Espionage Optional?

No. Stardock considers the new espionage money-sink "part of the game" now. We're stuck with it. I too would like to be able to disable it like some people who dont like tech trading get to do with their pet peeve.

I quite like it, but don't have any problem with the idea of a toggle for it. Still, it's no reason not to get the game, which is a vast improvement over DL (which was already a great game) in almost every respect.

Its a money sink. It delivers no real value (except as a pesticide) just like In DL...except now its forced on the player. The new busywork assocoated with it is simply a novelty, and shouldnt really be mistaken for any real depth.

I play epic games on large maps, so I become a highly ranked Civ by about halfway through the game, with many civs still left, and lengthy battles to fight. Once you become one of the top 3 civs, youll be blasted with spies every few turns, forced to use all your spies defensively, and the money you would need to spend to keep up and proliferate spies beyond that is much, much better spent on other things. Im making hundreds to thousands a turn, and the money is still better spent elsewhere.


Its a curse, with very little in the way of redeeming value. It didnt have much payoff in DL either, but it was optional and easily dispensed with. I like DA in general and am pretty much thrilled with it, except for this.

I'm aware of your opinion on the matter Bingjack, and like I said as far as I'm concerned you're welcome to a toggle. I prefer this system to the old, because in the old it was simply too easy (and too inexpensive) to build up a mass of intel and start stealing techs from other civs. This is far more directed, the sabotage effects can be put to good use under certain circumstances, and the money sink aspects actually help balance out the runaway train effect becoming a top tier civ tends to produce. That's all my opinion of course, and I know I'm not going to change your mind on the matter.

Regardless, since there seem to be a number of people that don't like the new system the easiest solution is to just let you turn it off and ignore it.

I guess I'm one of those people. I really love DA, the improvements made GC2 even more addictive than it was already... but the whole espionage system is just a useless micromanagement part that I really could live without... I hope the devs add a "turn off" check box in one of the next patches.

Ah, yes, thats what I feared. Damn. If Stardock patches the game to make Espionage optional, I will buy DA. Otherwise not.

Regardless of what I think, on this issue, DA is worth picking up for an entire host of other reasons, and you should always check things out for yourself. I dont like the new espionage system...it should be optional...but I wouldnt go back to playing DL for anything.

As Bingjack says, that'd be a rather serious error in judgment. The improvements vastly outweigh any perceived inconvenience in the new espionage system.

I can see espionage becoming more and more unbalanced the more civs and the bigger the map. I have been playing huge maps with three opponents and espionage isn't too annoying if I don't get the spy mega-event. But it is almost impossible to get past medium espionage level with more than one AI.

I've found it fairly easy to get to advanced espionage level with multiple opponents. However, I do it in serial fashion. Drop all of your spies on one AI. Playing as the Krynn, that would be 15-30, depending on the stage of the game. When I dropped 30 spies on the Drengin, I got to advanced espionage level in about 5 weeks.

Playing as other races, it would take too long to make 30 spies, but dropping 10 or 12 on a race does cramp their style, and would take a long time for them to knock out.

I don't see much tech stealing happening though. From the description of 'advanced' you'd think that you would get their techs the turn after they did, but it seems more like a tech steal once every 6 or 8 months. Is the tech stealing rate tied to the number of spies you have deployed at the current instant?

I'm not sure about the cost-effectiveness of spying. It is certainly expensive, even if you have a big espionage skill. Of course, if you've been spending money on espionage for a long time, it's hard for any particular opponent to take out a significant number of them. If you reach the point where you can drop 30 spies on someone you are at war with, that's a pretty crushing advantage that's impossible to negate on any short time-frame. The most likely outcome is that almost all of your spies will survive to direct at the next victim.

I liked the DL system, slowly spend money on espionage and get increasing amounts of information on other civs. It made sense, barring that it didn't take an awful lot of money to get advanced intelligence information and that you couldn't spy on the minor races. I just installed DA yesterday and I am confused by the new spy system. I understand that I can place my spies on other civs structures to stop them but I don't see how I get the different levels of intelligence that someone mentioned up here. Do you just blanket several planets with spies and if they survive they make up a critical mass of spying and advance your knowledge of the target ? The manual says nothing about espionage except you pay to generate spies and the spies can then be used to block production. Nothing about tech stealing or learning what they are currently researching.

Mind you, spending enough to generate a single spy is definitely worth it. It seems you can merrily persue every planet that belongs to every other civ deciding where to place the spy, seeing every structure they've built in the process. You needed extremely high espionage to do that in DL. And were we always allowed to see what every planet was currently building on the planet/ship location submenu ? I never used it for looking at the opposition in DL.

Espionage is definitely more interesting since the patch, since with tech trading turned off, you have to steal it.

While I intensely dislike the current espionage setup, it's not a deal-breaker as far as DA goes. It would be nice if they put a few more options into it. Like some techs to boost effectiveness of spies, since the only spy tech currently available is the one that gives the counter espionage center, which isn't really that spectacular. Ideally it would be fleshed out a lot more to potentially include trying to steal a specific tech, if at a high failure rate. I'd like to see something along the lines of a marriage of DL and DA espionage, spending X bc per turn for general info, and using spies to cripple planetary improvements/steal a specific tech.

Each turn, every spy that you have deployed in an enemy empire give you a point towards the next espionage level for that empire. So if you have one spy deployed, it might take 8 turns to reach 'low'. If you drop 10 spies on him at once, you'll hit low on the first turn and medium in a few turns. If you drop 30 spies at once, you'll probably hit medium on the first turn and advanced in just 5 or 6 turns. If you only have one spy out there at a time, it will probably take a few years to hit advanced.

Having played DA with Tec-Trading disabled as well as enabled, both in sandbox mode, with a custom race without the superspy ability with espionage set at 1% or 2%, I have found that :

Your first spy takes ages to appear but as you expand territory and economic ability, they appear quicker, but they soon get nullified by any opposition.

I now presume it must be tied in with the fact of espionage spending, but I have found that on the communications screen, talking to the alien will seem pretty pointless when you cannot trade techs but a research and economic treaty with those strong in these abilities is worthwhile (respectively). But on the Talk-screen you can change "view-screens" (from the Leader-Portrait View) to the Tech Report to discover what Techs the opposition have. Whether this still happens without any Tech spending (the nearest you can get to disabling espionage) I have yet to find out.

Oh and as to spying on minor races, when I tried it I got told not to waste resources and no option or screen to place my spy.

So there you go. That's my two penneth's worth anyway.

New espionage system - I'm sure SD will continue to make improvements to it. I'd really like to see the ability to assign missions to the spies like a few other games have had.

Is it a deal breaker for DA? Heck no! You are only hurting yourself by not picking it up. Spies are not *necessary* in the game. You can win without them. You can win without them being a nuisance. Now on the higher difficulties where the AI is swimming in BCs yes they can start to overwhelm you. But on Tough it is possible to only ever need one or two in reserve. I simply research Counter Espionage and build that building on important worlds. The rest, well, they can just rot with spies for all I care since it doesn't impact my ability to maintain large fleets of ships.

As for gathering intelligence I just don't anymore. It never really gives me any more information then I can figure out on my own via other screens. Besides to get *Low* all you need is 3 spies in an empire for 1 or 2 turns. So its not like you've got to invest large sums of BCs to get the basic info like the influence you are generating on an enemy planet.

And in case you are wondering you can see what is built on a planet the instant you have a spy in reserve. May be an exploit ... may be by design. But either way you don't need *High* or *Advanced* anymore.

Thanks for your replys everyone.