Espionage Is this any use ?

If you spend on espionage, eventualy you can see their empire stats.


~SDC~

when there are less races left, i can spy on them and find out if they are using any destabilization, then i can assume that they are using it on me and i can try to counter it with propaganda

during tech victory, i like to try and look at where the other races are so that i can slow down, build up in other areas instead of tech, and then move back into tech

you can find out where their best defended planet is, their most populus planet is, how much cash they have, how much income and expenses they have, all which are important in timing your attack on them

if u attack them while they have a great economy, you will most likely lose since they will pump ships out faster than you can send urs to their base

also, there are events which can lead DIRECTLY to war if you do not have some level of espionage on them

Jerry,

Espionage/Destabilization are both long-term strategies that take many turns of constant funding to develop, and can deliver powerful advantages mid- to late-game.

Espionage infiltration takes an investment of ca. 1000gc's per level to obtain. (Cost is adjusted by your espionage bonus %.) Each level provides two benefits: (a) increasingly accurate information on an AI Empire's spending and economy; (b) protection from various events instigated by AI spending aginst your own Empire.

Destabilization appears to have a different mechanic. From what I can tell, destabilization is applied to the lowest morale-rated planet in an Empire and causes it to go below 50%, at which point a loyalty DR is made. If it fails this check twice, the planet revolts and either goes independent, or forms/joins the I-League. Only if the morale sinks below 50% is the check made and, depending on how much population needs to be dissatisfied, how high the target Empire's tax rate is set, and how much propaganda/"resistance" (News Networks) is being applied by the target Empire to defend the populace, its costs can vary. There may also be a length-factor, i.e., destabilization appears to benefit from continued application over a long time.

The usefulness of destabilization is that, covert operations can internally weaken a potential target Empire (to prepare it for conquest), and it can allow newly-colonized planets to be "cherry-picked" from an aggressively expanding neighbor, slowing him down and allowing yourself to grow without incurring various diplomatic penalties (like violating the UP's enforced peace of 20 or 30 turns). You also can avoid triggering alliances or lowering your diplomatic standing with other Empires (even the target one) should your Espionage bonus be high enough to preclude discovery of your actions.

Brad has stated in another thread that Espionage is also more beneficial the greater the disparity in size between the 2 Empires, i.e., if you out-size/out-produce the target Empire 2+:1, your efforts are better rewarded.

Another use of destabilization is to subvert an opposing Empire, perhaps pursuing an influence victory, which you cannot physically reach (due to range or border restrictions - some AI Empires do not like you moving your fleets through their territory, even if they are friendly or warm towards you) and which is successfully maintaining peaceful relations with its neighbors while building up increasing amounts of influence and controlling the UP.

~SDC~

Espionage increases the frequency of the pop-up messages about the other civilizations, gives you more information on them in the Foreign Policy-Stats screen, and disrupts or prevents several bad events.

Destabilization affects an enemy's morale (and thus indirectly, it's income, production, research, and several other things, several of which can also snowball into other effects), and can cause wholesale rebellion and possibly the total of one of the targeted empire.

~SDC~

Espionage seems to be a waste of money, with destab. not far behind.

It would be nice if I got a pop-up message when someone DECLARES WAR or PEACE. You'd think that would be more important than a rumor about paying tribute.

You do get a popup for war and peace...

~SDC~

keep the minimum spending on every major race on espionage and you will see all their stats and prevent the diner event that your #%*$ ambassador ofends the other race diplomats, i got a huge war with the greatest empire and only survive because i trade battleship tech with another reace lease 5 battleships and use diplomacy to put everyone at war, so the races can only trade with me, so why declare war to me? LOL

As for countering their destabilisation with your own propaganda: once I've got a good cashflow and increasing population pressure, I just run all my planets to 100% propaganda anyway, since it costs only a pittance.

"You do get a popup for war and peace..."

Sometimes, sometimes not. I've even had war declared on me without being told about it.

The way espionage works is a bit of a pity since many informations you get through the basic espionage level can be obtained by other means:
-Looking at the mini map for most productive/most populated planets,
-Using the diplomacy screen to find out money, techs and influence of other empire.
The most useful informations are:
- the morale of target empire (to some extent),
- knowing the military bonuses (attack, hits, defense),
- knowing the spendings in each category (military/social/research).
Overall, I don't find a lot of advantages getting to a big espionage level. I tend to forget it anyway so I eventually reach advanced spying level, but that's not very useful.

You get more popups, but some of them tell you about things you could find out anyway so that is not a very good user interface.
Preventing the dinner-go-to-war event is a good reason to get some spies.

I haven't used destabilisation much, but didn't find any benefit from it either. You probably need to focus on it for a while to get it to work.

I've used destabilization; it can be quick if you can put more money into it than the whole of the target's economy.

