Spies, army revolt overpowered?

[Tontoman]

Just fired up a normal game (did a bit of an easy one to get the hang of it) but I'm getting crushed by spies. Started with Spain on early and got up to three provinces so doing well. Problem is three times in the past 15 minutes of gametime I got hit with an army revolt.
Of course if I rehire my marshalls I'll probably be getting spies again. I have one spy (family member with 3 star espionage) doing anti-spy work but doesn't seem to make a difference.

So is it just game over once you got spies in your court as they just hit you with army revolt which probably makes you hire even more spies? Even it if isn't in the long run, it's for this game, no pop left in my cities after losing three armies each.

T.

[maladominus]

I have one spy (family member with 3 star espionage) doing anti-spy work but doesn't seem to make a difference.


Wait. What is your KING's Espionage rating? Three? One? Zero? You say that your royal family member (probably one of the princes) has 3-stars to Espionage. Well, that does not matter! The only thing that gives bonus to your spies is the KING's own espionage rating.

So if you want to catch enemy spies right away, your King needs to have a very good Espionage rating.

P.S. --- now every time I start a new game, I will keep re-loading until I have a King that has good Espionage rating. Also the Crown Prince needs to have good star ratings. =)

[Angryminer]

No, finding a spy and spy-actions depend on the king's espionage skill, the counter-spy's skill and the enemy-spy's skill aswell as the enemy king'd espionage skill.

Try hiring a member of your royal family to solve the army-rebellions.

Angryminer

[Tontoman]

My king doesn't have any, but the prince I'm using as a counter spy has three. I haven't upgraded him (educated) yet as this is the beginning of the game and I haven't created enough books yet. I'm still in the army upgrade stage so I can build something other than peasants.

Don't really have a problem with not finding spies right away, if it was that easy they would be worthless. It's the fact that army revolt removes all marshalls (which means you'll just be recruiting more spies and you loose all the experience they got), all army units and you lose the pop that created those units. If it removed one marshal, or all but you kept the units, or even if you got those pops back etc. it wouldn't be so bad.
Like this it's just game over for me, restart and have a nice day.

BTW that's with kingdom power at 5, thought it's meant to be harder to do that type of stuff with everyone happy.

T.