Intelligence Agency is worthless?

[felder]

I've found the Intelligence Agency to be pretty useless. It seems that by the time I get it, everyone else is already a democracy so I can't really spread propaganda. Also it's extremely expensive to use the other features of the Agency, and it always seems to fail for me.

Has anyone actually found a way to apply the Intelligence Agency usefully in their games?

[Kc7mxo]

Absolutely. It's one of the best ways to get a civ to declare war on you. Just keep trying to stick a spy in their empire. If you get lucky, the turn you try it, it will be impossible. And if you do it enough they'll declare war.

In one game I was trying to stick a spy in Germany, and i tried it twenty times! in a row! a little after 20 they declared war. (they were weak).

Neat huh?

Yes, it does seem to be prohibitivly expensive to be of any use. And propaganda almost never works anyway.

i don'y play it much anymore anyway so it doesn't really bother me.

on the other hand, the investigate city you get from embasy, is VERY useful, and quite affordable.

[felder]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Absolutely. It's one of the best ways to get a civ to declare war on you. Just keep trying to stick a spy in their empire. If you get lucky, the turn you try it, it will be impossible. And if you do it enough they'll declare war.

In one game I was trying to stick a spy in Germany, and i tried it twenty times! in a row! a little after 20 they declared war. (they were weak).

Neat huh?

Yes, it does seem to be prohibitivly expensive to be of any use. And propaganda almost never works anyway.

i don'y play it much anymore anyway so it doesn't really bother me.

on the other hand, the investigate city you get from embasy, is VERY useful, and quite affordable.

Hmm...that's a thought. It never occurred to me to start a war that way. Still seems pretty useless to me though.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by felder
Also it's extremely expensive to use the other features of the Agency, and it always seems to fail for me.

Anything and everything regarding diplomacy/spy-mission costs can be edited with the help of that CivMod editor -> Diplomats & Spys tab.

[rah]

The only useful thing for it is seeing their space ship progress for timing your trashing of their Capital

Pretty useless otherwise.

RAH

[Jonny]

Well, you get 1 or 2 culture points a turn for it. But that's about it.

[Jaybe]

If you want to see what a foreign military is composed of, establishing a Spy (and therefore the Intelligence Agency) is the way to go. Can't disagree with you yet, otherwise.

[Stryfe]

Most of the abilities given by the Intelligence Agency are too expensive to be useful, but the simple ability to plant spies is very useful (so that you can see what other civs militaries are composed of) and just prior to an invasion of a powerful civ, using the investigate troop movement can be very useful also--that way you know where their ICBM's are, their air force, etc, and can attempt to take out those cities as quickly as possible. Otherwise, I don't use it though.

[dissent]

I find the Intelligence Agency invaluable during wartime, to investigate cities and maybe sabotage production in a select few cities. While in Communism I have little trouble planting my spy. Propoganda doesn't work, but is way too expensive anyway. Why pay when you can achieve the same results via force?

[Dida]

it is a good way to provoke a war. that's about it.

[Badtz Maru]

Sometimes it's worth it to sabotage another civ's production when they are about to beat you to a wonder you have been working on for 50 years.

[bigredlemon]

I have tried some 50 times to plant spies under communism, and it almost never works, EXCEPT:
a) We have mutual protection (about 50% chance of success implants)
b)we are at war and i have **** loads of units outside their cities (About 30% chance)

otherwise, the spies never gets in.

After he gets in, only investigate city and steal plans has ever worked....

i think maybe firaxis never finnished the portion, so they just put up some text for show (and take your coins!)

[zipnar]

its real nice being able to see how many nukes the enemy has sometimes.

[Grumbold]

I've found the whole espionage angle to be seriously weakened in Civ 3. I use it occasionally in games where the AI has an edge over me and I have a choice of different moves to make. The minute I've got the upper hand or it only becomes practical to attack one opponent it becomes irrelevant because the steady capture, raze, advance tactic is far more cost effective than wasting money on espionage.

[felder]

Originally posted by bigredlemon
I have tried some 50 times to plant spies under communism, and it almost never works, EXCEPT:
a) We have mutual protection (about 50% chance of success implants)
b)we are at war and i have **** loads of units outside their cities (About 30% chance)

otherwise, the spies never gets in.

After he gets in, only investigate city and steal plans has ever worked....

i think maybe firaxis never finnished the portion, so they just put up some text for show (and take your coins!)

That's what I'm saying...the thing seems pretty useless because getting a spy in another civ almost never seems to work...once it does most of the features of the agency don't seem to work. Couldn't they have done something that required far less code to enable someone to get a civ to declare war?

Geeze...how about a "send grandma's nasty fruitcake" option on the diplomacy screen?