Spies useless for defense?

[Dr Strangelove]

Somewhere in the original Civ II manual it is stated that posting a diplomat or spy in a city will defend it against spying, sabotage, and /or technology theft. I'm not sure that this is true. I may have a veteran spy in a city, yet an enemy diplomat walks right up and helps himself to my technology. I have never seen an enemy diplomat fail to get what he wanted, though the manual states that the veteran spy should have a 60% chance of thwarting espionage. What is going on? Is it that I just don't see the failed attempts? I thought that diplomats got only one chance at espionage, after which they were eliminated.

[Argonaut]

Diplomats do only have one chance, however the AI often seems to get into an 'espionage mode' and a lot of diplomats keep coming your way.
As for the spy/diplomat defense thing, I have seen this work but it was a while ago. However, it does happen. I find the situation doesn't present itself that often and since it only works about half the time, it is a rare thing to see.
I personally don't create spies or diplomats specifically for defense, but if I have one complete a mission and return, and I don't have any other missions, then I'll put it in my capital. Of course, I normally forget about it there and end up building more over time.

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Jason the Argonaut
"I like horses. Thank You."
-Daniel MacIvor

[Nico]

I had the same problem. My spies seems never preventing action of ennemy spies. It used to work well in the original Civilisation II, but not in ToT... strange!

[Krushala]

I never had any luck with them on defense in civ2 or tot. My best method is to place troops around my bases on fotresses to get an early warning and then expel them. although if I have railroads built it's hard to detect them early.

[Crustacian]

It never worked for me either. The only way was to be a democracy. The manual does say that a spy in a city protects it from bribery, but alas it does not so far that I've seen. Courthouses and lots of cash make it much harder for them to aford to bribe you however :~)



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The journey itself is the thing~Odysseus

[Nico]

Hey, I've seen it working once! A diplomat tried to move inside one of my cities containing a spy, and he just took back its position adjacent to the city without having done anything. But I had no message from the game, so I do not know what the diplomat wanted to do. If it was to bribe my city, he failed because I was in democracy, if it was for anything else, he failed because of my spy... who knows? We miss a new function for spies, making them able to torture units to get their intentions!!

Nico