~SDC~

#5 Mike,

Disagree.

Destabilization can, over time, radically alter the balance of a game.

It works best on a Large/Huge map. (If at Small/Tiny, simply blitz.)

To accomplish, start at minimal settings (i.e., the first "peg" on the slider) and wait for either: a) the I-League to be formed, or the first report of a defection (from the targeted AI empire). You do not want to be discovered destabilizing. If you are, your diplomatic relations will tank, and the targeted AI will immediately implement countermeasures.

Once the first defection occurs, up the ante. Increase destabilization to the next spending level (slider "peg"), and offer a DOW (declaration of war - an "Attack X treaty" to another computer player) to the target's nearest neighbor (or, on "clusters", largest competitor).

Also, be careful not to neglect News Networks...Once you have declared war, the target AI will begin to attempt to return the favor and try to destabilize you.

Once the ball is rolling, you will see the enemy AI's empire start to crumble. This will accelerate as you (or your ally) is succesful on the war front. You can "save" yourself a number of turns (and transports) picking up breakaway systems on the serious cheap. I myself have taken PQ30+ systems with 1 (!) combat TR once they broke away and declared independence. (The I-League has its own tech defense rating, which is fequently inferior to both your own and the target AI's when it declares independence.)

Hope this helps.



~SDC~

Hmmm... So, how does one go about stealing tech? Is there any use to spending more on Espionage once you've hit the "Advanced" stage?

~SDC~

#6 Doctahg

You get a message saying when the AI have actually declared a war or made peace?

The only messages I get are threatening to go to war and stuff like that, never war and peace itself.

Then again I always have spying set to zero.

I like to use at least a low level of espionage, but something isn't right. The stats you see (I'm assuming you have a High or Advanced penetration) don't jibe with the other reports.

For instance, I keep a treasury of *15,000. The pie chart, the ratings, etc all tell me that I'm 2nd in the galaxy in terms of Treasury. But then I look at the stats and they're way different. It says the Drenghin treasury is 1/10 mine. Likewise revenue and expenditures are significantly less although the ugly bastards are rated 1st in Economy etc...

Now I understand that a snapshot (if that's what the stats are) is not a representative as a rolling average (which I presume the ratings are since they don't change much). But many samples yield the same conclusion.

So who's lying to whom?
:notsure:

~SDC~

I would like to see when other civs declare war with eachother, otherwise i have to check the treaty screen every turn

mwoody, Cari said if you keep the espionage slider at maximum after advanced espionage penetration is achieved, you will begin to steal techs from that civilization.


Doug

On larger maps, espionage is a convenient way of figuring out what resources an AI controls. If he has a significant bonus in a field, he most likely has one or two resources of that type. Ever since I discovered the advantage of the "evil starbase rush strategy", I always keep a lookout for AI's with economy or military starbases. If I find, through espionage, that he has one, I send out my scouts 'til I find it and then build up a fleet to take it from him. Nothing hurts the AI more than stealing his two fully loaded economy resource starbases

One consequence of keeping the espionage slider at 0 is a random event that can crop up: You commit some kind of social blunder (as a result of not making the effort to understanding a race) and then as a matter of honor they are forced to declare war on you. This can really mess up your strategy early in a game.

A few turns after I colonized a few systems, I get a message stating "while visiting planet X a miner accidentally shoots and kills the Torian leader" and war was declared on me! funny thing is I remember seeing this happen with other races and thought there is only a slim chance of it happening to me....boy was I wrong

Actually, I've gotten that event even when my espionage status for a race has been "high". It's a little annoying when you see you've spent many thousands of BCs on spying on a race and then a random event tells you you could have avoided trouble by spending more money on spying....

My exerience is that espionage does NOT prevent event. Past getting the better reports, espionage doesn't help at all.
V

I've kinda found espionage weak, even on advanced level (though one of the posts had a good point about high stat percentages - starbase hunting time...), not sure if these features are already in the game but would like to see,

- At high espionage lv, being able to 'see' other civ's military units on map (starbases, poss. larger ships, then transports/constructors), this might only happen while you continue to spend on espionage for that civ.

- Ability to steal tech, and blame another civ (alpha centari fav tactic for getting rid to two uber powerful factions).

- At bit of variation (say u could trigger the 'insulted the presidents missus' event, for a suitable price).

- also at high espionage levels the ability to selectively affect other civ's units (on overpowerful starbases, maybe have 'the shields are down!' action, limited to a couple of turns).

'course all these actions would need a lot of changes to the AI (otherwise it'd be a bloodbath ).....

Another thing that would be cool is if you could use espionage to learn how another race intends to vote on the UP council.

~SDC~

Good one Gert - I would love to be able to support my ally knowing he wasnt throwing his votes away supporting me...

~SDC~