Spies and Sieges

As far as I understood, if you had a spy in the opposing city and you sieged them, there was a chance (I think of 40%) that the spy would open the gates for you. Now this NEVER worked in version 1.1, but I think it is working too much in 1.2. I have fought 6 siege battles with spies in the city before sieging, and every time they have opened the gates. This points to one of two things:

#1. They changed the percentage of whether spies can open the gates to 100%. Or....

#2. Its a bug.

Has anyone else had experiences with this phenomenon of unusually efficient spies?

The AI is using spies a lot more when it attacks now, but it does seem the chance of them opening the gates is improved.

I started off a Greek Campaign post patch and whenever the Carthaginians (and later the Scipii) besieged Syracuse the gates were always open.

Suffice to say this worked to my advantage because the AI dropped their stacks of siege equipment and swarmed for the gate eager to die... Both times I had setup a Hoplite "Phalanx box" on the other side of the gate and the enemy just packed themselves right in as quickly as they could.

It was funny with the Carthaginians because their elephants blocked the gateway preventing their routing troops from fleeing the field, eventually enough elephants were killed to free them up and cause the remaining men to rout. But it wasn't a pretty sight...

The Scipii had it a lot worse because while they swarmed into the gateway my General's son left by the side gate and ran around to the other side of the front gate... Before long the Scipii had Hoplite Phalanx on one side, and General's heavy cavalry storming in behind them on the other, a big Roman sandwich ensued swallowing up the entire Roman army down to the last man!! ~:eek:

While I do like the fact that the AI uses spies (and it can work to its advantage if it attacks a lightly defended town), as shown in my examples though you can easily contest the gateway and exploit its behavior.

I started a new Scipii campaign post-patch, but I haven't found spys to be particularly over-effective. I have had a spy in an enemy city a number of times and sieged it but the gates remained shut.

By the way, I'm fairly sure the %chance of the gate opening is related to a spy's skill rather than a set number.

The chance for the gates being opened is definitely linked to the spy's skill level, so 'training' your spies by getting them to nose around rebels and such is a good idea.

As a note, I've had spies open the gates in all versions of the game. Off the top of my head I can't recall a spy failing to open a gate in v1.2, but then again I've always got my spies some experience first as per above, so their chances are always good.

I had the exact same experience as The Emperor. V1.2, VH/H, playing Greeks.

Reading his post, it dawned on me the gate did not use boiling oil. I remember in older version the spy opened the gate but you still had to brave the tower arrows and boiling oil. Perhaps a spy opening the gate now stops the oil. The towers still shoot. I will have to see if this works for the player as well as the AI.

I think there is a bug involving spies. 2 days ago I posted this message on ezboard forums:

"This has happened to me once in 1.1 and now again in 1.2. My city is attacked, I defeat the attackers and the next time they attack all the gates of my city are destroyed right from the start. When the enemies charge through the gates, oil is not poured upon them. I can't repair them, and they look destroyed when I look at the city outside of a battle. Even upgrading the wall does not change that. I suspect this has something to do with the enemies conquering the gate in the first battle, or maybe a spy opening the gates in the first battle."

Now, what I am saying is that the gates of my city were open in every battle and not just during battles, but also when I checked the battlemap using the option in the settlement menu. In the prebattle window I do not get a message saying that my gates are opened by a spy.

I know it was not a bug because the enemy did indeed have spies in my city and when i trained my own spies they started to slowly get caught... (Both Carthaginian and Scipii)

I also defended against a Brutii attack on Thermon, and the gates were closed so the Romans used the battering rams ont he gate and one section of wall.

It seems to me the AI has a real love of spies now post-patch, and they are very adept at opening gates. (my spy also opened the gate on a settlement I attacked so it does work both ways).

Seems we need to invest in counterspies if we want to prevent "open-gate syndrome"

Not sure about the city gates not being repairable - perhaps destroying them and rebuilding?

As Far as spies opening gates go - I have used this tactic in both versions of the game to good effect - usually v Barbarian type enemies (just the wooden fences - no stone walls). I always send spies in before I assault the tonw - the more spies you send in the better the chance to open the gates - 3 spies usually get you 96% chance (new/raw spies).

I did it too with Rome - I hate firing Onagers at gates - they miss alot and uses up precious ammo.

Ive only just patched so it definately did work in 1.1