help with spies

[vee4473]

Can someone tell me how spies work?

I got thde intel agency adn put a spy into persia, but I never got the option of an espionage mission.

Also, my military advisor tells me we need a spy in persia to view their troop locations.

Then, I tried to plant another spy, but the option for persia wasn't there.

How do you control spies?

What's going on?

[Nor Me]

Do you see that E button on the right of the box in the bottom right?

[Jaybe]

You plant just one spy in each of the civs at a time. Their planting may fail, or (rarely) they may be caught. Use the 'E' button on the info box in lower right or 'Shift-E' for the espionage screen (espionage screens are different in Civ3 and PTW). The existence of a spy in a civ lets you see their forces in the F3 screen.

When your F3 told you you need a spy to view troop locations, he was speaking in general. If you already have a spy, the troop locations is a special (Espionage Screen) mission and its effects only last one turn.

[vmxa1]

You get to know how many and what types of units the civ has once you plant a spy. If you want to know exactly which ones are where, you need to run a mission to gather that info. If you have lots of cash, this can be fun and useful.

[Datajack Franit]

Espionage missions are quite useless btw- don't waste your money in that

[Brizey]

DF:

Stealing plans can be useful at times, but otherwise, I agree.

[joncnunn]

I've heard of the following primarly uses of Spies:

1. # of their armed forces in all types. (F3 military)

2. Status of their space ship.

3. Occansionly investiagting a city during war.

4. Planting spies and/or attempting action in hopes that the AI will declare war on your Democracy and give you a happiness bounce.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to know the AIs entire troop locations at once, the AI doesn't use their forces efficently enough for this to be useful.

[Emma]

the problem i have with spies is that i can't plant them where i want to. i've got spies in all the small weak civs, but they don't really help there too much. i would prefer them in the large ones. i'm the most powerful civ in the game but everytime i try to plant a spy in Russia or France for example they always get caught.

[Jaybe]

Emma,
Having lots more culture helps but is definitely no guarantee. Also, in PTW you want to wait 2-3 (3-4??) turns between plant spy attempts because they have tweaked it so that if you don't wait, it will just fail again.

[Datajack Franit]

I can think about only ONE useful way of spies (plan stealing) but they are automatically deleted after a cpl turns- forget about spies! Burn and cover their land with salt!

[player1]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
Espionage missions are quite useless btw- don't waste your money in that

Actualy steal tech missions are quite good in modern age (and maybe industrial).

You can steal tech for 2500gp (safe option), while otherwise you would need about 15,000gp to buy it from AI.

Of course in ancient and medivial age steal tech is just BAAAD (way to expensive).

[player1]

double post,
DIE!

[Datajack Franit]

If you can't afford to pay all that money, you can always use the gpt option- btw if you NEED to desperately steal techs, you're playing wayyyy bad

[player1]

Nothing desperate there.

It's just much easier way to become first in tech (compared to legal buy).

[CerberusIV]

I reduced the cost of planting spies and investigating cities as I do both of those (but no other espionage options). I find the most useful thing about spies is knowing what forces the AI has from the F3 screen (if you have the patience to scroll through). Where they are is not very significant.

I always wait five turns before trying to plant a spy after an attempt fails. It can fail again so you just have to be persistent, and be prepared to risk provoking a war with strong AI's.