How do we use spies in Dark Avatar expansion

The number 1 tip is wait tell you have a group of 6 or so, and hit 1 planet with them allat once. As you notice placing 1 at a time does not work. They get ousted within a couple of turns. Placing 6 or so, at once, they turf a couple out, but the rest remain until you have maximum level intel on that enemy.

They are also useful to place on a farm prior to invasion. A little bio warfare to thin the troops before invasion is useful.

Never really explored much more with them so am unsure how a heavy use strategy would fair.

Thanks for the advice, Evil Druid.

I did what you recommended and even had a few spies as backup in case they got nullified. I reached a couple lower tiers of espionage and even stole some technology off that race. Not sure how cost efficient this is but I think I'll incorporate the use of spies on races that seem to be the highest in the tech trees from now on.

There is also a "Mega Event" where ALL planets get attacked by spies, yours and your opponents. You will find one spy per planet when viewing the Espionage screen. That screen allows you to nullify the spies if you have spies available. This event has crippled me in several early games, so, I now attempt to create enough spies to cover the number of planets I control.

You can turn off "Mega Events" on the first startup screen. But, that kind of takes some of the fun out of the game. The "Mega Event" I hate the most is the Jagged Knife coming in and grabbing planets.

It's time to think about the next expansion; other than all the bug issues that needs to be resolved at or before the expansion if there thinking about maiking one, we must think of improvements.

Allow more control over espionage

- When no espionage spending is needed, the AI sais from time to time we might get a breakthrough and steal technology. Well at this point, didn't we earn the right to target which tech to steal? In other words, we get the option to choose and target which tech to steal. I would imagine that some techs would take longer to steal than others depending on the value compare to yours. Also, we should get another option to steal a ship. For example, by putting your spies on factories, we should be able to steal the ship that's being built from that CIV. The same with putting your spies on research facilities, we should be able to steal the tech that's being researched from that CIV. Anyways, these are some ideas, but it's harder than you think since you must first reach advanced level of espionage on that particular CIV and you can probably forget to be able to reach an advanced level on all the players anyways. I was never able to reach advance level for more than 1 CIV unless maybe if you played on the biggest map with alot of resources.

Influence starbases should be eliminated

- Influence starbases are mainly there to built it near other planets so that you can convert their government into yours. Can't your spies do this?? For example, after reaching advanced level of espionage, you can place your agents on approval and inflence buildings. Depending on how many agents you place, it would require less time for revolt and conversion.

* Note.. you should be able to spy on planets that have been discovered only, not the one's that are across the galaxy.

User interface for spying

- Every screen that exits to find out about another race should have to go in the spying report screen. Where every information you gather from another race can be viewed here. Because currently, you can go from the diplomacy screen to view some info and also the management screen and there scattered everywhere. Basically, in the begining of the game, you should have no "stats and graphs" in the management screen?? Because the stats and graghs is currently giving me more hints than what my spies are gathering as information or intelligence level (low, medium, expert, advance etc...)

Example (put all the information gathered on a race in the following screen and no other screen in an organized fashion)...

Spying report

Choose the race (Altarian for example)

Low espionage level ( enables society )

- Race name and description
- Total population
- Number of colonies and classes of planets and names
- Approval for each colony and the total approval
- Total influence compared to yours (show it with actual numbers and bar level)
- Opinion on you and the relationship level ( hostile, wary, neutral etc...)
- Their ethical alignment (leaning good, neutral, evil)
- Any social production bonuses ( % )
- Number of influence starbases and modules (you can now click on the starbase)

Medium espionage level ( enables economy )

- Total treasury money compared to yours
- Total income for each colony
- Economic status (this is a detail global version of their economy just like you see it in your own economic tab ... for example, tourism income, military expence etc... have all the total income of the empire in one column and the total expenses of the empire on the other... and compare it to yours with actual numbers and bars)
- Number of trade routes with any other civs (names and number of routes from each)
- Any economic bonuses ( example, economic ability 80% etc... )
- Number of economic starbases and modules ( you can now click on the starbase )

Expert espionage level ( enables technology )

- List all the technologies like a mini-tree version and which tech currently researched and the time, if a certain tech enables a building list it too. for example...

so far...

1. Galactic warfare - space militarization - research laser -
laser beam I - laser beam II

2. Hyperdrive - new propulsion techniques

3. Xeno industrial theory ( enhance factory )

* Now researching laser beam III (15 weeks left)

- Any techonology bonuses ( example, tech ability 50 % etc... )

Advance espionage level ( enables military )

- Total number of each type of ships ( colony, contructor, tiny attack ships, medium attack ships etc...
- Total number of each type of ships being built and on which of their planets
- Give the intelligence report on the races strongest attack ships and their weakest

strongest large class = ( 9/0/3 attk )( 10/0/0 def )
Fleet of 3 ships = ( 27/0/9 attk )( 30/0/0 def )

Weakest medium class = ( 3/0/0 attk )( 2/0/0 def )
Fleet of 5 ships = ( 15/0/0 attk) ( 10/0/0 def )

- Any military production bonuses
- Number of military starbases and modules ( you can now click on the starbase )

* At Advance level of espionage, you can now click on the planets to see everything and also, you can now click on enemy ships where before you coudn't in order to see their stats.

After looking at this post: https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=346&aid=152343#1258705 I realize now that alot of people have problems with the new spy system in DA. My post was actually a request on how to more effectively use spies in Dark Avatar, not start a new thread about how the spy system should be re-worked Serptico

sorry about that, but im actually open minded on ANY CHANGE regarding espionage. it can be re-used in a different way or re-worked and i will be happy to read about them, i just didnt know what you meant as you created this thread. as long as we have more control over espionage or as long as "espionage" can be another method to achieve victory. personally, i feel that they should eliminate "influence" victory and replace it with one "espionage". since, influence is very close to a "military" victory. with the idea that i have obviously it will be hard but possible, because it is just an extention of what there is already except the placing of agents.