The Espionage Economy (EE) guide

Iwo Jima said:

Usually I do the same. Because before Alphabet turning slider into ESP has no sense. And you can get Alphabet (assuming early GW) not very soon from the moment of generating GSpy. It's also depends on amount of commerce in capital. If you need to build GW quickly, probably it's production oriented city.

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Afaik, there is no espionage-slider before Alphabet, and if you beeline Alpha, you'll have it far before the 2nd Great Spy. Building the GW also doesn't mean, that your capital must be production oriented, it's such a long way from the GW to the first Great Spy, that building some Cottages is np.

Seraiel said:

Afaik, there is no espionage-slider before Alphabet, and if you beeline Alpha, you'll have it far before the 2nd Great Spy. Building the GW also doesn't mean, that your capital must be production oriented, it's such a long way from the GW to the first Great Spy, that building some Cottages is np.

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Agree.

I just pointed, that one should consider not only his first GSpy, but first and second, and also the time, when Alphabet is achieved. So, if you consider all three moments, its more clear, when you should spend your GSpy on ScYard and when it's better to setlle him. (Or even infiltrate)

Beeline to Alpha maybe good for EE, but could be a problem for some nations and leaders. For example, if you want to play your Vultures(Keshiks, etc) asap.

Seraiel said:

Afaik, there is no espionage-slider before Alphabet,

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The picture in the spoiler tells me there is.

Tatran said:

The picture in the spoiler tells me there is.

Spoiler :

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Forgot that it's possible from the beginning, i. e. to see what someone techs. Thought before that it was like with Drama and Culture, and Espionage without Spies is a little strange, but ok.

Seraiel said:

How you get a 2nd Great spy by T70 btw. would interest me ^^ . If you say, you hire Scientists, I ask you what you want with an Academy ^^ .

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Actually that was my guestimate time frame for the 1st great spy,assuming PHI/non PHI leader after you build the great wall.

Running scientists will get your next great person quicker,but obviously it becomes a lottery as to what that GP will be.Nothing wrong with an academy in the capitol-lets face it we need research to get to nationhood/democracy etc for our spy buildings/civics.

That academy is boosting our settled spys beakers.Il be honest,if im building TGW im probably settling on stone and also building the mids-like in Bibors EE game he posted.This makes settling any great person more attractive(but can also mess up your EE plans by dropping a GE instead of a spy-which happened to me that game).

It just seems a waste those 4000esp in the early game,when you can steal even good techs like civil service/feud for around 500esp.The 1st thing I do is put my esp on my best neighbour for a cheeky tech steal if I need it-poly/med/sail-all very cheap to steal with minimum/no messing with the slider.Obviously just bieng able to see what they are teching is an advantage.

Which brings me to the passive effect of that settled great spy opposed to scotland yard,with 16 esp we can now juggle our spy points and get the low down on what other AIs are teching-2/4 as opposed to 1.The infiltrate mission to me puts too many eggs in one basket too early.If you,ve got WvO maybe, or Mansa,yeah fine,but what if you,ve got pericles/shaka/gilgamesh for eg,too unpredictable as to how they will be teching in 100 turns.

To me an EE doesnt kick in till nationhood anyway,and using an EE in the way Bibor descirbes in his game with the caveats(slider to zero after alpha etc)is obviously suboptimal way to win at civ,but shows how you can win without research.

2 scotland yards run through the slider is going to generate more esp in your 10-12 size citys,but for what end?your slider should be on research in the early game.

BUT,after all that,IF you are talking about a "pure" espionage game-with caveats such as bibor proposed,scotland yards 1st,yep,I get it your right.

FlyingSwan said:

Actually that was my guestimate time frame for the 1st great spy,assuming PHI/non PHI leader after you build the great wall.

Running scientists will get your next great person quicker,but obviously it becomes a lottery as to what that GP will be.Nothing wrong with an academy in the capitol-lets face it we need research to get to nationhood/democracy etc for our spy buildings/civics.

That academy is boosting our settled spys beakers.Il be honest,if im building TGW im probably settling on stone and also building the mids-like in Bibors EE game he posted.This makes settling any great person more attractive(but can also mess up your EE plans by dropping a GE instead of a spy-which happened to me that game).

It just seems a waste those 4000esp in the early game,when you can steal even good techs like civil service/feud for around 500esp.The 1st thing I do is put my esp on my best neighbour for a cheeky tech steal if I need it-poly/med/sail-all very cheap to steal with minimum/no messing with the slider.Obviously just bieng able to see what they are teching is an advantage.

Which brings me to the passive effect of that settled great spy opposed to scotland yard,with 16 esp we can now juggle our spy points and get the low down on what other AIs are teching-2/4 as opposed to 1.The infiltrate mission to me puts too many eggs in one basket too early.If you,ve got WvO maybe, or Mansa,yeah fine,but what if you,ve got pericles/shaka/gilgamesh for eg,too unpredictable as to how they will be teching in 100 turns.

To me an EE doesnt kick in till nationhood anyway,and using an EE in the way Bibor descirbes in his game with the caveats(slider to zero after alpha etc)is obviously suboptimal way to win at civ,but shows how you can win without research.

