Counter Espionage - how does it work

[Capt_Blondbeard]

Can anyone tell me exactly how counter espionage works? When enemy civs are trying to sabotage me, putting points into espionage, and building spies seems to help, but its not clear what's really going on. I'll get a message like "enemy spy detected trying to carry out a mission" and an arrow showing the location, but there's nothing there. I know spies are supposed to be invisible, but if I move my spy to the same square shouldn't I see the saboteur? Can I send a military unit there to try to kill him, or can my own spies kill him or what? If I post spies or have spy points at my border cities, can I catch spies trying to sneak in, or can you only catch them if they are on a mission?

Thanks!

[joncnunn]

When you get any message like "Spy detected", the spy that was detected is removed from the map entirely.

Myself, for most of the game I don't worry about it. I instead tend to direct more spy points towards civs I have poor diplomatic relations with and/or they have a lot of spy points towards me.

And I will build spy boosting buildings when they don't interfere with other plans.

But the only time I build spies now is if I'm trying to win by space race, in which case the very next build after a city compeltes it's first space ship component is a spy which I guard the SS part with. (And it had the defensive spy building in place before I started it.)

[Quillan]

Counter espionage (the spy mission) works like this:

You send your spy into a city of a foreign civilization. Any following turn before it has moved, you perform an espionage action and select Counterespionage as your choice. It has always listed for me as 100% success rate, but I have had my spy caught following a counterespionage action. For a certain number of turns following (unsure of the exact number), all espionage actions by that civilization against you costs triple the number of EPs. Thus, they are more likely to fail, the really expensive actions may become impossible to perform, and if they keep spying against you it will cause them to use up their accumulated espionage points much faster.

Now, if you're talking about something else, I can't answer it. I have NEVER seen an enemy spy, even with dozens of my own spies sitting on my cities and resources. The only way I've caught them is due to random chance. The tactic I eventually settled on was to keep spies on my borders to perform counterespionage on all my neighboring civilizations as often as allowed, build courthouses and security bureaus in every city, and park a spy on every city and critical resource. It doesn't make me immune, but does cut WAYYYYY down on the successful espionage actions against me.

[Bkeela]

I've just started playing BtS, and so far I've found sending spies into enemy territory futile. They are almost instantly discovered, which sours relations somewhat. I just keep my spy in my land hoping it is a deferent of some kind.

I think espionage would be better if the great spy could see normal enemy spies. Then spies could fight much like normal units, and have their own special promotions. It would be much more fun.

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Quillan
Counter espionage (the spy mission) works like this:

You send your spy into a city of a foreign civilization. Any following turn before it has moved, you perform an espionage action and select Counterespionage as your choice. It has always listed for me as 100% success rate, but I have had my spy caught following a counterespionage action...

Yeah, I've had my spies caught, but the mission itself always succeeds.

On Marathon speed, the mission lasts for 30 turns.