When spies are useful

[realpolitic]

I find spies very useful in the Renasance, at that time I'm spending most of my production on building Universities and Banks, I have little left for military. I'm normally in war at the begining of it, and have an enemy who is willing to talk peace. This is usually the only time after get Vasalage where feel no need to push for Capitulation. I'm often in a good position wth EPs, a I've built Courthouses for their economic value.

The real value of spies comes in health and happiness attacks against fairly large cities, but I also now am pillaging health and hppiness tile improvements. I have now "culled the herd." If I'm lucky, it's sufficent to rig the UN Secretary General vote, if not, I'll be far enough ahead tecnologically to roll over him with a military that will be far ahead of him.

[Experimentalist]

I need to start using Spys more. It seems the AI defaintly uses them quite aggressively, at least, the
AI has been doing so in my last few games.

All I am using the Spy for at this point is simply for
scouting land, and performing counter-espionage.

That's probably a waste of my spy. I cant seem to
get the AI to become mad at me whe I get caught
either. Also, when a rival AI is detected in my
territory, I wish I could have the choice of legimimately
declaring war on that civ.

- Exper

[jbp26]

a great use in the early game is to have a spy incite a revolt in a city right before your troops attack it. the revolt removes the defense bonus from the city which will save you a lot of men before you have catapults.

[jkp1187]

I built the Great Wall once, and used the resulting Great Spy to infiltrate a neighbor. Because the Great Spy was born so early, the cost of all Espionage missions was very low -- I basically drained Tokugawa of whatever techs he discovered. It worked out very well.

[gdijedi7]

The one thing spies are useful for is THWARTING ENEMY SPIES!!!

Even if a civ loves you, if they're on your continent, they have spies all through your territory, poisoning your water and blowing things up.

Of course, if you reciprocate, you get a -10!!!!! Your spy was caught causing troublez and now we hates you! We hates you...forever! Because the computer is apparently Gollum. And he wants his ring.

So anyway, fortify a spy in each and every one of your cities. Your people will thank you when they don't die.

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by gdijedi7

So anyway, fortify a spy in each and every one of your cities. Your people will thank you when they don't die.

I also put them on key resources (e.g., Cu, Fe, horses).

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by gdijedi7
The one thing spies are useful for is THWARTING ENEMY SPIES!!!

Even if a civ loves you, if they're on your continent, they have spies all through your territory, poisoning your water and blowing things up.

Of course, if you reciprocate, you get a -10!!!!! Your spy was caught causing troublez and now we hates you! We hates you...forever! Because the computer is apparently Gollum. And he wants his ring.

So anyway, fortify a spy in each and every one of your cities. Your people will thank you when they don't die.

I'm pretty sure there's a cap on the amount of unhappiness that "your spy was causing trouble!" can generate. -2? -3?

[clarkcd]

In the game I'm playing now I've used spies quite a bit against two civs. One of them has a -4 against me and the other has a -6. Each time a spy is caught the civ you used it against has a chance to find out who did it. The penalty goes up by one each time you get caught and they figure out who did it. I don't know what the percent chance to figure it out is but it can't be very high because I was using a lot of spies.

[realpolitic]

I've seen AIs population crash 60-70%. I also usually have SoZ for WW.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by realpolitic
I've seen AIs population crash 60-70%. I also usually have SoZ for WW.

In general, i´d like to say: A little less use of abbreviations would be appreciated sometimes - it took me quite a while to figure: SoZ = Statue of Zeus and WW = war weariness...

[gdijedi7]

Ditto.

And my post was an exageration to make a point. I was...reliving a particularly frustrating event that resulted in the death of a civ I hated and one I got along with.

I do not tolerate terrorism.

[MoonWolf]

I think the spying thing is a bit too strong and too much used. Playing on a donut map, I had to have 2-3 spies in each city to counter all the water poison actions I got against me. And even then enemy spies did their actions against me. There should be an option in the diplomacy screen where you can demand other leaders to stop spying against you. If they don't follow this, you should get an option to declare war against them the next time their spy is caught and this without causing other civs to have a negative attitude point against you. After all, if a spy poisons the water supply, it's state terrorism or war against civilians if you'd like...

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
I think the spying thing is a bit too strong and too much used. ...

I agree. The AI uses this extensively. What happens if you have a Great Spy at the bottleneck to your territory? Won't he reveal spies? Can they be killed if revealed?

[realpolitic]

I haven't found them too strong. At first, I thought EP's were almost useless, and when I found a use for them, I started this thread for those at Poly who didn't see any. I usually play agressively, but there are civs that are well defended with populous cities, and spies are a good second choice for civs I can't steamroller

[joncnunn]

I think having more SPs against your rivals is much more cost effective in reducing the number of attacks against you then building spies everywhere. Particularly if you combine this (later on of course) with the buildings that help spoil spy attacks.