User Guide

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DIPLOMATS & SPIES
Diplomats are unique units that can act as ambassadors, envoys, secret agents, and saboteurs.
They can open contacts with other civilizations and establish embassies to gather information
about your rivals. They can steal information and otherwise disrupt your rivals. They can
bribe enemy armies. Stationing Diplomat or Spy units in your own cities reduces the
effectiveness of enemy Diplomats and Spies. When your civilization obtains the advance
of Writing, you can build Diplomats.
Be aware that enemy Diplomats can use all the same
techniques against your civilization as you use against theirs.
Once your civilization has developed the Espionage advance,
the Spy unit replaces the Diplomat unit on the PRODUCTION menu. A
Spy is superior to a Diplomat in several ways. Her greater
sophistication and more elaborate training allows her to choose a
specific technology or target improvement when entering a city
intent on mischief. In addition, she can travel more rapidly, moving
up to three squares a turn, regardless of the terrain. A Spy has an
observation range of two squares in every direction. When a Spy
successfully completes a mission, she has a chance of escaping
and returning to the nearest friendly city. The easier the mission,
the greater the chance that she will escape. For instance, stealing
a random civilization advance is easier than stealing a specific one.
Finally, Spies have the unique ability to plant nuclear devices in
enemy cities, as we’ll explain in Entering Enemy Cities.
BRIBING ENEMY UNITS
You might convince an enemy unit to defect and join your civilization. Only units of
civilizations governed by Democracy are completely immune to bribery.
In game terms, simply move a Diplomat or Spy into a square occupied by a single enemy
unit (neither Diplomats nor Spies can bribe units that are stacked together). A dialog box
appears, showing how much gold the unit demands to defect. If the unit is immune to
bribery, a dialog box will remind you of this condition.
The farther a unit is from its capital, the less gold is required. If you accept, the gold is
deducted from your treasury and the army switches sides (becomes your color). The Diplomat
or Spy survives the discussion regardless of his or her success in negotiating; however, if you
do not choose to pay the bribe, the enemy unit might attack your negotiator later. Diplomats
and Spies can bribe naval and air units as long as these are not stacked with other units.
The nearest friendly city becomes the home city for a newly bribed unit (see
Unit Roster for information on this point).
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