¶ Spies & Espionage
Spies are your covert toolkit — gathering intel on rivals, sabotaging their fleets, stealing technology, and protecting you from the same in return. Every mission carries a chance of failure and, worse, a chance of getting caught and killed. They're processed once every week alongside other long-cycle systems.
¶ How do I get spies?
You don't recruit them manually — your empire trains them automatically. Each week, you gain 1 spy training point. When you hit 50 points, a new spy is recruited (and the counter resets to 0). So a fresh spy arrives roughly every 50 weeks, assuming your population is above zero (a wiped-out empire stops training).
- Cap: 32 spies per player. Past that, no new spies are trained.
- Starting state: level 1, random codename from a fixed list, random portrait.
¶ Spy levels (1 → 6)
Spies improve from level 1 to level 6. Higher level = better mission success rate and better counter-espionage. At level 6 (the cap), a spy on Training automatically switches to Counter-Espionage — they have nothing left to learn.
There are two parallel ways a spy levels up:
-
Training — the dedicated mission. Each week it rolls a (small) chance to level up directly. See Training in detail below.
-
Experience from missions and catches — every successful non-training mission grants the spy +1 XP, and every time a counter-spy catches an enemy mission it gains +1 XP too. XP accumulates and converts to levels at fixed thresholds:
Level transition XP needed 1 → 2 2 2 → 3 4 3 → 4 6 4 → 5 8 Note: there is no XP threshold for 5 → 6. Mission XP alone caps a spy at level 5. The only way to reach level 6 is to spend a stretch on the Training mission.
Whenever a spy levels up (either path), their training-attempts counter resets.
¶ The missions
| Mission | Type | Difficulty | Cost | Max success | Auto-repeat? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Training | defense | 1 | 10 | (see Training below) | ✓ |
| Counter-Espionage | defense | 1 | 0 | passive defence | ✓ |
| Intelligence Gathering | passive | 1 | 1 | 5% | ✗ |
| Cyber Attack | attack | 2 | 2 | 4% | ✗ |
| Steal Technology | passive | 3 | 3 | 3% | ✗ |
| Probe Defenses | passive | 3 | 3 | 5% | ✗ |
| Sabotage Ships | attack | 4 | 4 | 5% | ✗ |
| Assassinate | attack | 5 | 5 | 3% | ✗ |
After a successful non-repeating mission, the spy switches back to Counter-Espionage automatically (toggle "auto-repeat" on the mission to make it stick).
¶ How success is calculated
For any non-training mission, success rolls every week using:
chance = min((spyLevel / difficulty) × maxSuccess, maxSuccess)
A few examples to make it concrete:
| Spy level | Mission | Difficulty | Max | Actual chance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Intelligence Gathering | 1 | 5% | 5.0% |
| 1 | Assassinate | 5 | 3% | 0.6% |
| 3 | Steal Technology | 3 | 3% | 3.0% |
| 6 | Assassinate | 5 | 3% | 3.0% (capped) |
| 6 | Sabotage Ships | 4 | 5% | 5.0% (capped) |
So a fresh spy can take on Intelligence Gathering effectively, but should not be sent to Assassinate — they'll roll the dice for many weeks with a vanishingly small chance.
¶ Training in detail
Training is a guaranteed slot (no enemy can intercept it), but the level-up roll is small and depends on how many failed attempts have built up. Each week:
chance = 0.0001 + (failedAttempts × increment)
Where increment shrinks as the spy levels up:
| Current level | Increment per failed attempt |
|---|---|
| 1 | +0.0005 (0.05%) |
| 2 | +0.0004 (0.04%) |
| 3 | +0.0003 (0.03%) |
| 4 | +0.0002 (0.02%) |
| 5 | +0.0001 (0.01%) |
When a level-up finally succeeds, the failed-attempts counter resets. In practice, the early levels train quickly; the climb from L4 to L5 to L6 takes much longer.
¶ Counter-espionage — defending yourself
Counter-Espionage is the default mission for a new spy and a good place to leave any spy you aren't actively using. Here's how it works:
When any enemy spy runs a successful mission against you, each of your counter-spies rolls to catch them:
chance to catch = min((counterSpyLevel / attackerSpyLevel) × 10%, 10%)
If caught:
- The attacker's spy is killed.
- Your counter-spy gains experience.
- 50% of the time, the spy is also identified — you learn who their owner is. That triggers a protection override letting you declare war on the attacker's empire even if Ranked Combat rules would normally forbid it.
So a level-6 counter-spy against a level-1 attacker has the full 10% catch chance per attempt. Stacking multiple counter-spies multiplies the dice rolls — each one gets its own chance.
¶ What each mission actually does on success
¶ Intelligence Gathering
Reveals the target's planet count, ship count, and currently-researching tech. If you're in an alliance, this intel is automatically shared with all alliance members.
¶ Cyber Attack
50/50 random outcome:
- Science interrupted — wipes 25% of the target's accumulated science points.
- Credits stolen — removes 25% of the target's current credits balance.
¶ Steal Technology
Transfers 5% of the target's accumulated science points straight to your science pool. The target loses what you gain.
¶ Probe Defenses
Reveals one specific planet's defensive picture: shields stat, current energy + storage cap, population, attack-against-ships, current and max HP. Auto-cancels the mission if the planet changes hands before the next weekly tick — you can't probe a planet that was conquered out from under you.
¶ Sabotage Ships
Destroys one random ship per spy level. A level-6 spy wipes six ships from the target in a single successful mission.
¶ Assassinate
Kills one random spy belonging to the target player.
¶ Tips & practical notes
- Spies are slow. Missions tick weekly, and most have low single-digit success rates. Don't expect immediate results.
- Match level to difficulty. Sending a level-1 spy to Assassinate (difficulty 5) gives a 0.6% chance per week. The same spy on Intelligence Gathering (difficulty 1) has 5%.
- Counter-Espionage is free. It costs nothing and protects you. Idle spies should default to it.
- Sabotage Ships scales with level. A level-6 saboteur is one of the strongest single hits in the game — but they're slow to reach that level.
- Steal Technology is silent. Unlike Sabotage or Assassinate, the target gets no news item from a successful steal, so it's good for sustained pressure.
- Getting caught and identified is bad — it removes your protection against the spy's owner, opening you to retaliation.
¶ See also
- Diplomacy — ranked-combat rules and protection overrides
- Stats Reference — the planet stats Probe Defenses reveals
- Days and weeks — when spy missions tick