Better Spies

[HsojVvad]

What does it actually mean? I am playing as humans and I see I have better spies 15%. But what does the 15% do? When I was playing as the Dhayet, I didn't really notice a difference when the success probability was still around 85% for stealing maps.

So what does the +15% actually mean?

[Fishman]

It means your auto-recruited spies start at 115 skill instead of a mere 100 skill. So if you have Ketarovs, your spies start at a whopping 150 skill, so you can use 150-skill spies as expendable noobs, while other empires would treat them as valued veterans.

[HsojVvad]

So why do my human spies start out at 100 then?

[Erik Rutins]

My human spies start out at 115.

[HsojVvad]

I have uploaded a game called human 100, maybe you can see what is wrong. As you will see, I have 2 spies and they started at 100.

[FerretStyle]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

It means your auto-recruited spies start at 115 skill instead of a mere 100 skill. So if you have Ketarovs, your spies start at a whopping 150 skill, so you can use 150-skill spies as expendable noobs, while other empires would treat them as valued veterans.

Is that it really?

1. I never automate spies, or much of anything for that matter.

2. That bonus sucks anyway. That's like 3 easy missions which take no time to do...

Boo.

[Astorax]

Yeah, if the AI auto-recruits them, they get the bonus. If you recruit them manually, you are stuck with 100.

[Fishman]

Yes, note how I specified "auto-recruited". If you manually recruit them, you get nothing. Of course, there is little reason to turn that off for long, since the AI is quite good about hiring replacements, and keeping your roster stocked. About the only time to turn it off is pre-first-contact, so you can save some upkeep while no one can spy on you and you have no one to spy on.

[Jamoid]

come to think of it, do spies set to counterintelligence ever gain experience? from what i remember they don't even gain experience when they successfully foil another spies attempts to blow your good self up. i can't test this at the moment but if i remember correctly this should be fixed.

[Wade1000]

This is broken then. Will it be fixed?

ORIGINAL: Astorax

Yeah, if the AI auto-recruits them, they get the bonus. If you recruit them manually, you are stuck with 100.

[Fishman]

One of them will gain experience if the spy is foiled and caught. However, this is not usually a reliable way to train spies because it is very slow and random. While you will probably have most of your spies on counter-intelligence anyway, the best way to grind spy XP is to send them on easy cakewalk missions that can be done in short duration with very high odds of succeeding, or at least not being killed. Whether you succeed or not, as long as the spy survives, he gains XP. And ultimately, it doesn't matter if you succeed or not, since all you're doing is sabotaging the construction of a random worthless planet, which probably wasn't building anything anyway, or inciting some locals who already want to revolt anyway to riot. Odds of success will be 80-90+%, with additional odds of not dying, which is good enough.

[Jamoid]

ok thanks. : )

what i've been doing is setting one to counterintelligence indefinitely and having the rest mainly steal technology and the like, perhaps i should start doing things differently. i didn't notice the counterspy's experience going up even after an enemy spy was caught but it was probably a mistake on my part.

[toryn]

There should be a repeat option to make a spy continue redoing the mission until you cancel.. Right now the training process is incredibly tedious and makes me not use spies.

[Astorax]

It seemed to me that, unless I wanted to micro it or be all gamey with the save/reload, it was better to just leave them on counterintelligence and be done with it. Everytime I try to use them alot without doing either of those things my relations(reputation?) suffers horribly for it. Unless you are going for total war or somesuch, it was never worth it to me. If it does affect reputation and not just single relations then it effects your own populations morale as well.