Spying and Counterspying in MTW (NOT VI)

**BlackHat** · 10-31-2006, 08:23

What exactly is counterspying.

Emissaries, Assassins, and Spy's all say "Counterspying" when in you own Provinces. (And Spying when in "AI" Provinces)

How does this counterspying work. Are they:

1. Hindering the "Spying" of "AI" Agents in your provinces by limiting what they can see? (Status of provinces, Buildings, and Armies)

To me this does not seem to be true, when I am in "AI" Provinces with my Agent, it does not appear to matter if there is 0 or 5 counterspy agents verses what I see.
(Am I wrong??)

2. Reduce the influence of "AI" Spies on your Province Loyalty?

"AI" Spies cause discontent in my Provinces (Reduces loyalty). Do my Counterspying Agents reduce the effect of "AI" Spies on my Province's Loyalty?
(One of the FAQs/Hints I read said my Spies would, because they naturally raise Loyalty in my province they are in, thus more or less zeroing out the negative loyalty the "AI" Spy is causing)
(But what about Emissaries and Assassins? do they have any effect on "AI" Spies causing discontent?)

3. Aiding Border forts in detecting "AI" Hidden Agents.

I have seen 1 reference in someone's FAQs/Hints that said your Spies in your territory on Counterspy WILL aid border forts when other hidden Agents enter. And when they are caught your Spy will gain valor.
(IS this true? What about Emissaries and Assassins? Do they also help detect Hidden Agents? Do they gain Valor when counterspying and hidden agents are caught?)

Thus what exactly do Emissaries or Assassins or Spies do when when they are Counterspying??? It looks like only Spies will do anything.

Spying.

It appears that ALL my Agents (Emissaries, Princesses, Bishops, Inquisitors, Assassins, etc) when in "AI" territory reveal the EXACT same information. (Status of provinces, Buildings, and Armies) Thus NONE is better than any other when Spying.

ONLY Spies can reveal anything more. They have a chance to reveal "AI" Attack plans. "X" is going to attack Province "Y" in "Z" turns.
(I have only seen this 1 time)

Border Forts.

I had 3 spies in an "AI" province trying to cause a revolt. It did not have a Border Fort. However after a couple turns they built one. CHOP! All 3 of my Spies were caught. (They were only level zero)

I thought Border Forts only detected hidden agents when they entered the Province. Thus I thought my agents already in the province would be safe when the Border Fort was built. IS there a check for Hidden Agents each turn in a province with a border fort? Or maybe its only checks each agent already present when the Border Fort is built? (Treating all Agents present as if they are entering that turn when the Fort was built)

Is the likelihood of detection upon entering a Province with a Border Fort, the same as for each turn spent IN the province with a Border Fort.

Thanks,

**R'as al Ghul** · 10-31-2006, 12:59

You may want to check the MTW guide in the guides section or the manual for a detailed explanantion. Just some points:

Spying just means that they reveal information about the visible AI agents, the units and the buildings to you. Princesses and Emissaries and Assassins don't do much else in that situation. Spies on the other hand can reduce the loyalty and invoke rebellions.
Counterspying means that they will look out for enemy spies.
Apart from the Spy none of the strategic units can do anything about enemy spies. The Spy works like a borderfort or watchtower. The higher his stars the more effective he is.
When you have Spies or Assassins in enemy territory their stars will be calculated against the enemy spies' stars or the border forts. This is done individually to determine if the spy remains undetected or is caught.
when you have 0* spies in enemy territory and he builds a watchtower or moves in an agent they are likely to be detected.

So the answer is point 3. for counterspying.
The spy is the best agent because the Ai can't see him whereas Emissaries and Princesses can easily be targeted by Assassins. Thus the spy is better although he doesn't reveal much more information most of the time.

R'as

**macsen rufus** · 10-31-2006, 15:05

There was a thread about this somewhere recently but a quick scan couldn't find it so no link I'm afraid...

Now I wouldn't normally contradict R'as

but I think in this instance he may have overlooked something: I believe ALL agents help to detect enemy agents in your territory, not just spies. It's just that some are better than others (SPY >> ASSASSIN >> EMISSARY). If you have a border fort then this will do all your agent-catching for you, but if if you have no border fort, then your own agents will do it - with the benefit that they gain valour by doing so.

