How to plant Spies????

[Patsfan20]

Everytime I look at the Military Advisor, he says to plant spies to learn more about the other Civs, and I cant for the life of me figure out how. I know you can try to steal a Tech and stuff, is this considered sending spies or what? Any advice would be great!! Thanks

[Lucilla]

First you need to build the Intelligence Agency. Then double click on the Pentagon symbol next to the city name and you will be asked whether you want to plant a spy.
Depending on the type of government of the other civ, this can be succesful or not.
Once you have a spy, you can see the enemie's units in your Military Advisor screen.
You can then also initiate specific spy actions when you click on the "E" next to the current units view in the bottom right corner of the map view.
Hope that helps

[Patsfan20]

ah ha! So thats how you do it. I was only clicking on the E and getting the only 2 options. And I was reading in the instructions manual that you can do like propaganda and stuff and could not figure out how to do that. Well thanks for the advice, ill give it a try when i get off work. Thanks

[Jawa Jocky]

I never planted a spy until I lost a space race To avoid this mistake in the future I tried to plant spies in my next game. They always get caught! I have failed at least 20 times and never had success. What the hell am I doing wrong?

[Jethro83]

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
I never planted a spy until I lost a space race To avoid this mistake in the future I tried to plant spies in my next game. They always get caught! I have failed at least 20 times and never had success. What the hell am I doing wrong?

Not your fault. The chances of successfully planting a spy are far too low. Once I had Babylon declare war on me when I failed to plant a spy on them. I'll only try planting a spy on a civ once each turn. I find that if you fail the first time in a turn, you should give up for that turn because it is simply throwing your money away (and annoying the hell out of the other civ).

[Lucilla]

I guess that depends on the type of government of the other civ. If they have democracy or republic you are likely to fail (at least that's my experience, the manual doesn't say anything about this). If you are communist, it increases your chances (says the manual).
Anyway, using a spy for specific missions is incredibly expensive and IMO often not worth the effort. Personaly, I like the way spies worked in Civ2 much better.

[player1]

I think it more like 50%-50% chance.
But I sugest you if you fail, do NOT try to plant is same turn again, since that's 100% failure.
Try sevral (5+) turns later.

[Grrr]

So I have been wasting ALL THAT MONEY!

[nato]

How to plant spies?

... wait for it ... Very carefully!

Oh ho ho ho I just kill myself sometimes.

I should probably run now, but I'd like to say I think planting spies should be near automatic. Everyone has spies on everyone else, no problem. Its only when they take action that they really risk discovery, I think.

[Coracle]

Wasn't Espionage a lot more FUN in Civ 2?? Sure was.

[nato]

Yes it was a lot more fun and a lot more practical. However spies were also seriously broken and overpowered. Steal city was not cool.

[nationalist]

Why bother?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Coracle
Wasn't Espionage a lot more FUN in Civ 2?? Sure was.

Of course. I especially enjoyed the part where I could buy away 90% of an opponent's cities with spies for very little cash, steal all their techs with a nearly 100% sucess rate, and bribe all of their units so it was impossible to lose.

Was that your favorite part, too?

[player1]

Originally posted by cyclotron7


Of course. I especially enjoyed the part where I could buy away 90% of an opponent's cities with spies for very little cash, steal all their techs with a nearly 100% sucess rate, and bribe all of their units so it was impossible to lose.

Was that your favorite part, too?

I lowered tech steal to 70% cost, and propaganda to 50% in my MOD and that made spy missions fun again.

[Keeper of Hell]

Spy success on a single turn

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
I never planted a spy until I lost a space race To avoid this mistake in the future I tried to plant spies in my next game. They always get caught! I have failed at least 20 times and never had success. What the hell am I doing wrong?

If you fail to plant a spy in a particular civ once, wait a turn to try again. You cannot be successful if you fail once. I have tested this to what I feel is a reasonable extent: I saved my game and clicked on "Plant a Spy" about 50 times nonstop. Nothing. Reloaded and tried again- no effect. The first time tells all.