Do we still not have an answer to this? It's weird that this is a strategy/tactics game and the spy mechanics are a mystery.
I sent 4 spies to scout a village's buildings and 0 spies died. The report was yellow, meaning at least one spy defense was triggered, so we can expect that camouflage was triggered. I did the math and found that camouflage was on a different building, so the Tavern is level 5 (and the village had 1 spy max). The Wall was level 19.
So I sent 4 spies to scout the same village's troops ~30 minutes later. 3 spies died and I failed to get a troop report.
Apparently spying 4v1 or 4v0 doesn't guarantee a report, which is a little surprising but not a big deal. Spying is obviously a random process, but it sucks to send spies with 0 idea of whether they will work. How can I build a strategy without any certainty of my spy attempts?
- Does the Wall help defend against spies? What about higher Tavern levels?
- Does having a Church/Chapel in the same province increase the attacking spies' chances of success?
- If I have 5 spies, how well should I expect my village to detect/kill spies or activate countermeasures?
- Does defense even scale with # of defending spies, or is 1 sufficient?
It would be great to know the full mechanics, but these are simple gameplay questions that don't seem to be answered anywhere.
Edit: Just thought I'd throw this in: Does the night bonus affect spy attempts?