EE - Espionage Economy

Decided to give the infiltration strategy a try. This is a blueprint for an asskicking:

Emperor - Standard size - Big and Small map with low sea levels and massive continents (my computer can't handle large maps so I go for land-heavy smaller maps to compensate) - Normal speed - Napolean (Organized, Charismatic). AI options all default except I checked Aggressive AI because, well, I haven't played Agg AI in a long time and am playing a few games of it just for fun and early-warring challenges.

Start building worker. Teched to Fishing as I had 2 clams nearby and one rice. Popped Hunting. Popped Gold. No more huts popped as my warrior is too darn slow.. actually my border pop hit a hut for that Hunting... my warrior got just 1 hut in his spiral outwards, sigh. Built boat, teched to BW, another boat, warrior, chop/build settler. Chop/build Great Wall.

Found other civs. Closest neighbors are Shaka (northwest, near my 2nd city), China (north/northeast), Inca (east). I'm in a crappy southwest corner, except my rockin' capital. The capital has 2 clams rice, hills, copper, stone, and a lake tile, but there's nothing else nearby other than some tundra silver and corn, which I did eventually settle with my own settler just to block off China's superaggressive REXing into my face. My 2nd city I founded north of my city, way north, full of jungle, had one copper and a banana that I couldn't do anything with until I finally got Calendar. It'd be great for early-mid game but in hindsight I should have simply not founded a 2nd city AT ALL and just gone even harder axes.

Now the fun begins, as copper was both near my capital and near my 2nd city, and I hooked it up and started spamming axemen. About 8 in my first wave with 4 reinforcements.

By the way this was almost a SINGLE CITY rush as my 2nd city wasn't doing anything for a long time, and I didn't want to found many cities of my own early on, as I was about to take a colossal maintenance penalty for capturing all of Inca-land. 100% of my axemen army came from one production powerhouse capital which could crank out one per 2 turns. (Most of my swords, cats, and spears also came from my capital, too.)

8 axemen could either go after protective China (yeah right) or wonder-rival Inca who also had a Holy Buddhist city. Inca falls quickly under the onslaught, and I keep going east and poach 2 workers and 1 more city, this time from Carthage. Peace. I researched Myst in the meantime so my crappy 2nd city could at least build a monument for culture and Charismatic's +1 happy bonus.

Now, the war wasn't that long and in the middle someone traded me Iron Working for my Alphabet. Crappy trade but I wanted IW badly because I knew from the swordsmen that Inca had in their last-stand city that they had access to iron in one of their mines somewhere.

After my reinforcement axes, I built granary and library and then spammed several swords and then started building Pyramids in my capital (I was near stone ... Pyramids turned out to be mostly useless as I didn't have many specialists, though the Representation +happy was nice... anyway I think maybe I should have used all those hammers on more swordsman rather than the Pyramids, but oh well).

Super spy pops thanks to Great Wall. Infiltrate China which I am sure as hell not going to fight for a long time, not with the Protective crap and not when Shaka to the west is looking weak.

Went pottery to cottagespam my new conquests, then writing and alphabet. Extorted Poly from Hannibal, then made some tech trades.

Declare on Shaka once enough swords gather in my 2nd city which is still awful (max pop is 2 since I still had not cleared much jungle). But, it's at least useful as an observation outpost. He's mostly dead as I made just enough spearmen to counter his chariots (one of whom was parked in a city near my 2nd city so I knew he had horses) and my swords cut up his archers.

I will sue for peace once I get most of the cities I want. It's a game of chase-the-moving-capital as I try to fight only 20% culture and not 40% or higher.. there is one city with walls that my cats will have to take.

I beelined to Aesth/Literature. Start on Great Library. I also trade for Priesthood with someone. Next I tech towards CoL for courthouses.

All during this time I am stealing various tech (after stationary spy bonus) from China, and putting all 4 espionage points per turn from my palace against China. Nicked math, calendar, metal casting, and construction so far, traded for some other stuff to fill out my tech tree.

Also my big army got one civ to cede a tech to my demand, and 2 other civs declared on China as I was farther away, had no religious differences, and about equal to China's power rating.

I think I know how the rest of this game will pan out. I'll rest and recover, laughing as my 3 remaining rivals kill each other as I whip half-price courthouses (too bad I wasn't playing as Charlie or Shaka or something) and forge up, eventually going after someone with stacks of siege and heavily promoted melee courtesy of Charismatic. I'm also building Gr Lib and Maus while teching to Music's free golden age.. without marble though, there seems to be no marble anywhere that I can see.

