Espionage - the AI is cheating

[sorinache]

More espionage ranting, this is driving me crazy. On emperor, the game gets so difficult as to become almost no fun to play anymore. I'm on a landmass with Saladdin and Surayavaraman (sp?), have land borders only with the former, no open borders agreement with him (been at war almost continuously for about 1000 years, lots of acrimony remained). I concentrate all my esp. points on these 2. To the point where, for a couple of turns, I got "investigate city" with the arabian empire : I was able to see what his cities were producing (cool, first time it happens to me).

I got about one enemy esp. attempt every 3-4 turns on average (I don't know if you manage to grasp this frequency : one esp. attempt every 3-4 fuxxxxing turns !!!), about one third of which are successful : he keeps sabotaging my custom houses. Obviously this is one of the most critical buildings for the AI. Yes, it is pretty useful and blooxy expensive as well. I lost about 8 or 9 custom houses already, I keep rebuilding them, he keeps destroying them. I'm sick and tired. Yes, I do have security bureaus, stationed spies, everything I can have. Exemple (extreme) : 1881 : Enemy spies have sabotaged the customs house in Neijmegen. 1882 : Dutch counterintelligence thwarted a sabotage attempt in Rotterdam; Enemy spies have sabotaged the customs house in Middleburg; Enemy spies have sabotaged the customs house in The Hague.
That's 3 customs houses destroyed out of 4 attempts in 2 turns ...

To be able to do that (a sabotage attempt every 3-4 turns, almost always in a different city) he needs LOTS of spies and I suspect quite a bunch of resources diverted to espionage. Yet in the 4 or 5 turns I had "investigate city" on him I saw NONE of his cities producing spies : while I was at war they were producing military units. During peace time, they were building buildings and doing research. Never saw him producing a spy. Besides, given the speed at which he is breezing through technologies (I do have "see research" as well, I can see how many turns he needs to discover a new tech), I'm pretty sure he doesn't spend on espionage either. I thought maybe it was not only Saladdin but also the Khmers and I changed my allocation to balance the two of them - which is why I lost the "investigate city" status on the arabians. But when I reloaded and tried to tweak things to get different results I was reinforced in thinking these attempts are almost all Saladdin's. For instance, in the example above, when reloading, adding specialist spies and replaying the turn got once the result "1882 : An Arabian Spy has been caught in the city of Middleburg" and a second time "1882 : An Arabian Spy's sabotage attempt has been foiled in The Hague". Which seem to imply that Saladdin has at any moment one - two spies stationed in every city of mine ...

Can anyone confirm or deny that on emperor level the AI is getting free spies and an espionage points bonus against the human opponent ? I'm sick and tired of enemy spies blowing my cities away and there's nothing at all I can do.

NO, I CAN'T "simply" declare war and take him out, he is about the same strength and has a defensive pact now with the Khmers (which are even more powerful) and even if I could manage to outsmart them both, while my cities produce military units, the Incas, which are very far away, would win the space race. Besides, I don't have uranium, which means they (Arabians and Khmers, if I wanted to declare war on Saladdin) might just be tempted to nuke the sh*t out of me.

I'll try again with "no espionage" for the next game but I don't like the fact that espionage points are converted to culture, this changes the gameplay considerably

[Felch]

AI espionage makes no sense.

If you want to see if you're right about the AI cheating, try checking the world builder.

[Blaupanzer]

Even at Prince level their espionage points never seem to go down much corresponding to their espionage attempts whereas mine drop abruptly every time I try to poison, bust an improvement or whatever. I have wondered.

[Theben]

That's where counter-espionage comes in. And yes they do lose esp points. Maybe not as many as human players tho.

[rah]

Also look to see how his city specialists are assigned. Since whenever I'm not paying attention every new specialist that gets assigned automatically in my empire is a spy, I assume the same is happening in AI cities. I change it when I see but the AI doesn't so even if there percentage is 0 they're cranking out more than you. When you look in their cities you should be able to see their current allocation in the upper left hand corner. It is my experience that the AI actually assigns some percentage to espionage. (unlike me)

[joncnunn]

If the AIs are using the esp slider, that's so much less commerce that could have gone into science or income.

