Spying Question: Stealing Techs

I am not sure how stealing techs works. I have great spy%. I spied on several powers until I have reached Advanced knowledge on some races and High Espionage levels on one other. After I reached Advanced, I withdraw my active spies since the game says I don't need to do anything else. Rarely do I get any techs. Once I got it from the High race, but one of the Advanced races I got nothing from.

Does it depend on how many agents they have counterspying?

If I continue to put agents on their planets (even after Advanced knowledge) will it help me steal techs?

Thanks!

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I think the problem is that the chance of stealing a tech is extremely low. It's so low that it's really surprising when it happens.

I played a game a few days ago where I was messing around. I had basically won the game already and left the final AI with a couple planets. I plastered every single tile with a spy. I had more than a dozen spies and I didn't steal any tech. I had a bunch of spies on both planets until they finally culture flipped. The AI was far ahead of me in the tech tree, so that wasn't the issue.

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Hi!

I am not sure how stealing techs works.

In DL you spend ~2500 BC per race to get to advanced espionage, and then you just wait for these rare moments when the tech will arrive. In DA you need 5 spy/weeks to get the first level of espionage, unknown for next three levels (I never bothered counting). While you have at least one spy active on another race, it has a very slim chance to steal a tech. I don't know if after reaching advanced level there's possible to steal a tech even without active spies.

I have great spy%.

In DL great spying bonus is helpfull. It decreases the costs of spying. In DA it just helps you to spend MORE on spying == you get a spy faster. Since each spy costs significantly more to train, and the 20th spy costs as much as a fully armed huge ship, is spying beyond the first level IMO silly. Keep just some spies for defenses, and invest the saved money into something more usefull.

BR, Iztok

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I just played a TA game as the Krynn and I have to say, tech stealing doesn't seem to be so useless.

With the super projects, I got my espionage up to 95% - dump a load of spies (about 15) on your next enemy and watch their production and economy grind to a halt. And over the course of maybe 10 turns I received two or three technologies.

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I tried a similar approach with the TA Krynn and only got 2 relatively useless techs for a huge investment. Maybe it's a difficulty level thing? Or just random variation?

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It seems definitely harder in DA/TA to get techs via spying since you must keep the spies on the planet even after hitting Advanced. I think the flavor text about no more espionage spending is needed is a remnant from DL.

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If I have enough credits to dump a load of spies on an AI, that probably means my economy is so good that I practically won the game already. Otherwise, I'd rather spend the credits on military/infrastructure that will definitely help me win.

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