A Question About Spy Effectiveness

[Falkeep]

I haven't been doing much with spies (I'll make some to listen in the other player capitals). The main reason is that there are so many different things you have to assign them to... very specific districts in very specific cities. So, the odds of happening to have a spy in the right place if you are sabotaged by another player seem to me to be kind of like winning the lottery. I just got hit with what I am sure is a lot of deliberate sabotage in several different cities and districts at the same time. I have to say, also, that I'm also questioning the AI's neutrality... the very same turn it dropped a tornado directly on the commercial district in the city where I was getting close to finishing Big Ben (and with close to 40K gold and going up by over a 1K gold each turn).

So, my question, the help I am seeking, is how do you use spies effectively on defense? I can always build some of my own any start attacking their infrastructure, but I'd really rather not. I have one of two primary landmasses to myself (I wiped out the other player on that continent within the first 40 moves) while the three players on the other landmass have been screwing around fighting each other. As long as they leave me alone to amuse myself building Wonders and infrastructure, I'm happy to let them tear each other apart.

I just had a thought... can Scouts / Rangers be placed to guard cities and districts by helping to spot spies? But I have a LOT of cities, most of them big and sprawling and building up my newer cities in the same way. I just don't understand how a player can effectively deal with spies from determined enemies. How do I best prioritize using them?

Help, please.

[Rift]

I almost exclusively use spies defensively. Usually, I put Victor in a city and give him the "Embrasure" promotion (free promotion for all new units) and start spamming spies. I'm looking for the ones with Polygraph (in home territory, enemy spies operate at -1), Counterspy (+2 Counterspy ability (preferred)), or Surveillance (protects all districts in that city and +1 counterspy to all nearby districts). So train a spy, and if it doesn't have the promotion you're looking for, delete it and build another. When you get one with the right promotion, drop it in your capital first, preferably in a spot where the most districts will be protected. The reason why your capital, is because everyone can see your capital. After that, drop them in other cities as necessary.

You can also surround your Diplomatic Quarter with districts (like you would the government plaza; but build it directly next to the city); this causes enemy spies to operate a 2 levels lower when targeting the Diplomatic Quarter and all surrounding districts. If you also build the Consulate building, it rises to -3 for enemy spies in that city, and all cities with an Encampment get -1 to enemy spies. Then there's 2 Diplomatic Policy cards that help: Police State (-2 enemy spy levels in your borders, but -1 Amenity to ALL cities, so avoid it if you can), and Cryptography (-2 enemy spy levels in your land, no negatives). Cryptography is obviously better, but you don't get it until "Cold War".

Originally posted by Falkeep:

I just had a thought... can Scouts / Rangers be placed to guard cities and districts by helping to spot spies?

Unfortunately, no.

[pirate135246]

spies provide diplomatic visibility, here is an excerpt about it from the wiki in regards to the combat strength bonus it gives, which imo is a pretty big deal.

"Visibility Diplomatic Visibility has military implications. If you attack a civilization, your levels of Visibility Diplomatic Visibility will be compared and if one party's level is higher, they will receive a permanent bonus in every military encounter. This is known as "Intel on enemy movements" and consists of +3 Strength Combat Strength per level of difference in visibility (leading to a maximum bonus of +12 Strength Combat Strength if one civilization has an access level of None and the other has an access level of Top Secret). This is even more important if you play as Mongolia, for whom the bonus is doubled. This bonus is also active during theological combat."

[Falkeep]

Okay, here's a part 2 for the question... I built the Foreign Ministry instead of the Intelligence Network (or whatever it's called). I did this because, again, I've never really used spies much and I like flooding the City-States with Envoys not only to be their Suzerain (of ALL of them) plus I use the policy card to get one gold per turn for the total number of Envoys that you have placed in the City-States. That ends up being a nice amount of cash each month.

So, other than that, which helps a lot in the mid-game, should I instead go with the Intelligence Network, which would seem to be helpful in the later game? I don't know how to compare and contrast it because, by the last quarter to third of the game, I have rarely ever stuck with it that long because the board just gets to busy and cluttered and it stops being fun for me. It's been like that through all versions of the game, for me.

