Do spies increase happiness in cities?

[Matthewcthf]

I did a google search and can't find nothing online except one post that said spies can bring down unrest in your cities. Do spies increase happiness in your city? Everything I find says they they make great security but nothing on how they affect your own peasants.

I have a city with high squalor and I had no general in the city so I focused on happiness buildings and a higher garrison of troops but then I thought maybe a spy would make my people more happy and purchased one but the next turn the happiness rating was still the same. I don't want to invest in a lot of them if they don't actually help my people. I know they are really good for other reasons and I am just wondering what they do for your own cities. If they can cause unrest or rebellions in cities of other factions can they not prevent rebellions, riots or even unrest? Do they help with happiness? Anyone that could answer this for me it would be appreciated.

[Cookiegod]

They don't make anyone happy, but they make the city or army they accompany more secure, and therefore harder for the enemy to infiltrate, sabotage or assassinate any target with a spy in it. And depending on which mod you play, the AI can be quite aggressive and use many spies against you.
If the enemy succeeds in infiltrating your settlements, they'll generate extreme unrest.

[Matthewcthf]

They don't make anyone happy, but they make the city or army they accompany more secure, and therefore harder for the enemy to infiltrate, sabotage or assassinate any target with a spy in it. And depending on which mod you play, the AI can be quite aggressive and use many spies against you.
If the enemy succeeds in infiltrating your settlements, they'll generate extreme unrest.

Thanks. I appreciate the response. I knew about the security they provide. It just is sad that there is no good way to reduce squalor in this game except with the black death plague. Well now I know the answer to my question. I only use the Jack Lusted "Better AI" mod for vanilla without kingdoms. Thanks again.

[NorseThing]

Squalor reduction has always been a mystery for me. However, if the settlement is ready to improve the walls, do it and the squalor effect is less of a factor with the improvements Also the settlement may have problems with heresy rather than simply the wrong religion. Pop In a priest just like you would a spy to help with the stress on the citizens. Parking spies and priest within settlements under potential threat is generally a good idea in any case.

[Matthewcthf]

Squalor reduction has always been a mystery for me. However, if the settlement is ready to improve the walls, do it and the squalor effect is less of a factor with the improvements Also the settlement may have problems with heresy rather than simply the wrong religion. Pop In a priest just like you would a spy to help with the stress on the citizens. Parking spies and priest within settlements under potential threat is generally a good idea in any case.

Well the settlement had a squalor level of 65%. My research led me to believe there is no way to reduce this after max walls are built and it just keeps going. This leads to unhappy people and I build stuff that makes them content and happy but I wish there was a good way to reduce squalor. The plague aka black death has temporarily solved my problem with squalor but it will be back. I build lot's of churches and if needed priests to help reduce heresy so that's not a problem for me. Thanks for the response.

[Yesugatai Khan]

Try building town halls and its levels. It usually solves the squalor problem.

[Iosif Stalin]

I've always thought that they should have at least a slight effect, acting like a kind of secret police in your cities. Obviously the effect should be limited, say to a max of 10%, otherwise people could abuse it by just spamming spies in all cities so they never have dissent problems again. But it seems spies only protect your cities against foreign spies and assassins; they don't play any domestic role.

[NorseThing]

I've always thought that they should have at least a slight effect, acting like a kind of secret police in your cities. Obviously the effect should be limited, say to a max of 10%, otherwise people could abuse it by just spamming spies in all cities so they never have dissent problems again. But it seems spies only protect your cities against foreign spies and assassins; they don't play any domestic role.

Correct -- or at least my experience agrees with your assumptions.
Well that is a role worth doing. If you see a problem with unrest and no easy explanation, just pop in a spy with some experience and see what happens. It is sort of a Spy vs Spy mad magazine sort of thing though.