Spies are eating my lunch

[Solomwi]

The best defense against spies destroying improvements is workers. If you can rebuild the improvement quickly, he's spending EPs without getting much return for them. The more he spends, the more expensive his missions become (due to the EP ratio tilting in your favor), and the fewer he can carry out. For key resources, placing a unit on the tile reduces the spy's chances of success. I only do that when I'm at peace and have the units to spare, though. Especially later in the game, I'd rather divert some workers from building useless railroads or idling in my cities and just rebuild in 1-2 turns.

To find out who's doing it, just monitor the EPs. I keep a notepad on my desk where I can periodically check the ratios and jot down my opponents' EP totals. That not only gives me a direct check if something happens that turn, but lets me estimate how many EPs per turn are being dedicated to me, which in turn lets me know if somebody has ramped up their espionage and gives me a good idea of who just hit me when I haven't done a check in a few turns. Of course, sometimes you gain city visibility or another passive effect as a result of his EPs dropping, which lowers the threshold for you. If you get hit with an expensive mission and gain visibility on several cities of a civ in the same turn, he's probably the culprit.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Solomwi
To find out who's doing it, just monitor the EPs. I keep a notepad on my desk where I can periodically check the ratios and jot down my opponents' EP totals.

Completely workable, but I play Civ for fun, that sounds more like work.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Seedle

Completely workable, but I play Civ for fun, that sounds more like work.

Depends on how often you check it and your capacity for micromanagement.

Doing it every turn would cross the line into work for me, but doing it every 4-5 turns or so doesn't. It really only takes a few seconds, and the rewards are worthwhile, especially when you burn a city in retribution for the destruction of that deer camp that you rebuilt the next turn. Proportionality is loads of fun.

[Theben]

Dunno, in the late game with courthouses and Bureaus and Intel Agencies and spies in most cities I had tons of spies coming into my territory and they were being swatted like flies. Once in a long while one would get me, but not with the regularity that some posters describe here.

[DirtyMartini]

Just run a couterespionage mission every so often -- that works pretty well in cutting down the number of annoyances.

Like Theben, I don't have too much trouble with spies late game. In fact, the only time it's been all that annoying lately has been when I'm next to Stalin. Usually builds the GW and spams spies.

[Quillan]

I put one spy in every city, but I also keep one stationed on each border with a neighbor. Every so often I run that spy into the neighbor's closest city and see if a Counterespionage mission is possible. If it is, I do it, and dispatch all the others, so I wind up using counterespionage against every other civ on the same continent in a small window of time. Then I wait until it expires and repeats. It makes a HUGE difference.

The one thing I do wish, is that when you catch someone performing sabotaging you and know who is responsible, it would allow you to retaliate by war, diplomacy, or espionage without any diplomatic penalties. The "you declared war on our friend" or "you arranged a trade embargo" penalties add up after a while.

[PohlSE]

Originally posted by Quillan
The one thing I do wish, is that when you catch someone performing sabotaging you and know who is responsible, it would allow you to retaliate by war, diplomacy, or espionage without any diplomatic penalties. The "you declared war on our friend" or "you arranged a trade embargo" penalties add up after a while.

I agree wholeheartedly! The option to retaliate against a nations caught spying is sorely missed.

So is the ability to bribe and poison units.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Quillan
Every so often I run that spy into the neighbor's closest city and see if a Counterespionage mission is possible.

In my last game I would post a sign on the rival civ's border (or at his capital), telling me when I last executed the counterespionage mission (e.g. C/E 949). Since I know it expires in 30 turns (@marathon speed), it's easy to keep track. When I repeat the C/E mission, I would change the sign.

[Ming]

I sometimes leave a spy on a key military resource if I only have one of them... but overall, I really don't build many spies.

[wodan11]

Another important thing is the Espionage screen.

If you don't plan on
1) using spies to knock down defenses in a future military campaign
2) using a so-called "espionage economy"

then you definitely want to go to the espionage screen, put a +1 by every civ on your continent, and leave all other civs at 0.

This will give whatever EP you're getting from buildings or whatever as an inherent defense against the only guys who will be doing espionage missions against you. (This takes advantage of the fact that the AI currently does not know how to use a spy across continents.)

Wodan

[Lancer]

When I catch one I really want to personally have a few words with him. Then I have catapults and trebs around, the military could have a spy tossing competition, raise morale.

[Lancer]

wodon, that sounds like a good, low effort solution. I'm going to try that.

[Krill]

I can just magine a cut scene where a man in black cloth is sat in a trebuchet, set on fire, and then used to set fire to thatched roofs in a walled city. Thanks for the idea Lancer

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Krill
I can just magine a cut scene where a man in black cloth is sat in a trebuchet, set on fire, and then used to set fire to thatched roofs in a walled city. Thanks for the idea Lancer

Setting him on fire would be cruel. Unless... Yes. Unless you were tossing him into water.

[Yaga]

Originally posted by Seedle
Spies are so dumb. ... It would be okay if I could declare war on the saboteurs without diplomatic penalty (you destroy my mine? I destroy your every city on the continent! ) but no, you get to just sit and take it. So basically, don't worry too much about defending against enemy spies, because nothing you do will really help.

Seriously -- it seems the AI has absolutely no disincentive for not using spies at every opportunity, and no way of allowing for player reprisals w/o hurting our relationships with the offending civ's friends.

I really wish the whole Espionage system could just be turned off. I understand the theory behind it, and it's not a *bad* theory, it just turns the game into a micromanagement nightmare with a disproportionately low payoff.