Is there any late-game advantage for the Foreign Ministry or mid-game advantage for the Intelligence Network? Literally, a game I played last week, I think, went 425 turns before I quit. I had already won a Diplomatic Victory but I didn't know that if you kept playing you could also win by any of the other metrics. I made it until I landed a Giant Death Robot (my first ever) on the other land mass. Since I don't really like playing a Domination style game, there just didn't seem to be any point going on.

Basically, although I have played Civilization... through all different versions, I have very rarely lasted into the late-game, so, I'm kind of a noob for late-game strategies. Does that make sense?

[grognardgary]

Originally posted by Rift:

I almost exclusively use spies defensively. Usually, I put Victor in a city and give him the "Embrasure" promotion (free promotion for all new units) and start spamming spies. I'm looking for the ones with Polygraph (in home territory, enemy spies operate at -1), Counterspy (+2 Counterspy ability (preferred)), or Surveillance (protects all districts in that city and +1 counterspy to all nearby districts). So train a spy, and if it doesn't have the promotion you're looking for, delete it and build another. When you get one with the right promotion, drop it in your capital first, preferably in a spot where the most districts will be protected. The reason why your capital, is because everyone can see your capital. After that, drop them in other cities as necessary.

You can also surround your Diplomatic Quarter with districts (like you would the government plaza; but build it directly next to the city); this causes enemy spies to operate a 2 levels lower when targeting the Diplomatic Quarter and all surrounding districts. If you also build the Consulate building, it rises to -3 for enemy spies in that city, and all cities with an Encampment get -1 to enemy spies. Then there's 2 Diplomatic Policy cards that help: Police State (-2 enemy spy levels in your borders, but -1 Amenity to ALL cities, so avoid it if you can), and Cryptography (-2 enemy spy levels in your land, no negatives). Cryptography is obviously better, but you don't get it until "Cold War".

Originally posted by Falkeep:

I just had a thought... can Scouts / Rangers be placed to guard cities and districts by helping to spot spies?

Unfortunately, no.

As a general rule of thumb the more stuff you have in a city the more you need protection against enemy spies and of course your capitol will have more stuff than the rest of your cites just because it has been around longer.

[Falkeep]

Originally posted by grognardgary:

As a general rule of thumb the more stuff you have in a city the more you need protection against enemy spies and of course your capitol will have more stuff than the rest of your cites just because it has been around longer.

I understand that. My problem is the limited number of spies available. I have a lot of cities and most of them have lots of districts. So, putting one in your capital makes sense but I don't know how to prioritize where to place others. I only have three available to me which is why, for future reference I was wondering about whether the Foreign Ministry (good for mid-game) or the Intelligence Agency (good, it seems, for the later-game... like when picking a civ with unique features that run from eraly-game advantages to late-game advantages). I think that I'm pretty much stuck with what I have and the consequences will fall where they do, but I am trying to understand the strategies for future games. Does that make sense?

[Rift]

The problem with the AI in Civ 6 is that it tends to only ever train 1 spy. Once that spy is captured or killed, the AI seems to forget it can train more and use them. If I don't have a ton of Faith output, I tend to build the Foreign Ministry. If I do have a high Faith output, I'll definitely build the Grand Master's Chapel. In single player, I almost never build the Intelligence Academy. In multiplayer, it can be very useful. That being said, in single player, Grand Master's Chapel is arguably the better of the three.

Now, your Victory Type matters, too. If you want a Diplomatic Victory, definitely Foreign Ministry. Religious, Grand Master's Chapel. Culture / Tourism, Intelligence Academy (because you can steal artifacts, art, etc.).

And yeah, I'm the same way. Once I start to hit the late game, I start getting bored and usually quit. Aside from almost always steamrolling the closest AI to me, I'm generally pretty passive and only attack the AI when they declare war on a city state, or they refuse to stop converting my cities.

[Falkeep]

Originally posted by Rift:

The problem with the AI in Civ 6 is that it tends to only ever train 1 spy. Once that spy is captured or killed, the AI seems to forget it can train more and use them. If I don't have a ton of Faith output, I tend to build the Foreign Ministry. If I do have a high Faith output, I'll definitely build the Grand Master's Chapel. In single player, I almost never build the Intelligence Academy. In multiplayer, it can be very useful. That being said, in single player, Grand Master's Chapel is arguably the better of the three.

