I think that this has been mentioned before, but I just wanted to mention it again - Spies are amazing weapons when attacking cities. When you successfully "Support a City Revolt", the city's defense percentage drops to zero for one turn. You then move in with your siege weapons to soften up the defenders and finish the city off with with your Maces, Axes, etc. all in one turn.

Sometimes it helps to bring more than one spy just in case one gets captured or fails to "Support a City Revolt"

Doesn't this strike anyone as just a tad overpowered? To take down a 120% defense city without a single siege weapon?

Don't get me wrong, I've used this too, but it feels wrong. Does the AI do it?

I think it's a good part of the game. Unless you apply sufficient resources to espionage, you won't be able pull this off consistently: revolt missions aren't free. If you don't build courthouses, agencies, security bureaus or have at least some of your national economy diverted to espionage it won't be a viable option at all. On the other hand, you could totally forgo the espionage effort and apply the production and funds to other facets to support other victory strategies.

Additionally, the spy-vs-spy aspect comes in, too. If your enemy has beefed up their counter-intelligence efforts, then it may be more efficient to drop the city's defense siege style. I think espionage is a good check and balance against civs that put everything into one aspect of game play, instead of a balanced approach where each part is given sufficient attention.

Should you worry more about the Executive in a stack? I mean if you have Sid's Sushi and a lot of food for it, when taking over a city, you can boost its culture significantly after the revolt is over

I find the " support city revolt " mission a huge waste of EP. You can drop to zero an enemy city defense just with planes / ships / artillery ,in this way you save EP to something else more usefull like to destroy an enemy building/s.

I use it before I have an airforce, artillery and navy.

Seige weapons are two slow to keep up with Cav.

I find the " support city revolt " mission a huge waste of EP. You can drop to zero an enemy city defense just with planes / ships / artillery ,in this way you save EP to something else more usefull like to destroy an enemy building/s.

Spies come with alphabet, preceding planes, most ships and most arty. Additionally, for an early war, the spy is more maneuverable in enemy territory than siege weapons, due to commando, and much more later if your foe has built a rail net.

Yes, it is expensive, but it also stops their city production for a turn. It might even prevent whipping/drafting more defenders at the same time, I'm not sure.

Probably best to have them ahead of your SOD, so they can case out the city for a turn or two to get a discount on the EPs.

I don't go to war (post-classical) without a stack of spies anymore (though I tend not to integrate them into the actual SoD itself, but plant them slightly in advance). I'm not sure they're overpowered, but they're close.

When it comes to stealing techs - how are the rules? Can you steal techs through the whole game, or only in certain parts of it? I noticed that it was only an option throufh the ancient and classical

Only great spies can steal techs? I don't understand how spies work that well. I'll make them if my city keeps getting messed with other then that I pay no attention whatsoever. I just make the buildings to increase espionage points and I'll usually have more points then anyone else doing that. They get caught all the time and go all the way back to my capital. Waste of time to me.

You can always steal tech if you have the necessary EPs for it. But the tech won't show up to steal if you don't have the EPs, so it might appear as if you are unable to do so in general - which isn't the case.

You don't need a GSpy to steal tech, they just help by giving you a large boost of EPs. You do the actual stealing with regular spies.

Bh

A Sid's Sushi Executive is more dangerous than a spy in a SOD. With the executive, you're setting off a miniature culture bomb!

When it comes to stealing techs - how are the rules? Can you steal techs through the whole game, or only in certain parts of it? I noticed that it was only an option throufh the ancient and classical

You can steal techs at any time; but I have found from building the Great Wall and infiltrating a neighbor with a great spy (and then using the follow up regular spies for the actual missions) that it is much better to steal the early Ancient and Classical techs. You can steal a lot of them with one or two infiltrations of great spies. The later techs are very expensive, and you do not save as many turns as the early techs, so you do not get as many techs for your great spy.

It is better than trying to trade for the techs since they will not trade their newer techs for quite a while.

Doesn't this strike anyone as just a tad overpowered? To take down a 120% defense city without a single siege weapon?

Don't get me wrong, I've used this too, but it feels wrong. Does the AI do it?


Remember, in ancient times treachery was THE way to take a city, especially a walled city. Every attacker would try to find a traitor to open the gates! I suspect that the 'city revolt' can be justified as finding a accomplice.

It is actually quite realistic in this view.

Best wishes,

Breunor

Remember, in ancient times treachery was THE way to take a city, especially a walled city. Every attacker would try to find a traitor to open the gates! I suspect that the 'city revolt' can be justified as finding a accomplice.

It is actually quite realistic in this view.

Best wishes,

Breunor

That's totally how I see it too. Spies are like Trojan horses for Civ.

I find that it's always faster to attack cities the conventional way, with siege weapons. I need those anyway, for the collateral damage.

Spies are slow. Siege weapons are even slower, but the turns they need to bring down the city defenses I usually use to let the other units in the stack heal themselves, or they do some pillaging. City Revolt is costly, may fail, or you may fail to take the city in one turn, so next turn you may end up with a newly-fortified city and neither spies nor siege weapons at hand.

I use it before I have an airforce, artillery and navy.

Seige weapons are two slow to keep up with Cav.


I disagree.

