With the overhaul of espionage in BTS, I was wondering how it fits into your overall stategy. I rarely, if indeed ever; take advantage of this system beyond building up enough espionage points to see what technology is being researched by rival civs. Am I missing out on important stategies?

I almost always settle any great spys (for the production bonus more than anything), or use them to initiate a golden age. I almost never build spys, very rarely I will build one to scout out enemy terrain, but that's about all.

the same with me, but i play on easier levels so maybe they become more crucial as you advance in level

What you describe is fine and I often use that strategy. However, you should be aware of the power of espionage if your willing to micromanage espionage points a little bit.

1) Build dpies and use them to send cities you are about to attack into revolt. This eliminates the need for seige weapons except for damage.
2) Focusing eps to one Ai that is ahead in tech allows you to steal techs. This works well if you settle an early GSpy (such as from the great wall).
3) Not to toot my own horn but I suggest you check out my second Mao RPC game http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=268640 in which I stayed even or ahead in tech by stealing techs and leveraging eps towards different Ais (I stole 23 techs!).

Hi ,

two threads come to mind ;

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=252496

Complete Espionage Mission Cost Guide

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=247719

Spy detection


its often an aspect thats overlooked , but it sure can change a game , especially in human to human games , and in AI versus human games , why not steal a tech or two , why not cause a little trouble , etc , ...

ones you know it you will love it :goodjob:


Have a nice day :)

In a word...NO.

Some players like it, and other don't. Give it a try and if it fits your play style then use it.

I typically settle my first Great Spy and then build the Scotland Yard with the second in the same city. The first gives +12 espinage and the second +100% so it doubles the espinage from the settled GP and all the espinage producing buildings in the same city. If I get any more after that I generally settle them in that city as well.

i usually get a golden age out of mine since i don't need all those EP

Whether esp is crucial or not, I think it depends on something like the difficulty level relative to your skill level.
Say you beat monarch easily but always fail on emperor, then, using espionage actively may help you win on emperor. But if you using espionage on a level you beat easily (like monarch in this example) isn't crucial.

I play on immortal and use espionage to inflict city revolt when attacking enemy cities. This is a great way to increase your units' effectiveness, meaning less turns of war for same amount of capturing = less upkeep = shorter WW (meaning it goes away sooner) = bigger impact.
Another use can be stealing cheap techs. Most players don't like researching techs like priesthood in ~500BC or later and simply trade for it. This is no good idea as it counts to WFYABTA. Instead of self-researching I sometimes steal such techs. With the discounts from stationary spy, trade routes, religions, this is usually a very good deal and only requires to focus all EPs on one AI for some time (I rarely use the slider).
Also there are little and less obvious uses for espionage like converting AI x to religion y (for example if AI x is about to finish the AP and religion y is your state religion :goodjob:) or making it adopt civic z (like Free Market, Free Religion, Emancipation, ...).
Something I do in every game is using spies as scouts when at war. They sometimes get detected but not attacked and with "commando"-promotion quickly find the enemies SOD.

Overall, I really like the additional strategic options espionage adds to the game. However I wouldn't only rely on espionage, even though it's possible (we won a SG on immortal with only stealing techs after the alphabeth was researched).

Whether esp is crucial or not, I think it depends on something like the difficulty level relative to your skill level.
Say you beat monarch easily but always fail on emperor, then, using espionage actively may help you win on emperor. But if you using espionage on a level you beat easily (like monarch in this example) isn't crucial.



You could also look at it the other way round. Going heavy on the espionage uses up resources (beakers, gold and hammers). It could be a player looses on emperor because he's wasted his resources on EP, when he could otherwize have used to increase his military or science.

Call me old fashioned, but normally in my offline games I play as if there was no espionage slider..... not that I can't handle espionage ;) But, especially when I'm aiming to a SS win, sinking good money in a non research slider looks a waste to me....

It's good that Courthouses give extra EPs because I don't go out of my way to use them but they come in handy in some games. As Korea I would habitually steal techs off the Mongols; we were on the same continent locked together until Optics and it was good to actually be using the EPs I was accumulating against Genghis to make sure he was kept away from me long enough for me to develop rapidly and then kill him. Unfortunately, even though I deprived him of horses for his Keshiks, he still got me :(.

