Spy (Civ6)

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Spy
Civilian unit of the Renaissance Era
Introduced in Civilization VI
Unlocked by	Diplomatic Service
Cost
Production	225
Production	225
Maint.	4
Maint.	4
Stats
Sight	3
Sight	3
Notes
Performs secret missions in foreign cities and protects your cities from enemy Spies. Production cost is progressive.

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The Spy is a Renaissance Era civilian unit in Civilization VI. It manifests the game's espionage system.

• Attributes:
  • Cannot be purchased with Gold.
  • Has Sight of 3.
• Abilities:
  • Can perform Espionage offensive missions in foreign cities (and city-states, in Rise and Fall).
  • Can perform Counter-Espionage defensive missions in your own cities.

Strategy

Main article: Espionage (Civ6)

Each player can support only a limited number of Spies. A player's Spy capacity increases by 1 for each of these:

•  Defensive Tactics: Classical Era civic (if playing as Wu Zetian)
•  Castles: Medieval Era tech (if playing as Catherine de Medici)
•  Diplomatic Service: Renaissance Era civic
•  Nationalism: Industrial Era civic
•  Ideology: Modern Era civic
•  Cold War: Atomic Era civic
•  Computers: Atomic Era tech
•  Intelligence Agency: Tier 2 government building ()

If the Secret Societies game mode is enabled, being a member of the Owls of Minerva and taking Indoctrination increases a player's Spy capacity by 2.

Civilopedia entry

Despite the scribblings of Ian Fleming, Alistair MacLean, and Tom Clancy, the doings of most spies are far less glamorous – in fact, downright grim – or rewarding than most think. While employed in various times and places throughout history with more or less success, espionage has been a useful policy of the state only since Francis Walsingham in Elizabethan England developed most modern methods of uncovering or concealing state secrets (such as cryptography, forgery, seduction, blackmail, assassination, and more). And it is rare that spies do so for noble reasons; most are either well-paid or blackmailed into undertaking such a dangerous career. Although there have been some notable periods when spy-craft was rampant, none matched the era of the Cold War in methods or activities across the globe. But the “romance” was drained from the spy business with the advent of electronic and satellite information gathering that the superpowers seized upon in the 1990s. Bond would be terribly disappointed.

Trivia

• Each Spy's name is chosen from its home civilization's citizen list.

Related achievements

Die Another Day Neutralize a Governor with a Spy A reference to the 2002 James Bond film of the same name.

Repo Man Steal a Great Work of Art and don't get caught. A repossession agent that retrieves outstanding rented or leased objects. May also be a reference to the film Repo Man, which features a repossession agent that 'retrieves' objects from clients without their compliance or knowledge.

See also

• Spy in other games