The key is to rush like crazy before longbowmen show up, and eating upkeep until courthouses save you, while not losing the tech lead because your spy is scoring big thefts after big thefts.

Great synergy as you gain great general points, lots of land, maybe a holy city or two, and a decent enough power rating that others don't go after you, but someone else, all while the usual outcome (lagging in the tech race) is averted by spying and extortion. And you lose few hammers and food points to settlers and workers since you'll be capturing most of them via cities and rivals' workers.

In short, infiltrate is borderline broken. Math, calendar, metal casting, construction... that's how many beakers??? And it's not like a Gr Scientist which can only pop one tech at a time, you can infiltrate, build one spy, and nick several techs for the price of one super spy--all while teching to other stuff that you know the AI doesn't prioritize so much.

Now, a word of caution: Infiltrate will not let you actually gain a big tech lead like GS's can, but it gets you close, and if you have enough land and beakers you can outrush someone to Edu and Liberalism by early-mid game.

after quite a few games with the great wall I think the EE isn't actually broken. the best you can hope for is tech parity with the AI and always be 2nd to the techs that they are researching.. meaning you lose out on trade opportunities.

still it is quite strong.. but loses its power in renaisance where 10000 espionage points barely covers a heavy costing tech like chemestry. not to mention that spys cannot found corporations or build things like academies,shrines etc.

NaZ

NaZdReG said:

after quite a few games with the great wall I think the EE isn't actually broken. the best you can hope for is tech parity with the AI and always be 2nd to the techs that they are researching.. meaning you lose out on trade opportunities.

still it is quite strong.. but loses its power in renaisance where 10000 espionage points barely covers a heavy costing tech like chemestry. not to mention that spys cannot found corporations or build things like academies,shrines etc.

NaZ

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Yeah but it has strong synergies with an early rush, as you don't have to worry so much about falling hopelessly behind in the tech race and can concentrate on genociding not one, not two, not three, but maybe FOUR rival civs. I'm eyeing China right now.. with 2 other civs already pounding at it, I could probably use my highly-promoted cats and melee from my 2 previous wars and take one Chinese city before suing for peace. Or I could keep pressing and keep taking Chinese cities until longbows show up.

EDIT to add: I think I will win the Maus race, too, which would be VERY difficult without an EE, as I was already limping in the tech race to Lit and could ill-afford to spend beakers on Calendar. I could then jump directly from Lit to Music to get the golden age with 50% boost from Maus.

Update: game went as planned and I even wonderspammed a bit across several cities. Not Industrious so could not overly concentrate them in any one city. Didn't declare on Qin but I took barb city. Used GE on Sistine Chapel and built Zeus and Parth without GE in my 2 highest producing cities (albeit with whip).

Teched so fast that Qin became mostly useless. Didn't tech trade much, Hannibal scheduled to die except he got Machinery and techs scary fast... longbows soon after, then engineering and he even built Notre Dame, albeit with stone. I saw via intel that Qin was going for Theo, so I beat Jewish Qin to Theology just because I didn't want him to go Christian and have AP be only for him. So he got AP but it's a Jewish AP which suited me fine as I was half Jewish and spammed the other half with missionaries. Also Synagogues get stone bonus and all I have is stone and gold as strategic wonder metals, so that's a good religion.

Won Mausoleum albeit painfully as I had no marble... converted an Incan city to production by farming over developed cottages and going all mines. Golden Age from Music as planned, boosted by Mausoleum.

Won race to Liberalism with a TON of time to spare as nearest tech competitors Joao and Hammurabi kept going to war with Qin.

I'm now gonna demand another tech (Compass) from Hanny who is Jewish and has its holy city (delicious--the same one holds Notre Dame), send 2 Caravels. Building universities in meantime as my plan is to research or get Optics for the caravels to circumnavigate, then be on Const->Democracy when I finally complete Taj Mahal so I can switch to Emancipation without anarchy.

Hanny keeps teching up, now to gunpowder so this is getting absurd... how much longer can he continue to tech past me? If he already has guilds, I'm going to have to race him to Economics when my Golden Age takes place. I'll have to use a TON of trebs on his cities, all 3 of them. Only 3 cities and he is doing pretty well tech-wise!