Before the Artillery becomes available you can choose among several ancient counterpart like Catapults,Cannons and I also think Trebuchets do the same even if I have never used them.

The speed is not an issue because the defense-zeroing procedure always precedes an attack. Considering it may take even two turns to lower defense your troops have all the time to be part of the game within the zeroing-defense procedure,considering they usually travel along the way with troops.

Moreover usually I pillage roads nearby cities in order to slow down or even prohibit enemy reinforcement to come therefore the commando ability not always can be applied succesfully.

A Sid's Sushi Executive is more dangerous than a spy in a SOD. With the executive, you're setting off a miniature culture bomb!But when sending off an excecutive in a foreign city - the culture that is produced, isn't it their culture?
You can steal techs at any time; but I have found from building the Great Wall and infiltrating a neighbor with a great spy (and then using the follow up regular spies for the actual missions) that it is much better to steal the early Ancient and Classical techs. You can steal a lot of them with one or two infiltrations of great spies. The later techs are very expensive, and you do not save as many turns as the early techs, so you do not get as many techs for your great spy.

It is better than trying to trade for the techs since they will not trade their newer techs for quite a while. But how many points are we talking that early?

Sometimes, if I'm not saving my Espionage Points for other things, I'll use a spy.

It is expensive, though (use up too much EP, and the enemy gets cheaper espionage attacks, plus you can lose your line of sight into their empire... in the mid-game that isn't always easy to maintain).

i barely build seige weapons anymore. just a couple spies stationed in enemy cities i plan to conquer drive down the mission cost, then i move in and maybe waste 1 or 2 artillery units and move in with my city raiding units. before i had to have an incredible number of siege units especially if i am in the pre-cannon period against a castle fortified city. it would take 10 trebs few turns to bring it down to 0%.

seige weapons were already nerfed, as they cannot kill units off anymore, so i have no problems not building them anymore and instead using spies.

I think that this has been mentioned before, but I just wanted to mention it again - Spies are amazing weapons when attacking cities. When you successfully "Support a City Revolt", the city's defense percentage drops to zero for one turn. You then move in with your siege weapons to soften up the defenders and finish the city off with with your Maces, Axes, etc. all in one turn.

Sometimes it helps to bring more than one spy just in case one gets captured or fails to "Support a City Revolt"

Oooo, I did not know that. I was still going to agree...I love using spies to bring down city walls or castles before I attack.

yes, a thanks to the op. great idea, and i hate waiting for catapults anyway.
This makes me want to try an amphibeous assault with a spy first attack.

One tactic that i have not used in as while is dropping off a couple defenders on an enemy mountain and then hitting a city further up/down the coast.
a Spy showing the weak city and then subverting it could make for a quick city raze- and confusion for the enemy.

I've tried both. Using spies is annoying if you plan to wait for the -50% Stationary Spy bonus, but if you send spies ahead to the next city while your siege pounds the 1st city, then it can be pretty nice.

You need to build quite a lot of spies in order to be effective with them, since you will probably lose 1 spy every 3 missions, if not more.

You're basically diverting the hammer costs of building siege to the commerce cost of building EP's, but don't forget to consider the hammer cost of the spies themselves!

i used spies as my pre-war stack of preparation today. i wanted to stomp on Hammurabi but i didn't want to earn "-1 DoWd our friend" with Pacal since his friendly status might not be reliable, it's based on my underhanded behavior in the first place (see below). i have cristo so civic swaps are easy. i changed to the default government civic and used a spy to get Hamm out of HR (pacal's favorite civic). that made him lose +6 wise civics. then i realized Shaka liked him too, so i changed out of conf to taoism and converted Hamm. suddenly Hamm had no friends except his vassal Cyrus, perfect! changed myself back to conf and US the next turn just like i wanted to be.

i was a complete brat, and while i was in the default government civic i used spies to change Shaka and Pacal to it too. their teching slowed down quite a bit for some reason :mischief:

Pacal founded Buddhism, i founded conf, spread it to Shaka early, and made the AP. Pacal settled an annoying island right by my continent. so i sent a conf missionary there, and i convert him to conf every 15 turns like clockwork. i have a sign by the city, telling me the turn number that i'll need to re-counterespionage and which turn he'll change religions, so that i can get spies over to get the stationary discount :lol:. works like a charm, he's at friendly due to shared religion, but when he gets to be buddhist for half a turn he's at cautious.

i've gotten fantastic use out of spies this game. besides all the diplomacy stuff i stole 6 or more techs from HC after monty died. HC didn't know anybody else so he'd not have traded, thank you great wall! but i haven't used a single spy for a revolt this entire game *giggle*

what if the AI knew to use spies to bring down defenses to 0%? we would be so pissed.

Luckily the AI is still completely inept except for an SOD attack. I love how they try so hard to take my city, and would easily do so, if only they hadn't sent their artillery last. My little guy with .01 health defense against all 10 of those no problem at all. :lol:

It does not matter if the executive creates a big bomb of their culture. Because it's your city, so it will be your culture and the city will be almost impossible to take back culturally and revolts would be reduced due to the higher borders. So the city could starve out other cities as their BFC is under threat

Or I think that's how it works. I think Sid's Sushi creates your culture in a city