Okay, I'll admit that I never played a game during the beta for longer than about a hour and since I've gotten the finished product, I've yet to finish 1 complete game (althought I'm very close on my latest). But I do have some idea's on how espionage can be made a much more fun part of the game. If you have any idea's you might want to tag them on here as well.

1. Once you start putting money into espionage against another star power, you should have a random chance per turn of getting a ESPIONAGE EVENT relating to that race. For example, a window appears and offers you the chance to help incite unrest on a particular planet with 3 options. Option 1, do nothing. Option 2, provide some modest funds (planet loyaty is reduced by x%) and Option 3, provide weapons and funding for terriorists that reduces morale on that planet by x%. Other EVENTS could involve delays in social, military or research production either permantantly or temporarily. Options which increase our diplomatic relations with that race (i.e. behind the scenes peacetalks or pro-your race rallys), Options to actually get a random ship from the race who's crew decided to defect to your race. I believe that something like this would be great fun.

2. The ability to create a spy network to actually target espionage events against selected planets. Your spy is given a mission to perhaps steal research, delay production, cause unrest. Each mission requires a certain amount of credits to be spent and does not guarentee success. If the mission is a success, your spy gains experience to assist him in his next mission. However, if the mission ends in failure, there is a chance that the spy is caught - which causes your relations with that race to drop.

3. Another idea: If you have a spy network, you can right click on a races planet and get specific information about that planet (i.e. ships in orbit/type, planet defenses, number of troops, completed social projects, current social and military builds).

4. Another idea: Greater espionage levels gives you stat report like the one you get for your colonies but for the other races possessions/ships.

5. Counter Espionage: Obviously if you create a more aggressive espionage network, you need to have a counter espionage network. Counter Espionage works to cloak your information, reduce the chance of espionage mission success and also plays a part in reducting the effect of ESPIONAGE EVENTS that target you.

6. Other types of info that could be included in your espionage events: results of AI to AI negotiations (who got what, what was offered or what was turned down), immediate notification of declarations of war (AI v. AI), peace (AI v. AI), Alliances. Notifications of fleet build ups, suggestions of races planets that may be underdefended.

7. War Missions: Missions that destroy a selected planets completed social projects, degrade a starbases offense/defense, degrade a fleets offense/defense, sabotage of freighter routes.

Anyway, I think Stardock is missing the boat on what could be a far more fun element of the game (if really done right, this could be a mini-game all in itself). I don't expect all these suggestions to be implimented, but I hope that some of these suggestions might be enough to get someone to really think about how much more fun/great this game can be.

BTW, Stardock major, major Kudos on this game. Easily the best strategy game I've ever played (and yes, I have played Civ 1-4).