Spy...clearly not a James Bond

[Lambiorix_be]

I must say that I am disappointed with the spy unit. Not many things can be done with it. Just sabotage tiles, get military plans and halt production.

I had expected that my spy would be able to much more mischief, like blowing up buildings, killing of specialists, inducing unhappiness/revolts...

The current spy unit I hardly use...

What are your ideas about this?

[Enigma_Nova]

For some reason, be it Expansion or catering to Newbies, Firaxis doesn't want extended unconventional combat in Civ 4.
Personally, I don't like it. I want Viruses! Sabotage! Internal Conflict!

[Silver14]

Spies seem worthless. Perhaps if you could build more then 4 of them they would be more useful when sabotaging resources in one swoop. I don't even think the AI builds them or at least I've never seen an AI spy with one of my own. I know that the AI has never sabotaged any of my land with one and this is after many games on Noble, Prince and Monarch.


Now if Spies could plant Nukes that would be useful. Especially if you had built the Manhattan Project but didn't have the tech to build ICBMs - or if the opponent had SDI in place.

Spies feel more like an afterthought tossed in mainly for things to do to each other in multiplayer with no AI programming on how to build/use them.

[Cort Haus]

Keeping tabs on the enemy cities, military & spaceship builds, plus sabotaging their aluminium is handy.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Silver14
Now if Spies could plant Nukes that would be useful. Especially if you had built the Manhattan Project but didn't have the tech to build ICBMs - or if the opponent had SDI in place.

So you'd like the AI to suitcase-nuke you, or send all your cities into disorder? Seems like a lot of people want the good old, game-breakingly overpowered civ 1 and 2 diplo units back. Or the tedious 3 types of stealth unit to defend against every turn as in CTP.

[AoA]

We want to be able to do all those things.....just not have them done to us.

Actually, I'd be happy with Cause Drone Riots....err, Increase City Unahppiness for cultural takeovers.

[SSBLoveU]

My spy is always discovered. I use the spy to look over troop movement and landscaping.

[GeoModder]

Weird. My spies are rarely discovered, and I sabotaged quite a bit already.

[The keeper]

I wish the cost did not escalate depending on how far along the production is. It should be a flat rate to sabotage SS engine whether it is 1% done, or 90% done.

And then also have a building built that can detect spys. Gives a 75% fail rate to sabotage attempts. This building could be built during communisum.


But that building would be pointless as it is now.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by SSBLoveU
My spy is always discovered. I use the spy to look over troop movement and landscaping.

My spy is rarely discovered...only once my spy was captured in a city but apparently even other civ are not bothered with it. No angry reaction or declaration of war, they just ignore it. This by the way emphasises the importance of the spy, just a nuissance and non-threatening.

[zombielordzero]

why not just give britain a new unique unit (probibly mod only because of copyright) called james bond, basicly a spy with increased chance of success (roughly tripple)

[Solver]

Spies and espionage is the worst feature of Civ4. In its current state, it's not much better than not having it at all.

[Silver14]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
So you'd like the AI to suitcase-nuke you, or send all your cities into disorder? Seems like a lot of people want the good old, game-breakingly overpowered civ 1 and 2 diplo units back. Or the tedious 3 types of stealth unit to defend against every turn as in CTP.

Nothing as annoying as CtP. Just something with more substance then what is currently in the game. As it is now Spies are almost worthless. And I would expect a 'suit case nuke' and the like to be an expensive endeavor that would hard to pull off. Perhaps if they kept the 4 spy limit you would need to get all 4 spies to one enemy city in order to do it.

And why can't spies steal tech anymore? It is more realistic sending James Bond to steal information on a tech then it is sending him to blow up Farmer John and his cows. Rather then stealing the full tech they would just steal information (some research points) on the tech you are researching if the opponent has it.

[Feyd]

I don't know if this was intentional, but we are living in a different world than four years ago, and a game that has a feature where you send an explosive device to another nations capitol and detonate it (sacrificing your spy) was probably one of the first features dropped if it was even considered.

[Enigma_Nova]

Why not? It's not like recent advances in GPS can track the X-rays coming from one dude with a suitcase halfway across your empire.
Suitcase bombs are still effective, and would make spies a little more useful than they are now - a good addition to the game, imo.