1) Either save up spies and place a lot of them on a rival at once, or, just keep placing and re-placing them. Eventually you will get some screens that tell you that you have achieved, successively, Low - Medium - High - Advanced level of knowledge of that race (these levels of general knowledge are just like the espionage levels of Dread Lords).

I'm not sure if you EVER steal any tech at Low and Medium Intell levels, but at High, and especially at Advanced, if you maintian one or more active spies on a planet of that rival civ's, you have a percentage chance of stealing a tech. You will get a pop-up when it happens.

Don't expect it to be a constant thing, though. With Advanced knowledge and constantly active spies, my estimate is that you might see a stolen tech every 20-30+ turns. And there is also the problem that by the time that you have afforded/achieved Advanced knowledge of a couple of rivals, you may have so overrun them in the tech race that they don't have much in the way of techs that you don't have.

I suspect that a high Espionage race like the Iconians might be able to milk this for much more frequent aquisitions, but I haven't tested it except while playing a tech wizard race.

2) Afraid I have never seen this event.

drrider

just remember that your intelligence service,is only as good as you pay for.
it maybe difficult saturate another society with spys at first.

Thanks for the info guys.

I find the "amazingly high relative diplomacy" rating that you see when you talk to your enemies is worthless. Super Diplomacy and the diplomacy techs in general seem to be ineffective in games above "normal" difficulty. Everyone, even my Allies want too much for what I offer. Nobody will trade straight across, for example, Barren World <> Aquatic World colonization techs, no matter how much of a diplomacy advantage I have.