Spies and Nukes

[Brutus66]

If I missed it in the manual or if this question has been posted before, I apologize in advance.

I was running an espionage campaign against the Mongolians and when I tried to have my spy sabotage improvements (I was trying to keep his uranium mines out of operation), the button was often greyed-out. I would move my spy around from one improvement to the next and no joy. Then a few turns later, the button would be enabled. Is there a limit to how often a spy can do sabotage?

Another thing I noticed is that I was not able to nuke cities at will. The targeting square stays grey on a lot of cities. On others, it turns yellow and I am able to launch. This seems arbitrary- anybody know the reason behind this? I'm not sure if it's a bug or by design, but I do know it's frustrating.

[Solver]

You can not nuke tiles where friendly units would be affected by the collateral damage. Is that the case?

[Rusty_1]

nor can u nuke on ur own territory or in allied territories.

Rusty_1

[Brutus66]

Solver, it may be possible that a neutral unit may be present in the city. I'll look at it this evening to see if this is the case. I have a spy in the area, and I'll send her in to a city I can't nuke. In the game in question, I was only able to blast one out of about six Indian cities.

[Solver]

Yeah, neutral units are also non-nukable.

[Brutus66]

Still doesn't explain the espionage thing though...

[Solver]

Maybe you ran out of money?

[Brutus66]

I didn't realize it cost $ to perform a sabotage attempt. Hmmm.

[Brutus66]

It occurs to me that, in a multiplayer game, having someone else keep a token unit in each of your cities would be a good nuclear shield as long as the other party can remain neutral.

[Senator]

It wouldn't, cuz as soon as war is declared, the open borders treaty is cancelled and all units are automatically moved away from hostile territory.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Senator
It wouldn't, cuz as soon as war is declared, the open borders treaty is cancelled and all units are automatically moved away from hostile territory.

No he means someone you're at peace with, who's also at peace with your enemy.

[GeoModder]

Pretty simple to circumvent that... declare war on the "neutral" party as well, and offer peace with a token retribution AFTER the nuking.

[spy14]

Originally posted by Brutus66
Solver, it may be possible that a neutral unit may be present in the city. I'll look at it this evening to see if this is the case. I have a spy in the area, and I'll send her in to a city I can't nuke. In the game in question, I was only able to blast one out of about six Indian cities.

Inaccurate intelligence = neutral units presence not known = city nuked = major diplomatic incident with neutral Civ. Could add a whole new dimension!

[Solver]

Yeah, that would probably be more fun. Nuke neutral troops by accident, and, a the very least, have a horrible relation hit, or even a declaration of war by them.

[dearmad]

As soon as FIRAXIS exposes that spy mission cost multipler I'm nuking THAT I tell you- spies should be nearly free to operate...

Oh the mongols tried to do somethihng with a spy in my empire and I got a text message saying I stopped them- and hung the spy... but it didn't let me see where or what they tried to do.