Stealing techs?

One thing that I've found annoying is that after you reach the "advanced" level of espionage, unless you manually lower the spending to nothing, it will continue to draw your funds. I have left my spending alone long long after the advanced stage and have not seen any benefit come of it.

What's the point of continued spending if you have maxed out your espionage? :notsure:

Oh yeah... GIA? Don't rightly know. Galactic Intelligence Agency?
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Yes, I've noticed that too, about the money continuing to be drawn. The only reason I left the spending on is because I was hoping that would be the key to stealing AI techs (I'm usually well behind technologically).

As for the GIA (Galactic Intelligence Agency is right), it states in the manual that is includes the money spent on espionage and destabilization, but those have their own section of the Expenses list, and my GIA spending is always at zero.

Me same .

~SDC~

i think the espionage feature is the most useless thing i have ever came across in civilization you'd really notice that it is a really important aspect of the game as it takes size later on, but espionage is GC is nothing more than a waste of money, i wonder if they will change it on the next patch.

Cari was taking suggestions for improving espionage some time back and a number of good suggestions (albeit lots of Civ clones) were made.

Let's keep our fingers crossed as to whether we would see something new for espionage in the expansion.

Espionage is very good information if you can use it. You basically have their entire stats page.

It is fairly expensive to get all that information, but the information guides me on the approach of attack, (cultural conquest, military conquest, or letting an alien civ do it for me)

As far as getting beyond advanced, I haven't found a point to it yet.

well you dont really need to spend money for that as long as u keep from switching between saved games

Espionage-spending past advanced has 2 effects:

1) Information collected on the "Stats" page does not automatically refresh. Continued spending is necessary to update treasury figures, %-bonuses and current techs being researched.

This is important if you are trying to track such things as who:
- recently built/improved a SB;
- has better combat-bonuses than you;
- is "benefitting" from the Draginol event, etc.


2) Destabilization.

Destabilization is poorly documented, and as a result, not too well understood (or employed). Basically, destabilization lowers Morale, which (in turn) affects planetary population growth, sustainable tax rates, and the necessity to spend money on morale/resistance-bonus buildings and propaganda rather than going straight to Military.

Destabilization will eventually result in Morales low enough that secession is triggered. But this is very long-term, requires maintenance of a continuous level of spending, and ensures a near-permanent state of war.

To benefit directly from destabilization, you must obtain cultural-superiority in the sector any planet secedes in. If so, it will flip to you; otherwise, it will join the I-League, or whoever else is culturally-dominant (if the I-League is at war with the target AI).

The effect of destablization spending is affected by:

- relative population size of the target AI; and
- your espionage rating vs. your opponent's.

I have seen techs stolen, but only by Minors (!). In one game, a cut-scene of a Scout heading towards a planet appeared, with the message that the Minor had "...stolen all X's technology and was willing to trade it in exchange for Y" - in this case, a planet they could relocate to. In this manner, I traded for Dreadnought technology without having researched any prerequisites.

However, I myse;f have never seen my operatives acquire a tech, even with espionage spending maximized over multiple turns.

~SDC~

Yes, same here, I've seen minors steal all of someone's tech, but I've never done that myself. I wonder if the expansion pack will introduce some other benefits of espionage that you can get by continuing spending past advanced. Also, I'd like an update in the future where if a race surrenders to you, you should get all it's money, techs, and ships (although I doubt they'd have many ships left by then).

So, has anyone figured out what GIA spending is? It just might make my games somewhat easier if it did something useful.

I think the GIA is a relic of an older build- it doesn't really do anything, but was meant as the "espionage" agency early on...

GIA is no longer in use. However, I could see it resurrected if they add a suggested "security" slider that will allow you to find and neutralize destablizing influences from other races.

Yeah, I can feel really powerful having all info 'bout enemies, however, it's not a very good investment. Destabilization is better, I use it frequently, when I want to support on race againt another, but not willing to engage in warfare, which I useally don't do, because I'm coward

Doesn't espionage protect your empire from certain events also? Such as your diplomat killing or offending someone.