Send SpyGuy¶
A SpyGuy is a watcher you post on another planet. He is not one of your agents: sending him spends no agent, he cannot be caught, and he brings back no figures for the Spy Database. What he does is send word home the moment his hosts turn something on your planet.
Send him from InterPlanetary Operations, under Special Operations.
What he costs¶
Gold, by the day, and the whole stay is paid up front. The daily rate is drawn from the size of your own planet — every region every realm here holds — so a crowded planet pays more for the same man. The rate is quoted before you pick a target, since it is the same wherever you send him.
You choose how long he stays, up to fifteen days. If the stay costs more than you are carrying, the shortfall is named and the bank is opened for you; come back with it and the man goes, come back without it and nothing is sent or charged.
What he reports¶
Two things, and both arrive as planetary news where everyone here can read them:
- a group attack being assembled against this planet, or against one realm on it, with the hours left before it leaves
- a Gooie Kablooie being built for us — when the work starts, when the funding is complete, and if it is stood down again
He also reports whatever is already under way the day he arrives, so a man sent late is not wasted.
Reading what he sends¶
Each report arrives as planet news, dated, saying what was aimed at you and how long it had left when he wrote it. That line never changes afterward, so hours later it no longer tells you how long is left.
Incoming Attacks, on the InterPlanetary menu, is the same warnings kept
current: one row per threat, the soonest at the top, counting down as you read —
3h, then 90m, then away once the force has left. A weapon already flying
is listed with the days until it lands.
An empty list does not prove that nobody is coming. Apart from a weapon already in flight, only a watcher posted on another planet can report anything.
Why it matters¶
A weapon still on the ground is the builders' own business: nobody tells you it exists. You learn of it when it launches — and by then it is two days out with only your jets between it and your regions. A SpyGuy on the right planet buys you the days you need to raise them.
The planet you are watching is told nothing. There is no discovery, no trial, and no execution; when the days you paid for run out, your man simply comes home.
Strategy¶
Post him where the threat is, not where the grudge is. The planet that just lost a battle to you is the one assembling the answer, and the rate is the same whether you watch a rival or a neighbor you trust.
Sending another SpyGuy to a planet already watched from here does not add the two stays together. The stay becomes whichever is longer, and you still pay for every day you bought. This holds for every baron on your planet, because they share the watcher. Send a new one when the old stay runs out.