Spy - Master of Disguise

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Is the Spy a Vanilla Great Scientist in disguise?

Apologies if this has been discussed, but it has just occured to me that the stealing of tech by spies sounds as simple, if not simpler, an exploit than the free tech granted by GS'. Though you can't save them from the sounds of it, you nonetheless get a boost, meaning any final GS free tech boost you've saved can occur even quicker.

After the Renaissance, is this exploit seriously going to be doubled?

 

[AriochIV]

For starters, it's not an "exploit" if the game is designed around it. With different techs and game pace, we can only hope that this time around the technology race is built around the assumption that the player is going to competently use the tools he's given.

The major difference is that spies can only steal a tech that you don't already have, so stealing tech can only catch you up if you're behind; it can't get you ahead the way research agreements or great scientists can.

Also, spies are a limited resource that can be used for other things, including protecting your own technologies from enemy spies and improving influence with city-states.

We don't know how long stealing a tech takes, or what the odds of the Spy being caught and executed is. So it's hard to quantify how many techs you can get this way.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

The major difference is that spies can only steal a tech that you don't already have, so stealing tech can only catch you up if you're behind; it can't get you ahead the way research agreements or great scientists can.

Didn't know that, and this pretty much answers my question

No extra exploit, i just hope there some kind of tweak to the GS free tech now

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think we need to wait and see how difficult it is for a spy to steal a tech (likelyhood of success), what techs qualify to be stolen, how long it takes (to develop the required amount of potential for a likely success), and how/if the AI can prevent it. I think we need to withhold criticism until we can actually use the system.

 

[MadDjinn]

yeah... I'm sure this mechanic will get modded pretty quickly.

I'm not a fan of 'free tech' from spies. I'd prefer a tech boost per turn approach, but nothing that super speeds you through the tech tree (late game you've got 4-5 spies = possibly 4-5 techs/cycle).

Older techs would be faster to steal and newer techs (for that civ) would be harder.

 

[BobDole]

I think we need to wait and see how difficult it is for a spy to steal a tech (likelyhood of success), what techs qualify to be stolen, how long it takes (to develop the required amount of potential for a likely success), and how/if the AI can prevent it. I think we need to withhold criticism until we can actually use the system.

Seriously. Next to nothing is known about tech stealing, so there's no possible way to actually determine how good it may be.......

 

[Louis XXIV]

Given the risk of failure means you lose a spy permanently, it seems high risk, high reward. Probably only worth it with important techs the enemy has and you don't.

 

[Ajuga]

I find the tech-stealing to be fine as it allows you to catch up, but the free tech that great scientists give people is too much to build a significant lead.
Instead, consuming a great scientist should give the equivalent of two RA's being completed, that way breakers are taken into consideration.

 

[Camikaze]

Given the risk of failure means you lose a spy permanently

I don't recall reading this; do you remember which article it's from?

 

[Louis XXIV]

It's out of date info. It was based on the fact that you get one spy per era. However, recent info suggests it's only a "timeout" rather than losing it for good.

 

[AriochIV]

Well, you do lose the spy permanently, but it's eventually replaced by a new, level-1 spy.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, but I thought the slot was gone forever.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

The whole Tech Stealing isn't actually as great as you think.. you do not benefit from it in any way if you're in the tech lead.

The demo showed that the player stole Chivlary, and only Chivalry was actually available..

You can only steal techs that you don't own but can actually discover yourself.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think that the only way that tech stealing can help you when you are in the lead in science is when you beeline. Tech stealing can help you fill in the techs that you skipped in order to bee line to the one you wanted.

 

[duxup]

Yeah the possible exploitability is my concern as well. Tech stealing or trading has been such a powerful tool and can produce such wild swings in past Civ games I worry about it in the expansion...

 

[nokmirt]

Since there are not many spy threads, it took me a bit to find this one. Anyway, does anyone know if you can use spies to find out the military capability of your neighbors? Like info on number of units, unit types, tech level, what units are being built etc?

 

[Camikaze]

If you can, there hasn't been any confirmation of it.

 

[fuzzatron717]

There's been confirmation that spies can cause riots in cities.

 

[nokmirt]

There's been confirmation that spies can cause riots in cities.

That's a start. They have to start someplace. However, spies are for spying. So, they should be able to form a spy network to find out various information about rival civs. Military info should be at the top of the list. I have a feeling that I would be discussing that with my spies, if I was a civ leader, not sure about the rest of you.

 

[AriochIV]

We know with substantial detail (having seen the tooltips) about the technology stealing, influence altering, and counter-intelligence capabilities of spies, and frankly there's not much to it. We know very little about the information gathering abilities of spies, as it seems they have kept deliberately quiet on this subject.