It happens, but pretty rarely. Spy actions have reasonably low success chances, and even then, the AI doesn't hire them as much as the other classes

I tried the spy, but found that I preferred an extra cleric in that spot instead. Eventually I imagine I'll go with a sixth army, and still have one diplomat, cleric, and merchant. I find the various types of knights useful, but only have so many slots to use.

Once a spy killed 3 of my goveners, including my king ... as I played without spy in my first game ... but since that time I always have one, with the skill to prevent spy action.
If revolts or diplomatic standing reductions are triggered from other spies, you don't know, but seems sometimes !

Originally posted by Doctard:

It happens, but pretty rarely. Spy actions have reasonably low success chances, and even then, the AI doesn't hire them as much as the other classes

KoH game where 100% of hired knights are not guaranteed spies?! Literally unplayable!

On my Very Hard campaign I regularly catch one with the "Witch Hunt" action.

Yeah, the worst I had was two of my Merchants getting poisoned in homeland in addition to some of them becoming pincushion for native arrows in faraway lands, but I try to keep my Stability high and have my Spy perform Witch Hunt each time opportunity appears.

i had a offense ready with 3 armies, my strongest city they converted my lvl 15 generall (only one at that time) well no war against them but only myself if thats enough for me it certainly was and thats just one of many occurences, many murdered knights, traders, clerics, spies etc. in 40hrs maybe 20 really noticable actions aside from the much more frequent happening rebell scum stuff.

It happens at start. First game I had several merchants desert me one after another, it was pretty harsh. The reason was neighbor’s spy king probably. Mid to late game it happens very rarely and not severe things like pagan religion conversion if your crown authority + nobility opinion is high (and it usually is).

I think it’s more balanced than the first game honestly, that you have some form of protection. First game even spy at court might not save you from ALL marshals deserting if dice rolls. There were one trick that 100% guarantee that your marshal is not a spy tho.

I had a enemy spy of a country i was at war with provoke me into another war which actually saved their existence for a while.

In my last playthrough, I had it too often.
Maybe it depends on your knights skills.
More skilful knights are more interesting target.
I'm not sure. But an AI killed several of my knights just in one game. Bribed my best marshall and stole entire legendary army. Had to declare war on Poland and kill them before they left my country.
Now I maxed up 2 of my spies. Also transferring troops from marshal to city every time he is not in battle. And making witch hunt regularly.
Usually capturing 2-3 spies from countries that I didn't even know they exist

In my actual playthrough as Bern, a spy provoked a war with Bavaria. I'm pretty sure Germany did this.

When you get war declared out of nowhere even though you're at sympatetic w/ trade agreement for years its probably a spy.

The other way I see it is that I never get anything done with witch hunt, its just a massive gold sink.

Originally posted by hellfusion:

There were one trick that 100% guarantee that your marshal is not a spy tho.

You must mean getting a knight with an unbefitting name for the kingdom you're playing so you just exile and re-hire until you get a familiar name, but yea this trick does not seem to apply here, had some court members are with names that don't make sense (having Aaron when playing as Byzantium), yet even after multiple witch hunts at 84% success it never found a spy.

Originally posted by iMbA*:

Already had a few campaigns in very hard with full espionage setting but so far never felt danger from enemy spies, only had some basic notifications that there was an attempt to bribe a knight but all of those failed. What happened with getting all your maxed out marshals and armies go into "revolt" and turn against you? It was fun having to start over because some generals you had carefully cultivated turned out to be spies or were bribed and now you need two full armies to beat just one of them. Actually mattered to keep a spy in the court for defensive purposes. Was AI capability for spies nerfed and turned into more of a player mechanic?

They killed my lvl 15 merchant that had 3 colonies that dude was making me BANK T_T

I donno about that. The only thing that bothers me is how effective spies are. My heirs and knights are falling like flies. They are max level knights, there should be more counter to spies. I feel like which hunt is pointless, only caught 2 spies so far and i have 4 marshals and about 8 merchants and 2 princesses die in mysterious circumstances already, i've had my treasury raided 2 or 3 times and i had one war start that was probably a spy since the game noted that the messenger was not speaking the language of the faction that sent the letter in which they declared war. And this was on limited espionage, I am thinking on going to very limited espionage by default. Oh and let's not forget the rebels. I have finally reached good stability no rebels spawning anywhere and then 4 freaking rebels popping out of nowhere at the same time minutes after my treasury was raided and my merchant vanished. Maybe you just don't have anyone spying on you that much, or maybe you king had high espionage skill. I feel that just by sitting in your court having you invest books and gold into their education, espionage already pays for itself in terms of damage done. Before any of the other actions that a spy can do. Not to mention that you can also lose your spy on a which hunt. If i can lose my spy on a which hunt, maybe let it succeed more often. The mere fact that i need to invest in a spy for counter espionage is investment enough in response to an enemy spy. i feel like the one doing the spying gets to much done and the one working on counter espionage doesn't get enough