Help with spies in MOO2...

[Carolus Rex]

Howdy!

I play MOO2 occasionally and like it a lot. However, one thing that really annoys me is how spies work in the game (there seems to be no physical movement of them as in Civ 2)...

I meet other races, form treaties with them and then they rip every tech I have with their spies... How do you counter these things?

If I build spies, where should I put them to prevent other races' spies from stealing my techs (I've tried in the diplomatic window, but nothing seems to happen)? It's very frustrating to get popups every turn telling me that this or that tech is stolen and this or that city improvement is destroyed without knowing how to prevent it...

I've tried to hire leaders with special spy assasin abilities, but it does not seem to help...

Any advice are welcome as I find that this is killing the fun of the game... I mostly play as humans.

Carolus

[vmxa1]

To a degree you can't stop them completely. I have had them down to one pop on one planet and I had scores of agents and they stole a tech.

That said, you can slow them way down to near zero. First build about 4 spies. Do not move them and they will be defenders.

Then research the spy techs, mostly 900 to 1500 RP level. You will see that the percentage of effectiveness will increase for your spies or agents.

Do not take -spying, until you have gotten the hang of stopping them. You could even pick a trait that helps, such as unification.
Do not use those governments that reduce spy skills.

Moving spies from your pile to one of the races, reduces the number of defenders and they should be replaced. If I was a creative race, I would just keep adding spies for the whole game.

I do not want them to get any of my techs, until it will be of no use to them.

[Brutalisk]

Carolus: to have spies, you "build" them at a colony. That far you got from what you said. Once they are built, they are automatically acting as DEFENDING spies and their original location is the DEFENDING SPIES location.

If you move any of them onto a race, they then act as OFFENSIVE spies and attempt to gather information. You have three very obvious options.

You can view how many spies an AI (or human) race has on you by clicking the report button and selecting that race. It will show the number of spies they have on you - if any.

The maximum spies you can have in each tab is 63 -> 63 defensive spies, and 63 spies for each enemy race.

The spy bonuses also influence your spy effectiveness, so having a lot of spies is sometimes not enough.

[Shadowlord]

I usually have at least 30 spies defending and at least one world churning out new spies constantly. I usually take a -spying handicap, though. The techs which give +spying bonuses are even more important if you've got a -spying handicap or a government with spying handicaps - and you do: Humans have a democratic government, which has a defensive spy penalty, if I remember correctly.

[Zoetrope]

Carolus Rex, since you like Civ2's spies, do you play Alpha Centauri? Spies (probe teams) are even more fun there. (See AC forum.)

While agreeing with all that's been said here, I suggest you try this combo occasionally:

Unification (or Dictatorship), Telepathic, +20 Spying, Charismatic.

This maximises spying (+30 attack, +35 (+30) defence) and diplomacy (+75). Provided you keep a few spies on defence, enemies will rarely steal tech from you, while your active spies will frequently rip off even the Darloks.

The Charismatic combines with Telepathic to give a massive boost to how well the AI receives your conduct (does nothing to live opponents of course).

(1) Place some spies in defence.

(2) Put a few spies (4 to 6 is a good number) on each race.

(3) When they steal techs from someone (and they soon will), transfer all the spies that were on that target to somewhere else, or just put them on "Hide". This is to allow the target time to calm down.

(4) When relations improve (and they spontaneously do), return spies to active duty on that target.

In addition to the recurrent espionage (and in wartime, sabotage), there are some nasty diplomatic tricks you can play. Obviously you can trade for good tech quicker, and because of Charismatic your Leaders will be better and cost less, but you can make demands more easily. If a trick backfires, don't worry, they'll love you again.

As someone mentioned in another thread, the espionage game takes some practice to master, but it's a different, fun way to play. I've had great success with it in a difficult strategic situation (in the centre, surrounded by strong races, with only a few colonies and nowhere to expand).

[Carolus Rex]

Originally posted by Zoetrope

Carolus Rex, since you like Civ2's spies, do you play Alpha Centauri? Spies (probe teams) are even more fun there. (See AC forum.)

I have both an english (bargain bin) and a french (original) version!

I have not yet dived into the game (but I intend to). The usual reason: time constraints...

Carolus

[Zoetrope]

Carolus,

While this is the wrong forum to discuss AC in depth, but I'll just mention that while I have AC only in English, I do have the separately boxed SMAC and Alien Crossfire for MS-Windows, and two (2) copies of the planetary pack CD for Linux.

If you speak French, then I recommend Little Big Adventure 1 and 2. My login name honors Twinsen's wife (as stated in the MOO2 website, to bring us back on topic).

Now, MOO1 spies are better than MOO2 spies, and I don't get MOO3's diplomacy and espionage at all. I hope Ray Kerby does this right in Java MOO. Social interaction, even when virtual, if done right, is often the best part of an empire game.

[StepNRazor]

As mentioned before in refernce to government, Democracy.
A Demo race is practicaly has tech falling out of it's pockets, a lot worse that takeing -spy with the uni or dict they both have +defensive spies so it's a wash. If you are a demo gov do not take -spy unless you realy dont mind every one haveing your tech.