Empire-Wide Espionage and Technology...?

[thesilliest]

Hi. I'm new to the series and the game. I read the description of "Empire Wide Espionage", the way I read it, it sounded kind of like you'd be able to "steal" the tech of others, kind of like in the Civ series. But I've been playing through the game, trying to use Empire Wide Espionage to do this, and all I'm getting are reports on what techs they possess? Can espionage not steal techs for me?