Axident's Dutch game (in Stories and Tales) gives quite a good idea about how to use EPs efficiently, and after reading it I decided to do more things with them than previously. That was when I got stuck into that Korea game, but it didn't work well because I was concentrating on building as well as military power and despite stealing Metal Casting from Genghis I collapsed in front of his other soldiers.

But it was a fun game because I learned how to use EPs properly. I don't necessarily use them much even now, but I know how to generate them and how to use them should the opportunities arise.

Im of the opinion that different leaders/civs should be a lot more specialized than they currently are. As things stand, there is a "best" approach in most situations no matter which leader is being used, and for me that doesnt involve spies. It would be interesting if there were some civs with heavy spy bonuses, or faster military production, or faster teching and so on.

In my last game, the chin were sending huge numbers of spies at me (britons). So I took all Mao's cities and sent him to work at a workshop in Beijing.

Basically, you can out spy your opponents as long as you try very hard to keep him from getting Constitution before you.

The AI is real stupid with spies. Mostly it will try to sabotage resource gathering improvements and space ship parts. If you try on/off warmongering you will get flooded by spies from whoever you just took 3 cities from. Even captitulated vassals will use spies to piss you off. I now prefer extermination to capitulation.

I rarely use espionage. It is an option and can add to the flavour of a game, but I just don't see it as necessary tbh.

espionage is more important than knowing what terrrain improvements to build.
the correct manipulation of diplomacy and espionage can thwart stacks, gain tech, and reak malevolent mayhem. better to skip wonders and religion.

I like to be able to see what my rivals are researching, but other than that, I don't have much use for it. I don't ever really put anything into the epsionage slider, I let my court houses and jails take care of that for me.

Not fun. Everytime I want to try espionnage, I mean, I usually have to focus all my EPs on one opponent or maybe two, to make it an effective strategy. Meanwhile, all the other AIs focus their EPs on me and keep stealing my techs and poisoning my stuff... Yeah. So focus on an enemy and the computer interprets this as another opportunity to make me feel like the focus of the whole world, I am the one to annoy.

If I get a great spy, I'll infiltrate an enemy city and steal a few techs. Otherwise I ignore espionage and grumble to myself when my improvements get destroyed.

If you focus your whole game around an espionage economy then it's pretty useful. :) Otherwise I just use it to keep tabs on what's being researched and occasionally focus on one target to gain visibility into their cities. IMO if you haven't been getting lots of EPs consistently through your game, most of your missions will fail anyway so the hammers you waste on spies would be better spent on siege engines.

Ive become a huge fan of spies now. I almost always have the slider to 20-40 (and 40-50 for research and rarely any on culture). Though it depends on maps and situation, they have a lot of uses in peace and war, early on

War

- As everybody said, they lower city defenses. Nothing better than to have that gate opened from inside and put the city into turmoil.

-Pillaging. The AI attacks raiding stacks very well, though it is advisable to pillage and raid with a stack of defenders and fast moving units (move and pillage in one turn). But spies are THE choice for cutting of the enemies ressources, the cant be attacked and USE ROADS. So instead of having like 4 units (which may be killed) move in 5 turns to that iron and pilage it, you have 3 spies going there in 2 turns thanks to roads.

- Poison them, make them unhappy, sabotage light towers - anything which delays military production IS GOOD FOR YOU.

- No Peace for Tech. If you want to destroy one enemy who has some techs, there is no need for you to beat them out of him and finish 10 turns later, since you gonna steel those techs anyway.


Peace.

- Tech steal. Whos got the lead? concentrate on him, steel it. I think on its alone, its better to have those points invested directly in research rather than EP. But you couldnt do the other nice things you can do with spies then :-)

- Sting him. No worry about poisoning/sabotaging, if you dont like him, itll set him back.

