Espionage

Where spies live

Spies are trained in the Hideout and live there. Its level sets how many it can keep, and spies at home, on a mission and in training all count against that limit. When the Hideout is full you cannot train another spy; you raise the Hideout first.

If you lower the Hideout or demolish it, the spies who no longer fit leave the service and join the free citizens. The window tells you how many before you act. If the spies who would not fit are on a mission or in training, the Hideout cannot be lowered.

Missions

What decides the outcome

No dice decide it. On one side stand the spies you send and the level of your own Hideout; on the other, the spies waiting at home in the target, the target's Hideout and how hard the mission is. The same situation always gives the same result, and sending one more spy can only improve it.

Your side is counted when you send the spies, the target's when the spies have finished their work there. Raising your Hideout while they are on the road does not strengthen an operation already under way.

In numbers

The margin is what is left of the strength you send once the target's defence and the mission's difficulty are taken away. The strength you send is your spies plus what your own Hideout adds; the target's defence is the spies waiting at home there plus what its Hideout adds. A city can send at most as many spies as its Hideout has room for, which is why the last two columns set two Hideouts of the same level side by side: the most one city can send, and the defence of a city with every spy at home.

What the report says

Noticed, and spies lost

An attempt that goes badly is noticed. The target sees under Activity and on the Attempts on you tab of their Intelligence screen that somebody looked at their city, but not who sent the spies. You read in your report that you were noticed. The report, the warning and the loss of caught spies all arrive at the moment the mission ends.

When an attempt goes very badly some of the spies are caught, and when it goes worse still, all of them. A captured spy does not come back and is lost from your city's population; the rest come home. A successful mission leaves no trace.

Before you send them

Spies are sent from the target city's window: click the city on its island and press Send a spy; the Hideout lists no targets. In the window you first choose which of your cities the spies leave from: the list opens on a city with a Hideout, and if you pick a city without one, the window says so. Before the spies set out, the window shows how long the way there, the work and the way back take, when the report arrives, when the spies are home again, and what the mission looks at. It does not say how well it will go: that depends on how many spies are waiting at the target, and that number is hidden. Once they set out, you follow them there and back on On the road in the top bar.

You can also send spies again to a city you have looked at before, from the Intelligence screen: open the report and press Look again, and the same sending window opens with the same mission chosen, which you can still change. The spies leave from the city you are in, unless you pick another under From in the window. If this city has no Hideout or no spies waiting, the button is not there and the reason is written under the report.

Who cannot be spied on

The report

Every report is a moment that has passed: it says what was there when the spies looked, and it never updates. A report is written when the spies finish their work at the target, not when they arrive: while the road list says “at work”, there is no report yet. Its head gives the date and time the spies looked; it knows nothing that happened after.

A report also says how many spies went, how many were caught and whether you were noticed. A successful but empty report tells you something too: there was nothing where you looked. If the mission never took place, the report says why.

The Intelligence screen

The In the field strip at the top shows the spies that left from any of your cities: from which city to which, on what mission, whether they are on the way, at work or coming home, and how long that stage has left. The stages are named exactly as on the road list. At the right of the strip, headed by the city's name, you see how many spies are waiting in the city you are in and how many places in its Hideout are taken.

Below it are three tabs: your own reports (My reports), the ones your alliance shared (From the alliance) and the attempts on your cities (Attempts on you). The screen shows all your cities together. Reports are grouped by day, and each one is headed by the city the spies left from and the city they looked at (“Kythira → Zoar Polis”); so are the ones from the alliance, because city names and islands are public anyway. You search by city, player or island name, the sending city included, and filter with Learned something or Came back empty. Press a report and it opens in full beside the list: what was seen, part by part, how many spies went, when they looked, and the city's owner and their alliance. If the city has changed hands, the report still names its old owner but no longer links to them. On a phone the report opens in place of the list; Reports takes you back.

Sharing with the alliance

If you are in an alliance you can share your own reports that brought something back with it. A report you share appears on the members' intelligence screen under your name, exactly as it was written. You can stop sharing it whenever you like; a report somebody else shared is not yours to share again.

A player who leaves the alliance no longer sees the reports shared with it. The reports they shared stay with the alliance until they take them back.

Spies at home

Spies who stay at home protect your city: they make enemy spies' work harder. The Hideout itself adds to that protection as its level rises. A spy on a mission protects nothing; send everybody and you see a great deal, but your city is open while they are away.