Disease and Unrest, Spies.

[cracks2]

Just thought I drop a few lines on my recent discoveries with my own spies and them of the enemy. I did a search of the forum and there is some info regarding spies but I found none on the specific point I have recently discovered. It may be that it’s blatantly obvious but I’m into my third campaign and I’ve only just noticed the scale of the effect.

Unrest:
Enemy spies going into your city’s or castles have a negative affect on happiness and cause unrest.
This is enhanced if you have only recently acquired the land. I have seen happiness levels fall from green to red with only one enemy spy entering the city.
Before I noticed this I usually increased the number if units, lowered tax or if i had no general I changed the policy to growth which usually has a positive affect on happiness but not on the taxes of course.
The scale of unrest seems to be enhanced when your newly acquired land if of another religion.

Unbelievably just sending one of your own spies into the city can bring the status directly back to green!
Keeping one or two spies garrisoned in your city gives you a very high chance of catching the spies before they get in.

Disease:
Although it's common knowledge that spies are disease carriers and spread disease from one province to the other.
I think it's good to mention that they are long term carriers of the plague.
What I mean is they seem to be able to survive disease for very long periods without dying and they will not be cured unless they go back to a city of there own Faction and stay garrisoned there for a period of time. Which you would have to be crazy to do unless the city already had the plague.

Example: In a previous Spanish campaign i had taken Nuremburg but none of the other city's close by, It was bordering many other factions and because of the pope and my Eastern front pushing forward I did not push any further in that direction.
My Point being: the plague hit and was gone but Nuremburg still had it, this carried on for many years i thought it was a bug because as soon as it cleared up on the next turn i got the message again... "death stalks the land" and always only Nuremburg. I then realized the high concentration of spies in the area and that of course they were the problem. I cant remember for how many years this went on but it was very very many years before Nuremburg was disease free.

The solution is keep spies garrisoned in the city, if they are found or killed before they enter the plague does not take affect (tried and tested) and keep well trained assassins on your front line to kill any spies in the area.

Sorry for the long post. I hope this is informative for somebody.

[DominusEtDeus]

Well, i recognized that enemy spies increases unrest, however never even supposed that in such a great amount! Keeping 1-2 spies in your cities then eliminate infiltrated enemy spies looks like a good solution. Thx for this info!