Espionage Guide for Beginners

^^When using horsies, you should pillage metal. The ability to take on melee is very nice for the pikes and maces that they already have. Iirc, Conqs are also interesting in that they get defensive bonuses. One of the weaknesses of horsey strikes normally is that your city garrison moves slower than you need them to.
 
I wanted to post a save game this really (I think) represent situation 2) of OP.

You are Spain and you just destroyed Maya civilization. But now you are alone on the same continent with Justinian, who will start to become a tech god. You were leading in tech until the war, but not its cost were still high, and Justinian huge empire will become to pay in gold.

However, Justinian truly loves you, and since his empire is already big, he won't attack if you keep good diplomatic relations.

This is where you start your hybrid espionnage economie and start to steal those tech from him.

Standard Map
Continent
Normal Speed
Emperor Difficulty
 

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I'm peeved at all the abbreviations you use in your "guide". If someones new enough to have need of a guide, they won't know the abbreviations/if your explaining to people who already know the abbreviations they probably know most of what you have to say.

Earlygame, Scientists are superior mainly because GS can bulb on the way to Liberalism, and you can build Academies. Also, you can multiply the research output of Scientists, and you can't do the same with Spies. Hell, you can't really run too many Spies anways.
What difficulty do you play on? I play on monarch and AI almost always beats you to everything, especially early on. Forget founding any religion aside from maybe Islam. And forget beating the AI to Liberalism (well not sure if you hamstrung yourself by skipping slavery and what not to beeline to it, I still think it would beat you to it.) Forget most early wonders unless you can chop rush them and get ahead on the AI. Maybe I am doing it wrong but that's my experience.

Spies/espionage are a must to win (well rushing aside but I usually play Indians which are more long term nation) Something to keep in mind, if you have a good close city to spy on where you can plant your state religion that isn't theirs, tech from spying is nearly HALF the cost of research. Bonus discounts with trading active. So even with library and university bonuses, and no castles or what not, espoinage is still more efficient at getting tech. Of course there is getting trade tech but that can come from either espionage or research. There is also the factor of having to produce the spies which means resources used up that could be used for production into research.

Sabotaging a enemy building a wonder is nice too but it's hard to tell where they are being built and even if you sabotage one another AI might make it if multiple have the tech.


Representation and mercentlism and making most of the specialists spied works nicely research and spying. So avoiding economics for awhile isn't so bad. I still use that combo even when I break down and get economics(at least till I can get enough custom houses in). Especially if say you got the statue of liberty adding to the synergy of it.

Now a few questions.

What do I need to know if/where the AI is building any wonders? Investigate city?

Does a spy sitting stationary in a town for awhile combat enemy spys more like the defense bonus of troops or the spy discount when sitting in enemy towns?

How much extra defense bonus does having a spy in your town provide you? How much extra espionage protection does two or three spies in your town provide you? One frustrating thing about trying to figure this out is that there doesn't seem to be any messages given when a enemy spy succeeds so you don't know how well you've done.

How exactly does spread culture work?
 
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I suck at this game but can beat the AI to liberalism on that level almost every time. You should visit the Strategy forum and learn from others. I learned a lot there.
 
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