Why don't I catch AI spies?

[Trevman]

Why don't I catch the AI spies. Granted I usually win before the AI gets nationalism, but you would think that with the high probability of my spies getting caught, I would be equally likely to catch the AI spies. The computer always seems to have a good idea of my troop movements, especially right before they declare war, which suggests that the AI has spies, or they're cheating. So far I have never, ever caught an enemy spy and I know that the AI has had the means, opportunity, and motive to do this before. So this leaves four options. One, the game is incredibly unfair against the user, not allowing him to intercept spies. Two, the AI never or very rarely sends spies. Three, the AI cheats. Four, I am horribly unlucky.
Any thoughts, has anyone been able to accomplish this? Please post.

[phunny_pharmer]

No idea- but I don't like how everyone declares war when I plant a spy...

I guess I liked the Civ2 way where an actual unit was shown entering the city, and the popup showed a result. Maybe this spy system is too abstract, because I seem to glide over it except when I need to bribe that city on the other side of the globe to eliminate the civ.

[Cyclotron]

Well, I think that when you try to expose an enemy spy, it always fails if there is no enemy spy. Therefore, since you can't tell the difference between a failed attempt and a wild goose chase (there's no spy to root out), it's easy to get frustrated over not catching any spies... when in fact the AI may not even have built an intelligence agency yet. Of course, the AI doesn't handle espionage very well anyway... so the function is probably useless until MP comes out.

[asleepathewheel]

I've never caught a mole, but I have caught the AI trying to plant spies several times. I wish there was a way to know why your mole hunts are unsuccessful, annoying to try often and fail all the time. does the ai use spies? i don't even know.

[Ethelred]

I have caught spies as well and never a mole. I think that hunting for moles is way to penalty ridden. There should be NO diplomatic penalty for searching for moles. Most spys in the US have been found by using US sources not agents in other countries.

I think the AI uses spies mostly to see where the troops are. Bismark sure does like to plant spies anyway. It would explain my never catching a spy commiting espionage. They don't seem to use them to check on the Space Race which is one of the main reasons I try to plant spies.

[Coracle]

First of all, ESPIONAGE STINKS in Civ 3.

Second, WE HAVE A BUG. That bug clearly is that if there is NO enemy spy in your capital, if you try to expose one the mission will fail - and cause an incident, perhaps even a war.

This is dumb and dopey. If there is no enemy spy the mission should end up cancelled and the money refunded.

I have NEVER received any kind of notice that there was NO enemy spy to expose - it just causes an incident. Stupid, stupid.

[Cookie Monster]

Agreed.............espionage in Civ3 is flawed.

Cosider this. It occured to me last night that maybe one reason why the human fails to plant a spy in an ai civ is that they already have a spy in your territory. Does this make sense or am I just reaching here......................?

[grapedog]

Best way to terminate the usefullness of the spy is to kill of who he is reporting too...

Personally I enjoyed the Civ II spy units. I didn't use them TONS, but if I had a couple of inland cities that needed cracking I could just roll in a couple of spys, take out the defensive structures and move my troops in. They had some other nice uses and you could really see what you and the AI were doing. I guess in Civ III it's a bit more realistic with the unknown unseen spies working in the background.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Coracle
First of all, ESPIONAGE STINKS in Civ 3.

True.

Second, WE HAVE A BUG. That bug clearly is that if there is NO enemy spy in your capital, if you try to expose one the mission will fail - and cause an incident, perhaps even a war.

That's not a bug. It makes sense that sending your spy on a wild goose chase when no enemy spy is present, making unfounded conclusions, would upset an enemy (you don't trust us???).

This is dumb and dopey. If there is no enemy spy the mission should end up cancelled and the money refunded.

But if you do that, then you will know whether or not a spy exists after the failed mission... and yet it failed. Failed missions obviously shouldn't tell you anything.

I have NEVER received any kind of notice that there was NO enemy spy to expose - it just causes an incident. Stupid, stupid.

And, why would you recieve that notice? Your mission failed, but you still want to know the existence of an enemy spy? It's called failure, and I get the feeling that your biggest beef with Civ3 is that you can't accept it.

[Fitz]

If in fact there is automatic failure when you try to expose an enemy mole and there is none, this is definately a flaw. You would think that your spy in their capitol would have some skills in hiding his actions, regardless of the precense of an enemy mole.

The fact that you cause an international incident if caught does make sense in the CivIII context (and only in that context) because you are using your spy to try and expose the mole from the enemy civ's capitol, not from your end. IF he is caught, there are repercussions from the fact that you had a spy there in the first place.

Domestic defense against spies is obviously supposed to be represented by catching the spy in the first place, or catching the enemy spy when (s)he fails in a mission. IMO that's a pretty bad way to represent it, but that may just be me.

Incidantally, since the AI can see your maps and troops all the time without a spy, it doesn't really need one for the most commonly used human purpose, which is seeing numbers of troops.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Fitz
Incidantally, since the AI can see your maps and troops all the time without a spy, it doesn't really need one for the most commonly used human purpose, which is seeing numbers of troops.

Curious though, I have had the AI steal my military plans in my last two games.

[Fitz]

Just becuase the AI doesn't need it doesn't mean it won't take the action anyway. Even if it can see everything anytime it needs to, it needs to have the versimiltude of being human and acting in human ways.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Haupt. Dietrich
Curious though, I have had the AI steal my military plans in my last two games.

Whoa! You got a message to that effect? Was there a 'should we kick their a**' option from your F3?!

JB

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Jaybe

Whoa! You got a message to that effect? Was there a 'should we kick their a**' option from your F3?!

