Importance of espionage?

Some of the things that come immediately to mind are:

1. There are random events that are mitigated or prevented by using espionage. If these events happen they can be very bad news.

2. Getting free technology is never a bad thing.

3. When planning an invasion or a war it definitely helps if you know exactly what tech the enemy has and what kinds of ships and starbases they are building.

Espionage is something I started using late into GC 2 (around beta .80) and what I noticed is alot of the "really bad" random events (The ones that set you off at war with some other empire) tend to go away and alot of good ones show up also since espionage doesnt decay (if it does ive never seen it do it) you just have to make the inital investment and then youre good to go.

I used it in the first thing, it was actually very useful. On this game it is about the same.

Magus knows what hes talking about, heh.

Maybe a bug?

I'm in the middle of a game and I got to an advanced stage of espinage and I didn't get any free technology. The race I was spying on was more advanced. Anyone else notice this?

you sure they were more advanced? check the diplomacy screen to see if they have any technologies up for trade u dont have. thats just a thing to check first. after that i dont know. try asking a diplomat of ambassador and so on.

I don't beleive just getting to advanced level of espinage gives you there techs. Did not work that way in GC I and I have not seen it in II yet. In current game I have advanced on all 9 races and have had it for about 50 turns and still have not managed to 'acquire' any of what they have. All they really have that I don't is some failrly low level defensive stuff that I never reasearch.

espionage doesnt decay

In reality it does and it should (keeps you paying your Inteligence agency and it removes a few bad factors)
because, as races devolp they do certain things...

What i Truly mean is: if you start paying less money than you should for your inteligence slowly the levels of inteligence on your rival decreases (making it still entertaining and realistic...rmb this is from you being the emporer so as such you need to keep your fingers on everything...with money no money to fingers on everything...)
i can't stop typing like that...

I have seen espionage levels dropping in GC1, but that was just because I was marginally above the required spending limit for that advance, then cut spending to zero, and then the opponent grew in size a bit, thereby raising the threshold.

Magus, knowing what techs an opponent has is not related to espionage. We get that info for free on the trade screens. But for the AI improvements & balancing that Brad has been doing, I do hope the AI is also aware of this at certain levels(and can use it), otherwise the humans have an edge there. Which might be nice for a change

I think espionage decay should be something addressed in a future post-release patch. It is unrealistic for espionage to have an infinite shelf life.

In my games when I get to Advanced level there is a message saying that we know all there is to know and further spending is unnecessary. I then cut off the expionage spending. The information on planets, military and starbases is very helpful.

A good while after reaching Advanced level I usually start getting tech and when it starts I will usually get something every 30-40 turns.

My question is will we have the ability to spy on the minors in the public version. The game keeps telling me I need to spend more on spying the minors but there is no way to do it.

Also, will there be destabilization in the final version? I am not sure if it is functional in the beta and I saw that it was not included in the gamma that I had for a short period.

# 3) is an understated fact. Since the AI is going to be excellent, its imperative to have a clue what you're up against.

After setting up a 50 = Tech, 25 = Social, 25 = Military, budget with around a 32% tax base on two 19's, two 15's, one 14, and a couple of Mars type planets I was able to research two weapons techs (missle and gun) as well as all defensive systems while playing 6 AI opponents all on intelligent, plus keep up with a navy that could hold its own on a one front war. Now what does this have to do with espionage. The last tech I researched in beam weaponry was... well beam weaponry, yet by the time I closed the game last night about 2:30 am I had disruptor 2 technology and was only missing one or two phasor techs. Most of these came from espionage a few from invasion but damn few. The Torians and the Drengin are like "ex-wives" for the last two opponents. They demand more and are not affraid to go for the genitals to get it.

W/R
Suralle Straykat

I believe:
Espionage is an important function and frankly as much as I get ripped off in trading techs on intelligent level I deserve every damn thing I have taken from them!

When i look at the others empires(A.I) spending in beta5, they don't use espionage at all.

Do you have to keep up spending espionage to get techs? I can't remember to have gotten a single one ever in GalCiv II.