When spies are useful

[Tattila the Hun]

I wish I could frame some other civ ala Master of Orion...

[CivGeneral]

I only see spies useful in counter-spying missions and stealing technologies (if I am technologic behind)

[realpolitic]

It also seems that I need to focus my EPs on one or a few civs, most civs I accumulate EPs against do it against me, too.

[gdijedi7]

Eh. I can never get anywhere NEAR the EPs my opponents get.

Of course, I go WAY ahead of them in tech...

[wodan11]

Depending on what version of patches or BtS you're running, the AI will sometimes run a hefty % of the espionage slider.

Also, I've noticed that the AI tends to run espionage against multiple players, if not all of them. Thus, if you (as a human) focus on just 1 or 2 players, you can get ahead fairly easily.

OTOH I have noticed that the AI will sometimes focus their espionage efforts against one player, especially if that player is ahead in espionage and/or that player has high negative dip relations with them.

Wodan

[ben_vii]

I've employed spies to good use in the modern age.

Consider planning my war against Victoria whom I have a common border with. I know she has one source of oil on the mainland and one source in a captured city of her vassal Japan. Japan also has a source that I know she can use.

I plan to raze my way to her capital to slow down her spaceship production. I would have let it slide but she's stolen at least three of my techs now and it's really put me in an unforgiving mood.

The problem is if I burn her cities, especially those close to my border, they will pop out loads of mech infs and really halt my progress.

I put two spies each on the inaccessible oil wells, leave them a few turns, declare war, carry out the sabotage missions and land a cruise missile or two on the other well. She can't produce anything armoured for a few turns, problem solved.

[Arrian]

I picked up a tip from a thread over at CivFanatics... you can use a spy to instigate a riot in a city. It only lasts 1 turn, so big deal, right? And it's expensive.

But while the city is in revolt, its cultural defense drops to 0. No need to bombard the defenses down. It works well for a Cavalry rush, or even a normal attack (things move faster when you don't have to spend 1-2 turns bombarding the defenses down).

-Arrian

[Badbonez]

So counter-espionage effects are cumulative with multiple spies in cities? How many would be diminishing returns?

[Badbonez]

So spies' counter-espionage effects are cumulative in cities? How many would be diminishing returns?

[Supr49er]

How about placing them in neutral territory between you and your rivals? Thay make an effective sentry net that is invisible to youe foes. They won't know you know they're coming.

[Indalecio]

Originally posted by CivGeneral
I only see spies useful in counter-spying missions and stealing technologies (if I am technologic behind)

I was wondering about this. Has anyone tried an all-spy game? Turn the Espionage meter really high, and the science meter to 0, and just steal all your techs? I get the impression it would just end up with your neighbors turtling up epsionage-wise, and ending in a stalemate.

[wodan11]

I saw somebody on CFC who said they tried it. As I recall they said it was very fun and enjoyable. Some side effects: you couldn't get a tech someone else didn't already have, and it had a tendency to worsen relations left and right because of the occasional spy being caught.

Wodan

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by wodan11
I saw somebody on CFC who said they tried it. As I recall they said it was very fun and enjoyable. Some side effects: you couldn't get a tech someone else didn't already have, and it had a tendency to worsen relations left and right because of the occasional spy being caught.

Wodan

I followed their game with great interest.

[guermantes]

Originally posted by Arrian
I picked up a tip from a thread over at CivFanatics... you can use a spy to instigate a riot in a city. It only lasts 1 turn, so big deal, right? And it's expensive.

But while the city is in revolt, its cultural defense drops to 0. No need to bombard the defenses down. It works well for a Cavalry rush, or even a normal attack (things move faster when you don't have to spend 1-2 turns bombarding the defenses down).

-Arrian

Aah! Must try that one...

[realpolitic]

I do know a good use for conterespinage.

In a war, I took a city between two enemy cities, I didn't have enough troops to go further, so I was in a cultural squeeze. It didn't make sense to switch to Slavery, and I couldn't switch to Universal Sufferage, I used conterespianage to stop the AI from stopping me from building cultural buildings.