- Spread your religion/corporation. A powerful, historical accurate combination. The enemy has mercantilism, but you wanna get those 12 gold per round AND cripple his economy because hes only got one friggin resource??? DO IT THE AMERICAN WAY!! Send in your spies, overthrow the local government with either free market or enviromentalism, and get your CEOs rolling. Its unbelievable cheap compared to techs/unrest, way better than piracy!!! Works also on religions.

- Sabotage his civics. Works best when he is not spiritual, and you are and/or have christo redentor. Switch to a sucky government or a religion your enemy has only few cities, and have your spies flaw his civics, including nice turns of anarchy.

- Sabotage cultural/space ship victory. While ICBMs (WHEN available) are the choice of art, this can be an effective way if you see it coming on early.


WHAT I MISS (what should be added)

Diplomacy intrigues, like spreading sympathy toward you, your allies or denouncing/framing others.


All taken together, Espionage is a crucial part of my playing style. I have sometimes replayed 20-25 turns without espionage, but with Espionage its most times better. It takes a lot of micro, more on different continents, but its worth it. (you need to know, the more you spend on espionage, the less the detection rate, so you wont have to replace those 4 spies in the transport quite as quick as with a 10 EP rate).

Not fun. Everytime I want to try espionnage, I mean, I usually have to focus all my EPs on one opponent or maybe two, to make it an effective strategy. Meanwhile, all the other AIs focus their EPs on me and keep stealing my techs and poisoning my stuff... Yeah. So focus on an enemy and the computer interprets this as another opportunity to make me feel like the focus of the whole world, I am the one to annoy.
Unexpectedly, it's the ratio of all the ep points you've generated against anyone to all the ep points they've generated against anyone that determines interception chances, see the spy detection thread. So you can focus your points as much as you want, and you won't be penalized when it comes to defense.

I find the current model works well.

I dont build allot of spies, but I use the EPs to get an overview of how powerful they are, how they are teching, etc.

It works pretty easy, go into the EP section, put points into whoever your next target/s are, and by the time your ready to attack you know what they are doing.

I use spies to destroy walls/castles too, which helps allot.

The most I'll do other than build the buildings is shoot for the great wall and settle/scotland the first 2 Gspies if I started near a monster techer(mansa). Doing this works quite well.

I'm usually able to steal a decent handful of techs. This helps in that you it can suplemet the trading of your own techs for techs you don't want to bother with (religious ones are commonly skipped). It's extra techs for comparitavely little effort.

I keep the espionage slider locked at 10% (unless I am running out of gold, when espionage is the first to go :P)

It does three things:

#1: It prevents the AI from sending spies on my soil. They rarely (if ever) do it.

#2: It allows me to see TONS of early warning about a deadly attack (sometimes I can see a stack being sent my way 10-ish turns before they declare war!). In addition, it tells me where their troops are if I want to attack them.

#3: It allows me to use my far favorite mission: Forment revolt!! (And, occasionally, if the city is ALREADY unhappy, forment unhappyness :D)

If I switch off espionage, does that mean I won't be able to see the power graph details for other civs?

Not if you use Solver's patch

Ah, yes I use that...I'll try that with "no espionage"...

(actually just re-read the changes for that patch and it's listed there, last but one entry!)

Thanks.

Is it crucial - absolutely not - you can ignore it on almost any level (I can't speak for Deity yet, but definitely on all the others).

To me you either ignore it - doing nothing more than the free production you get from courthouses etc and the occasional spy specialist that the AI governor chooses to run before you slap it down and pick what you really want it to do.

Or you build your game around it as a fun and different alternative.

The espionage slider should either be zero or it should be maxed.

Yes...no espionage is working well, once I'd corrected a mistake on my part as I messed up when I installed Solver's patch.

It's one less thing to worry about for now. I'll probably try it properly in a future game.

Thanks for the assistance.

I used to ignore it, now I've realized it is an extremely important part of the game. Having spies in your rival's territory will allow you to assess what they're doing. Are they building a wonder? Building their economy? Building a military? What kind of units? Etc. As previously mentioned, you can get very early warning of an attack, which often means the difference between routing or succumbing to the attack. Often in my games I have no reason to boost the slider itself, but in some games I do just that and focus on stealing techs - games where I am behind in tech.

