Spies are really getting out of hand.

[Dunc]

I'm sick of it. Spies in combination with glitches are making my campaign a chore to play through.

I hold Milan, which is constantly under attack by the Milanese. They constantly have a spy in there, and every single battle a spy opens the gates.

The battles when this happens are a chore. My Cannon towers totally wreck the siege towers, and then the passive AI leads to a full-time limit battle of doing absolutely nothing.

I can't auto resolve because I'll sit through a time limit battle rather than take an unfavourable result because of some stupid glitch.

[GFX707]

I agree....spies and assassins. It's as if the AI has no agent limit for them....I am sick of every general having an assassination attempt on them every single turn, and I am also sick of having to wait for the animation for the spy leaving a settlement happening every turn.

Just another thing that should have been addressed in playtesting.

[IRONxMortlock]

Start stacking your own spies in the city and you should be able to get the Milanese spy killed/kicked out of town. I believe having an assassin in town will also make it harder for their spies to infiltrate.

As for the passive AI, yep it's very annoying but we'll just have to wait and hope a fix comes out soon. In the meantime though, I use the tedious trick of sending out some cavalry to lure enemy units to break away and pursue. I then led them back to the walls where my archers/towers can kill them. Do this enough times and you can weaken the AI to the point you can easily sally forth and crush them outside the gates.

[Decker]

Patience young grasshoppa! Post your own spies, like

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

IRONxMortlock

said, into your own castles/cities and the chances of enemy armies sieging your cities and castles greatly diminishes because you have killed their spy every time(I've personally killed 5 spies attempting to check out Bordeaux). And a good trick that I use sometimes when moving around in a contested area is to have a spy traveling with my army/armies, and when I come into contact with an enemy army I take the spy and send him into the enemy encampment to see if I have a decent chance of beating him without losing to many guys before even fighting. It's worked just about every time and the same goes for attempting sieges. And a decent spy usually does the trick no matter what....unless he is a fruitcake.

[Musashi]

Yeah, just build 4 or 5 spies and keep them in that city, and his spies won't last long there...

Really it's not like it's cheating or anything... If you lay siege to a city you have a spy in, it shows you whether the spy has the door open that turn or not, so if you wait long enough you'll always be able to attack with the gate open...

And as far as I know there isn't an agent limit on spies and assassins... Or at least if there is I've never found it, and I've had 20 or 30 spies out (Plus about 10 assassins) at a point when I only had 5 or 6 provinces...

[Dunc]

Thanks for the replies, I'll try this.

I usually have around 2 assassins and 1 spy hanging around in Milan, I'll beef that up.

[Lochar]

I learned to have at least 2 spies in my frontline territories and at least 1 in my backlines or rove them as a CI source.

The reason I did this wasnt the siege aspect so much as civil unrest. I dont know if its buggy but spies can stir the pot up too much.

With blowing up a church or law structure and few spies you can pretty much cause a revolt.

Its funny tho, attacked Denmarks capital and was 5 assasins sitting there.

[Zenicetus]

I learned to have at least 2 spies in my frontline territories and at least 1 in my backlines or rove them as a CI source.

The reason I did this wasnt the siege aspect so much as civil unrest. I dont know if its buggy but spies can stir the pot up too much.

I'm getting the feeling CA just wanted more aggressive use of spies in this game, at least compared to RTW. When I got down to Marrakesh, the Moors had four spies in there, which defeated all attempts to get my own spies and assassins into the city. They flooded two of my main cities in Iberia with spies, which took several spies of my own in each city to eventually root out. Any time you see a suspiciously high level of unrest in your settlements (regular unrest, not religious), you're likely to have a spy or two in there.

I enjoy the espionage/assassin side of the game, but this is making me do more micromanagement between turns, and I'm not really thrilled with that. It also tilts the campaign strategy somewhat. Once I clear enemy spies out of my cities (or eliminate the faction), I a have a big army of spies left over that I'm tempted to use to open city gates and cause unrest/flip to rebels, instead of using conventional attacks on my front line of conquest.

So I'm still kinda on the fence about the increased level of spy activity in this game. I enjoy it, but it's a lot of work. I'm sure the modders will figure out ways to adjust it.

[andrewt]

I use a lot of micromanagement with my spies. If any other faction has diplomats, princesses, merchants, or priests near your settlement, use them to raise your spies' skill level. The success rate is 93% or 100% for these agents usually and your spies get up to 3 more skill levels before you don't see increases anymore. I just let the spy inspect one of them near my settlement then put them back in the settlement. Higher level spies means better chances of detecting enemy spies.

[ersvale the dreadfull]

Can somebody tell me what those heartbeats, that you hear when the ai makes his moves, are trying to tell me? I can't figure it out, but it seems to have something to do with my spies...

[Bob the Insane]

A slightly OT question...

I have seen enemy spies die tring to get into my settlements. But I have never (NEVER) once had that happen to one of my spies. Not really a problem you say, but I would like to see the failure movie at least once I say!!

So has anyone ever seen their spy fail at entering a settlements or spying on an enemy stack?

[Aquitaine]

Can somebody tell me what those heartbeats, that you hear when the ai makes his moves, are trying to tell me? I can't figure it out, but it seems to have something to do with my spies...

It means the AI is using a spy, probably against you, but there does appear to be a bug with certain sound effects from what the AI is doing playing as though you were doing what the AI is doing while the AI is taking its turn.

