Espionage

Espionage allows you to uncover what your opponent has at home: how many soldiers and tools they have, or how many resources they are holding in their warehouses. This way, you do not attack blindly, but with a precisely assembled army and the right tools. A blind attack without a spy is the fastest way to unnecessary losses.

Two Types of Espionage

Military Espionage shows you what units and tools the enemy has in their castle. This is the basis for preparing an attack, as you can determine how many attackers and what siege equipment you need based on the arrangement of the defenders.
Economic Espionage reveals how many resources the target has stored. This is useful when planning a raid for loot.

Note: economic espionage cannot be used on NPC enemies, only on players.

Number of Spies and Where to Get Them

You increase the number of spies by building and upgrading Taverns. The maximum number of spies is 73 and is composed as follows:

63 spies from three taverns at level 10 (each provides 21).
3 spies from the Prying Eyes skill at level 3.
7 spies from Gutter Runners at level 7.

Additionally, through research, you can speed up the spies' journey and further increase their number.

Accuracy vs. Risk

Before sending spies, you set the level of detail. Here, a direct relationship applies: the higher the accuracy, the greater the risk of detection. More spies and higher detail will give you more reliable information, but increase the chance of being caught.

The chance of being caught also increases with the number of guardhouses the enemy owns. Therefore, expect a higher risk against a well-defended target with many guardhouses.

How to Spy Smartly

Before any serious attack, send a spy as the first step to know what to expect.
Deploy enough spies at once; too few spies will provide an inaccurate or incomplete picture.
For targets with a lot of guardhouses, consider using lower detail to avoid unnecessarily losing the entire group of spies.
Remember that information becomes outdated; the opponent may rearrange their defense in the meantime.

Pro player tipSet the detail of espionage according to whom you are spying on. For weakly defended targets, feel free to go for maximum accuracy; for players with many guardhouses, it's better to lower the detail to avoid detection and losing spies.

Common mistakeAttacking without prior espionage. Without knowledge of the defenders and tools, you will assemble a poor army and lose soldiers that you could have easily saved with the right composition.