I found that I cannot go above 4 spies, I was spending tons of money to get them and found I was actually wasting that money (which I hate, I'm a penny pincher), and I now have up to 90K+ saved. I am playing on gigantic, abundant, normal and am pretty much owning the game.......

What I'd do is ratchet up my spending of spies, and seems that if I tried to go over 4 spies I'd get them, but just lose any beyond 4 on the planet they had been put....so seems you cannot go above 4, at least not while having any on a planet actually spying while stockpiling.......

So even if I tried to go above 4 with max spending on espionage, It would effectively be just flushing that money down the toilet.........

No, I think you had a particular and unique experience. I've saved up 15 spies and plopped them down all at once. Needless to say, the AI didn't just nullify 11 of them right away. In fact, I'm not sure where you got the idea that 4 was a magic number. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I'll be interested to hear if others agree with you.

Intelligence gathering in GalCiv 2 DA is definitely much different than before. I am not too thrilled with it yet overall however. I agree that in the example given about utilizing spies to take down a civ econimically is brilliant and impressive - but - not necessarily realistic. I also agree that the ability to navigate and view all planets resources and structures by using a spy to browse them all seems to offer an unfair advantage to the player and again not realistic. I've always loved the spying/intel gathering side of these games. So some of this may not be possible, but here's some ideas I'd enjoy seeing:
1) An allocation of resources (BC's) toward all spying and intel activities. These would be divided up into new sliders (similar to how you allocate resources to military, social and research) to the following areas:
a) General Intel gathering - to determine alliances, peace treaties, economic treaties, economic status, ships, tech levels, etc. but without harming planetary structures.
Hiring of spies - for missions as is done now - including starports - why not take a chance to disable a key planets starport - high risk - sure - but high reward if it works.
c) Political interference - attempting to create ill will among current allies or neighboring civs to your benefit.

I'd also enjoy having available a handful of spy structures (similar to research structures) so you could increase your spy network abilities through traning and infrastructure, etc.

Also, spies shouldn't be so easily caught. They are spies after all. As spies complete successful missions, like ships survive battles, their level of skill should increase - thus making them more effective later on - and - encouraging players to balance the need of a spy to do a mission with the desire of having the spy come back alive with increased abilities. Perhaps nullifying a spy has a 50/50 chance of being killed - or - having a chance to escape. At which point, he'd then be out for a series of turns until he manages to work his way back to home turf.

I realize programming any or all of this would be a huge undertaking - but I am suggesting it could add a whole new layer to what already is a fantastic game.

Curious what ideas others have for spying usage in the current game and what others would like to see in a possible future game.

Thanks for reading!

Very nice. I have used this tactic myself, against the Korath. I'm a big fan of espionage; it's nice to know that others are finding interesting ways of utilizing it.

actually you get the ability to see where they are going with low level of espionage. I know this because in the game I'm still playing ( should make an AAR of it), I've only reached medium levels on all but two of the races still alive. Which means I don't have high or advanced on any of them....yet I do have Eyes of the Universe and knowing where their target is (shows a dotted line where they want to go) and it does help alot in making sure I am able to cut them off and destroy them....

the 5 parsec / week really hurts, and I wish there was a way to get rid of that stupid rule....

The tourism thing I don't think I make as much as I use to compared to my overall income, I started ramping up my income and my tourism is probably about 25% of the total now, maybe half....switching to higher levels of government and researching the higher banking levels has made my economy stronger overall....