Now, your Victory Type matters, too. If you want a Diplomatic Victory, definitely Foreign Ministry. Religious, Grand Master's Chapel. Culture / Tourism, Intelligence Academy (because you can steal artifacts, art, etc.).

And yeah, I'm the same way. Once I start to hit the late game, I start getting bored and usually quit. Aside from almost always steamrolling the closest AI to me, I'm generally pretty passive and only attack the AI when they declare war on a city state, or they refuse to stop converting my cities. :meepmad:

I haven't even given thought to using the Grand Master's Chapel, and I accumulate a lot of faith since I build pretty much anything I can, but a Religious Victory interests me only moderately less than than a Domination Victory does. That being said, I tend to not work towards a specific type of victory. The game I won last week I kept playing for a hundredish more turns because I didn't realize that once you've won one type of victory you can't work towards adding other victories. No piling on, I guess.

The type of victory I would really have to have available is, for lack of a better term, a "decathalon" format where victory is determined by a score across all of the individual types of victory. Set the game for, say 400 or 500 turns and you accumulate as many victories as you can in that time limit. Getting a victory of one particular type would win you a lot of points but the goal is to do the best you're able to do across the board. Does that make sense?

[Falkeep]

This is what confuses me about Spies. If you want them to Counterspy, they can't just Counterspy a city, you have to designate a specific district in the city for them to base out of. It likes they also do the surrounding districts to wherever you place them but with a big city, that leaves a lot of unwatched territory. Then, trying to cover every city (where I think I was attacked were not any of my big cities but newer, smaller ones along the coast). That is why I say it seems to me to pretty much be like playing the lottery where you just hope you made the right choice but the odds are against you. I have a total of 2 Spies available to me... and they are all I have to perform either / both offensive and/or defensive work. How do you make a decision?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3288033986

[Catalytic]

For me, I exploit the AI's predictability. It'll target the same thing over and over because the algorithm with give it priority. Typically, this is the commercial hub of your biggest trade generating city and in the late game, they seem to absolutely love making partisans in your neighborhoods, so protect those first. If you go for a science victory, obviously, protect your launch pads.

Also, be strategic about where you put those spies. They protect the district their on, plus a 1 tile radius, so if you have clustered up districts, take advantage. With the city in the image, I'd probably put the spy on the CH, so it would also protect your IZ, and be willing to move it if they take a shot at your theater district, which would be rare. Also, the second the AI tries recruiting partisans in a neighborhood, I move a spy there because that's irritating as heck to resolve. They always get multiple pillages off before I can clean up the mess. Just as a word of advice, I'd garrison a machine gunner (ranged) in that capitol just in case that happens - and consider upgrading that knight. He's worthless in the current era and only wasting your upkeep costs as is. If you're just trying to avoid CO2 penalties by avoiding going to a tank, that's understandable, but as is, he's a one-shot kill to any partisan unit that would spawn.

[Falkeep]

Originally posted by Catalytic:

Just as a word of advice, I'd garrison a machine gunner (ranged) in that capitol just in case that happens - and consider upgrading that knight. He's worthless in the current era and only wasting your upkeep costs as is. If you're just trying to avoid CO2 penalties by avoiding going to a tank, that's understandable, but as is, he's a one-shot kill to any partisan unit that would spawn.

Since I wiped out the only other player on my continent by around turn 40 and the two barbarian villages right after that, I've been pretty much left alone. The only units I had that weren't warriors, archers, and other primitive forces were the ones I built to complete quests or get Eurekas or Inspirations. I was literally waiting until I got Big Ben before I updated my forces.

Since I don't really have anyone around to discuss games with, I don't know if this is really a lot or just seems that way to me on my island but, when Big Ben was completed, I had over 50K gold and after I had just over 80K. So, now I am on a binge of updating all of my forces, merging them into armies, etc. That knight had been sitting in that spot for thousands of years and I had actually forgotten about him until I checked my Units List and saw him on it.

