Spy detection

[allhailcaesar]

Would a spy, or a spies actions, be the cause of me losing resources like iron or horses? This has happened the last couple of games I've played and can't figure out why. I mouse over the units and info box says need horse or need iron, yet I have these resources, sometimes multiples and they are improved and connected by roads but I cannot build any of the units requiring said resources.

Thanks in advance for the assistance!

 

[Refar]

Spy can destroy mines\farms\etc. You will usually get a meassage about mine lost due to infiltrators, but you might have missed it.
As explained above keepig own spys on important ressorces (one per is enought) might help defend.

 

[TheDS]

Caesar, you are either missing some vital piece of information or you have a big bug.

If you go to one of your cities, you should be able to see all the resources that are hooked up to it. If Horses are not among that list, you can't build cavalry-units. Next, check out these tiles you have with horses, and make sure you have built a stable there with a worker AND you have a road or railroad built there connecting it to your cities.

If you have the stables built AND you have roads going to a city AND you have Horses in your list of resources in that city's window, you should be able to build cavalry-units. If you're not able to even then, you may have a bug.

The last thing to try is that you may be trading away your horse. You may have had two horses, traded one, and then lost control of the other. Check your trades to make sure you're not lacking them because of that.

You could also try posting a screenshot, hovering over the horses that you think are connected (so we can see the tooltip), and then a nearby city they are connected to so we can see if cavalry is in the list of things that can be built, and Horses are showing up.

 

[Bleys]

Next, check out these tiles you have with horses, and make sure you have built a stable there with a worker AND you have a road or railroad built there connecting it to your cities.

If you have the stables built AND you have roads going to a city AND you have Horses in your list of resources in that city's window . . .

I dont mean to pick at nits TheDS, but horses require a Pasture on the tile. The only reason I am correcting you is that there is a building called a Stable, which you can build even if you dont have Horses, all you need is HBR. I would hate for him to become confused because he teched HBR, and built a stable, and still cant build horse units.

 

[TheDS]

Thanks; dunno how the right word fell out of my head at just the wrong time like that.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Here's a question that hasn't been answered (I think):

Is it worth putting defending spies (asleep with the "Zzzz" sleep command?) on bottleneck tiles to catch spies as they pass by?

Or does the catch logic not work on spies on the move, and the boost from having a spy on the tile only happens on the destination tile where the enemy spy stops? An enemy spy can easily move 2-6 tiles per turn, which means they could leapfrog over our spies sitting on bottleneck tiles?

...

If the latter, then I would assume that it is better to have either a spy or security bureau in each city, with individual defending spies sitting on all critical resources?

Obviously, the primary locations for defending spies are:

1) In cities without Security Bureaus that are major cities (production cities, culture or research cities, or financial cities or other high pop cities).

2) Sitting on strategic resources.

3) Elsewhere? After all, if they can catch spies on the move as they pass through, then putting them on bottlenecks would help. Some bottlenecks are multiple tiles long (on Tectonic maps) so you could do extreme defense-in-depth and really cut down on inbound enemy spies.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Is it confirmed that failed spy missions don't consume EPs? It always seems to me that after a failed mission (I usually do counterespionage before anything else) I no longer have the points to do anything with the subsequent spy I send into an enemy city. If the points aren't consumed by the failed mission, what gives?

Also I get paranoid with the "sleep" option for a spy, and there is no "sentry". Will a "sleeping" spy still counterspy or do I have to put up with the perpetual annoying spacebar option for all the non-sleeping spies everywhere?

 

[UncleJJ]

My failed missions definitely do not consume EPs. If you fail to steal Assembly Line on marathon you would notice if the 30K EPs went missing or not

As far as I know the chances of an enemy spy being detected is increased if it ends up on a tile where one of your spies is (inside your culture), unless it is a city with a Security Bureau (as only one of those bonusses counts). It shouldn't matter if it is sleeping or whatnot, they just have to be on the same tile.

 

[KingMorgan]

Useful thead, thanks for the explainations. Got a question thats always puzzled me.

If an AI runs a mission against you are you always informed?

 

[Skallagrimson]

My failed missions definitely do not consume EPs. If you fail to steal Assembly Line on marathon you would notice if the 30K EPs went missing or not

As far as I know the chances of an enemy spy being detected is increased if it ends up on a tile where one of your spies is (inside your culture), unless it is a city with a Security Bureau (as only one of those bonusses counts). It shouldn't matter if it is sleeping or whatnot, they just have to be on the same tile.