Since I had stone and went Jewish, I built Sankore Spiral Angkor Chichen yadda yadda, lost Notre Dame to Hanny as mentioned above, also lost all the other marble stuff other than Gr Library (which I built with a huge lead as usual; AI still doesn't prioritize Lit highly enough) Parth and Sistine (Sistine I had to use a GE.. which was a good move as my culture has turned the tables on China which is under very heavy cultural siege now, and my cities now have most of their fat crosses back). Those 3 are key, the rest like Hagia Sofia or whatever I didn't care about, since I had no marble and knew I'd lose them anyway. Also built Paya just for culture boost in my border city with Hannibal as his capital was generating cultural pressure on it. And cause I had gold, courtesy of Shaka's former lands.

Drawback to that Great Wall and maybe some other wonder that generates spy points: I keep spamming Great Spies which are now mostly useless since Qin only has Feud on me and I'm about to get that from him (my spy died on same turn so I had to crank a new one which is going stationary for now to get the bonus), and it's killing me as that Buddhist holy city I got from Inca is still unshrined.

Forgot to mention: I moved my capital to a heavily cottaged Incan city for Bureau--also built a wonder there. I kind of messed up because I originally intended my original capital to be a HE/WP city so settled an instructor in it for some Level 3 swords/cats courtesy of Charismatic, then changed my mind and made it a Wonderville cause it already had 3 wonders and superhigh production.

Not sure if this would have worked so smoothly on Immortal+ or w/o stone, but it's rocking Emperor pretty well.

Anyone else who is more experienced with EE feel free to add to how to properly use an EE!

IMO with EE you cannot be the first - to be the second is the best you can do. Tech race is crucial. Spying is more costly than pure science slider.

about liberalism... learned from my current game that the strongest thing you can do with that tech is spy on potential rivals and deny them paper and education as long as possible. I was able to get medicine!!! from liberalism in my current game.

very similiar. spawned next to monty, my stone cow wheat floodplains city was right on his doorstep. I got the quest to build 10 chariots and my capitol had horse,so I did that and beat monty to the ground. (while building the great wall in the stone city right on his doorstep. once it was quarried it only took 2 forest chops)

used my gspy on the portugese and stole math, monarchy, construction etc. I teched to civil service, music for the free golden age.. then up the education path.. stole feudalism, got guilds and banking quickly due to university enhanced research then went nationalism gunpowder chemistry scientific method biology. ai on the other continent had survaraman II and he was their tech leader so I focused all espionage against him. he took the same southern path to get to chemestry and then started on paper.

by the time he could have researched liberalism I was researching physics and had to take a break from that to snag liberalism

very fun

NaZ

NaZdReG said:

about liberalism... learned from my current game that the strongest thing you can do with that tech is spy on potential rivals and deny them paper and education as long as possible. I was able to get medicine!!! from liberalism in my current game.

very similiar. spawned next to monty, my stone cow wheat floodplains city was right on his doorstep. I got the quest to build 10 chariots and my capitol had horse,so I did that and beat monty to the ground. (while building the great wall in the stone city right on his doorstep. once it was quarried it only took 2 forest chops)

used my gspy on the portugese and stole math, monarchy, construction etc. I teched to civil service, music for the free golden age.. then up the education path.. stole feudalism, got guilds and banking quickly due to university enhanced research then went nationalism gunpowder chemistry scientific method biology. ai on the other continent had survaraman II and he was their tech leader so I focused all espionage against him. he took the same southern path to get to chemestry and then started on paper.

by the time he could have researched liberalism I was researching physics and had to take a break from that to snag liberalism

very fun

NaZ

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Holy cow, that's just BRUTAL. Maybe I should have used the other Great Spies I spawned to hammer my rival's espionage via infiltration and spies. I especially liked how you got freakin' MEDICINE from liberalism. I think the best I ever did on Emperor+ was to get Democracy from Liberalism.

I think perhaps EE and SE are misnomers, because you do eventually capture other civs' cottages and it's a rare SE player who would farm over well-developed cottages. So EE and SE seem to morph into hybrid economies with CE over time. I suppose I could have done a EE/SE combo if I had gotten more GS, but I don't think that's a consistently available strat if you have GW as that contaminates your pool somewhat, despite Gr Library. I'm STILL waiting for my first GS so I can Academy him, as there is no point in bulbing for Lib at this point.