In any case, this is the stage of the game where I build Mech Inf and Modern Armor armies to garrison all of my cities, the I head over to the other continent with nothing but armies and settlers while they are still in pre-gunpower levels. Also, I have mentioned it in another thread that the map I'm playing on has The Matterhorn, The Giant's Causeway, and The Fountain of Youth on my continent so all of my forces have been run by / through them to get those benefits, as well. This is the same map I played last time because I like the layout... I just wish that I could save the map to Worldbuilder and change the other players, rescatter resources, etc.

[jmerry82]

Ranged units are a much better choice for garrisons - in the late game, the fact that they don't cost resources to maintain is a big deal. You only have so much oil, after all. Units like mechanized infantry and modern armor are for attacking with.

But mostly, I don't bother with garrisons at all. Walls defend cities well enough on their own. In my current game, the only units I have that I haven't moved to the front lines are my tiny navy, a couple hopelessly obsolete warriors (my free melee units for being Abraham Lincoln are so much better), and units that are on the way.

[Falkeep]

Originally posted by jmerry82:

Ranged units are a much better choice for garrisons - in the late game, the fact that they don't cost resources to maintain is a big deal. You only have so much oil, after all. Units like mechanized infantry and modern armor are for attacking with.

But mostly, I don't bother with garrisons at all. Walls defend cities well enough on their own. In my current game, the only units I have that I haven't moved to the front lines are my tiny navy, a couple hopelessly obsolete warriors (my free melee units for being Abraham Lincoln are so much better), and units that are on the way.

Good suggestion about what to garrison with. Thanks. I only really start seriously garrisoning my cities at this stage because, well, I can Between my production speed and my money, it's just for fun, at this point. And, that way, if and when I invade the other landmass, I'm unstoppable as I build new cities for them to try to attack.

So, some things that I have learned about units through this...

If you merge units, the whole new unit has all of the accumulated bonuses / achievements of the component units. However, upgrading in an encampment does NOT give the % bonuses of that location if a unit does not already have them (which I think it should give them if you choose to take the time top move them to an encampment or harbor district rather than upgrading them in the field.). So, if you want units to have all the bonuses of Barracks, Armory, and Academy, just build one new unit with those bonuses and merge it into your Corps / Fleet / Army / Armada. They can be merged anywhere to get those bonuses for the larger unit. Also, as long as any one of the units that you are going to urge has at least 1 movement point left, you can merge them when they are nest to each other, but the merging has to be done by a unit with movement points.

Also, if one of your units that you merge is named then the merged unit keeps that name (I don't know yet what happens if you merge two named units together). So, merge the prestige uints with raw (unpromoted) new units for the combined unit to keep that status.

Today, I'm going to test building two new units and giving them different promotions (one will get the No Woods Travel Restriction bonus and the other will be given the No Hills Travel Restrictions bonus, for example) to see if the new unit gets both promotions when they merge. I'll let you know how that goes.

If you have the time and ability, utilize any natural bonuses from wonders on your game map. As I've said before, the map I have now, has The Matterhorn, The Giant's Causeway, and the Fountain of Youth on my home home land mass. So, I've been running all of my units to all three places for those bonuses. What I've figured out now about merging would seem to indicate that I just need one unit with one of all of those bonuses to get them for the merged larger units.

Siege Engines are NOT eligible for bonuses from wonders or promotions. I know because I ran my free Battering Ram I got from building The Statue of Zeus and ran it to all three wonders, but nothing. Since they are upgradable (eventually to a Supply Unit) I think that they should at least be able to get the travel restriction bonuses / promotions since they are designed to travel along with combat units. I have not had them in a battle, so I don't know if they are incrementally damageable (not just from combat but also from natural disasters like storms or eruptions) or healable (i.e. are they "one shot and its over" or even if they are captureable like Settlers and Builders), nor do I know if they are mergable. I guess I'll build another one today and test that out. In any case, with good long-term strategic planning ahead for when you get the capability to merge units could give you combined units that are greater than the component pieces. Again, I'll report any new information I get.

[plaguepenguin]

Espionage defense with spies themselves is indeed hampered by the fact that they (at least as recruits) only provide point defense for one district, while your opponents can choose to attack any of the dozens of your districts. You can only build 5 spies (6 if you choose the Intelligence Agency), which leaves almost all of your districts undefended by your spies.