Also if the AI is building spies, that's so many fewer hammer that could have gone into military units.

[sorinache]

If the AIs are using the esp slider, that's so much less commerce that could have gone into science or income.

Also if the AI is building spies, that's so many fewer hammer that could have gone into military units.

As I said, given their espionage activity, I was expecting to see arabian cities cranking out spies by the dozen. Yet for as long as I watched, I never saw them producing a single spy unit ! Now they are producing bomb shelters and research, but no arabian city is producing spy units. Yet for turns on row I keep pruning their spy army and they keep attempting to sabotage y custom houses in various cities. Hence I suspect the AI gets its spy units for free

[Unimatrix11]

Look - Sorinache plays a high level, and he wouldnt, if the lower ones would provide him with the desired challenge. But at that level, apparently (i wouldnt know), the AI sometimes goes rampant with esp, while turning esp. off is no option to him. What i think, is needed, is someone with the needed expertise, points him to the folders and files he could MOD, to maybe change AI-esp-priorities (preferred commerce allocation for various leaders?), or -cost... (or maybe the esp->cul could be turned off for no-esp-games, somewhere?)

[sorinache]

Look - Sorinache plays a high level, and he wouldnt, if the lower ones would provide him with the desired challenge. But at that level, apparently (i wouldnt know), the AI sometimes goes rampant with esp, while turning esp. off is no option to him. What i think, is needed, is someone with the needed expertise, points him to the folders and files he could MOD, to maybe change AI-esp-priorities (preferred commerce allocation for various leaders?), or -cost... (or maybe the esp->cul could be turned off for no-esp-games, somewhere?)

That latter suggestion sounds perfect : if I could only turn off the "espionage points convert to culture points" I could happily play with the "no espionage" toggle turned on. Another possibility would be for me to MOD the right files to increase all espionage costs tenfold, so that there are maybe 4 - 5 espionage actions in a game, not 40 - 50 like what I'm experiencing right now.

Either that or I'm going to learn how to cope with the spy armies of the AI the hard way. I built the Internet some turns ago and stopped research altogether. I only miss Stealth now and plan to get it for free (from the Internet ... that is a fun idea ...). Consequently, I went 20% money (and upgraded all those metuselah-archers still in my cities to mech infs.), 20 % culture (to get the upper hand in the "border tensions" with the arabian empire) and 60% espionage. Now I get messages such as : "An Arabian/Khmer sabotage attempt in Rotterdam has been thwarted due to high Dutch counterespionage activity" ! Good, that's good, I feel somewhat relieved ... I only lost one customs house in the past 20 - 25 turns or so, reason to celebrate !

1933, I only miss a SS Casing and a SS Thrusters before launch (crossing my fingers not to be sabotaged like in my previous game ...).

Surayavaraman is going to declare war on me next turn. He did, for no apparent reason except the fact that I'm going to win, so I reloaded the previous turn, to prepare a little bit ... not very sporty but one has to do what one has to do ...). That means no more open borders with him, so increased chances of catching his spies (according to the algorithm I read on civfanatics)

[Willem]

As I said, given their espionage activity, I was expecting to see arabian cities cranking out spies by the dozen. Yet for as long as I watched, I never saw them producing a single spy unit ! Now they are producing bomb shelters and research, but no arabian city is producing spy units. Yet for turns on row I keep pruning their spy army and they keep attempting to sabotage y custom houses in various cities. Hence I suspect the AI gets its spy units for free

Those are probably all old Spies that he's built ever since he got Alphabet. He no doubt stuck a whole bunch in his cities early on to counter the Spies that were being used against him, and now that he has Security Bureaus in most of his cities he no longer needs to keep them there. So what else is he supposed to do with them?

[Blaupanzer]

When spies succeed in their mission, they usually make it home (the Capitol) where they go out again. Thus, Willem's conclusion may well be correct. Saladin doesn't need to build new ones, the old ones will do. Spies are not "fire and forget" missiles. They can be used again and again.

Stepping up your own espionage rate will make enemy spy activities more expensive -- good find!