I think it's an important and wonderful addition. Informed decision-making is always important, and espionage informs your decisions. The occassional tech steal is nice, too.

The espionage slider should either be zero or it should be maxed.

I'm not sure why you say this. It is true that you can ignore espionage or you can play an EE with the slider maxed most of the time. But is there no room for more limited use of the slider? What about a mixed research and espionage economy?

^^The issue is that espionage has a nice modifier based in the total generated espionage vs the one of the target and if you generate not much espionage ( the 10% slider scenario ) you can get easily a 35% or more demerit in the EP price of the things ( not mentioning the extra capture chance.... ). Otherwise , if you put all your decks in Espionage, you'll get a discount in the EP prices.....

This means that you only have two "optimal" aproaches to espionage ( cost-wise ): all espionage or no espionage at all. In terms of costs a hybrid solution is always worse than any of this two.

I use EP for Diplomatic Reasons, If I Want a particular ally in war, I sometimes use EP to force them to switch to a Particular Religion (usually my one) or the Free Religion civic. Which usually either increases my Diplomatic points or Decreases a 3rd Party AI Diplomatic Points.

Which usually allows me to bribe the AI into war with my enemies, but the AP idea is interesting but how can youpredict which AI will build that wonder first without cheating? I can only see it happening in a EE.

I am in the "never use the slider" camp, but I do make adjustments in the EP screen. For example, if I have known an AI a long time, then meet a new one, I will assign him a few extra points for a while so I can see his power. If I want to attack an AI, I will often bump his number up a tad, and send a couple spies to camp in the cities I want to take, to get the 50% stationary discount.

I rarely steal techs though, and almost never infiltrate with a GSpy, settle the first, Scotland Yard with the 2nd if one pops, and Golden Age the third (although a 3rd is rare).

I use EP for Diplomatic Reasons, If I Want a particular ally in war, I sometimes use EP to force them to switch to a Particular Religion (usually my one) or the Free Religion civic. Which usually either increases my Diplomatic points or Decreases a 3rd Party AI Diplomatic Points.

Awesome idea! I must try that out.

Those parts of spying that work without much micro, such as seeingwhat the AI is researching, I like.

The part where I'm counting turns to get to the 5 turn limit I don't like, its too easy to forget and then your spy gets captured and you didn't notice.

I like being able to take down defences and scout, but I get irritaded when a spy gets captured when he's scouting friendly territory - I will sometimes use GS just to avoid this.

The "alternative theft economy" (like the old USSR) is a good idea, but needs too much micro (like many other aspects of this game).

The part where I'm counting turns to get to the 5 turn limit I don't like, its too easy to forget and then your spy gets captured and you didn't notice.

Try BUG mod (http://civ4bug.sourceforge.net/). One of it's many handy features is to be able to set messages that will appear, say, 5 turns later to remind you of something...

Try BUG mod.

The list shows it going up to BTS 3.13, I've just installed 3.17 - is this a problem ??

No... BUG works well with 3.17

The part where I'm counting turns to get to the 5 turn limit I don't like, its too easy to forget and then your spy gets captured and you didn't notice.



I kind of like the 5 turn wait. It adds a certain amount of tension to the "mission".

The part where I'm counting turns to get to the 5 turn limit I don't like, its too easy to forget and then your spy gets captured and you didn't notice.
Either set a reminder (if you use BUG) or just skip turns instead of fortifying. You can always check how big the discount is.

^^The issue is that espionage has a nice modifier based in the total generated espionage vs the one of the target and if you generate not much espionage ( the 10% slider scenario ) you can get easily a 35% or more demerit in the EP price of the things ( not mentioning the extra capture chance.... ). Otherwise , if you put all your decks in Espionage, you'll get a discount in the EP prices.....

This means that you only have two "optimal" aproaches to espionage ( cost-wise ): all espionage or no espionage at all. In terms of costs a hybrid solution is always worse than any of this two.

