What is generally seen as a good ratio of spies to land on express? I'm playing com for first time and as a result have what feels like a rare treat of been able to mass produce spies at a silly rate...... The question is where should I stop!

They sit at home eating their heads off. Hungry fluffers.

Mine is usually at ~20 Spal & 0 Spy tech.

20 is ok for netting purposes, if you intend on warring then pump it up to 50+, the damage they do is impressive if you know how to use them :-)

Even for netting purposes it depends a bit on your play style. 20 spal is probably higher than needed if you join gdi, are making mostly turrets, and are not attacking much.

If you are attacking quite a bit then 20 is a solid spal.

~10 is sufficient for me

maybe 15+ if teching.

I think it should be stated that the spies you do choose to keep should be kept for "your" spying purposes.

Spy defense is a joke. I have seen time and time again a small crappy SPAL op a nice to large SPAL on 1 attempt.

If your going all X it could even be wise to run 0 spies, seeing as if someone wants to hit you, 9/10x they are going to and be successful.

Then again anyone who spies my countries would call me a hypocrite :p, I tend to run heavy on spies.... its how I was taught to play and a habit that was/is hard to break :/

I also run spy heavy countries because it is how I was brought up. It is not very good for netting as they cost a lot in expenses and (I think) bushels. But I grab aggressively and RoR readily if a target goes all jetter to retal so I like to be ready to rumble if and when someone stands up for themselves. Also I usually play techer and hate losing a teching turn to a failed spy op.