Spying

Spying is an option available after you have built a spy camp.

Spying on a level 5 lake

Spying on a wildland

When you click on a wildland or a non-friendly city tile, you have the option to spy on it.

After choosing to spy, you will be shown information on the time it will take for the spy to get there. Spies move faster then your normal troops.

If you press the green accept button your spy will start moving and be added to the military progress tab and shown as War - Reached: 00:02:00.

As soon as the spy reaches the destination, you'll have a new report in your report menu.

Evaluating the spy report

After having your spy spy on the wildland, you end up with a report. Your spy team will either have gathered information, or have been "uncovered and killed."

Failure

Spying failure

If your spies don't manage to spy on the wildland/city, your report will say "Your spy team have been uncovered and killed". When this happens you get no information about the wildland or city you were trying to spy on, and your spy team is dead. You can revive it in the spy camp for 100 gold, though.

Your spy camp level will determine the success rate of your spies. If the hostile city has a watchtower, then it will lower your chance of successfully spying. If your chance is less than 100%, it might take a 2nd attempt until luck is on your side and you manage to spy on the opponent. Beware though, that he/she will be informed every time he kills one of your spy teams - and nobody likes to see others trying to spy on them. He/she will most likely try to attack you.

If the report says "No building info obtained," you have failed to spy on the opponent's buildings, as all cities have at least a palace.

If the report says "No troop info obtained," there are several possibilities:

1. You have failed to spy on the opponent's troops.
2. There are no troops currently in the opponent's city, but they may return from a mission at any time.
3. The opponent does not have any troops.

If the report says "No skill info obtained," there are two possibilities:

1. You have failed to spy on the opponent's skills.
2. The opponent has not trained any skills.

$chanceToSuccessfullySpy = watchtowerDecreasement - spycampIncreasement$

Success

That's what everybody wishes for, and you will see that most times you'll successfully spy on wildlands (spies do not die when spying on an unoccupied one). But as said in the "failure section", if your enemy's city has a high level watchtower, you might fail to spy on them. Anyway, let's talk about success in spying:

Sucessfully spied on a wildland

Successfully spied on forest level 5

You'll receive a report similar to the one on the right.

What can we learn from it?

You will find out about the legends and their troops in the wildland:

• Xuan Huai Quiao (Level 11) with 360 archers
• Xu Pei Shuang (Level 14) with 360 swordsmen
• Su Gu Er (Level 15) with 720 halberdiers

And now? Most players would decide against attack this wildland, because there are archers inhabiting it. Most prefer attacking wildlands that only have swordsmen and halberdiers, because they can kill them using archers without making any loss.

Successfully spied on a player

Spying on players is a lot different from spying on wildlands. If you are lucky enough, you can receive information about resources in the city, it's population size, the loyalty of the inhabitants, information about the outskirt buildings and city buildings (levels, number of buildings), information about their legends and troops (as seen when spying on a wildland), and information about the skills they studied at their university.

You can get all of those information at one time, but it can also happen that you only get parts of them. Either because you fail to spy on that part - or maybe because your opponent does not have any troops trained or skills researched.

The received report is a bit mysterious, because some names in the report don't exist in that way. As of October.. it seems to have gotten even more fun. Some servers showing actual names for majority of buildings while older servers still need translating. Exceptions to actual names used on newer servers listed within [ ].

Here's a translation:

Buildings WoodYield = Timber mill FoodYield = Cropland IronYield = Copper mine StoneYield = Quarry Palace = Palace Rampart = Ramparts WorkShop = Armoury IronHouse = Smithy College = University RecruitHouse = Legend pavilion Depot = Warehouse Hotel = Legend sanctuary Market = Market House = Village LeagueTemple [WatchTower](?) = Ally base SignalFire [SignalFire](?) = Watchtower Dak = Relay base Stable = Stable Parade = Parade ground SkirmisherBarrack = Spy camp Barrack = Garrison

Research FeelTechLevel = Army Sense skill (?) LeadSoldierTechLevel = Leadership skill ProtectTechLevel = Army Defence skill GeneralStrainTechLevel = Legend Defence skill (?) GeneralHabitusTechLevel = Magic skill (?) AttackTechLevel = Army Attack skill TrainingTechLevel = Conscription skill StorageTechLevel = Logistics skill FortificationTechLevel = Construction skill DeliveryTechLevel = Riding skill AlchemyTechLevel = Alchemy skill SmeltTechLevel = Digging skill DigTechLevel = Mining skill LopTechLevel = Logging skill GrowTechLevel = Cultivation skill RackTechLevel = Army Speed skill (?) ClairaudientTechLevel = Skill Sense skill (?) ClairvoyanceTechLevel = Resource Sense skill (?)

Note: Marked with (?) means "not 100%ly identified yet"