JB

No! I was really annoyed too because I didn't know who did this to me. I also recently experienced an AI propaganda attack on one of my border towns, but thank goodness they did not fall. Again no message asking me if I wanted to declare war or not. I suppose it was because we didn't find out who spied on us.

[Jaybe]

So THAT's what 'exposing enemy spy' is all about! I haven't yet encountered 'revealed' espionage on my civs.

JB

[Random Passerby]

I very much doubt that spies are like embassies and are only initiated by one of the two nations involved, as someone proposed. I AM fairly certain that if an attempt to plant a spy is discovered, then all further attempts on that same turn will also fail, and are all but guaranteed to provoke war within 2 or 3 tries; if you spread out attempts the AI is much more forgiving.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Fitz
If in fact there is automatic failure when you try to expose an enemy mole and there is none, this is definately a flaw. You would think that your spy in their capitol would have some skills in hiding his actions, regardless of the precense of an enemy mole.

You would think that... but in terms of the viability of Civ3 as a game, if different results happened when you failed an expose mission and when there was nothing to expose, even a failed mission would mean you knew that an enemy spy did or did not exist. A failed mission should give no information, because it failed. If you knew whether a spy existed even after failing, you would just repeatedly spend money until the spy came out. There would be no decision making process in counterespionage.

Domestic defense against spies is obviously supposed to be represented by catching the spy in the first place, or catching the enemy spy when (s)he fails in a mission. IMO that's a pretty bad way to represent it, but that may just be me.

What would you propose?

[Captain]

wait a minute, are the two actions separate - as they were in civ 2, or not?

that is, does mission failed automatically cause detection?
in civ 2, you could fail the mission but not cause an incident. or you could succeed in the mission, and still cause an incident.
or succeed and escape, or fail and cause incident. there were 4 outcomes.

what is the case for civ 3?

[Cyclotron]

I believe the Civ3 manual states that the chance of success is entirely removed from the chance of being detected. They are not the same.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Fitz
Just becuase the AI doesn't need it doesn't mean it won't take the action anyway. Even if it can see everything anytime it needs to, it needs to have the versimiltude of being human and acting in human ways.

I don't think the AI does see everything. I have watched them make moves to settle land that looked empty the last time they had a unit in the area. They stop when they see that its block with a unit and not from some magical knowledge.

The one map based thing I know the AI has special knowledge of is resources. Anything else seems based largely on paranoia so far.


Edit - left out some words - what else is new.

[Fitz]

I believe Soren of Firaxis has confirmed that the AI knows how many military units you have within cities. Note that this is probably not the same as seeing ALL military units.

I just think that it should be possible to get a mission failed on the expose enemy mole without triggering an event. If it is true that the chance of success and chance of getting caught are seperate, the expose an enemy mole should have the following results:

(Mole or no mole) and Failed and caught: Sir, we failed to expose the enemy mole and were caught. There has been an international incident

(Mole or no mole) and Failed and not caught: Sir, we failed to expose the enemy mole, but our spy managed to keep his identity secret.

Mole, Success and caught: Sir, we exposed the enemy mole! Unfortunately, our spy gave himself away and there has been an international incident.

Mole, Success and not caught: Sir, we exposed the enemy mole! Our spy managed to keep his identity secret.

No Mole, Success and caught: Sir, we failed to expose the enemy mole and were caught. There has been an international incident. (Note that this is the same as failed and caught.)

No Mole, Success and not caught: Sir, we failed to expose the enemy mole, but our spy managed to keep his identity secret.
(Note that this is the same as failed and not caught.)

Makes sense to me. If there are no seperate chances for success and getting caught (ie only options are success or failed and caught), then yes, I think success should indicate that there is not a enemy mole when there is none.

Edit: Domestic defense can be exposing an enemy mole with groundwork within the nation. That's what the FBI does. Since you only have two chances to catch a mole, the first when they infiltrate and the second by using your own spy, there is no representation of finding the spy once he is in. However, having said that I suppose if you catch the spy after he tries to do something, you could consider it to be this kind of domestic defense. After all, how are you going to catch someone if he isn't doing anything?

[Trevman]

Wow!
You guys sure are a lot lucky then me.
Anyways, the manual describes the expose mole operation as being conducted in the enemy capitol so of course a failed attempt could result in an incident.

[Destroyer]

I have never ever planted a spy sucessfully! It always causes a war, so I have given up. Spys should be non nationality, or you can disavow knowledge, and they can get info from your cities instead through interrogation.

I think democratic cities should allow a free look at cities anyway, as these days governments publish info on their military capabilities.

The only problem in Civ 2 was the fact you could just eventually just buy up all of your enemies cities!!

[Ethelred]

Plant spys AFTER you go to war with a civ. They won't get any madder at you if you fail.

Don't try to plant a spy more than once a turn unless you want to start a war. Better yet wait a turn or two. If a civ is in anarchy that is the perfect time to get a spy in.

[Coracle]

Fitz makes a lot of sense in his post.

Let's face it. Espionage is SO bad in Civ 3, even with Edited down costs, it justifiies reloading and trying again. The costs in the original game are so high they are ridiculous.

Moles? If there is no mole to expose we should be TOLD that and refunded our money. In the current game, if you try to expose a mole and there is none it always causes an incident. This is stupid, and yet another reason to justify reloading.

[Panag]

hi ,

there should be an option ; work with spies but without the embassy , .....in other words there should be an option to get rid of the embassy until the AI - civ invest's in it again , IE , to build an other one , .......

have a nice day / night

[gopher]

I don't want my spy's back, but the current system leaves a lot to be desired