As a chronic spy and spy-recruiter, a few notes on my experience of the business in BM (current as of, say, 8 months ago---- maybe everything has changed since then). These could be generally true, or it may be that I manage to recruit a "type."
1. Most spies who are effective at spying aren't silent people blending into the background. They're usually active characters who invest a lot in the realm.
2. Most spies don't see themselves as spies, even OOCly. Many people who pass on information from their realms believe ICly, and as best I can tell OOCly, that they are helping their realm or team.
3. I've rarely ever used spies (with a notable exception I will address below) that were "planted." I usually find spies with histories in realms.
4. I don't think there's a strong tie between boringness and spies. I think there is definitely some--- active players in boring realms want an outlet. So there's a clear mechanism. However, really exciting realms also create internal politics that motivate espionage (see: Luria). These motives and actions create numerous opportunities to recruit sources. So I don't there's a catch-all way to prevent people in your realm from spying: making it more active or more quiet may change WHO becomes a spy, but it won't change that you have SOME spying.
5. Spying, in my experience (and I'll grant my beat on the espionage market is less on the orders-relaying side and more on the intrigue side, though I've done more than a fair share of both), is not that effective at creating a strategic advantage. Waiting for your enemy to give orders so you can give orders often creates issues even the most tactically incompetent person should be able to see, and knowing the enemy's orders on a turn-by-turn basis usually doesn't change your actions. In my experience, the most "useful" spying was 1) Nurturing turncoats and thereby sapping the enemy's political will to fight and 2) Weekly strategies, i.e. "Our next campaign will focus on this objective," etc.
Others are free to comment from their own experiences, but those have been my observations from what I think is one of the longer BM espionage careers. If my personal experiences are generally applicable, then I'm hesitant to endorse the "spying is bad for teams" thesis. Spying seems usually to reflect discontent within a team about how that team is being managed, and gives team members an outlet to depose current team leaders. That's not a bad thing.
But it seems to me the concern with spying revolves around trust. Spying can damage the environment of trust that makes it possible to play BM "as with friends." And I think that's a fair complaint. As I mentioned above, I have used planted agents on one particularly spectacular occasion some of the older folks probably remember, and which I flatter myself to say I see as a sort of epochal marker for the rise of the current espionage culture in BM.
For the younger folks, I'm referring to the last days of Oligarch when Oligarch's intelligence service (the "Worst Case Committee") actively used Oligarch's status as a refugee point for the many realms wiped out by Sirion, Old Rancagua, and Fontan to develop a wide-ranging network of spies. Simultaneous with a military-focused spy ring relaying orders, we cultivated a group of deeply embittered refugees from the destroyed city-state of Avamar who were desperate for a new home and willing to do anything to procure such a homeland. So I orchestrated a fake rebellion in Oligarch to kill two birds with one stone: give a bunch of my agents a kick-butt back-story to sneak into an enemy realm, and roust out some enemy agents (I forget if Sirion or Fontan were spying on us).
Once my agents lost their rebellion (made sure of that), they went to Old Rancagua and were accepted as fellow-travelers against Oligarch. I made sure one of them got captured by Oligarch a week or two later, and we executed him, just to prove to Old Rancagua these were real enemies of Oligarch.
A few weeks later, Oligarch's army (and specifically a division composed of refugees from various realms, mostly Avamar and Rancagua) launched a campaign to draw away Old Rancague's army. They did so, and my rebels moved to the capital, and rebelled. They won the rebellion, and immediately started wreaking havoc. The old economy system gave more power to the council to mess things up, and they did their best. Then there was a counter-rebellion by Old Rancagua loyalists, and they narrowly retook the throne. Meanwhile, an Oligarch-sponsored CTO just narrowly failed on OR's second city.
This was called Operation Rubber Ducky. It created a very large amount of bitterness from several fronts: players with characters identifying as Avamarian had a super-strong OOC identification with their realm identity, and were pissed at Oligarch's leaders (myself among them) for using them and then failing to deliver the win. Old Rancaguans felt we had cheated in some way. Many people in Oligarch who didn't know the full details in advance were mad because they also felt it violated the game's spirit, and felt Oligarch's reputation was tarnished. Needless to say, when Old Rancagua did eventually recover, they ended up being the most vindictive of Oligarch's three major enemies.
I provide this backstory because I learned a lot from Rubber Ducky. First, think twice before knocking over the other kid's sand-castle. Several good players left over Rubber Ducky. I'm not sure the game won. Second, if you're going to knock over the other kid's sand-castle, have a toy ready to give him. Rubber Ducky was pretty clearly aimed at turning the Old Rancaguans into refugees with absolutely no sense that we might try and make any type of fusion or anything like that. I don't think that was good. Third, even if you have a toy ready, try not to needlessly insult the other side, like by telling them they just got had by Operation Rubber Ducky. Fourth, using "planted" agents raises serious objections among many players and strikes a lot of people as, if not outright cheating, certainly not playing with friends.
I've tried to keep those lessons in mind since then. My point with all that was just to say I think rather than talking about "spying" being bad, we should accept that many players do find that espionage is a positive component of their gameplay experience, and try to work out social norms about what the best way to incorporate that gameplay desire actually is.