Hence many players will NOT build border forts, so their agents gain valour instead (which I've started doing since I learnt this trick!) I even create honeypots now -- eg as England, I place my king in Scotland - without a port, build a port but no border fort in Northumbria and keep an assassin there. All the enemy agents have to pass through Northumbria to reach my king. Except they don't -- my assassin catches them all and valours up quickly

When he's useful enough to send abroad to go killing Popes or whatever, then I change shift and train up another agent. The AI never seems to rumble this little ruse

**R'as al Ghul** · 10-31-2006, 15:19

Originally Posted by macsen rufus

Now I wouldn't normally contradict R'as

Why not?

Originally Posted by macsen rufus

but I think in this instance he may have overlooked something: I believe ALL agents help to detect enemy agents in your territory, not just spies. It's just that some are better than others (SPY >> ASSASSIN >> EMISSARY).

Interesting. That's new to me.
By detecting we mean killing, right? So you're saying that hypothetically an emissary could kill an assassin if he had enough stars? (I've had emissaries killing assassins when being attacked, of course)
I've never observed this but that could be because I haven't looked out for it.

Does anyone know more about this or is able to confirm macsen's theory?

R'as

**Martok** · 10-31-2006, 20:56

Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

Interesting. That's new to me.
By detecting we mean killing, right? So you're saying that hypothetically an emissary could kill an assassin if he had enough stars? (I've had emissaries killing assassins when being attacked, of course)
I've never observed this but that could be because I haven't looked out for it.

Does anyone know more about this or is able to confirm macsen's theory?

R'as

There is a sort of "heirarachy" when it comes to who can catch/kill enemy assassins. Also, macsen rufus is correct in that only spies can catch other spies (aside from border forts). Assassins and emissaries can only capture assassins, but not spies.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have more than one spy in a province, then only the spy with the highest valour gets a chance to capture the assassin; the other spies in your province will not be given the opprtunity to catch him. This rule also applies to multiple assassins & emissaries in a province--only the highest-level assassin/emissary will get a chance to capture enemy assassins. (So there's no point in sticking 6 assassins/spies in a province, as this will not improve your chances to capture enemy saboteurs.)

As you already know, the border fort (if there's one built in a particular province) will have first crack at capturing enemy assassins.

If there is no border fort, then then your spy is the one who gets the opportunity to capture enemy assassins. So if an assassin is caught, the valour star(s) will go to your spy for capturing him.

If there is no spy in your province, then your assassin gets the valour stars from captured enemy assassins.

Your emissary only gets valour stars from captured assassins if there are nor spies or friendly (heh) assassins in the same province.

Second note: This heirachy is absolute, regardless of whether one agent has more stars than another. In other words, if you have a 0-star spy and 4-star assassin in the same province, the spy will still get the valour stars for capturing enemy assassins, even though the friendly assassin has greater valour.

**bamff** · 11-01-2006, 01:24

Great info guys. I have to confess that I have tended to restrict my use of agents to Assassins, but armed with a little more info about spies, I will change my approach....and I won't worry quite so much about building border forts....

**BlackHat** · 11-01-2006, 10:22

Thanks for all the info guys.
\
Hmm, So if I have a Border Fort, Spy and an Assassin in a province. And a Spy or Assassin tries to enter, the Border Fort is going to be the one to Kill the them most of the time, so my Agents will not get valor points? Thus they will only have the opportunity, if the Border Fort Misses.

Thanks,

**macsen rufus** · 11-01-2006, 14:11

Why not?

Because of Samurai MTW, for one

So many mods, so little time....

And in all fairness, Martok, I hadn't realised spies only catch spies, must have been someone else - but by putting words in my mouth you taught me something new

**Martok** · 11-01-2006, 21:16

Originally Posted by macsen rufus

And in all fairness, Martok, I hadn't realised spies only catch spies, must have been someone else - but by putting words in my mouth you taught me something new

That's me--I make people smarter by attributing comments to them.

By the way, I feel I ought to clarify something from my previous post. When I said there was no benefit to placing multiple spies in a province, I meant that only in regards to your ability to capture enemy agents.

Having more than one spy in your province does help boost its Loyalty rating. So it's still worth it to stick a bunch of spies in your more rebellious provinces--goodness knows I certainly I do.