Excellent info, thanks. I should be taking more risks with espionage than I have been in the past.

 

[dalamb]

If an AI runs a mission against you are you always informed?

I've observed reports on the effects of enemy spying, such as a water supply being poisoned, and of thwarting an enemy spy. I expect there's a report of detecting a spy that was sitting accumulating mission discounts but don't recall seeing one. So, yes, you get notified of spy missions, one way or the other.

 

[nanomage]

messages you receive when an anemy spy is caught do not depend on either he/she was actually doing smth nasty or merely enjoying the sightseeings. you just get the "a spy was stumbled upon while operating near some city" or "a spy was thwarted by your intelligence agents while operating near", if you have those agents (any EP building or your own spy, i guess).
if their mission succeeds, you get a message informing you of that.
so when you see "a spy was caught" that doesn't nessesarily mean thst some ai was conducting a mission against you - his spy may have been just passing by.
this is all imho and afaik, certainly!

 

[Skallagrimson]

A Q for you Deity playaz out there (and you know who you are):

Are there times in the early game when you put more (or all) emphasis on EP rather than beakers? I know it would be when you're behind in tech, but is there a way-kewl gimmick of synergy that allows more spying bang for the EP buck? And I'm talking early on, like right after you get Alphabet and you're still dancing around the edge of "STRIKE" from either REX or an early war.

 

[Hulkmusclor]

Passive Missions
Base Factor * (100+How much they have against you)

Are you sure of that ? It doesn't work.

Maybe, depending of distance and population.

 

[Bolddrengen]

Whats up with this bumping :O

 

[Lord Parkin]

Sorry for the bump, but I have a number of points to raise.

One point on the 'Switch' I believe you can only get then to change to Your Civics, so unless you are spiritual, you can only force them into a 'bad civic' if it is a civic that is bad for them but good for you.

But if it is a weak civilization (with say 5 cities) vs a strong civilization (with say 30 cities), then it is still massively advantageous for the weak civ to adopt "bad civics" so that they can force the stronger one into them. This can be abused particularly badly in multiplayer, where the smaller ally of a larger nation can deliberately mess with an even larger nation's economy for dirt cheap.

Awesome article, many thanks.

Swich civic is ripe for abuse, I learned all about it back when corporations where ripe for abuse. Id give them all my fish but one and expand sushi co. They always went to Mercantilism, so I always took them back to Enviromentalism (this plan still works, but not nearly as well)
Thank heavens it takes them 5 turns to have the opton to switch back. It is a bit overpowered all the same.

The 5 turn limit makes it even worse in multiplayer, especially if (for instance) a civ is inside a Golden Age when the civic switches happen.

All in all, I agree with Roland's post earlier in the thread, that the civic switch mission NEEDS to scale with the economy/production of the civ in question. A civ 10 times stronger should cost 10 times more to sabotage like this, not the exact same amount as it would cost to sabotage a tiny nation. Compare it with the city revolt mission: switching civics is only slightly more expensive, and far more costly. Especially if the civ does not have Cristo/Golden Age/Spiritual, and is forced into Anarchy to switch back - essentially like a "city revolt" mission for every single city in an empire!

My failed missions definitely do not consume EPs. If you fail to steal Assembly Line on marathon you would notice if the 30K EPs went missing or not

Here's a thought - should failed missions cost EPs? To me it seems ridiculous if you can try over and over again to steal a tech, costing you nothing except the pitiful 40 hammers invested in the spy you built, until you finally get the tech you wanted. That just doesn't seem right. Again, it's ripe for exploiting in multiplayer.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Here's a thought - should failed missions cost EPs? To me it seems ridiculous if you can try over and over again to steal a tech, costing you nothing except the pitiful 40 hammers invested in the spy you built, until you finally get the tech you wanted. That just doesn't seem right. Again, it's ripe for exploiting in multiplayer.

The EP cost is already in the ballpark of beaker cost unless you squeeze out every spy multiplier you have. You want those attempts to cost EP too? Even with the hammer cost of keeping spies there and having some get caught?

In MP counter espionage and stationed spies should make stealing techs prohibitive if it's an issue. Certainly more than it would cost in beakers, and that's not a good ROI for the spy player. Eventually he'll fall behind and you can kill him.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, fair point about the techs.

I still think the civic issue badly needs to be addressed, though.

 

[Tecibbar]

this should be sticky, is it compatable with the newest version?

 

[hmshood]

Need help w/CIV4 BTS...wont post victory scores within the games HOF