Spies revealed invasion plans!?

[caravel]

I have never bothered to build spies. It seemed like a lot of effort for very little return. Am I missing out?

Yes. Basically you should have at least a spy in every one of your provinces. Whenever a rival assassin or spy enters, your spy will attempt to catch them. If he does, then he gains valour making him more effective overall. If there is a border fort in the province, then that will tend to catch rival assassins/spies rendering your spies useless in this function. This is why I never construct border forts. Instead I keep about 3 spies per province. Once a spy gains sufficient valour he is moved from guarding the home provinces and sent on foreign missions, giving others a chance to valour up.

These spies in your provinces also help improve loyalty (happiness) within a province. This helps to stabilise recently conquered extremely disloyal provinces.

Spies can also open the castle gates during a siege and allow for an easy victory (a message only to inform you that you've captured the castle, not an actual battle).

Also spies can orchestrate a treason trial, if you have a few disloyal generals to dispose of you can drag spies over them and try them for treason, if successful the general will be executed and your other generals should become more loyal.

Your spies are useful for revealing the secret vices of rival faction generals. This works by dragging the spy over the general as above.

Spies can lower the loyalty/happiness of rival faction's provinces. The opposite of the effect they have in your own provinces. Keeping a good high valour spy in a rival province (preferably without a border fort, which catches every assassin/spy, with a valour less than 5, that passes through) can cause a revolt to either the rebels or loyalists to the previous owner. It can also trigger a faction reappearance. When a revolt occurs the spy that caused it gains valour, as do all other spies in the province. Their effect however is not cumulative. (Applies to MTW/VI 2.01)

All of this makes the spy a very worthwhile agent. Assassins can also be valoured up by counterspying as with spies, better preparing them for their missions.

[mfberg]

In my current HRE game my spies have -
- Kept my lands loyal
- Encouraged an English re-appearance in their original lands at the cost of the French.
- Warned of Byzantine, Novgorod, and Egyptian attacks in time for me to move troops to guard against losses.
- Opened castle gates in Flanders, Constantinople, and Livonia.
- Kept my interior safe from Assassins and Spies.

Pretty good for about 150 florins and no upkeep.

mfberg

[Sensei Warrior]

I had forgotten how useful spies and the such can be.

Mental Note: Read The Prince
Conquer the World via guile and subterfuge.

[Kralizec]

Yeah, spies can reveal impending invasions of the AI, and even though they don't always go through, it's still a very cool feature. (and you could argue that it's realistic that invasions don't always occur at the planned time)

Spies in MTW are awesome. They can:

-increase loyalty in your own lands
-decrease loyalty in enemy lands
-help catch enemy assasins and spies
-open gates of besieged forts
-stage treason trials (wich is awesome, I suppose you could even use them to dispose of incompetent heirs)
-reveal the enemy's hidden vices
-reveal impending invasions by the AI

I wish I still had MTW/VI. I was more then a little disapointed with what you could do with RTW agents. I hope MTW2 will incorporate most of the original features in MTW.

[Ludens]

Yes, spies are great tools for disrupting your enemies and manging your own empire. Back to topic: in S:TW, and likely also in M:TW, there are two types of A.I. invasions: opportunistic ones and planned ones. The former happened when the computer had a powerful army near an ill-defended border. The latter were coordinated affairs, where the computer concentrated troops near or at the border, and of these your shinobi (spies) could forewarn you. I've even had warning of planned invasions into the territory of other factions. However, if the borders were strenghtened, or the A.I. became distracted by another war, the attack would most often be canceled.

[DukeofSerbia]

@macsen rufus
@Sirron

Thanks both of you. I never used spies when I played MTW. Then came on market RTW and I massively used spies. After positive experience I started to use them in MTW but only if I don’t know what to do with money. I know that spies in RTW can open enemy gates, so I thought the same thing they do in MTW. But, I was wrong.
Thanks again.

[Ciaran]

Even with all they can do (and I didn´t know that prewarning feature until I played Pike and Musket), I still think them too much of a bother to get in large enough numbers to be effective. Assassins are even worse, for that matter. As counter-spies at best, but I rarely send them abroad. I just don´t get what good knowing the vices and virtues is.