Tomek said:

IMO with EE you cannot be the first - to be the second is the best you can do. Tech race is crucial. Spying is more costly than pure science slider.

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First of all that is not necessarily true. I deliberately tried to tech to stuff that the AI doesn't normally prioritize, like Lit. That way, I could steal their half of the tech tree and they would have to research my half.

Also, like I said, it has strong synergies with an early rush. It will NOT get you to win the Lib race all by itself, but it will keep you afloat while you are whipping courthouses and such.

It kept me up to speed while annihilating Inca, taking one of 2 Carthaginian cities at that point in time, taking all Zulu cities of any worth, and grabbing a barb city that had survived for a while due to heavily promoted archers and the AI civs concentrating on each other in war. Without EE, I would have had to trade for or research Feudalism, Construction, Math, Metal Casting, and Calendar. (I could also steal HBR but that's kinda useless to me so I didn't... maybe if I think I can go to Cavalry fast enough). Add up those beakers. That's a LOT of beakers from just ONE super specialist--and it's the gift that keeps on giving as it also gave me intel on what tech Qin was going for next and what his cities were doing.

Actually that tech theft of Calendar was huge as it allowed me to go for Mausoleum ASAP, which extended my Music golden age (another tech the AI doesn't normally prioritize). I have NEVER lost a game so far when I get both Maus and Music for that first extended golden age. It was child's play during that first golden age as I could safely switch to Bureaucracy without anarchy, and I also switched to Judaism without anarchy--saving myself 2 turns' of research and production right there all by itself. Plus the +100% GP production was nice. Not to mention the obvious commerce and hammer bonuses from Golden Age.

Caveat: I extorted Poly, Currency, and (soon) Compass from my big army/rushing but that's standard for non-EE. Perhaps I could have extorted math or something as well if my EE had not kept me up to speed with the AI, so it's true that pointy-stick and EE research overlaps somewhat in that regard. Nevertheless, do the math on the sheer number of beakers that Super Spy gave me via espionage--more beakers than probably 2 GS lightbulbs combined!

axident,

here is a link to my post with spreadsheets I made detailing corporate costs.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=238093

I hope it is helpful

NaZ

Yeah, last game I got a Great Spy, stole machinery and then nationalism(!), so when I hit liberalism a few turns later, I went straight for Constitution. It was very nice.

Incidentally, jails are fricking great now, they're an instant 7EPs (with a courthouse) plus 50% on whatever other espionage you put through them (spy specialists become particularly good), and they're not that expensive. Late game espionage is all about the espionage buildings and spy specialists, then destroying everyone's beautiful towns.

Game going well except Hanny wouldn't give Compass so I had to get that and Optics myself. Won circumnav race, wasn't paying enough attention and was screwing around waiting to get both Guilds and Banking off Qin so I lost the Economics race to Portugal. Hanny DoW on me, I retaliate by taking his last 2 cities on the mainland, which nets me the Jewish holy city that had Notre Dame--AND the Great Lighthouse.

Shaka DoW me, I basically ignore him till I get railroads and realize I have no coal... and I am avoiding SciMeth cause it obsoletes my GrLibrary. So I attack the nearest easy coal source--the last Zulu city on the mainland.

China DoW Hammurabi in the meantime, Portugal DoW China (Babylon/Portugal are friends and fellow Hindus along with Shaka, whereas China, Hanny, and I are Jews).

I try to steal Corps from Portugal but the price is so insanely high that I wouldn't be able to steal it for many many many turns... so I start poisoning and fomenting instead, then I declare war on Portugal outright after teching to cavalry. Portugal had so many troops that I had to fight defensively till I had enough cannons but now I'm starting to roll and taking a city every few turns courtesy of a timely GrSpy+GrArtist golden age.

I'm about to assault Hamm with cannons and cavs now, so it will be the 2 Jewish superpowers (me and Qin, whom I've been a total tech parasite of thanks to espionage) vs. the heathen Hindu scum. Port is 2nd place tech leader, Hanny not far behind but got hammered hard by his war vs. me, Hamm and Qin are lagging behind, and Shaka is hopelessly far behind in tech.

