Does anyone use the "Detect Enemy Spy" option in Espionage?

werdhertz · October 23, 2002, 20:55

I forget what its called specifically, but "Detect Enemy Spy" seems close enough lol.

Does anyone use it? I have never used it once, ever. I use my spys frequently (especially for getting troop plans of my neighbors) But never have really gotten the importance or sense in using Espionage to detect enemy spys...

Do the AI civs even use spys? The option should be quite important against human players though.

alva · October 23, 2002, 20:58

Never use it (IIRC I tried it once and it triggered of a war

)

Do you know when a spy is in your civ(same as when a diplomacy is established), or is a gambling thing ?

werdhertz · October 23, 2002, 21:16

I guess it is a kind of gambling thing.... Which makes it kind of useless to me.

Has anyone else ever used it? What were the results?

DaveMcW · October 23, 2002, 21:28

Once I got a rich AI on another continent really mad at me while using MPPs to start wars and slow down research. After I signed a peace treaty I caught a failed espionage attempt from them.

But usually by the time an AI hates me enough to use espionage they are losing to my invasion and could never afford it.

Dis · October 24, 2002, 01:47

hmm never tried it.

Maybe in my last game that is how the ai caught up in tech. Although I heard that if your tech lead gets too far ahead like mine was, they have ways of catching up with a real low tech rate.

Random Passerby · October 24, 2002, 02:10

I just used it a little while ago. I'm playing a Monarch game, but screwing around and deliberately handicapping myself along the way, so I stayed back farther than I normally would (it didn't help that England got itself wiped out while I had a luxury trade active, which of course the other AIs think is MY fault, so I was unable to buy tech on credit). Fighting a war with Persia to claim a few key wonders and possibly beat a tech or two out of Xerxes. The war's lasted about 20 turns now, and he has attempted propaganda 5 times, attempted sabotage three times (two successful), and stolen my plans twice, and I figured I'd better stop that spy before it ended up managing to do something painful. Or at least I assume that all these were him, anyways; his allies in this big world war are all weaker than I am and dead broke.

Roadrunner · October 24, 2002, 02:55

I did use it maybe 3-4 times. With different results one time it worked well and got him, then also it happend the other way round, insteed of detecting the enemy spy they got mine!!!
The 3rd option is that just nothing happens, just a waste of money

i do not know a way of knowing for shure that there is a spy, for me its a gamble as mentioned above.

bbaws · October 25, 2002, 02:26

I use it frequently to goad the AI into war. That's what I thought the "immediately" option was for. It's not immediate but when the AI is dead his spy packs up and goes home.

Jaybe · October 25, 2002, 15:01

Failing to expose an enemy spy exposes YOUR spy in THEIR capital, so I will not use it unless they have been doing destructive espionage on me.

Alex · October 25, 2002, 16:06

I used it once, but nothing happened. Except that I lost my spy.