Not answering your question but as a side note, if your up against 4 empires spamming you you really need to bite the bullet and put a counter espionage on every planet effected. you loose a tile on each but better loose a tile of your choice then theirs.

Does the counter-espionage center nullify already existing agents?
Not as far as I know, but I might be wrong.

But the thing is, that when I tolerate them, they start gathering intel and finally steal techs. Ok, see that as a balancing feature.

But the leading power is thus unable to gather intel about the other races. I basically approve the current system, but the spy costs should not rise. That way, the others could still gang up on one party but that party would be able to cope with the spies by spending the necessary amount of money.

My starships don't get more expensive, the more I build of them (though I pay upkeep, which is perfectly fine).

My planets don't get smaller, the more I have of them.

Do my spies get dumber, every time I train one?

I would be nice if GC2 offered a way to use spies to hinder an opponent prior to a war or maybe even lead a spy war.

The way it is implemented now, there is no single reason to use spies offensively, because once you are #1, you will need them all in defense of your planets. Furthermore, you have to hope that you are conquering the galaxy fast enough so that you do not run out of spies.

Also, when you conquer a planet, all spies planted there disappear. Ships conquer planets. Spies, however, do play a minor side role in helping get the ship built or killing/demoralizing enemy troops.

Also, much of the info you get from espionage levels can be obtained through other means. Even with Starbases, you can just go to the diplomacy screen and right click on the name of the starbase you want to see, under 'Starships'.



Yes, spies do get dumber and dumber. They nullify enemy spies only through kamikaze attacks, and upon landing on a foreign world, they immediately let it be known to the target civilization that they're being spied upon.

See, i didn't realize that the bonus would apply to ANY structure with a morale boost. Are you sure of this? Does this mean also, that a stock exchange will get the bonus from a 100% influense bonus tile? I usually ignore those.

I use spies early, at a low level you can see the destination of AI ships. I like to place them on AI captials that i find, enemy or not. The best use of spies i think is placeing them on farms a turn before your transport gets there, then the population will drop as if there was no farm. So it'll take much rewer troopps to take the planet and/or leave you with a better populated world once you take it. This also damages AI economies but dropping thier tax paying populations.

I guess spies cost more because they have to get the lastest edition of the text book. I mean colledge gets more expensive all the time and yet the professors are the same and the students dont come out smarter than the class that paid less tuition. But making spies cost more makes the game work, it makes you consider when and where to use them, also in the later game your economy is much greater compared to the eary game. Imagine in the late game if everyone could build a spy every other turn. It would suck. As a side, i have yet to have a real problem with enemy spies.

The DA espionage system is a major reason I'm starting out playing DL. For my first few games I don't need this extra complication. However, what I've read is the devs understand this needs to be tweaked and will do so in a future patch, maybe 2.0.

Definitely 2.0. Brad's already confirmed it.

Can you give a thread reference here? I try to watch DA espionage talk, but I don't recall a thread with any specifics about changes planned for DA 2.0.

From https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=164&aid=165537&p=1#1342616
Reply 17

Well, I guess it depends of the timing of starting intel gathering versus manufacturing counter espionnage building.

If you need to defend yourself

Yes, ANY building that gives a certain bonus will work with a special tile, provided the bonus is outputted as a base value. A Stock Market will receive the bonus from a Ruins tile. A Counter Espionage Center does receive a bonus from a Mystic Spring tile. This much I've seen in game.

However, a Research Coordination Center, Technological Capital or Omega Research Center will not benefit from Research Bonus tiles since they don't give base value output, and instead are mere magnifiers. Same with all Powerplants and the Manufacturing Capital. The Artificial Slave Center, Restaurant of Eternity and all Trade Goods remain unaffecting by special tiles since they give multiplicative galaxy-wide civilization bonuses and not base output.

However, I don't know whether the Political Capital would be affected or not. It gives a base Morale and Influence bonus only to the planet it's built on, which means it should be affected by Ruins or Mystic Springs, but it's also a Super Project, and a Capital, which, according to the Wiki, means that it shouldn't be affected by bonus tiles. Strange paradox.

Ummmm, I'm going to START using Spies on my next game!!!

  That sounds like a splendid idea!!!!!!

Furthermore, the new espionage system completely falls apart on larger maps, as there is no way to generate enough spies to actually hurt any one player, because every player has so much redundant capacity. If you get three or four spies on a world (which is good under the current system) and manage to slow a single planet down a little, they have plenty of other planets for production, tech and economy. There is zero impact. The new espionage system operates as little more than a tax or money sink.

Big thanks to the devs for looking at this and giving it an overhaul. It can't come soon enough in my book...I'm looking forward to 2.0 as much as TotA now.