How do I protect my Governors?

[Dudealarm]

My governors are always being neutralised. I've started putting spies in the same cities to counterspy and I'm assuming they will be based in the city centre but placing the spies there doesn't seem to be helping. Am I missing something?

[BadMojo]

I started with a spy in my government center and the governor still got neutralized. Once I had my agent counterspying in the city center, he eventually got the bugger. Just a matter of time and luck really.

[Awen]

It probably is helping, but you just were unlucky. Having a counter spy reduces enemy chances, but doesn't elimninate them.

There are some diplomacy policies you can run later game to reduce enemy spying...and I believe the "war" oriented govenor has a promotion to help with it as well.

[Dray Prescot]

In the upper left top line of the UI is a place that you can click on to call up a list of all of your governors and manage them (reassign or promote).

[Robo]

Yes - protecting your city center with counterspy does the trick.

[Salma Hayek]

I think the offensive options for the spy are too good and the damage of a neutralized governor or anything an ennemy spy can do to you not important enough to waste a perfectly good spy in your capital. Maybe in multiplayer it could be slightly different, I don't know...

[Dudealarm]

I find it the opposite. Especially when it helps capture their spies so they can't produce any more.

[Salma Hayek]

What do they even do to you ? Apart from random barbarian units instantly dying vs city walls and the very occasional pillaged district I never quite notice any issue with ennemy spies. I'm sure they steal some gold and stuff and that counter-spying is not such a bad move but in terms of fun and using spies to make the game more cool you can't beat stealing all the great works.

[epicsimian]

Originally posted by Salma Hayek:

I think the offensive options for the spy are too good and the damage of a neutralized governor or anything an ennemy spy can do to you not important enough to waste a perfectly good spy in your capital. Maybe in multiplayer it could be slightly different, I don't know...

I think this is exacerbated by the fact that you can't protect everything so you can use all your spies to counterspy on your campuses and then your governor gets eliminated or your industrial zone gets sabotaged etc...

That being said if you have your districts in a nice cluster in your main 3 cities you can get more value out of counter spying than normal.

Also, if I'm doing a science victory I will always counterspy my rocket to prevent any major setbacks, better yet if it happens to be next to my industrial zone or city center.

[Salma Hayek]

Originally posted by epicsimian:

Also, if I'm doing a science victory I will always counterspy my rocket to prevent any major setbacks, better yet if it happens to be next to my industrial zone or city center.

Tho with Rise and fall the science victory changed quite a bit, with the last goverment plaza building that lets you spam builders to rush spaceport projects and also Magnus you can use to get to the moon in 1 turn (choping jungles and harvesting stones to get a nulear bomb in 1 turn is pretty funny) it's all over pretty quickly and the worst they can do is pillage a spaceport wich is a very minor issue especially if you have two or more cities with spaceports and it's generally a good idea to do so.

Not to mention that with the combo : the governor that lets you buy districts, choping/harvesting with Magnus and using builder charges in the spaceport, you can go to Mars in 5 turns from a 3 pop island you settled 5 turns ago.

[Awen]

Originally posted by Salma Hayek:

Originally posted by epicsimian:

Also, if I'm doing a science victory I will always counterspy my rocket to prevent any major setbacks, better yet if it happens to be next to my industrial zone or city center.

Tho with Rise and fall the science victory changed quite a bit, with the last goverment plaza building that lets you spam builders to rush spaceport projects and also Magnus you can use to get to the moon in 1 turn (choping jungles and harvesting stones to get a nulear bomb in 1 turn is pretty funny) it's all over pretty quickly and the worst they can do is pillage a spaceport wich is a very minor issue especially if you have two or more cities with spaceports and it's generally a good idea to do so.

Not to mention that with the combo : the governor that lets you buy districts, choping/harvesting with Magnus and using builder charges in the spaceport, you can go to Mars in 5 turns from a 3 pop island you settled 5 turns ago.

Yeah, I noticed this when I did a Korea science victory. Only needed one space port, sat a spy in it to protect it and a spy in the city center to protect Pingala....who had that crazy promotion that lets you spend an entire builder towards space projects.

Just had every other city spam/buy builders.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Caribou:

Yeah, I noticed this when I did a Korea science victory. Only needed one space port, sat a spy in it to protect it and a spy in the city center to protect Pingala....who had that crazy promotion that lets you spend an entire builder towards space projects.

Just had every other city spam/buy builders.

Pingala only gets a % bonus to Space projects. Being able to spend a builder on a district project comes from one of the T3 government buildings.

[Voluptificus]

So many things to protect and so few spies besides the fact that they seem rather useless in protection.A spy alone should cover all the districts.

[Dudealarm]

Maybe I have been using them incorrectly then.

As it says in the title, my governors are constantly being "neutralised". The bonuses, specifically the science ones that they give me are then lost for 7 turns - bit of a pain when I'm going for a science win. They also pinch money and research which annoys me.

What do people use them for as an offensive weapon then? If you're behind on science I imagine they could be useful, and if you know where they keep their art/artifact goodies I imagine pinching them could be satisfying and useful to.

Any other suggestions?

[Martin]

Originally posted by Caribou:

It probably is helping, but you just were unlucky. Having a counter spy reduces enemy chances, but doesn't elimninate them.

There are some diplomacy policies you can run later game to reduce enemy spying...and I believe the "war" oriented govenor has a promotion to help with it as well.

Yeh 2 levels of spying and -2 loyalty for all cities without a governor.. not much of a help.

[Awen]

Originally posted by Martin:

Originally posted by Caribou:

It probably is helping, but you just were unlucky. Having a counter spy reduces enemy chances, but doesn't elimninate them.

There are some diplomacy policies you can run later game to reduce enemy spying...and I believe the "war" oriented govenor has a promotion to help with it as well.

Yeh 2 levels of spying and -2 loyalty for all cities without a governor.. not much of a help.

Depending on the situation, 2 loyalty is not a big deal unless you're activly taking cities. And there is another policy card, "Cryptography" I think that you get not long after getting "Police State" which lowers enemy spy chances without the loyalty penalty.