Spying

Espionage is reached through the main diplomacy window (the first tab). Click on a leader portrait, and underneath of their image on the lefthand part of the window you will see an espionage slider. Put that slider to a greater than zero amount and you'll begin spending money on eventually gettting access to their information.

When you reach a point that you can access more information about the civ, you'll get a message telling you so. If you want to increase your knowledge faster, add more to that slider. After you reach "ADVANCED" levels of espionage with a race, increased spending allows you to steal technologies from them.

Espionage spending on a particular race also lets you know when they are being extorted by/paying tribute to another race, and helps to avoid random events that can instantly cause war between you and them.

and helps to avoid random events that can instantly cause war between you and them.

Ah. . . like those political assassinations. Hasn't happened to me, yet, but I've seen it happen between AIs.

so unlike the description in game that says "no more money is needed for spying", if i keep funding it, that's how I can cause unrest and steal techs?

edit: iow, spying is now optimal but BCs are still required for 'black ops'?

And, to add another question to the mix, can I stop funding espionage at any level and continue to receive the benefits of that level? Or will I gradually lose my agents in their government and my knowledge of them will drop as well?

it won't decrease. i've halted espionage funding and the intel never decreased over a long enough span of turns

Wow, that's really nice.

Thank you for your answers!

Another question:

- I have like a test game. I am very powerful and quite rich. I assigned the maximum espionage (over 650 BCs) to the remaining races (6 races). I left it like that for more than 50 turns. The only thing I got was knowledge about their planets, production, spaceships and with whom they have alliance or are in war. To know that, the cost is quite high. No new tech (I know some of them have techs I do not have) no ship pr planet defection.

What is the point to use espionage? I play a lot Space Empire IV Gold (Waiting impatiently for the release V) and you can destabilize quite badly an opponent with espionage in that game.

Thank you

How does one fund internal security? When the AI has stolen at least 3 techs from me and seems to leave me alone miltiarily because they are milking my techs with spies? There are no apparent espionage techs, only diplomacy. Do they help my internal security at all? I'm playing with 9 'intelligent' AIs and 2 of 3 of my close neighbors are warmongers and I don't bother with a large military (just a modest technologically superior planetary defense).

I have 4 star systems and 8 colinies, of which 3 of the planets have 2/3 of my population and are class 14 or higher.

wow i would love to know as well. When i turtle up for 30 or so weeks and come out with anti-matter torps and a lust for domination i dont want the ai to steal the tech and counter me within a few turns. Any way to protect yourself from tech stealing?

If there's an expansion pack, I for one would love to see some intelligence techs and more options for meddling with your neighbors and counteractering their attempts at meddling of course.

Does upping your espionage funding help your counter-intelligence work? Or is there no way to increase your counter-intelligence efforts?

After I got advanced I turned off the spending because of the "no further spending needed" comment in the report section. After that I was stealing a tech about every 50 turns. I never research any long item my opponent is researching becuase I can steal the big ones faster than he can research them. Best bet is to put the min amount into the top competition and forget until you get to advanced. Once advanced if he has a lot of low junk techs you dont have then trade for them. That way you only steal the good stuff.