Spies quite useless

[Toadman]

Don't use them. Don't need them. Who needs them when you own half the world by mid game. Too easy to just conquer everything. Benefits are rather irrellivent and puny.

[Lemurian1972]

Counterpoint- Conquering things is boring and too easy. Anyone can roll the AI once they understand the game. Winning by keeping other civs happy, or taking what you want without going to war is a more interesting way to play.

I'll almost always use spies, even if just to take away a City State the AI blew 25 Envoys trying to get, or to counterspy to keep them from messing with my own projects.

[terry]

I agree that they are pretty much useless if you play the easy conquer game. They can be fun to use if you are playing other styles though.

[Anon_2]

Well, I use spies.

The most valuable thing for me is maintaining control of city states, and spies can help with that. Bonuses for being suzerain of a city state can be significant. For me, the most valuable city states are Kumasi (extra culture from trade routes), Aukland (production on coast tiles), Cardiff (electric power from harbor district buildings), Kandy (relics for discovering natural wonders), Valletta (city center buildings and walls can be bought with faith), and Bologna (extra great person points from districts). If you are a wonder builder, Brussels is helpful. If you have happiness problems, Buenas Aires and Zanzibar are helpful.

Once spies are fully leveled up, I use them as counterspies, which is very helpful, especially if you are trying to win a space victory.

Spies also have military value. If you have a spy in a listening post, that increases your diplomatic visibility with that player. In combat, diplomatic visibility between combatants is compared, and the side with higher visibility gets combat bonuses. Therefore, when you increase diplomatic visibility, you are either increasing your combat bonuses against the other player or reducing their combat bonuses against you.

Also, a spy in a city you are attacking allows your ranged units to see the city while they stay out of range of the city walls. Artillery can be vulnerable to attack, so a spy in a city might be helpful while you beat the defenses down.

Just a few ideas.

[cerberusiv]

Spies have several uses. The right policy cards are important to make them effective though.

1. Counterspying. I find the AI can be very determined at sabotaging industrial zones and spaceports, particularly in your capital, and stealing gold from commercial hubs. Carefully positioned counterspies can stop a lot of these attacks and save considerable time, aggravation and gold.

2. Where you do not have visibility on a target city, a spy is a convenient way to, as said, make it visible to your units.

3. Listening Post. Again as said, this grants an extra level of diplomatic visibility. Not particularly useful but not worthless either.

Obviously a lot depends on the map type and your playstyle but spies have their uses and shortcomings, just like most other units.

[linas.warrior]

I use them, but only for counterspying in Spaceport and Industrial districts. Rarely use them in offensive missions.

[Wegetzu]

They can give u thousands of gold per mission. Gotta love fat bank

[The Bored Chairman]

They're probably more useful on higher difficulties, where you need to play catch up.

I just use them to defend key cities (spaceport especially) and to swipe dosh from people I don't like.

If there's a civ with a hilariously OP ability (Korea, Greece, etc.), that I haven't discovered until mid-game (because they were on a different continent), I use spies against them remorselessly.

[hopsblues]

Originally posted by Anon_2:

Well, I use spies.

The most valuable thing for me is maintaining control of city states, and spies can help with that. Bonuses for being suzerain of a city state can be significant. For me, the most valuable city states are Kumasi (extra culture from trade routes), Aukland (production on coast tiles), Cardiff (electric power from harbor district buildings), Kandy (relics for discovering natural wonders), Valletta (city center buildings and walls can be bought with faith), and Bologna (extra great person points from districts). If you are a wonder builder, Brussels is helpful. If you have happiness problems, Buenas Aires and Zanzibar are helpful.

Once spies are fully leveled up, I use them as counterspies, which is very helpful, especially if you are trying to win a space victory.

Spies also have military value. If you have a spy in a listening post, that increases your diplomatic visibility with that player. In combat, diplomatic visibility between combatants is compared, and the side with higher visibility gets combat bonuses. Therefore, when you increase diplomatic visibility, you are either increasing your combat bonuses against the other player or reducing their combat bonuses against you.