Thanks, I use espionage in all my games and I'm fully aware of the total EP spent modifier ;). It is not the only modifier that significantly affects the price of missions; state religion (40%) and trade routes (20%) are also very important, as well as the distance modifier and the -50% for a stationary spy. I'm familiar with them all and use them frequently as part of my espionage strategy. I use a wide range of spy missions, including stealing technology, and like to have all the passive benefits against key enemies.

I'm still not sure why you (and InvisbleStalke) think maximising the espionage slider is the only way to go if you invest ANY points in espionage. Why is an all or nothing policy "optimal"? In what sense is this true? It seems you presuppose some particular sort of game that not everyone plays. The word “optimal” implies you have some particular objective in mind (probably technology stealing), but that is only one use of espionage among several. You are probably basing this statement on the perceived value of an EP used to steal a tech with the value of a beaker used to research the same tech. But this does not justify an all or nothing strategy in the long term, only to get to a situation where stealing becomes cost effective. From there onwards you are dependent on the AI researching techs that you want to steal. It implies that you are lagging behind the AI.

I find in the late game, in at least some games but maybe not all, once you become dominant, spending all your disposable income (i.e. commerce and allocating specialists) on espionage would be a waste. You only need to spend what is necessary to steal the techs that are available and to perform any other missions. It is better at that stage to spend disposable income on a mixture of research and espionage, researching some techs yourself and stealing others as soon as the AI researches them for you. This is particularly true for an SE version of the espionage economy, which is running Representation. It will get a significant amount of research as a by product of running spy or any other sort of specialists even if the commerce sliders is set to maximise EPs. So there will be research and espionage going on at the same time and it makes sense to use the research in the best way possible

I would like to hear both yours and InvisbleStalke’s justification for the all or nothing espionage strategy. You might be oversimplifying what is a very complex economic strategy. If your opponents do have (or will have) technologies to steal then there is benefit in building up the total EP spent modifier, and saving up EPs that can be used in future to steal techs, but that can be taken too far. There is no point in investing EPs just to increase that modifier beyond a certain point. Once you have established the modifier then future EP investments should only be used to do useful things, like maintain the passive abilities with opponents or steal gold or switch civics. Otherwise you’d be better lowering the slider and researching the technologies yourself or maybe raising gold to upgrade your army or something else that is more useful that simply building up EPs to no real purpose.

I am arguing in this case you can have “too much of a good thing” and that a hybrid solution is in fact often the best solution.

UncleJJ, I point specifically to some words of my post:
In terms of costs a hybrid solution is always worse than any of this two.
I was refereng specifically to the cost of the missions, not to the balance between self research and stealing ..... The diference between a casual revolt or tech theft and the same thing under a high EP generation may be easily of 70% of the base cost ( theoretical max is 100% ( -50% to + 50% ) ) if all the other things are equal and that, by any standart, is a lot of wasted EP.....

I am still not sure what you mean by saying this. By maximising the Espionage slider and adopting an all or nothing approach it is easy to waste EPs; if, as I suggest, you take the strategy too far in the wrong circumstances. It may be more "efficient" to have a high discount but the overall costs are more than necessary since you have to make a huge investment in EPs to get the discount. If there is no way to use the invested EPs for useful tasks they are wasted.

We are talking diferent things in here.....

I do agree that theoretically there may be situations where you may not have where to spend EP ( never got there... you can always steal some gold ;) or sabotage a building ).

But compare the two scenarios, the one of the casual theft with 10% and the one of the heavy espionage budget, with all the rest equal.... if you do the maths ( not in the mood now ) you'll see that the casual theft at 10% is less efficient in all the possible ways ( both in total spent espionage and hammers per mission and in total beakers ) than both lowering the slider to 0% and self research and to simply crank out the :espionage: slider to the highest possible ( not mentioning that the spy catching prob is a funtion of the generated EP ;)... this means that in the casual 10% scenario the spy will be caugth far more times, incurring it possible diplo misfortune )

OFC if we are talking of the "oh I have this EP from courthouses, .... and I don't want to let it idle", things are a little diferent ;)

If you're going for a space race win and your rivals are on the same continent, you better have paid a bit of attention to espionage. Or else be prepared to watch your SS parts you spent all those turns making get blown up.