Espionage

Knowledge wins wars before the first volley is fired. Spy ships slip past harbour patrols, count stockpiles, sketch fortifications, and tally garrisons, returning with the intelligence that separates a decisive strike from a costly blunder.

Combat

Apply intelligence to pick favourable engagements and avoid disaster.

Fleet

Voyage timing rules that also govern spy fleet travel.

The Art of Reconnaissance

A spy mission dispatches one or more Spy Ships to a rival settlement. The ships sail under cover, attempt to gather intelligence, and return with whatever they observed, or nothing at all, if detected. More ships and deeper Espionage research improve the odds, while the target's Watch Tower and Kennels work against the mission.

Reconnaissance may be conducted against any foreign settlement, with one exception: Governors still under sanctuary cannot be spied upon, and launching a spy mission while under sanctuary forfeits that shield. Beyond that, alliances and friendships offer no shelter from secret scrutiny. Only political consequences.

A shuttered isle is opaque to reconnaissance: agents find no way past the barred gates and return home unharmed, but with no intelligence to report.

Marshal Voss: Field order

Never commit a war fleet without first sending scouts. The cost of a spy mission is trivial compared to the cost of a failed assault.

Shore Surveys

Spying on an uninhabited island produces a Shore Survey rather than a standard espionage report. Instead of enemy garrison counts, the survey catalogues the island's natural stores and wildlife.

Each resource is assessed by abundance: Scarce, Modest, Plentiful, or Overflowing. The label is relative to the island's overall reserves. When one resource clearly dominates, the report names it outright: "Lumber appears to be this island's chief bounty."

These labels are not the same as an island's resource tier (barren through abundant), which is a permanent classification visible on the chart. A survey label of "Overflowing" means one resource is unusually high compared to the island's other stores, not that the island itself is top-tier.

This is the only reliable way to discover an island's specialisation before committing a raiding fleet or a colonisation convoy. Every island in the archipelago favours one resource, but the chart reveals nothing. Only boots on the ground will tell you which shore holds the timber you need.

Uninhabited islands use whatever Watch Tower level the island actually has (normally zero), and their counter-intel happiness defaults to the archipelago baseline, so the target side of the success formula never penalises a Shore Survey. Your own settlement's morale still applies. A single spy ship sent from a content settlement to a pristine coast therefore matches the top-left cell of the Base Success Chance table exactly.

Master Quill: Margin note

A single spy ship is enough to reveal an island's stores. Chart a course through unclaimed waters and survey every shore you pass. The cost is trivial. The knowledge is not.

Success Chance

The probability of a successful mission is always between 5% and 95%. No mission is guaranteed, and no target is impenetrable. The base chance starts at 50%, improved by additional spy ships and Espionage research, and reduced by the target's Watch Tower (3% penalty per level). The reference table shows that base chance only, before morale, Kennels, and Espionage research are applied.

Morale then multiplies the base chance. Low happiness at the launching settlement weakens spy execution (roughly a 10% cut at the first penalty tier), and low happiness at the target weakens local counter-intel (roughly a 10% easing for the attacker at that tier). The two effects compose: a miserable launch against a stable target fares worst. After morale, each Kennels level at the target subtracts a further 1% flat.

Intelligence Depth

Not all spy reports are equal. The depth of intelligence gathered depends on the number of ships sent and the level of Espionage research. More capable missions reveal more about the target.

Sharing intelligence

A successful scouting report is shared with your alliance. It appears in the alliance Operations feed, and any banner-mate can open the full report — so a single well-placed scout informs the whole alliance, and no one need spend ships charting the same harbour twice.

Common Missteps

Most failed spy networks break for predictable reasons. Correcting these early saves ships and prevents costly blind assaults.

• Sending a lone spy into a fortified harbour: High Watch Tower levels punish small probes. Send additional spy ships or wait for better timing.
• Attacking on stale intelligence: Garrison counts and stores change quickly. Run fresh reconnaissance before committing a war fleet.
• Ignoring settlement morale: Low happiness weakens espionage at launch. Stabilise morale before high-value missions.

Kennels & Guard Hounds

The Kennels serves a dual purpose.

Spy detection: Each Kennels level reduces enemy spy success chance by 1%, stacking with the Watch Tower penalty.

Guard Hounds: The Kennels raises Guard Hounds, war dogs that cannot board ships or leave the island, but bolster a garrison cheaply. Each Kennels level supports up to 30 hounds.

Early Warning from the Watch Tower

While spies gather intelligence abroad, the Watch Tower provides early warning at home. Higher levels reveal progressively more detail about incoming threats, giving time to muster a defense or evacuate resources.

Master Quill: Margin note

A failed mission is still instruction. Track where detection occurred, adjust ship count or target order, and send again with purpose.

Common questions