Also, a spy in a city you are attacking allows your ranged units to see the city while they stay out of range of the city walls. Artillery can be vulnerable to attack, so a spy in a city might be helpful while you beat the defenses down.

Just a few ideas.

So I use spy's a lot, many of the above mentioned..stealing money, great works. Sabotaging space ports and industrial zones. For my bombers seeing the city, and counterspying the above.
I've never used them in city states, how/why does that work. CS's are usually too far behind to steal tech, and don't have govenors. What am I missing as far as using them to control their suzerainity? Thx.

[The Bored Chairman]

Originally posted by hopsblues:

Originally posted by Anon_2:

Well, I use spies.

The most valuable thing for me is maintaining control of city states, and spies can help with that. Bonuses for being suzerain of a city state can be significant. For me, the most valuable city states are Kumasi (extra culture from trade routes), Aukland (production on coast tiles), Cardiff (electric power from harbor district buildings), Kandy (relics for discovering natural wonders), Valletta (city center buildings and walls can be bought with faith), and Bologna (extra great person points from districts). If you are a wonder builder, Brussels is helpful. If you have happiness problems, Buenas Aires and Zanzibar are helpful.

Once spies are fully leveled up, I use them as counterspies, which is very helpful, especially if you are trying to win a space victory.

Spies also have military value. If you have a spy in a listening post, that increases your diplomatic visibility with that player. In combat, diplomatic visibility between combatants is compared, and the side with higher visibility gets combat bonuses. Therefore, when you increase diplomatic visibility, you are either increasing your combat bonuses against the other player or reducing their combat bonuses against you.

Also, a spy in a city you are attacking allows your ranged units to see the city while they stay out of range of the city walls. Artillery can be vulnerable to attack, so a spy in a city might be helpful while you beat the defenses down.

Just a few ideas.

So I use spy's a lot, many of the above mentioned..stealing money, great works. Sabotaging space ports and industrial zones. For my bombers seeing the city, and counterspying the above.
I've never used them in city states, how/why does that work. CS's are usually too far behind to steal tech, and don't have govenors. What am I missing as far as using them to control their suzerainity? Thx.

The only thing you can do with CS is fabricate scandals, which lowers the amount of envoys other civs have there. It's not something you'd want to do right away, since the chance to fail is pretty high, preferably after you've got a few promotions (especially Smear Campaign). You can't perform the Gain Sources operation in CS, so the base success chance is all you get.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

The only thing you can do with CS is fabricate scandals, which lowers the amount of envoys other civs have there. It's not something you'd want to do right away, since the chance to fail is pretty high, preferably after you've got a few promotions (especially Smear Campaign). You can't perform the Gain Sources operation in CS, so the base success chance is all you get.

It also pays to have the policy in place to speed up missions, and if you're lucky a spy with the promotion to speed them up more. Fabricate Scandal takes a while, but like I mentioned before, the ability to wipe out a lot of envoys your foes have spent and can't get back is satisfying.

[Joshua Raposa]

My spies are basically thieves. I love them.

[Despiser]

I use them to counter opponents cultural and science progress, which is an issue playing on immortal. Also to flip nearby cities.

[Traveler]

Lol, I love my spies. But it depends on the game style you're running.

[Kurnn]

Spies are as useful as their commanders orders them to be.

[Martin]

The spy system is a farce.. it isn't there for players it's there for the ai to wipe out your industry and remove your people. How can you defend against 12 ai's all attacking 1 industrial district.. with 1 spy?? Your one spy.. stops the first ai spy.. the other 11 then get free rides to do whatever they want. ie Everytime you rebuild your ind district, the ai knocks it down and if it can't do it with a spy, it'll summon a random tornado to come and do it instead, slap in a few floods, a duststorm and a blizzard and you're completely.. out of the game.

Kill every ai civ. Don't just kill them, humiliate them. Leave them a city in the tundra. And erase all their others, placing cities where the ai should have.