Spy

By "Spying", players in Xhodon refer to attacking a palace, hero or sentinel to get information about the enemy horde's strength.

Espionage

To spy, one usually uses a hero without any creatures. This way, the hero moves very fast and there will be no lost creatures. There will still be a battle following the normal battle system, which means that both the spying player and the player spied on receive a battle report containing the desired information.

The defending player might have hidden some creatures in his Secret Cavern which didn't participate in the fight, so there is no guarantee that you will fight exactly what the report showed. It might also be a hero in a different valley of the same area who is allied to your target player was on normal defence setting when you spied, but has been changed to area defence when your horde arrives.

Spy Prevention

The Crystalline Catapult is an excellent way to defend yourself against spies.

The Crystalline Catapult will throw heroes without creatures into a time vortex, i.e. they are thrown to a random different area somewhere in the world. As most spies will have no creatures with them, you can simply literally kick them out with your catapult. Until they return, your catapult should well be ready for the next shot.

This simple tactics, however, is why many players load a spy with two or three Unicorn Carts. They have a moving speed of 2 tpa instead of the hero's 1 tpa, but in return the hero will only lose these Unicorn Carts with the first catapult shot. If there is no second catapult available, the espionage can not be prevented.