Spy
From Populous Wiki
| Spy |
 |
| Life : 3 |
| Strength : 3 |
| Weak Scale : 1 |
A spy is the only follower who can disguise himself into the color of an enemy tribe currently inhabiting the planet. The best way to see these Followers is after the Level An Easy Target when the Spy Training Hut is invented by the Chumara Tribe, the player's next door neighbors in this Single Player level.
The foreground of the attached picture shows the Blue Tribe's Spy Training Hut, 4 Followers, of the Spy Grade. They are distinguished to the player as Followers in black jackets, and pants of the targeted player's color. To the enemy, they are seen as braves. Their main claim to fame is the ability for them to disguise as an enemy follower, sneak into an enemies base and light Huts or trees on fire.
To disguise, simply select one spy, or multiple spies, and click an enemy Tribe's color on the left panel to the right of the shaman shortcut icon. The icon switches to a masking button and with one simple left click the spy's middle color slowly changes to the selected enemy Tribe's color. Spies can only be commanded to sabotage (ignite) trees and enemy structures. For undamaged buildings, the procedure to do this is the same as attacking: simply select the spy and left-click a target to set it ablaze. If a spy is not disguised when attempting to set a fire, he will be quickly attacked.
The spy's strength is the lowest of all units: 1 brave can easily kill a spy, barehanded in less than 6 seconds whilst leaving the brave just at ¾ health. It approximately takes 3 spies to kill just one Brave.
An enemy spy lurking in one's base can be uncovered by simply finding him and right-clicking him. Another tactic is to set a spy in a Tower and let him uncover spies attempting to gain entrance to one's base.
Putting a Spy in a Tower will unmask all enemy spies in a large area. Spies have the largest viewing range in a tower of all followers, making them excellent lookouts. Also, all the area under the spy's tower range will be cloaked from worldview the same as Fog of War, hiding details about any buildings or followers in the area.
There is also a glitch involving spies: if you send one masked spy to attack a damaged building before braves enter it for repair purposes, your spy will destroy the building, and will not be unmasked. On top of that, the building cannot be repaired (even if there are braves repairing it at the same time the spy is destroying it).
Tactics
A good tactic to use with spies is to attack the training huts (warrior, fire warrior, preacher and spy) or the vehicle huts (boats and balloons) as this will temporarily prevent the enemy from producing any skilled followers or vehicles. Another good tactic is to burn down the enemy's defenses so your shaman can walk in safely.
Chaos Attack
Simply select a group of six spies and assign three to attack one side of an entrance, and another three to another side of an entrance, or divide up them by two, and make three groups of two attack an enemy's base. Simply bookmark each new unit and start assigning each to set ablaze Huts. Burn multiple Huts (ctrl and left-click three Huts) for the first group, five Huts for the second, and three Huts for the third group, then expand on this by assigning each one to attack separate Huts.
Multiple Burns
Spies can burn multiple Huts by holding ctrl and then clicking each Hut.