The heartbeat is a legit AI-turn sound, though, I think.

[Shahed]

When you hear the pulse it's an AI spy doing an infiltration mission.

To the OP< as already stated the issue is that you don't have enough spies of your own. If you have one skill 4 or 2 skill 2 spies inside each city there's no way an enemy spy (unless he's very high skill) will last in that city. You need counterspies.

[Fisherking]

Failing to get a spy into a city has been my specialty...I'll go with a 93% chance and get killed every time. I have seen loads of my spies run through...
I is an economic drain so far as I am concerned... I have had a much too high failure rate with every sort of agent form Assassin to Princess...Given high likely hood of accomplishment they all seem to botch it. I had a Cardinal die from witch bite with a 95% chance to fry her.... actually two Cardinals in one turn...

[Zenicetus]

A slightly OT question...

I have seen enemy spies die tring to get into my settlements. But I have never (NEVER) once had that happen to one of my spies. Not really a problem you say, but I would like to see the failure movie at least once I say!!

So has anyone ever seen their spy fail at entering a settlements or spying on an enemy stack?

Oh yeah, in that situation I mentioned above: four enemy spies in Marrakesh when I was trying to take it. My spies died every time I tried to enter the city.

They also had an "area of effect" around the city. I couldn't assassinate or spy on anyone standing close to the city, even when the kill-o-meter for my assassin said 85% success estimate.

[Hashashiyyin]

If you are having a hard time with spies you need to counter with even more spies. In a Turk VH/VH campaign I had to keep 5 spies and 2 assassins in Constantinople to root out Byzantines level 10 spy. It took probably 6-10 turns before they got him, but since then, no other spy has managed to make it into Constantinople and I keep 4 spies in the city. The ones that are sent to Constantinople just sit outside the gates until they eventually die trying to get in or one of my assassins gets them.

[Zenicetus]

Does anyone know if it helps to have a mix of spies and assassins in your city, to root out enemy agents? Or is it just the sum total of subterfuge points for your agents in the city, and it doesn't matter if it's spies or assassins?

One other thing I've noticed is that castles are fairly immune to infiltration. I think maybe the campaign AI doesn't bother sending spies there to cause unrest, because of the built-in resistance with castles. It means I can focus more on protecting my cities.

[Hashashiyyin]

I've never noticed the assassins helping per say, but I ALWAYS keep one or two mixed in just in case. Even if it doesn't directly help, they are ready to attack anyone else who comes near the city (other agents) and if the spy that's troubling you is just ejected and not killed, you can target him with your assassins.

[Kraxis]

Does anyone know if it helps to have a mix of spies and assassins in your city, to root out enemy agents? Or is it just the sum total of subterfuge points for your agents in the city, and it doesn't matter if it's spies or assassins?

One other thing I've noticed is that castles are fairly immune to infiltration. I think maybe the campaign AI doesn't bother sending spies there to cause unrest, because of the built-in resistance with castles. It means I can focus more on protecting my cities.

The AI does infiltrate castles. But you just don't have many of your own spies there (for obvious reasons).

You should notice when the AI assaults castles. Sometimes the gates are open. And one of my elite spies in Dijon managed to watch as the French infiltrated Bern... So it happens.

and if the spy that's troubling you is just ejected and not killed, you can target him with your assassins.

To be honest I seldomly get any good chances of spies. Like a level 7-10 assassin getting about 15% chance against most spies. So I simply don't try, it is not worth it. Besides that spy should be dead next time he tries to infiltrate (they never do seem to pick new targets).

[Zenicetus]

The AI does infiltrate castles. But you just don't have many of your own spies there (for obvious reasons).

You should notice when the AI assaults castles. Sometimes the gates are open. And one of my elite spies in Dijon managed to watch as the French infiltrated Bern... So it happens.

Interesting... I guess it just depends on what the AI considers a strategic target then. Most of my castles at the moment are away from the front lines, so they're not potential targets for sieges/gate opening. Maybe that's why I'm not seeing any spies there, and the main problem I'm having is spies causing unrest in the major cities.

Something else I've noticed is that you can't rely on enemy agents automatically being booted out of captured cities, which (IIRC) happened in RTW. They remain behind, hidden, to cause trouble unless you're aggressive with your counterespionage efforts.

[Lochar]

I think spies are by far the easiest to level up.

Plus the AI seems lax on repairs, so instead of breaking a ceasfire with a nation, send 2-3 spies and an assasin or 2 and blow up churches and law offices and wait a few turns, chances are you'll get a rebellion and an ousted nation.

I havent tried this much cuz it seems like cheating but wonder if the AI is more agressive to CI and repairs.

On a side note, I would rather of had an option to build a special inn or something that provides a bonus to counterspying so you dont have to tie up so many agents.

I have about 15 spies on my payroll that just sit there.

[gardibolt]

It is a huge difference with the treatment of identified spies form RTW; there when you found one and had an assassin nearby it was almost an automatic kill. The more feeble M2TW assassins are more likely to be killed than anything else, and they have virtually no chance of killing a found spy (or anyone else for that matter). I've about given up on bothering with them.

[FactionHeir]

Agreed. Spies are very tough to kill using assassins. Even a skill 10 assassin has almost no chance of taing out a skill 3 spy.
Also, spies have almost no chance of spying on another spy. skill 10 spy trying to spy on a skill 1 spy has 47% or so chance, and it doesn't even help much, as you can see the target spy's subterfuge by viewing him anyway.