What to do against spy attacks?

[🥇 Xaxoon 🥇]

Because espionage can not be deactivated, i have to deal with that: Every other civ send spys to my cities, and after a while i have no gold anymore. When i try to do the same, my spy is 90% dead, because he's killed.

So, how can i prevent to get financially killed by enemy spys, i am only able to build one spy, but my cities are full of spys all over?

The bad thing is, that it feels like ALL other civs are only fighting against me, no matter what i do. It feels a bit unfair.

TY for your help.

[bridgeboy69]

Set your spy to "counterspy" in the city that keeps getting attacked by spies. For me, they always go after my production in my Capital; not sure if it's the same for you since you say they are stealing your gold. However, if your Commercial Hub is adjacent to your Industrial Hub, they both get protected by the same spy.

[MonkeyspankO]

yeah, i get the feeling in the current build of the game, its all AIs vs. the human. in civ5 u atleast got hte feeling that they would go against eachother moar

[SamBC]

Oh, the AI will go against each other. They mainly all target you if you're either an easy target, or looking like you're running away with the game.

[Wildfire40]

I tend to find it only feels this way if you don't keep up your military. If the AI thinks you are weak you will be targeted all sorts of ways, if your army is strong they worry more about making you angry.

[bridgeboy69]

Still a lot of bugs in the game. Several times now I've had enemy spies both succeed in their mission (destroy my Industrial Zone) and get killed by my counterspy at the same time. I don't think that's supposed to happen. If they get killed they should fail their mission; that's how it works for my spies fail...if I succeed I get away clean...

[Tsar Alexis]

Truly they need an option to tunr espionage off, its an annoying click fest at best.

[🥇 Xaxoon 🥇]

Originally posted by Wildfire40:

I tend to find it only feels this way if you don't keep up your military. If the AI thinks you are weak you will be targeted all sorts of ways, if your army is strong they worry more about making you angry.

I can NOT confirm. ITS TRUE - it should be like you say - if that AI would be comprehensible.

I was the strongest civ, able to crush all others, i didnt do it because i wanted to rush through the research tree one time.
Nevertheless i had lot of spy attacks from nearly every other civs, even the very small ones sent them to me, who promised me a few turns before to not send spies anymore.

[Snow]

Originally posted by bridgeboy69:

Set your spy to "counterspy" in the city that keeps getting attacked by spies. For me, they always go after my production in my Capital; not sure if it's the same for you since you say they are stealing your gold. However, if your Commercial Hub is adjacent to your Industrial Hub, they both get protected by the same spy.

"However, if your Commercial Hub is adjacent to your Industrial Hub, they both get protected by the same spy" This 100x :D. They were harrasing my capitals production and gold. So now i build those districts next to each other. The spys protecting adjacent districts is really nice. Makes me think about where i place stuff more.

[Hedgehog in a kayak]

Originally posted by bridgeboy69:

Set your spy to "counterspy" in the city that keeps getting attacked by spies. For me, they always go after my production in my Capital; not sure if it's the same for you since you say they are stealing your gold. However, if your Commercial Hub is adjacent to your Industrial Hub, they both get protected by the same spy.

Does the spy defend the adjacent district with the same effectiveness?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Hedgehog in a kayak:

Originally posted by bridgeboy69:

Set your spy to "counterspy" in the city that keeps getting attacked by spies. For me, they always go after my production in my Capital; not sure if it's the same for you since you say they are stealing your gold. However, if your Commercial Hub is adjacent to your Industrial Hub, they both get protected by the same spy.

Does the spy defend the adjacent district with the same effectiveness?

afaict, yes.

[Jirki88]

Nowadays there are mods to disable the espionage system, if someone want that hassle to go away, for example

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1698849278

[rgraham666]

I'm not sure but it seems the AIs usually go after your capital city.

So my spies are, until I get spares, set to counterspy. I set them in this order; Campus (as I always try to be #1 in science), Industrial (as losing factories and power plants hurts not only the capital city but all cities within 6 hexes of the Industrial centre), and Spaceport.

After that I set other spies to watch other Civs, It helps to know what they are up to. If I'm at war I will try to sabotage either their Industrial or Military hubs. If someone else enters the Space Race their spaceport goes BOOM!

Don't forget to get the right promotions. Seduction, Quartermaster and Polygraph are best for conterspying. Others, specialize for mission.

Hope this helps.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by rgraham666:

I'm not sure but it seems the AIs usually go after your capital city.

They go after the best city for whatever it is they're targeting (even though that's completely irrelevant for science spying). Since your capitol will frequently be your best city in a number of aspects, and embassies reveal your capitol to people who haven't ever been near it, it's often the target, but if another city is better at science, gold, or production, it will be targeted for those unless an AI doesn't have the city revealed.

[dcain3456]

There are policies as well that can help with counterspying. Cryptography, for one...