Spies..

[The One King]

Spies, Spies, Spies... THERE SOO DAM INEFFECTIVE!?!?!

in all of my campaigns no enemy settlement has ever rebbeld with spies.. ill even use sabotage with assassins and it doesnt work?!

can anyone give me tips for maximising the effect of spies?

[Platomasso]

I generally only use spies to open ports during sieges and to spread the plague. However the first requieres some skill on your spies part. You can train your spies quickly by letting them spy on diplomats, priests and rebel armies.

[Silent Assassin]

I don't use them that much but if you put a couple of spies in a city this will cost unrest to it and maybe it could Rebel... IMO I don't waste my time with them, I fond them useless

[Basil the Great]

Same as Rebel I don't use them to much the same goes for assassins it's too mcuh time consuming and micro managament

[robbo]

Unlike most people I probably use spies a lot more than assassins. Using them to make a city rebel depends on a lot of other factors such as whether a general is present in the city and what his traits are. Plus you need a fair few of them to cause unrest. Most people think they aren't worth the effort but they can allow you to take cities such as Rome without going to war with the Papal States. As an Italian faction I hate not being able to control all of Italy so I often target Rome early in the game to make it rebel then send my forces in and capture it.

I'm someone who plays with fow enabled (I've played campaigns with it both on and off and it's far more challenging with it on IMO) and spies are vital at giving me an idea of the strength of garrison in a city I'm about to attack. Once you've upgraded their skill level a bit there's also a very good chance they'll be able to open the gates for you. This means you won't need to have artillery equipment slowing your army down and you won't have to wait X amount of turns to build siege equipment. This is useful when the Pope can threaten to excommunicate you next turn.

Their other uses include spreading the plague, preventing ambushes and detecting enemy spies in your cities. There's nothing worse than going to the battle map to defend your city only to find that you have no time to prepare your men for battle.

The main positive though is that it's relatively easy to increase their skill level. When you don't really need to use them just spy on the nearest enemy/rebel captain. If you pull the mission off once or twice there's very little chance you'll get caught again and you'll eventually be able to spy on just about any character or any city you want. Higher level spies also cause more unrest. Also, in my experience, thieves guilds come along fairly frequently throughout the campaign.

[Silent Assassin]

Great Post Robbo

[crazedwombat]

A couple notes on Spies.

Keeping spies in your city prevents other spies from getting into your cities and causing unrest. I remember times dropping in a spy in a yellow happiness city because I couldn't find out why there was a problem. Next turn their spy was kicked out and I was back green again.

To get a city to rebel put a number of spies in the city, up to four or more. If you're at war with the faction just take an army and on the most open part of the map (no trees ormountains) in their territory and just sit that army there to cause desolation which makes more unrest. Also sabotage their churches and then all their buildings that prevent unrest, like city hall type buildings. All those things together will cause their settlement to rebel, can take up to 5-10 turns but it works. Also, it'll happen even if it's their last province.

If they are of the other religion then dropping priests in there too helps. I do this when I play catholic factions a lot because if they go to war with me and I want their land, I dont want my rep to fall by attacking instead of defending, so I get them to rebel then I take the rebel province and boom, no hit to my rep. I've taken over half of Europe in the past with it. Later in the game factions can't stop the unrest in their provinces because they build so slow so I just swoopin and take them too.

[shootingbates]

generally the spy wave tactic is good, at least 10 a time.
since it works on probability, more chances the higher likelihood of success.

[Toshi-sama]

Im not a spy or assassin guy, but I use spies to see what the enemy garrison is like. I have bad luck with them, I mean who gets a spy killed almost every time with an 80% chance of success? I must be the only one...