Espionage

[Krum]

The espionage system in the game is divided into two sections: espionage and counter-espionage.
When you are in the espionage screen and you look up a player, all provinces will be shown. The ones that are colored in red are walled provinces (by four other provinces), and therefore your army will fight with -20 morale if sent to attack there.

The two ways you can spy on your neighbors are:
1.   Rumors
2.   And good, old-fashioned spies

The spy gives the most reliable information and the rumors, the most uncertain.

Rumors this is the information you gather from all the traveling folk (merchants, peasants, artists, etc.). The only requirement is to have the Espionage technology. The higher the level of the Espionage the more rumors you get. There is no risk in using the Oracle, other than the fact that she could be completely off. When depending on rumors for your information, there is a certain risk that the guy you are gathering information about will learn about your endeavor (no worries it will take at least 40 minutes for his army to get to you!).

On the other hand, sometimes the rumors could be contradictory. Basically the information you get is with +/-50% confidence interval. (For those that think statistics is a name of some exotic fruit if he has 1000 soldiers or resources you can get numbers ranging from 500 to 1500). Other information available via rumors is the type of units he has (normal/light, heavy or elite). To be more certain use the rumors option couple of times. The price is 2 gold.

Espionage If you want to get the right answers these are the guys for you. A stinky beggar passes the border. Nobody takes notice. The only strange thing is that the guy sends from time to time pigeons/crows/small children out of the country. The movement speed of the guy is 5 times faster than the Light Cavalry. The chance to perform a successful mission depends on the level of the Espionage. The price to send a spy is 20 gold per espionage level. (these bastards ask for money when they have graduated from the Spy"s Harvard College) This means that if your spy is level 10 (meaning you have level 10 Espionage technology) it will cost you 200 Gold to send him on a mission.   


What could happen when you send a spy?


They may catch him on the border - tough luck.You will get no information.

The spy manages to get trough the customs and he infiltrates successfully, he can start sending reports. It will keep sending reports for 24 hours until called back or is caught by the enemy counter-intelligence.

Catching spies on the border is done automatically (you will know who sent it). To seek & destroy infiltrated spies you have to go to the counter-espionage menu and perform the busting yourself. From there you can see the level of the spy and if it is not more than two levels higher than your Border outposts, you will know the sender. If the enemy has spies 5 levels more than your Border outposts you won't see them at all. Every infiltrated spy can be caught until it is called back home.


Calculating the chances of success:

The technologies that influence the calculations are:
Espionage the higher the better.
Border outposts this is the counter-espionage.


The chances of successful infiltration if the levels of espionage and outposts are equal are fifty-fifty. For each level difference another 25% are added, thus if the difference is more than 2 levels the spy always succeeds or fails,yet there is still a minimal(under 1%) chance for successful infiltration.After successful infiltration your spy will stay at the enemy's province for 24 hours until caught or called back.

The spy report consists of the size and type of the army in the province (in/out the fortress), the amount of resources gathered in the fortress, the level of the fortress.


Counter-espionage:

By clicking on it you will see all infiltrated spies (but you may not see who sent them, if their spy level is 2 levels greater than your outposts), and kill them at will....


Alliance and espionage

When part of an alliance a player gets the additional bonus to use his/hers allies spy reports. There reports are shown in the player lists - the most current spy report done by the player or his/hers allies is always visible there. (Warning: these reports are not giving current information but the information that was found at the time of the spying)

Particularities based on Espionage and Surveillance network levels during attack(FOR VERSION 4 REALMS ONLY):

-if attacker's Espionage and defender's Counter-espionage are equal levels,the defender will see the attacker's army composition 30 min before the attack arrives
-for every level difference 10min are added or subtracted to the base 30 min.For example - if the attacker has level 10 Espionage and the defender has level 9 Counter-espionage the defender will see the composition of the attacker's army 20 min before the attack