How to you steal technology with spies

You can't force a tech steal. All you can do is keep spies on their planets and each turn you have a small chance of stealing a tech from them.

The more spies you have on a race's planets, the faster you will learn more about them. There are several levels of Espionage: Low, Medium, High, Advanced... and I think there's at least one more after that, but I don't remember. Each level gives you more access to their stats. By the time you have a HIGH espionage level on them, you can double-click to view their planets as you would view your own, and look at what ships they're making.

Yea, the stealing tech part is more like a random event that can occur after you have a certain level of espionage on your target. I have noticed being able to steal tech after being only on 'high' level. And I also believe I have stolen tech without having any active spies, just the prerequisite espionage level from past spies. I'll have to pay more attention when that happens again to confirm .

Someone has to ask it: Do you have the "Tech
Stealing" box ticked in the program options?

I have never spy-stolen a tech with less than a High intel level, and I have stolen a tech without any active spies in the field.

It is definitely random event-like, and I believe there's still an open question about whether your Espionage ability improves the chance of a theft.

If your intelligence level on them is Advanced, you will have a random chance to steal tech from them each turn, even if you have no spies active on their planets.

As far as intelligence levels below Advanced, I have stolen technology in those cases, but I did have active spies, which I think is required to steal em.

As far as I've seen, stealing techs is some pretty rare shit. I don't even think about it when I play. Then on the off chance it happens, I'm pleasantly surprised.

I was looking through my debug and noticed "Random Event: Espionage" in it. It gave me no in game indication of this happening, I only found out after the fact. The only thing I think this could be is it is checking espionage level and if that level is met you steal a tech. I got no in game notice of it because at the time I had no espionage level on my opponent. SO if that indeed was what the Random event was refering to, then it works just like any other event. Next time I really do steal a tech I'll have to take another look at the debug and see.

In my games I've noticed that whenever spies steal a tech it is usually of a lower quality then what you get by capturing a planet. The code must use different selection algorithms for the two situations.