You'll probably want to upgrade to GCII 2.0, it includes a considerable revamp of the Spy system so you can have passive intelligence gathering without needing to sabotage buildings. 

As for the search feature, that's been broken for a while.  Luckily, you can use Google to bypass it entirely.  Just enter "Espionage site:forums.galciv2.com" in the bar and you'll get some good results.  The "site:" limiter is a great asset that's generally unknown.

Off-type defenses do contribute to your defense, but only at the truncated square root of their normal value.  A missile defense of 9-15 becomes 3 if you're attacked with beams, while one in the range of 4-8 becomes 2.  Using perfect squares tends to yeild the best overall defense for your buck.

Econ and research treaties give a quantity of revenue/research equal to 10% of the giver's revenue/research to the recipient.  This value is not deducted from your output- it's a pure bonus to the receiver.  You'll want to garner as many of those as you can, and use your own wisely because they are extremely valuble to other races.

I reread (4 times) the espionage in DA/TA thread further down the page & figured out the passive spying comes with 2.0 lol.

Only problem is I got it from New Zealand's version of Ebay (Unless a game goes Platinium here it stays at NZ$110, even 2 year old ones.....)

Virtually every game Single player game can be patched fine, only online games don't allow 2nd hand games.

Anyway I installed Impulse, & I'm not allowed to patch, I looked around the net & found DA patch 1.80g.

Anyone know where I can download patch 2 or higher?

& thanks for the help InfernalRS

The Good-Neutral-Evil choices on planets, Are they planet wide or Empire Wide? (Killing Squid's for Morale, Trading with Pirates for XX% increase in starships etc

Most choices are planetary, but some are empire-wide.  Killing squids for morale is planetary as is trading with pirates for starship bonus.  Soldiering bonuses and interest rates, for example, are empire-wide.

Yes.  All ships built on that planet are granted an attack bonus.

I have broadband, which apart from Fiber optics in the CBD of a coupla cities or Satalite, Broadband is the fastest New Zealand has.

I get 20Kb's, once I hit my limit of 3gb, I go down to 4-6 Kb/s.

The only game I play online is Anarchy Online, & even that I've given up on.

I only play the single player components of games.

Battlefield 2142 is awesum, but it's almost unplayable online, I brought it (New) after trying it for the single player element.

It's akin to a Drunk trying to snipe a marble lol

I keep it in mind about Second hand games.

It would be nice.  Say, just to slow the intel gain rate, even.