Spying

[Alpharius]

So there are two tiers of spying, assigning spies to Civs (increase espionage level and also steal tech, when you're at Ultra level) and assigning spies to actual colonies to Sabotage et cetera.

So I've assigned spies to Civs (red hexagons) and I'm stealing tech all day long, and none of my spies are planetside so I'm safe.

My counter espionage agent monitors if there are any enemy spies planetside.

So we know how to eliminate spies that are assigned to planets (so does the AI)

But is there a way to prevent the AI from stealing YOUR tech? Since they are on the 1st tier and not on the actual planet. And all the AI has to do is the same as me, slot a Spy into the hex, gain enough intel and they'll be stealing tech just like i am.

Assigning spies to a planet and to a Civ are two diffo things lets not forget.

Does this make sense, do you know what i mean?

[Rhonin the wizard]

If you have unassigned spies, not on planets or spying on civs, they provide counterespionage. You can see this in the govern screen.

[Alpharius]

And this counter espionage prevents them from stealing your tech?

[Rhonin the wizard]

Not completely, but it makes it much harder. I don't recall a civ stealing tech from me after getting 10 spies on counterespionage.

[northernwater]

It would be nice to know the percentage provided by each counter spy. Also, does high approval help prevent espionage against you? It should it seems.

[Alpharius]

How can you even tell if a Civ steals your tech? You can't though.

I've never seen a message come up saying "X has stolen your tech" or something to that affect.
Have anyone actually seen that?

[Infarkt]

This message i had sometimes when some AI has been better in espionage than me - then it can happen that they steal a tech, and for that a message appears.

[Alpharius]

ahh ok, that's good to know :) :D

[Red Earth]

It's not clear how counter espionage works, but here's something I experienced. A target civ had technology to steal and I got the progress up to 100% however for several turns nothing happened. I thought it might be a bug but it might just be how counter espionage works. Your counter espionage level is a percentage (although it is displayed as 0.1 etc.) and I think that is subtracted from their percentage progress in stealing. So my 100% progress may have been cut down due to counter spies so it took several turns for anything to happen.

[Alpharius]

Interesting, makes sense.

[mrmarzord]

The thing is the game never tells you who stole from you.

[mrmarzord]

which is good they are spying on you. :)

[Red Earth]

It has been telling me who stole from me. It rarely doesn't tell me.

[Alpharius]

Well, at least we can say that it works. Not that i ever doubted it. I just dont see any documentation as to how Espionage works.

[mrmarzord]

Damn the game never tells me who stole from me, does anyone know why that is?

[Alpharius]

You're asking too much :P