Heavy Problems with Spies

[Dregula]

I have reactivated DWU and use the bacon mod 1.75 along with Starfall 1.12 corrected (I use not the *.txt files from bacon, because they interfere with Starfall).

I have contact to one Pirate Fraction only (its early game, i researched the Warp drive shortly). I have cancelled the "Protection" from the Pirates because they are military weak and could not harm me.

But now the pirates send spies. I can't build any station, because the new station nearly instant explodes due sabotage. My Agents capture an Spy, then this spy escapes TWICE. Few minutes later one of my Stations explode. When i try to rebuild, sabotage and BOOM.
What the hell can i do? Is this a bug? Eventually because the mod combination? I don't remember such problems with my games years ago.

[Aeson]

As a caveat, know that I have never used any version of the Bacon mod.

Factions that like you are less likely to send their intelligence agents out to blow up your stations. If you have a pretty good idea of which faction is sending the spies, you can try to sweeten them up (get a protection agreement or buy stuff from them), you can try sending out your agents to assassinate their agents or blow up their stations (risky for your agents, especially if your agents are worse than theirs), or you can try to wipe them out with your space navy (not feasible in the prewarp era and usually not feasible until you have something better than warp bubble generators).

If you don't have a good idea of who's attacking you, you can do the same things as above, but blind, or you can hope that your empire produces one or more characters with a decent counterintelligence score and starts killing off the saboteurs. Beyond that, there's not really that much that you can do to counteract sabotage.

[Dregula]

Hmmm... Is it possible, that the spies come from the Ancient Guardians? They are cautios with +2 to me. And this could explain the strenght of their spies, because they are technological advanced. I have send one of my spies to the pirate fraction to steal their map. Then i tried to set a kill mission to a spy. But the pirate fraction have no spy.

[zebanovich]

Sorry to say but what I would do is start a new game because you already lost too much time trying to get the spaceport built which is so important in early game.

[Aeson]

Hmmm... Is it possible, that the spies come from the Ancient Guardians? They are cautios with +2 to me. And this could explain the strenght of their spies, because they are technological advanced. I have send one of my spies to the pirate fraction to steal their map. Then i tried to set a kill mission to a spy. But the pirate fraction have no spy.

As far as I am aware, none of the technologies in the game affect sabotage, assassination, or espionage missions, and I'm a bit doubtful that the Ancient Guardians would go after you if relations are at +2; they're one of the more aboveboard empires in the game, and I'd only really start to expect the directly-harmful covert ops to start up somewhere around -10 or -20 with most empires.

Thinking about it, you might not be able to directly target intelligence agents for assassination; I seem to recall being unable to target space stations for sabotage without having it on the map, and spies might be handled similarly. Offensive covert ops aren't really my thing, though; maybe someone else can say more.

[Dregula]

@zebanovich:
This is my third game. The other two i had given up because this Problems. In every game it is so.

I could try a game in Vanilla, but i more likely the mods.

I play on this game, because nonetheless i am in a good condition.

[zebanovich]

It could be due to a mod, but impossible to tell for sure.

If you really wan't to play the game with good mods here are 2 which I'm sure everyone will suggest you.
(can't post links so try to google out following)

"AI Improvement Mod (1.05 Extended Release)"
and
"Distant Worlds Extended Universe 1.0.3 released 40 races"

the first AI mod should include the 40 races mod, but just in case if it doesn't install both mods and change theme to AI Improvement Mod.

I play with these 2 mods all the time, it's must have stuff

[RogerBacon]

Having a captured spy escape twice is pretty rare. The default chance is only 2% if you didn't adjust it. Are you by chance using a European keyboard that uses commas as decimal points? I thought I accounted for that but if not, then the 0.02 chance might be being read as 2, which would be 100% chance of escape.

Try building the smallest base you can. Then you can upgrade it. It is much harder to blow up a completed base than to blow up a base under construction. Other than that, it's probably just a string of bad luck.

