spy missions?

[britishnemesis]

I am not a newbie at the game but I am no pro, I've been confusing the hell out of myself as to what my spies do. I have established several covert operations in different cities... but it does NOTHING!

I can't even choose what I want to do in their city. Is there something I am totally missing out? Could anyone take the time to explain to me how this whole thing works? I miss the old spy units and I hate having the AI sending units into my sphere of influence.. cause even when I ask for them to remove them they do not...

Help!

[Llama]

Try thinking of a spy as an advanced diplomat/embassy. When you put a spy in the capital of a civ you can then go to the espionage screen & you can then choose to use either the spy or the embassy, with the spy you can execute other missions, like initiate propaganda, hunt for spy's (enemy spy's in your own civ) and a few others.

[xane]

You need the Espionage advance to plant spies, but all this does is give you accurate unit strengths in the Military Advisor screen.

Espionage also gives you the Intelligence Agency Small Wonder, build this and you can right-click on the city that has it (it will have a "pentagon" in the title) and choose "Espionage", you can then conduct all your favourite underhand tactics with any civilization you have a spy with.

As mentioned above, getting rid of enemy spies is a function of the IA, spies no longer have a "physical" presence in the game, they are the same as Diplomacy.

[Bane Star]

When you can start espionage, there is, in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, is an E in a box, if you press this it gives you some espionage options.

But I agree that the diplomat/Spy troop needs a comeback, In most times I've played the cost to perform any such mission is preposterous, stealing technologies upwards of hundreds if not thousands of gold/cash. while a diplomat/spy troop could barely cost 30/40 shields and provided you could get to an enemy town you could steal a tech.

I do understand that this had its improbable drawbacks, which could be easily solved, One being that a race being behind in techs could steal a tech that was greatly advanced, I remember on a diety game civ2, stealing conscription when I could barely get chivalry.