And I still have no corps. Sheesh. If this continues much longer (Qin you lame ass get Corps already so I can steal it from you! Or Hanny, freaking give me Corps, don't say "we don't feel like trading this yet" when I try to TRADE for it rather than outright demanding it from you like I wanted to)... I might have to research corps myself just to get Assembly Line and Fascism. Lameass Corps ARGH. I can afford to put it off cause many of my cities are coastal and get the Gr Lighthouse bonus, but still, this is annoying. I actually got flight before Ass Line this game, that almost never happens. Next up is Radio so maybe I'll just bomb everything and mop up with cavs, no Ass Line or Infantry needed.

Do you really think this is an Espionage Economy? Seems to me you are just leeching techs off one civ who you've popped a GSpy or two on (infiltrated is the technical term I beleive).

Now you are later into the game I suppose you've built jails, security bureaus and intelligence agency in any cities that can make them. That to me is what makes a middle to late game Espionage Economy. If you get all four of the basic buildings that give EPs and their 100% bonus each city makes 44 EPs and another 8 for each spy specialist you can run there. That can get to very high levels per turn. That does mean investing a lot of hammmers but you need courthouses and jails anyway (240 ) then Int Agency and Sec Bureau cost another 400 . I guess a SE or HE could generate than many hammers fairly easily using Slavery, or mines and workshops, but a CE would have trouble in many cities having so many other high priority infrastructure needed for research and gold as well as EPs.

In my latest game I'm getting over 1800 EPs per turn with the slider at 0% although there are no techs to steal and they would be stupendously expensive anyway. I am near to a domination win and have 40 cities and the full espionage suite in about 30 of them and incidently, I captured quite a few of those EP buildings. A few cities are running the full 7 spy specialists and since I'm running Nationhood for another +25% they give a huge output.

EP Buildings 22
7 Specialists 28
Bonus 125%
Total 112.5 EPs / turn

The game is frustrating from a spying viewpoint though. My main rival is Augustus and he's behind me in tech but has something like 17,000 EPs against me and I have 35,000 against him but I can't even see Rome (needs 37,000) and to look into his main cities need something like 62,000. Those numbers are growing every turn too and the game will be over before I get to see what he's doing in Rome. I did accumulate alot of EPs against other civs concentrating on the one I was going to conquer in the near future. Ghandi is my only vassal, the other three civs I conquered completely to get rid of their Motherland culture. I could steal Mass Media from Ghandi but as I have the Apostolic Palace still functioning that wouldn't be smart.

I like your approach, purposely staying behind the tech leaders and allowing them to make certain techs that you can then steal. But I guess that only really works in the early game. So far I've only used espionage defensively in my games by massing EPs and for Intelligence on rivals, I do occassionally cause-a-revolt to lower defences but that doesn't work reliably; I lost 3 spies against one of Ghandi's cities (he did have a Sec Bureau there) and in the end I had to use cannons and artillery to bombard the defences down but that only took one turn and I still had artillery over to soften the defenders. The cause-a-revolt spy option is at its best earlier in the game against a city with castle and walls. I used that against Shaka and Mao and it saved several turns of bombardment with the cats and trebs I had then, well worth the spy and EPs.

UncleJJ said:

Do you really think this is an Espionage Economy? Seems to me you are just leeching techs off one civ who you've popped a GSpy or two on (infiltrated is the technical term I beleive).

Now you are later into the game I suppose you've built jails, security bureaus and intelligence agency in any cities that can make them. That to me is what makes a middle to late game Espionage Economy. If you get all four of the basic buildings that give EPs and their 100% bonus each city makes 44 EPs and another 8 for each spy specialist you can run there. That can get to very high levels per turn. That does mean investing a lot of hammmers but you need courthouses and jails anyway (240 ) then Int Agency and Sec Bureau cost another 400 . I guess a SE or HE could generate than many hammers fairly easily using Slavery, or mines and workshops, but a CE would have trouble in many cities having so many other high priority infrastructure needed for research and gold as well as EPs.

In my latest game I'm getting over 1800 EPs per turn with the slider at 0% although there are no techs to steal and they would be stupendously expensive anyway. I am near to a domination win and have 40 cities and the full espionage suite in about 30 of them and incidently, I captured quite a few of those EP buildings. A few cities are running the full 7 spy specialists and since I'm running Nationhood for another +25% they give a huge output.