The saving grace here is that every district has an inherent defense against enemy spy attacks,. We know this defense exists because these attacks sometimes fail even in districts with none of our own spy defenders, because the player is notified in that case. While the existence of this inherent defense is clear, I haven't seen it documented exactly how it works. Specifically, there are policy cards, spy promotions, diplo quarter effects, and governor titles that give across the board minuses to enemy spy actions,and while I suspect from observing game behavior that at least some of them (Cryptography in particular) have a defensive effect even in districts without any of your defensive spies, I can't say which of them clearly provide such benefit. My impression is that every district of yours has a notional defensive spy with a rank of at least one below Recruit.

A bit paradoxically, your non-notional, concrete spies that you build can be quite good at helping your defense, but to do so they first have to acquire the right defensive promotions, and that can be done almost exclusively by sending them out on offensive missions. A spy defending a district does get promoted if the defense succeeds against an enemy spy attack, but, given how few spies you have and how many districts you have to defend, what are the odds of that happening?

The strategy is to first send your spies out to perform offensive missions, success at which gives them a promotion. Success gives you a pick of one out of three promotions offered you, and you pick the best defensive one you are offered. If you only get offensive promotions to choose from, you go for the one that gives you the best chance for future success, so that you get to roll the dice again and have another shot at a good defensive promotion. Rinse and repeat until you either get a defensive promotion, or get all three promotions without getting lucky. Look at https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Espionage_(Civ6)#Espionage_Mechanics, the wiki,for a list of promotions. Polygraph is probably the best defensive one,because it makes all enemy spies in your lands operate at minus one level, but the others are nice too.

If you are pursuing this strategy, you choose missions with the highest chance of success rather than missions that might help you offensively. If you can get a twofer,great,but what you really want here is highest chance of success,even at some mission that does not otherwise help you. You gather sources first to improve your odds, then choose either Siphon Funds or Foment Unrest, because they have the highest rate of success among the missions that grant promotions for success. Gathering Sources and Listening Post do not grant promotions for success. Siphon Funds gets you some gold, so that's the usual pick, because Fomenting Unrest only gets you a loyalty minus in the target city, which is rarely at all useful. I only choose the latter if there is no commercial hub, or it is occupied by a defensive spy.

As a note of caution, while you get odds of success for each mission quoted for you at the point you choose a mission, those seem to be raw odds, odds as calculated without taking into account any, or at least all, particular defensive bonuses the defender might have that apply. You can see if they have a defensive spy in the district you plan to attack, but area and general effects are not obvious to you. To get real odds that are closest to the ones quoted, it's safest to attack a weak and undeveloped civ in preference to one that is advanced, because the former is less likely to have these area and overall defensive bonuses. Vultures such as ourselves prefer prey that is at least weak and wounded, if not already dead.

Specific effects of the diplo quarter, and policy cards, governor titles,and the choice of Intelligence Service, have already been covered.

Choosing the Intelligence Service over the other two alternative second tier Govt Plaza buildings has a special effect on this strategy of getting ultimate good defense by first doing quite a bit of offensive espionage. It's important to get an early start in the espionage game, because early success snowballs. You get at least an early, if not the first spy out, for free, send them immediately on an offensive mission at which the Agency also gives them a higher chance of success. Give up a diplo policy card slot to Machiavellian,at least for this initial period of your offensive strategy, and you get your second spy cheaper, and both get to complete missions more quickly. Promotions you get ahead of the competition mean that you are more likely to succeed again and get more promotions, some defensive,which decreases the odds that the competition will succeed at missions and get promotions that would help them on offense or defense. You end up with several spies with area and even empire-wide defensive effects to help whatever policy card defensive bonuses like Cryptography that you will slot in later in the game if you need empire-wide help on defense.

If you only start working on spies after the AI has a head start, the reverse dynamic can come into play, Your Recruit spies face empire-wide defenses that outrank them,making it more likely that they get killed or captured rather than promoted when you finally build them and send them out to get promotions. It's very easy to get behind, because enemy success in missions inherently is not noticeable, unless you keep a careful eye on your gold balance every turn, which if so, you are a much more conscientious and better player than I am. You live in a fool's paradise because only your opponents' failures are brought to your attention,while their success is unnoticed until they sabotage your spaceport. It's too late to do anything at all efficient at that point to counter the threat.