Defending against spies?

[marasai]

So as you all are probably aware I haven't been playing that long. One subject that continues to be a thorn in my side are enemy spies. How do you approach the situation? Do you use some constant level of spending, short burst, or ignore it? What seems to work best for you?

I usually just ignore it and take my lumps. It seems much cheaper to rebuild sabotage damage than paying for counterspies. I worry about tech steals though, the comp may be able to get a leg up on me that way sometimes.


Your thoughts?

[Cyneheard]

I usually just ignore it and take my lumps.

That's what I do - sabotage is a massively inefficient use of BC IMO, so I'll let the AI do it.

Tech stealing: don't be bothered by it; the AI is turning BC into tech no matter what, they're just choosing to do it through espionage instead of straight teching. Nor does counter-espionage work very effectively: it's a huge amount of BC for a minimal direct gain (only preventing sabotage; your economy isn't hurt when your techs are stolen). It's going to be pretty rare that the AI gets a truly valuable tech (e.g., Atmospheric Terraforming) that they couldn't have gotten normally; I don't really care if they steal Range 8 or not.

[toddestan]

I usually throw in something like a constant 5% into spy defense, unless I'm the Darlok with their inherent 20% racial bonus in which case no additional spending is necessary. I don't care about factories so much, as damage to those is mostly a nuisance. However, I have seen opponents target missile bases on worlds that they later try and take militarily, and missile bases are expensive. And rebellions are a problem, as not only do you lose the production of the rebelling world for several turns, but you also suffer a population loss in the surrounding worlds when you take it back (though I'm not entirely sure that all rebellions are from spies and there isn't just a random rebellion event that you sometimes get hit with).

When it comes to spying I agree that sabotage is mostly a waste of resources so I pretty much never do it. Exceptions might be inciting rebellions in small empires to break up alliances amongst opponents, improve relations if they are bad, or just for kicks. I do spend on Espionage, though my understanding that spending the full amount possible is actually counter-productive (more spies = greater chance for the spy network to get busted) so if I'm being aggressive I might spend 1/3-1/2 the bar.

[PlzBreakMyUmMap]

I usually throw in something like a constant 5% into spy defense

whoa...