IIRC, "high" is when you can finally start cruising through planet windows from another civ the way you do your own. Just double-click a world or click it and click the View button, and you should be able to check the planet out in just as much detail as if you owned it. After you're viewing a rival world like this, you can press Z and X to step forward and back through their entire empire--good for selecting prime worlds to attack.

Other info becomes availble at lower intel levels--you can click a ship from the civ and often see its destination, and you can click worlds on the main map to see their approval and influence levels.

Is there anything else you were hoping to get from your intel investment?

Foreign Stats //  Stats // Misc

is what you're searching for

hi

i have another question on espionage.

i only own the original game, not the expansions.

If i fund espionage and later reduce the funding to 0, will i lose access to information or is the funding only needed to reach a certain level `?

thank you for your answer.

I never saw the benefit in Advanced level.  Only High. 

High lets you double-click on his planets and see them.  Advanced lets you double-click his starbases, and maybe lets you nit-pick his ships to see what they're made of.

Hi!

The benefit of advanced espionage level in DL is you can also gain a tech by espionage. The probability for that is unfortunately rather low - I'd say about one (random) tech per game year.

I can't confirm that for DA and TA. There it looks like you MUST have a spy on opponent's planet(s) to steal tech. It also looks like the espionage level and the number of planted spies don't impact the probability, but that's just observation from my games. I haven't deliberately tested that issue.

BR   Iztok

Does the espionage skill ( race modifier, etc... ) have any bearing on how likely your spies will be detected?  Just wondering what the result of a race with MASSIVE espionage skill and a huge spy expenditure could pull off.

The direct answer to the question is: no.

This is because the opponent will know about the spy once you place it (just as you can see theirs).  Normally the message about a spy doesn't come up until the week after.  Just to clarify that, lets say week 10 the AI places a spy on you, if you happen to be in the espionage tab or on a planet, you'll see a spy present and on week 11 you'll get the message about their presence.  Week 11 is also when the damage is done by that spy, so you only get a message they are there after the damage is done.

The only relevance I've seen so far for the bonus to espionage is an increase in spending for training.  When I get more free time to revive the above-linked research (work is swamping me BAD) I'll hopefully find out if it affects tech stealing.  I was working on the cost per spy when I put it on hold though and I won't pick up the tech stealing until after that's done.

Now, the response time for the AI to nullify your agent is fairly quick if they have spies on hand.  Otherwise they are limited to what they can train.  It is possible to get spies faster than the AI can if your income is bigger than theirs or at least you can spend more than them on training (see espionage skill).  Typically a race is limited to 25% of their raw income that they can spend on training spies.  Via the skill this can be adjusted.  The Iconains with thier +100 espionage then can spend 50% of their raw income.  The Iconians with espionage bonuses from political party and points goes higher...and if they get their paws on the Krynn buildings they could pull down 75% of their income.  Why would you do that?  Perhaps you're maso like me lol.

Passive (empire-wise intel gathering) spies however won't be noticed ever since they cannot be nullified.