelming military power.

Then this is what anyone does :
Submarines for costal scouting and spies for inland scouting prior to a war declaration.

On a large continent 1 or 2 spies ahead of your invading army can :
(1) Check the military presence in every city.
(2) Cut Oil, Aliminium, Uranium and every other resource without a fight!

 

[Rustypipe]

Apperently spies can pillage without being seen unless they have anohter spy near buy so this is extreamly powerfull, but I have yet to test this can anyone confirm this?

 

[stagnate]

I believe you are limited in the number of ACTIVE missionaries, but once you have spread or tried to spread religion you can build another.

 

[WuphonsReach]

(1) Check the military presence in every city.
(2) Cut Oil, Aliminium, Uranium and every other resource without a fight!

1) Check. That's what I'm putting mine to use as. I have them hidden along my attack route (and beyond) to gauge the amount of armed strength that the AI can field. Plus, they should do a good job of giving me early warning against counter-attack forces massing anywhere.

2) Interesting idea. I haven't tried sabotage yet. Could be a good way to simulate blitzkreig without having the tech to do so.

 

[Brutus2]

Has anyone seen the AI use spies against you? I have never seen one of my resources or production get hit.

 

[Yao777]

If I'm not mistaken, spies can pillage improvements but from what I've seen it isn't with much success. Always hovers around 50% to succeed/fail when doing anything with a spy. Is there a way to increase that chance somehow?

 

[robcheng]

The one time spies are useful are when you are in a tight space race with another civ -- sabotaging their last space ship component that they would have finished before you is fun (especially when you can only fund it by using a great merchant to establish a trade mission in the same city on the same turn!)

 

[yendorII]

I think that spys should be able to assassinate great people or just citizens in a city(represented by a pop point). To defend you would have to keep them near another spy or a new building could be added called Safhouses. Seems like it would really improve the use of a spy trying to locate an enemys GLs to see if they forgot to defend them.