Two questions regarding spies...

[vbmark]

Hello,

I've been really enjoying using spies in BtS. I may be over using them if that's possible. But I have two questions in regards to using spies...

1) My enemy has started sending spies into my cities (curse you, whoever you are!) So what is the best way to detect/prevent these attacks? I put a spy in a city but there is no fortify command or the other one with the telescope icon. So I've slowly been adding spies in each city putting them in sleep mode. Is that the way to do it?

2) I've been hammering on one of my enemy's cities on my boarder by sending a continual train of spies and having them add culture to the city. As of now that city is entirely surrounded on all sides by my culture but the city won't "flip" to me! What's up with that?! I started intermingling the spies doing culture and sometimes starting a revolt, but still the city won't listen to reason and come to me. Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[the_elf]

I think there are really only a couple of options to limit your opponent's infiltrations...

Park a spy (sleep) in every city, or at least in border cities or along major linking roads. Your spy's presence in your own territory should help thwart enemy spies. I don't know the math, but I know that it does help.

Out-spend your opponents on espionage with your espionage slider. If you dedicate more commerce to espionage AND have more espionage points than they do, espionage actions become very expensive for them.

Build structures that give you espionage points and bonuses to counter-espionage efforts (namely, the Security Bureau).

Be conservative with your espionage spending. If you are spending every point you get against your opponents, their spending is going to become cheaper since they will have more points than you.


Not sure about the city flipping. If you really want that city, march your stack of doom right next door, and then use your spy to start a revolt. If that city has any cultural defense, it will be gone, and some of their garrison may be injured from putting up with the revolt. Prime time to strike.

 

[LegionSteve]

Leaving one spy sleeping in each city will help a bit. More than one has no additional effect. If the city has a Security Bureau, that has the same effect as a spy sleeping there, so no need to keep a spy there. But you can also put spys to sleep on important resource tiles that enemy spies will try to burn. If you think you know where they are coming from, you can send a spy to that Civ and do a counter espionage mission, which increases the cost of their missions, slowing them down.

edit:
regarding culture, do the enemy have a lot of units there? military units reduce the chance of revolts, and with enough units you can stop any city from flipping.