[sorinache]

When spies succeed in their mission, they usually make it home (the Capitol) where they go out again. Thus, Willem's conclusion may well be correct. Saladin doesn't need to build new ones, the old ones will do. Spies are not "fire and forget" missiles. They can be used again and again.

Stepping up your own espionage rate will make enemy spy activities more expensive -- good find!

Though not impossible, I find his explanation quite unlikely. The first time I got "investigate city" on him was around 1400. I kept it for about 4 - 5 turns before rearranging my esp. points distribution (seeing that I'm not able to stop the sabotage attempts and thinking that maybe the culprit was Surayavaraman, not Saladdin). I got it back again around 1860, again for 4-5 turns. Each time I went back to a more balanced distribution of esp-points (which implied that I didn't have investigate city on either the arabians or the khmer) because I noticed no impact on esp. activities. During all this time, I was experiencing on average about 1 espionage attempt every 3 - 4 turns (with sometimes 3 attempts in 2 turns as in the extreme example I gave). Some of these attempts were foiled, meaning the spy was caught and executed. He must have had an army of hundreds of spies to be able to keep attempting sabotage missions late in the 1900 using only spies he built before 1400 ... Very unlikely.

As to "stepping up the esp rate" - of course I can do that because I've almost finished researching the tech tree, otherwise I wouldn't have considered the option. But it might be an idea to maybe allocate 10% toward espionage earlier in the game.

[sorinache]

This isn't new the AI in most of every game out there has bonus cheats set into place to compensate for a lack of any real intelligence.

Yes, this was true in the past but I somehow hoped that, given the increase in CPU power and general progress in programming techniques, cheating would be somewhat tuned down nowadays.

I remember hacking Civ I to discover the AI was playing a completely different game, with a completely different set of rules.

I don't mind the AI getting a bonus on higher difficulty levels, if it's something reasonable. If for instance the AI would only need 25 to produce a spy instead of 40, that would be ok as far as I'm concerned. But I object to what I perceive amounts to "AI gets free unlimited spies placed in your cities with no need to actually build them and station them." Because, as someone here noted, civ is everything about shaving turns: I don't mind if the AI spy costs 1 hammer as long as it needs to set a city to produce that spy during a turn. But I do object if he gets free spies while his cities produce armies, buildings and whatnot.

[Blaupanzer]

An attempt every 3 - 4 turns by a spy from a close border civ would probably be the same spy returning over and over. Yes the AI receives increasingly valuable assistance as you go up the levels. Thes bonuses do not include "free spies." The only "free" units he receives are those right at the start. Note the AI only loses the spy when you are told of the loss. Also, when you look at his cities, you can't see any resident spies as they are invisible. (Somehow this whole thinking process reminds me of Bugs Bunny versus Elmer Fudd, with us as Elmer, being "vewwy, vewwy qwiet." As in the cartoon, we have no way of knowing what's about to hit us. "What's up, Doc?")

[sorinache]

An attempt every 3 - 4 turns by a spy from a close border civ would probably be the same spy returning over and over. Yes the AI receives increasingly valuable assistance as you go up the levels. Thes bonuses do not include "free spies." The only "free" units he receives are those right at the start. Note the AI only loses the spy when you are told of the loss. Also, when you look at his cities, you can't see any resident spies as they are invisible. (Somehow this whole thinking process reminds me of Bugs Bunny versus Elmer Fudd, with us as Elmer, being "vewwy, vewwy qwiet." As in the cartoon, we have no way of knowing what's about to hit us. "What's up, Doc?")

I was experiencing an espionage attempt every 3-4 turns, BUT, fortunately, about 2/3 of these were foiled (Dutch counterespionage have thwarted ...), which means he was losing about 2 out of 3 spies. Since he was at it for several dozens of turns, he must have replenished his spy stock. Maybe when I wasn't watching ... or else the AI gets free spies.

Now I'm at war with the Khmers (for some strange but happy reason, Saladdin did not join in ...) and I'm getting 3 espionage attempts every turn ! With espionage at 80%, needles to say, they are doomed, yet they do blow up an occasional mine or town. Mines are no big deal, I rebuild them instantly, towns are more annoying, I don't know how to turn a village to a town in one turn ... I have to wait for the village to grow back to a town.