I don't think anybody has mentioned this yet, but I just realized that when one recruits a spy from the pool, it seems to work out best to pick the one on the far right of the group. It appears that they will be the youngest. I was just picking from left to right and was getting 40 year old spies who obviously were only going to last 20 turns or so. By switching to picking from the right end of the list, I've started getting spies who were only 17 or 18 years old. I haven't checked to see if a younger ones comes with less starting traits than the older ones, but obviously an 18 year old is going to be around 22 turns longer than one who is already 40, so one can get the chance to really level them up.
I haven't checked this for dignitaries and champions yet, but it could be the same for them also.
Cheers
P.S.
I'm too lazy to take the time to check this out, but I guessing that unless the agents in the pool are in some sort of frozen stasis until they are recruited they are also aging each turn---and that new agents added to the pool are added to the right end of the list and therefore are the youngest.
Bookmarks