
First up: spies. I understand the theory, but not the mechanics. Why the flock do I (as the United States) have spies in the UK? I suppose anyone who is technologically advanced is just asking to be infiltrated, but still.
Why are my spies so terrible and why is it modeled so unrealistically? I mean, the US starts out with spies having a 22% chance of infiltrating most nations. Shouldn't it be easier to infiltrate a 3rd world nation like, oh, El Salvador than it is to infiltrate Japan or Germany? If you pay the right person enough in those smaller countries you could probably get a tour of their research facilities which includes an "all access" pass to the restricted areas as well. No spies would even be necessary. Now Japan on the other hand should be wary of Westerners and getting a spy to infiltrate them should be more difficult. Not so. (At least, not from what I've seen so far).

How do my spies get better? I can't risk sending spies somewhere if they will be detected all the time.
Right now there are 33 spies in the US from various countries. I understand that I can send spies to my own country which supposedly protects me from them somewhat. There's also a counter-espionage option. When I tried that with 1 spy in my own country, it failed to locate anyone and my lone spy vanished into thin air. What happened to him? Defected?

I'll have more questions, don't worry. This is just the start.

- Zombie