EP Buildings 22
7 Specialists 28
Bonus 125%
Total 112.5 EPs / turn

The game is frustrating from a spying viewpoint though. My main rival is Augustus and he's behind me in tech but has something like 17,000 EPs against me and I have 35,000 against him but I can't even see Rome (needs 37,000) and to look into his main cities need something like 62,000. Those numbers are growing every turn too and the game will be over before I get to see what he's doing in Rome. I did accumulate alot of EPs against other civs concentrating on the one I was going to conquer in the near future. Ghandi is my only vassal, the other three civs I conquered completely to get rid of their Motherland culture. I could steal Mass Media from Ghandi but as I have the Apostolic Palace still functioning that wouldn't be smart.

I like your approach, purposely staying behind the tech leaders and allowing them to make certain techs that you can then steal. But I guess that only really works in the early game. So far I've only used espionage defensively in my games by massing EPs and for Intelligence on rivals, I do occassionally cause-a-revolt to lower defences but that doesn't work reliably; I lost 3 spies against one of Ghandi's cities (he did have a Sec Bureau there) and in the end I had to use cannons and artillery to bombard the defences down but that only took one turn and I still had artillery over to soften the defenders. The cause-a-revolt spy option is at its best earlier in the game against a city with castle and walls. I used that against Shaka and Mao and it saved several turns of bombardment with the cats and trebs I had then, well worth the spy and EPs.

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The EE thing is somewhat tongue in cheek since we have, what, SE CE HE now? There is no such thing as a pure SE or CE or EE--they are all hybrids. How many SE players do you know who farm over every single AI cottage even if they are well-developed?

Researching non-AI-prioritized stuff and stealing the rest is extremely powerful if you pick the right civ to leech off of in the beginning.

No, I actually prioritized non-espionage after infiltrating China. Other than courthouses and jails, I have only built the occasional Intel Agency or Security Bureau, the rest of my hammers going to grocers, banks, the occasional market, and barracks/stables/cavalry. Plus settlers, galleons, and a bunch of privateers to sink "friendly" galleons that attempt to colonize places I haven't gotten to yet. (The landmass is shaped so I have only one real coast, the other I have no port cities except Carthage which is still in revolt. On my main coast, I can only blockade Portugal--which already has frigates--or Zululand--which gives me a whopping ZERO gold per turn. So I made my privateers do duty as galleon-killers instead.)

Build order: granary, forge (whip), Jewish monastery (whip), Jewish temple (whip), courthouse, library, salon, university. Those AP/Spiral/Sankore/Sistine bonuses make each monastery and temple very worthwhile.

Yes later-espionage wars are a pain in the rear, which is why I go passive espionage by mid game (mostly). The thing is that Gr Spy points don't scale with time, so you get what seems like a TON of them in the beginning, but later on popping them is nothing since you and everyone else already generate so many EPs.

I haven't forgotten my wonderspam thread, I'll update it soon.

I'd like to see an EE where the slider is used. At the moment this appears to be a Great Spy opening gambit rather than a game long economy focussing on espionage.

Here is the challenge - can you win a space race through Espionage (science % at zero, slider dedicated to espionage, spy specialists in preference to other sorts most of the time).

I suspect it is doable, but it might be significantly harder requiring a lower level. That to me would be a specialist economy anyway. I'm thinking of trying it to see if it can work.

InvisibleStalke said:

I'd like to see an EE where the slider is used. At the moment this appears to be a Great Spy opening gambit rather than a game long economy focussing on espionage.

Here is the challenge - can you win a space race through Espionage (science % at zero, slider dedicated to espionage, spy specialists in preference to other sorts most of the time).

I suspect it is doable, but it might be significantly harder requiring a lower level. That to me would be a specialist economy anyway. I'm thinking of trying it to see if it can work.

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Title is tongue in cheek. There is no pure form of SE or CE, if you have a GP farm in CE or keep any cottages in SE. They are all HE to some degree. I believe there might be a tech theft thread here or at RB, where the goal is to do something like what you are suggesting... a theft-only kind of game. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=235713

axident said:

Title is tongue in cheek. There is no pure form of SE or CE, if you have a GP farm in CE or keep any cottages in SE. They are all HE to some degree. I believe there might be a tech theft thread here or at RB, where the goal is to do something like what you are suggesting... a theft-only kind of game. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=235713

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The reason I was looking for some "purity" in the Espionage Economy was to see whether it is viable and how effective it would be. And to play a game that would be quite different from other games I've played.

The succession link is very useful thanks - they are playing under harsher rules than I would have set myself, but it is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for when I saw this thread title. I'll be very interested to see how they do. I'll probably give it a try first myself though.