Spies

[Cyber_Wizard]

I am playing as the darlok but already I have 2 of my spies killed. Is there a trick or something to espionage. Or train them to become better? Or is it just a 50/50 chance?

[frdnwsm]

Espionage is screwed up. It only works for the AI races. Don't even bother trying; just put all your spies on counterintelligence.Or better yet, start a new game as the Meklars or Terrans.

[Spud Dastardly]

You'll have a bit more luck if you get telepathic training, stealth suit, and other spying techs. Spy on the Psilons too if they're in your game since they're creative and have a penalty to security. But yeah as frdnwsm said, the spying system could definitely use some work...

[frog_gamer]

Far too many spies, hence heavy management for extremely poor results. Either generate les spies or make them worth it. Wait a moment, why not do both?!

[frdnwsm]

Mind you, you CAN win as the Darloks, their stealth does work. You can blindside an enemy if you work it right. Note: They aren't totally invisible, like they were in MOO2, but you need to be very close to spot them. You can reduce enemy reaction time, since they spot you rather late. If you are fighting the Darloks, there are ways to counter this; I send out factories to build monitoring stations all around their planets, to keep an eye on ship movements. The AI, however, doesn't seem to do this, which is good if you are the Darloks.

But their supposed forte, espionage, won't get you very far. Even with stealth tech, and spying on the Humans, my spies always got caught on the second or third round of infiltration. Additionally, while shapeshifting trait gives a perk to assimilation of captured populations, other races also tend to dislike you for it, even though technically Daloks don't have the "repulsive" trait.

Think of playing the Darloks as a challenge. (The only race that is equally gimped is the Sakkra. Being both uncreative and repulsive is a double whammy.)

Also note that AI races are capable of using espionage to great effect.

[Cyber_Wizard]

O damn I knew was a mist! Very well thank you for the advice. I guess I can just use spying to see WHAT they are doing in there worlds. Rather then sabotage.

[frdnwsm]

Any infiltration is biased towards failure, although if you develop all the stealth technologies, you may occasionally actually penetrate further. However, counterespionage is fairly effective; you will catch a lot of spies, especially as the Darloks. I'd suggest maybe sending 1 spy to some Human world, and see how far you can progress, and putting the rest on counter intel.

As I said, you can certainly win as the Darloks; I tried them out on normal level, and owned half the Galaxy by turn 350. I defeated and absorbed the two militarily strongest races, the Alkari and the Terrans. Now, that's not saying much, since the Alien races aren't terribly strong at that level of difficulty. However, the victory was definitely a bit harder than when I played a race that had strong military advantages. By contrast, my Klackons had the same success ... owning half the systems in the Galaxy ... by turn 220. A significant difference.

[WhatAMess]

If you want any trick with the spying heres a fiew but dont expect much

Unlike moo2 Moo/cts spying isn't all about stealing techs framing, killing leaders (None anyways), debriefing or destroying ships, lowering relations and all of the interesting stuff.

-Your spies need help having superior tech so concentrating research on things like Deep Scanners and techs related to lower mission risk is a must.
-When in early game, as soon as you get the first spy, once you meet another race, sending the spy to do missions against the newly met race as fast as possible is useful. The sooner you send a spy the better, since the enemy race doesn't have full spy security yet.
-Spies are mostly useful only at start game, so make sure you meet as much races as possible and as fast as possible.
-Discovering one planet is enough to be able to gather information of the empires undiscovered planets.
-Once you've discovered the enemy empire's planets by gathering information, send as much spies as possible on the other planets.
-Because spy security is extremely effescient (To much) try sending spies to the more undevelopped planets to actualy succeed at anything.
-And never stop spying all along the lines of the game dont worry about races being mad at you, some seem programmed tolerate spying. (Psilons, Meklars, Humans)
-I've been successful doing this but when hitting mid game forget about it, start building up your fleet even more. You can keep trying to spy but mostly strike at the planets that have low security levels.
-Stupid but successful---->Bombing a planet to almost nothing then spying garantees success but i find it worthless to ever do it.

I do not know how much spies the Ai races can have, but if its limited to 10 you can imagine they can't defend all their planets if they have more then 10.

Heres a fast recap.

-Start Spying alot at start game, and plan to declare war as soon as you meet a race.
offensive spying will give you an edge in war but not battles, but just early game.

-Make sure your tech level related to spying is a step ahead of the enemie's
if you plan on using spies all along the game ( I never thought a spy race would need research bonuses but there... its in our faces)

-Strike at the small underdevelopped planets---> its kind of useless because at war you usually aim for the bigger more developped planets.

-Spying is better used for crippling then stealing techs now. Its kind of lame but devs never thought of deepening the game SO FAR ( i still hope that will change...anyways ).

-Always keep a strong fleet

All in all these are the only pointers i can give you. I think the Darlok race was created mainly for story and hype, atleast they are well skinned. Stealth is somewhat useful but its not a huge advantage the Ai always seem to know where you hide your ships anyways. How weird, even without the scanning techs, i haven't checked anyways, i should?

Shapeshifting isn't very remarkable either but, hey its what we got.

[Cyber_Wizard]

Nice. I started a new game as humans and soo far (surprising) I stole 3 tech from the pyslon dudes. Idk how but I guess that planet has low securty or something. But Thanks once more for replying everyone. Indeed good advice.

[frdnwsm]

Humans actually have a spy disarvantage; you will find your success rate dropping fast as other races beef up their security. The human's charisma trait, however, means that the aliens who catch you will be less offended. The big bonus the Humans have is their trading; they can get huge amounts of cash by midgame from trade treaties.

Unfortunately, after mid game, trade treaties become harder and harder to get, due to the ever escalating cost of making a new one. Eventually, nobody will be able to afford to enter into a trading pact with you, and that source of income will dry up.

So, try to grab some tech early as the Humans, then put all your spies on defensive mode when you hit mid game. Use your mid game cash inflow to build up a large warfleet, and go out and crush your weakest neighbor. The poor fools probably think you are their friend.

[Cyber_Wizard]

Sweet. For humans yea since early game I been doing trade treaty. Makes building fleets and building very fast. But I will take that into my curret game and crush the khan dudes.

[unkn0wnx]

When I first tried spying, I kept getting caught. I thought spying is weak and almost useless until AI start to jack me up with spying. I had my capital rebelled on me. Here is how I do it. Train at least 5 spies and have them sit around doing nothing but counter intelligence. Build that espionage building to increase the xp gained. Once they hit at least level 4, you can send them to a susceptible victim. Human and Psilons would be best race to spy on, also keep an eye out on security level. The spies will gain experience and max out at level 5. At level 5 you can spy on just about anyone; just don't go to high security planets. I usually stick to low risk jobs and try to get all the spying techs. Using this method, I have yet been caught. And if you are captured, you can always disown the guy and recruit another one. Build a large fleet to fall back on if spying doesn't work. For defense, get some level 5 spies sitting around and build DNA scanner and interplanetary security network (in each system). The best race to do this is Darlok, they get a bonus for spy XP and also 10% security.