[Dregula]

I have not edited any file. I have found out, my own spies escape with 100% chance too. Which file contains the informations? Then i could have a look into it. Your Idea with decimal points etc. sounds interesting.

Yes, i have reduced the small spaceport to a minimum. Now i have much colonies, which build all there stations, the enemy spies can not destroy all oft them *g*
But its annoying. I don't like the spionage stuff anyway, but now its terribble for me. I wish there where an option to disable spionage.

EDIT:
Have found the setting. When i set all to 0, then should all captured spies be killed, or? This setting i would prefer. I don't think, as it is a problem with decimals, because all setings are made with ".", and they are okay.

I have begun a new game with standard theme, only with bacon. Would see, waht happens now.

[Hattori Hanzo]

why not simply pay the protection fee to the Pirate faction that send their spies against you [if you have captured one of these spies you should know by now who is the one that send them..], grow-up without interferences and when ready destroy as usual those annoying Pirates.. ?????

[Timsup2nothin]

In my admittedly limited experience I've seen this happen. I think the pirates just 'picked a high card' and popped a good spy. The more he succeeds, the better he gets, so the galaxy is stuck with him, and in the early game you might be the only empire his pirate masters have to use him on. My solution was to just keep building stations. The spy was blowing up mining stations, and since he kept blowing up the same one as long as I kept rebuilding it my other constructors just went about the business of building other stuff I needed. Eventually either their superspy gets KIA, or they broaden their horizons and send him to blow up someone else's stuff for a while. Just a bump in the road.

[Retreat1970]

Hattori is right. Pay the protection. Problem solved.

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

Hattori is right. Pay the protection. Problem solved.

thanks Retreat.. [:D]

[Shogouki]

Pay off the pirates?! Never! [:D]

I hope DW2 has a better way to recruit spies (as well as other heroes) as starting the game with a crappy spy is extremely difficult if you are near a pirate clan with an ace spy. A system like MoO2 would be cool for recruiting heroes.

[Timsup2nothin]

ORIGINAL: Shogouki

Pay off the pirates?! Never! [:D]

I hope DW2 has a better way to recruit spies (as well as other heroes) as starting the game with a crappy spy is extremely difficult if you are near a pirate clan with an ace spy. A system like MoO2 would be cool for recruiting heroes.

On the other hand, starting the game with an ace spy makes things pretty easy...or at least turns whole parts of the game somewhat irrelevant. I put very little effort into exploring already. Even moderately capable spies mean that stealing the galaxy maps of every pirate clan I meet will reveal the entire map anyway, and long before I could possibly see much of anything no matter how much effort I put into it.

[Shogouki]

This is very true!

[ElanaAhova_slith]

This has happened to me several times. Hate it. What has worked for me is to play only species that have decent spys. Humans = spy +15% etc. While I'm not elated being restricted to a small subset of species - its better than fighting a spy war that I can't even see happening until bases blow up.

A work around would be to use the console to add a spy, and keep trying until you get a good one - and delete all the others you created using the console (game editor?).

[Aeson]

A work around would be to use the console to add a spy, and keep trying until you get a good one - and delete all the others you created using the console (game editor?).

You can use the game editor to give yourself characters, including spies, it's true. If you do, though, you might as well edit the first character you create to ensure that it has the skill(s) and trait(s) you want on it as well, rather than wasting time randomly generating a bunch of characters until you get one that does what you wanted.



Edit Empires => Characters tab => Edit Characters => (select a character) => Edit Skills and Traits

[Retreat1970]

Again, pay the pirates. It's not much. Problem solved. Or is there a pride issue here?

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: ElanaAhova_slith

This has happened to me several times. Hate it. What has worked for me is to play only species that have decent spys. Humans = spy +15% etc. While I'm not elated being restricted to a small subset of species - its better than fighting a spy war that I can't even see happening until bases blow up.

A work around would be to use the console to add a spy, and keep trying until you get a good one - and delete all the others you created using the console (game editor?).

what you exactly mean when you say: "use the console to add a spy".. ????? [&:]