spies

[Heraclius]

I was wondering if anyone has used spies effectively, besides for keeping provinces loyal? (which can on some occasions border on the edge of cheesy for me)I send spies into enemy provinces and almost immediately they are captured and executed or, when they can stay alive for long enough, I send them to discover the dark, dark secrets of enemy generals and they come up with nothing and {I} then[/I] get executed. Has anyone found a good way to use them?

[Husar]

If you are catholic and want to fight against another catholic faction, you can use them in masses to make the provinces of your enemy revolt. After the rebels have taken the province you can attack them, conquer the province and the pope won´t say anything.
But I didn´t use this tactic very often, because it needs a lot of work to let all the spies go into the ene´mies province and build new ones all the time to replace the ones who got captured.
And sometimes the enemy´s army in the target province is so big, that even 20 spies cannot make the people revolt.

[Morten viking]

Spies are great for "asymmetrical warfare". When you don't want to fight another faction directly you can create hell by provoking revolutions. Check the status for the province, any border forts etc?, loyality of garrison/people. If you find any with lower values, say 120% or less, send in half dozen spies. That's guaranteed to make the loyality drop like a rock and might provoke a revolt or force the faction to reinforce his garrisons. This tactic can save you if major empires start sending full stack armies towards your neighborhood http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Nowake]

with 10 spies you can wreak havok in a kindom ... you must attack first his small guarded provinces ... once he starts spliting his army, his dead ... very dead http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[LeeJackson]

And I think late in the game when your up keep starts being a real bitch tehy are great to keep your provances from revolting. Letting you send all yoru troops to the front.

[Morten viking]

Does anyone know if the use of spies (who get caught) affect your relationship with the targeted faction? After all the player gets a notice that a spy has been caught and probably worked for the ....

I have used them quite a bit, but I was usually a pretty obvious target anyway, so I can't say that I have noticed any difference.

[Hamburglar]

Actually the greatest use of spies is causing civil wars and rebellions.

I'm NOT talking about throwing 30 spies into a province to make the peasants rise up.


Send your spies after all the enemies generals and heirs and governers etc.

Even if you don't succeed in finding everything out, the guys get VERY paranoid. Within like 4 or 5 tries on a guy to find out his secrets (win or lose, doesnt matter) he'll get the Assassinator vice which I think lowers loyalty by like 4 and happiness by like 40. Very good to have.

As the Turks this is the way I took out the Egyptians.

[Nowake]

Sorry, but why should I lose 5 spies in order to get him the vice Assasinator, when I can cause a revolt in which he would probably get killed, and all this to the price of 1 or 2 spies?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif Only if we are talking about a king or heir, maybe than it is worth it ...

A good tactic is to send bishops or their muslim counterparts in order to change the province's faith; after that, send spies ... you will get a religious revolt, with much more powerfull units ...

Oh, question: tell me, i know in STW was possible, is it possible in MTW to catch 2 spies in the same province, in the same turn? I think it happened to me once in MTW too, but I can't remember for sure ...

[A.Saturnus]

Quote[/b] ]
Sorry, but why should I lose 5 spies in order to get him the vice Assasinator, when I can cause a revolt in which he would probably get killed, and all this to the price of 1 or 2 spies?? Only if we are talking about a king or heir, maybe than it is worth it ...


Post-patch it`s quite unlikely to cause a revolt with 2 spies, especially when there`s a large garrison. -4 to loyalty can seriously decrease the worth of a general, so this tactic seems usefull to me. Sometimes I use spies to end sieges. Works good with small garrisons in a keep. But the main use of spies is still to keep the peasants happy.

[Nowake]

You don't understand ... you don't send 2 spies in the enemy province, you just lose 2 as they may be caught ... Of course, the number of spies is bound to the garrison size and province loyalty ...

Is it really so hard to keep the peasants happy? I play only on expert and find it not very hard ... I prefer to build Border Forts, as they add 40 to happiness ...

[A.Saturnus]

Oh, sorry. Didn`t understand you right. But still, bringing a province with large garrison to revolt takes a lot of spies and the usual peasant army doesn`t win against a good general.
The loyalty of new provinces can sometimes be tricky, especially when it`s a oversea-province with a different religion.

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] ]A good tactic is to send bishops or their muslim counterparts in order to change the province's faith; after that, send spies ... you will get a religious revolt, with much more powerfull units ...

As you can see, I give an option to the peasant army ... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Div Hunter]

I have recently started using religion as a weapon in my SP campaigns. Makes it so much easier to govern too when the population is the same religion as your faction. I think I'll start using more spies as well now.

[Nowake]

Sometimes, using many spies seems like cheating to me ...

[A.Saturnus]

I think religious changes are to quick in MTW. Even multi-cultural regions like Palestine can be converted to a single religion in a few years.

[NewJeffCT]

I definitely agree on spies. You need to put several in a province to make them effective at causing a rebellion / revolt. I am currently playing as Egypt and decided to snag a few “rebel” provinces early on to increase my income – Sweden, Norway, Ireland. However, now it is getting later into the game, and I am contending the English. So, I sent an alim (or two) into each English province. I generally try to put one extra there, since they keep getting assassinated. However, I am slowly building up the percentage of Islam followers in the English empire by 1-2% per year. Finally, when I am close to being ready to strike and when the English king was in Scotland, I put 7 or 8 spies in Wessex and bang, a rebellion was brewing a year later. My goal was to cut off the English Isles from their forces on the mainland (I had taken Flanders, too)... worked like a charm.

[Demon of Light]

With respect to the tactic one person suggested where you use spies to give generals vices, I do the same thing except I use assasins. There really isn't a downside here seeing as you either kill the bastard or he'll get something like Paranoid Security which decreases acumen by three. I like to do this to enemy kings as I have noticed that acumen is hereditary and a succession of 0 acumen princes is an option I find quite favorable.

Actually there is a downside. sometimes the target will become Very nervous and actually GAIN 1 acumen. Or they may get invulnerable.

[Hamburglar]

Oh and by the way, you don't necessarily lose the spy when he fails to find a hidden vice. He can just keep trying again and again. The only thing that really kills them consistently is border forts and enemy spies.

[andrewt]

I usually have around 3 provinces building spies when I use this strategy. Usually, I add even more. It's very effective and you can whittle down enemy forces with minimal losses, since you save on support costs of a larger army.