Spy's

I dont know guys. Is it only me or are the spys almost useless in DA. I honestly cant figure out how to make them work properly. They all get nullified after a turn or 2.. Its hard to keep track of ones enemies if the spy always dies.

Plz help me. How do u people keep them alive??

strategies

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One spy, multiple spies.

Spies serve two purposes: Either to spy on your enemy or to nullify enemy spies. If your enemy has lots of idle spies or a very high spy spending, he can quickly nullify your spies if you are spying on him. So for successful spying, make sure to use many spies, you need to deplete your enemy's spy pool. It usually helps to collect half a dozen spies and to apply them all at once.

Personally I focus on economy buildings, that makes it more difficult for the AI to create spies on their own.

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The three things I do:

1) Try to get the AI's to hate each other. Then they will all spy on each other instead of all team up on you.

2) Spy on them before they spy on you. It's better for him to nullify your spy than for you to have to nullify theirs.

3) Don't spy on the Krynn.

There's a couple more things I've been trying out lately, but I'm not yet sure when they work well:

1) I've just tried cranking up the Espionage slider all the way to 25% at the game start. The first spy only costs ~100bc in the end, even if it takes 25 turns to get it. And once you plop it down, there's no way the AI will nullify it anytime soon. So far this has worked well. I even go for the second spy very early on.

2) I will get the Espionage level up to High and then switch all my spies to someone else. Being able to double-click on his planets is important, but I really don't care much for Starbase spying. And from what I see, tech stealing is not a function of your espionage level.

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Oh, one more thing I have been fiddling with: whether to spy on people who are at war with you. You would think it makes sense to cripple the other guy's production when you're at war--and when you're fighting a defensive war, it does. Even more importantly, it is critical to see all his ships' autopilots, and see what all his planets are producing.

The problem comes when you're winning the war. Why give him the opportunity to nullify your spies when you don't have to? If, by the time you get High espionage level, he's going to be a non-threat, it's better to sink your money into someone else.

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