Spies

[brewgod]

Hello Civ 6 Fans:

How sucessful are your Spies in stealing from the AI. I play on Prince and King and have given up on Spies except in my capitol.

What is the best way to use them and are there any buildings or wonders you can build which increases the spies effectiveness?

Brew God

 

[kaspergm]

No buildings or wonders (yet). The best strategy seems to be - and this is true almost regardless of whether you want to use the spy offensively or defensively - to first send it to a foreign city with a commercial hub, gather sources, then siphon funds. This is because the siphon funds has the highest chance for success and thus is your best bet for getting that first promotion which is rather crucial. Your path from there depends on what promotions you're offered. Here are some of my personal thoughts:

• I like the Ace Driver promotion if it comes up, because it significantly improves the chance for the spy to escape. However, this is a long term investment, and if it comes up on the first pick and there's an alternative that will actually help you with the mission you want, it's probably better to take the alternative. Having the spy escape effectively is not that valuable if he's not very good. On the other hand, you may not get the Ace Driver offered later, so if nothing tempting comes up, it's a good pick.

• The Quartermaster promotion should ideally only be picked on your first promotion, exception being on a spy with the Seduction promotion (+2 levels of counterespionage). Otherwise, picking the Quartermaster promotion will render the other promotions obsolete because you'll need to keep the spy at home. However, this promotion is also very powerful, so if you have many spies in action, take it on one spy if you get it offered and don't already have a Quartermaster.

• The promotions that cut time off missions (Linguist) and removes time to set up contacts (Disguise) are king for spies on offensive missions. Take these if they are offered.

• The promotions that offer +2 levels towards specific missions are generally not worth it imo. The exception is the Cat Burglar promotion, because stealing great works is notoriously very difficult to succeed. The reason why the others are not worth it is because it's fairly easy to get most missions to the maximum of 90 % success chance by combining a Quartermaster with the policy card that increases spy levels - and if I'm not mistaken, each level the spy obtains will also increase chance, regardless of what promotions he has. As such, you may find yourself in a situation where the promotions are in essence not worth anything because you've hit the cap even without them.

Unfortunately, spy promotions are offered randomly, and you'll often find yourself with combinations that are not creating synergy. However, if you manage to get a spy with either of these promotions, you can do serious damage:

• Ace Driver + Linguist + Disguise (best combination to disrupt enemy science victory)

• Linguist + Disguise + Cat Burglar (best combination to disrupt enemy cultural victory)

• Seduction + Quartermaster (+ any that will not benefit you)

Remember, if you focus on spies, always run Machiavellism and Cryptography as your cards. Consider running Nuclear Espionage if you're behind in techs.

 

[UWHabs]

The one to improve mission speed is really nice because then it can use the bonus from gathering sources an extra time, so sometimes that's great to use to just keep him and steal money in a loop (since that one is easiest to succeed on).

But otherwise, the only way to gain promotions is to succeed at missions, so you want to make sure your guys without promotions are doing easy tasks first. Better to waste 8 turns by gathering sources than to have your spy killed on his first mission, so more often than not I just go slow at the start. And then once you get multiple spies active, if you can tag team them, the gathering sources applies to the city so every spy in the city can make use of them. Always fun to have 2-3 spies all stealing a tech from the same city.

 

[craney1987]

I always start with a spy on defense in my capital. It will catch someone. And it will get a promotion. From the promotion offered then I decide whether to keep it at home or send it abroad. It's. It worth the risk imo to send it out without the first promotion. I always FEEL like I lose too many(i don't know if that's a statistically accurate feeling or not) when I send them out promotionless

 

[GIO888]

Always have a spy on defense in my Capitol - have used them to disrupt Rocketry too if an AI is too far ahead with Spacerace. Otherwise, not a huge fan....

 

[unpossible251]

definitely start defensive if France are in the game. She'll normally go after a commercial hub in your capital.

If France aren't playing, go for sources + siphon funds.

 

[Rosty K]

I only use them for defense (Commercial Hubs, Industrial Zones, later switch to spaceports - that's where the enemy spy can cause the most damage). Though I'm playing on King, so I can quite easily keep up with the AI without offensive spying.

 

[Victoria]

I play spies a fair amount and play Catherine just for spies.

They used to be frustrating and I stopped for a while, then I got the hang of them.

By far the most important thing about spies is level. A noob spy often dies, a master spy rarely gets caught. So promotion seems the key thing.

The next most important thing is speed, it is just soooo important because later game turns are longer and it just feels like a spy is doing nothing. Distance to target, settling in to the city and time to do the mission all can be reduced. Use the promotion abilities that reduce time on your best spies, only send your best spies long distance.

The most important thing in the world is if you have great Zimbabwe, put a spy on it.... if not you can loose the game easily through loss of income as spies take money before expenses.