I think some people here might be over reacting a little bit, on both sides of the fence
I don't much like spying, or spies anymore; I find that the damage done is more malicious these days than how I remembered it in the past. That being said, I've used information in the past (when i was younger and more foolish) to the detriment of the victim alliance.
Once upon a time I helped plant a spy in an enemy alliance that was trying to kill us and we read all their attack plans (which they screwed up anyways) and totally pwned them. Toby will remember more. Anyways, that was an amazing time and I definitely did enjoy the experience since the enemy alliance was full of jerks, and it seemed like a funny thing to do.
I don't think that being spied upon is the end of the world, Spies are out soon enough anyways for the general population that ID lists will be out shortly. You might lose a lot more land and get bashed about rather heavily until you fall out of reach a bit, but so long as your group holds together, you'll be fine. And besides, motivation for revenge can make a round a lot more fun. Not to mention you'll be low ranked so you can work some mass attacks of your own of other allies. Assuming, of course, you manage to stick together
Find the spy, kill the spy. Play for fun!
Bullsh*t
No-one recruits a spy deliberately. That spy could have easily been recruited by any other alliance, and its likely that they specifically applied for an alliance they wanted to bring down.
Why dont you tell us how to spot a spy? Oh wait you cant. Now gtfo
Uh yeah. It's still your own fault. Be careful when you accept someone into your alliance, duh. Don't accept people you don't know or can't trust. It's pretty bloody simple really.
Well in all fairness, some alliances do try to, or have to, recruit people they don't know or trust. You, apparently, would call this foolish behaviour, some others might see it as nice, and helpful to the game in general. Sure, you might find yourself immune to this feeling of justice and fairness to which some players ascribe.
Sometimes you just have to blindly
trust people; and occasionally it may turn out to be a scorching experience where you get burned. Or you may make a good new ingame contact, and potential friend, who knows. There is always that element of risk in meeting new people, which is a good thing since it reduces the stagnant nature of one's pool of friends, and potentially might make the game more interesting with more "cliques" as Twigley so desperately wanted.
You could always only recruit people you know well. oh wait, that'd kill the game.
How would it kill the game? Huh? Oh wait, it wouldn't? K.
Well, I think what Hiuey was trying to say was that if you
only recruit people you know or trust, you're likely to make the game stagnant (as is sort of the case at the moment) since there won't be much fluctuation in alliance membership; or at least not permanently.
It seems to me that if you only ever recruit people you know, there's no way to easily facilitate the emergence of "new blood" in the game. Except through specific channels, where they've been vouched for, or handpicked to play by the current "elite". This system seems detrimental to the game as a whole. Encouraging it because there is a minor "possibility" of getting spied on seems a little short sighted.
---> The bit I love the most is you all complain about the spys, but you're generally happy to use their information.
I know quite a few people who will refuse to use intel when it's acquired via underhand methods. I myself, and many of my acquiantances ingame, have denounced ID spreaders/spies to their own alliances, or other players in general, due to their actions.
Admittedly, I'm sure some people are hypocritical, but you'll always run into a few of those. I do think that spying is too damaging an activity at too critical a time for the game. We really cannot afford to lose too many more players due to stupid, short sighted and ignorant tactics. That is, of course, only my opinion