Counter-Espionage

[dregor]

So, seeing as I've discovered the AI definitely enjoys using spies (I get discovery spammed by them!), I thought I'd ask how counter-espionage works. Not the mission itself, but more on preventing/discovering spies operating in your territory.

The Spy civilopedia entry states they help discover enemy spies, but there's no hard information about it. Anyone know? Also, does your espionage ratio versus your opponent factor in at all? I've started placing spies in my cities, and on improvements I want to protect, is this a proper course of action? And do spies have a larger zone of protection or just the square they're in?

[MrWhereItsAt]

The mechanics of this would be good to see analysed here, as it is a bit of an unknown, I think.

• We know that having a Spy of your own in a city increases the chances at preventing an enemy Spy from carrying out a mission
• We know that your Esp points ratio affects the cost of Spy actions - presumably for the AI as well as the human player
• We know that one Spy action - Counterespionage - doubles the cost of Spy actions by that civ for 10 turns, but not whether it affects the chances of those Spy missions being successful

If anyone who knows (like Solver or one of the other playtesters) sees this, can you please fill us in with what YOU know? This would make a great question for Trip and alexman in the Q&A thread stickied here (hint, hint).

And can Spies sabotage non-city tiles? I didn't know that.

[Will9]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
We know that one Spy action - Counterespionage - doubles the cost of Spy actions by that civ for 10 turns, but not whether it affects the chances of those Spy missions being successful

triples

[Shrapnel12]

Also when I was using a spy, I noticed there weren't as many missions as stated in the book. Can you only do certain missions with certain technologies? What other prerequisites (sp?) are there for each mission?

[Wiglaf]

You need to be in an enemy city to do many of the missions.

[Solver]

And missions that you don't have enough EP for won't show up in the spy mission menu.

[Wiglaf]

* We know that having a Spy of your own in a city increases the chances at preventing an enemy Spy from carrying out a mission
* We know that your Esp points ratio affects the cost of Spy actions - presumably for the AI as well as the human player

yep..

* We know that one Spy action - Counterespionage - doubles the cost of Spy actions by that civ for 10 turns, but not whether it affects the chances of those Spy missions being successful

no i don't see why it would. tripling the cost is enough, don't you think?

And can Spies sabotage non-city tiles? I didn't know that.

yes, put a spy on an improvement and do the mission

[Blaupanzer]

The AI uses spies to go after improvements a lot, surprised you folks haven't seen it.

[CreepyD]

I've been placing 3-4 spies in my main cities, and it does appear to help nearby tiles, can't be 100% but I appear to be catching almost every spy, when they are acting within my city or nearby.

[Bkeela]

Is there a Hunter-Seeker Algorithm style project? If not, I don't think I could stand the AI continually messing with my Civ.

[dregor]

I swear all the AIs focus all their points on the player

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by Bkeela
Is there a Hunter-Seeker Algorithm style project? If not, I don't think I could stand the AI continually messing with my Civ.

no, the only way to prevent it is to
a) have a lot of passive espionage points against rival civs
b) place counterspys in your cities
c) do the counterspionage mission in enemy cities

the system is a little unwieldy and apparently biased against the human. also, the AI is too dumb to do anything but bomb your improvements, which actually isn't a problem really. it'd be far worse if it poisoned your cities or stole techs.

[onodera]

Well, the AI does poison cities. I haven't seen it ship the spies overseas, though.

[Kruztee]

The AI will not only poison your cities, it will also destroy buldings. I can confirm both of these actions. I've had a factory, harbour and bank destroyed in my current game.

I would also like to know of the most effective counter to AI spies attacks. Simply having your own spies in your cities (although this may be helping) is simply not enough. In the manual on page 13 it states that "Spies are invisible except to other spies". However, I'm guessing that this somehow (yet not implicitly) implies that they are invisible to the player at all times, since I have never seen an enemy spy.

Having a high EP ratio to your opponent seems (in my experience) to be the most effective counter to enemy espionage. I seem to remember getting messages like "Due to escalated counterespionage measures in place by the Ethiopian government..." when my ratio was high.

[Bkeela]

Is there at least an option to turn off spying? Corporations, the new Civs and wonders - all make me want to play BTS, but this spy **** makes the game unplayable for someone as highly strung as me.