Hi, i've been talking about the Spy system with someone, and i've come to the fact that this is actually too weak and unbalanced on few points.

The spy need many things:

1: many money to buy a hero to go in a ennemy city with influence cost.
Dust + market disponibility + Influence

2: Many time to get "spy level" to up in order to have usefull effects (obviously without being exfiltred by your opponent)

3: Know the city/have seen it.

4: Luck, cause yes, after any action, your opponent have a free chance to catch/kill you 

Now, the second step.
What any player need to def about spy:

1: There is 2 research that each one give 2 constructions, 1 anti-spy building, 1 fortifications building...
So it's worth anyway to get this research, not even a waste of time to counter someone using spies.

2: Do a raid anti-spy to improve/catch someone, or just wait you to move an do a single thing...

So yes, that cost really much for the spying player, for very less effect, but that's not the much parts.

Spying is a way to "slow down" someone else, and should be very effective on people focusing on something else (war, science, ect)

But in fact, if you try to slow a Necro (spies are slowing someone just a little bit, not even a great effect :( ); YOU will use 3x more time to do a single malus effect than the necro to get one of your city.

And, to opposite this, if you're playing against a Cultist, you just need a single Spy to completly break a full city (empire).

This is unbalanced, and also a mistake about the lore/background i think.

The cultists are fanatics religious and very united in their cult.
If you go in a city, spy or not, you'll be already spotted if you're not "in" the mood of this cult way of thinking.

And, to keep the mistakes, here -> on a necrocity, it's the opposite, it a hive with billion of place to hide, and an easy spot to blend in.

Now, here my idea/s to equilibrate and improve the Spying system.

1: The more city you have, the faster ennemy spies get "level" to make more impactful effect, cause this is harder to cover any corner.

2: A Spy of the same race of the city you want to spy is harder to catch and get spy level faster

3: This is also a possibility, but i'm not sure about this idea.

But you could do something like -> The more unhappier a city is, the easier you get spy level.


With this ideas, it's a 4 in 1 improvement!
-The cultist are buff against the spy system (cause only 1 city really happy)

-The conquerers and big city builders get some malus against spy

-The militarist (mostly focusing on troops) have (most of the time) an Unhappy population with high amount of cities, and will get even more malus; while the scientists/producers have many cities but happy empires, so less malus.

-Improve the Spy system and make it more efficient.

Hope you'll enjoy :)