2 scotland yards run through the slider is going to generate more esp in your 10-12 size citys,but for what end?your slider should be on research in the early game.

BUT,after all that,IF you are talking about a "pure" espionage game-with caveats such as bibor proposed,scotland yards 1st,yep,I get it your right.

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If we're talking about the first Great Spy, then it's even more clear, Scotland Yard > Infiltration Mission > settling.

If we just compare: Scotland Yard can give up to 200 extra at 1 AD. I can look up what it gives earlier, if necessary. You say the Infiltration Mission gives 4k, ok, then Scotland Yard needs 20T to pay back.
Settling the GS however gives 12 / turn, making settling an option that pays for itself after more than 300T[/b]! It doesn't matter if you have the Mids or whatever, it's just again that settling (like almost always) is the worst option.

You also don't need an Academy for an EE and neither Nationhood nor anything else, except from Alpha. Stealing techs is greatly efficient even before all those things come. I've stolen techs without having anything of that, and payed between 1/3 to 1/2 points in as it would have costed.

The great advantage of this approach that you don't seem to see, is, that it i. e. allows to stay on the same tech-level as the AIs, even if the land is more than horrible, and gives almost no at all. It also allows to stay on the same tech-level and conquer your opponents with city-revolts in every city that gets attacked. It allows stealing Gold to keep the Slider at 100%, and many many more things, including the "Espionage assisted Cultural Victory" or the possibility to switch the religion of a target to bribe someone against him that would have not attacked him before.
The cost of all these options are for the Spies, so running an EE, is a highly efficient way to convert into tons of and other nice things, and it allows playing on the weakest maps that are in CIV, like Boreal i. e. .

A real EE works via Cottages and the Slider, not via building tons of super-expensive Courthouses to get a handful of Spy points, about the same handful that settling also gives. Using a heavily cottaged Capital + Scotland Yard + the Slider, allows for a completely different gaming-style, that even works on the worst map.

If you got any questions, feel free to ask.

Seraiel said:

A real EE works via Cottages and the Slider, not via building tons of super-expensive Courthouses to get a handful of Spy points, about the same handful that settling also gives. Using a heavily cottaged Capital + Scotland Yard + the Slider, allows for a completely different gaming-style, that even works on the worst map.

If you got any questions, feel free to ask.

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I think ive been stuck in a rut all these years with settling great spys,ive played the game so that research and spy points evolve together in the early game,which eventually creates an EE you sought of sleep walk into by building courthouses/jails etc.So Im looking forward to trying this approach,basically a beurea capitol with scotland yard.

I think the only Q ive got is:- Nationhood vs beuracracy.Which to choose?and under which circumstances?Im sure Ive read in another post of yours that you rate nationhood as a civic anyway-which I do,especially when playing my favourite AGG civs(all of them except the mongols/greece),-half price barracks give 2,whats not to like,but whats best for your spy points?+50% commerce from bureau,or +25%esp from nationhood?

Burocracy is earlier in the beginning, but the more cities you get, the stronger Nationhood gets. You can see how much your capital gets through Burocracy. Multiplay that with 2 (Scotland Yard) and you know the real bonus. Then you only have to find out, how much all your cities (incl. capital) would make, if they had 25% bonus. If it only comes near to the Bureacracy value, I'd switch, because Nationhood costs no maintenance, which can already be valuable on its own, when having lots of cities.

@bibor

i think you can add something like "founding a later religion (confucianism, christianity or taoism... or even islam) and then spreading to a victim civ (or via a trap city method)" to be beneficial in getting huge discounts (i think it is 40%) in espionage without needing the multipliers.

Seraiel said:

The great advantage of this approach that you don't seem to see, is, that it i. e. allows to stay on the same tech-level as the AIs, even if the land is more than horrible, and gives almost no at all. It also allows to stay on the same tech-level and conquer your opponents with city-revolts in every city that gets attacked. It allows stealing Gold to keep the Slider at 100%, and many many more things, including the "Espionage assisted Cultural Victory" or the possibility to switch the religion of a target to bribe someone against him that would have not attacked him before.

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How do you get ESP if you have no Commerce and you don't like esp. buildings???

BTW, when you talk about city-revolts, switching religions, etc you do not talk about EE. It's not economy at all. It's pure espionage.

The cost of all these options are for the Spies, so running an EE, is a highly efficient way to convert into tons of and other nice things, and it allows playing on the weakest maps that are in CIV, like Boreal i. e. .

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Oh, man! You surprize me. When I wrote, that EE is mostly about converting hammers into science, you said it's a... (wrong idea). And now you write the same! Hallelujah! You've seen the Light

This work wants to be continued.

Seraiel said:

The great advantage of this approach that you don't seem to see, is, that it i. e. allows to stay on the same tech-level as the AIs, even if the land is more than horrible, and gives almost no at all.

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A real EE works via Cottages and the Slider, not via building tons of super-expensive Courthouses to get a handful of Spy points, about the same handful that settling also gives. Using a heavily cottaged Capital + Scotland Yard + the Slider, allows for a completely different gaming-style, that even works on the worst map.

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I would like to use espionage more in my games (in the way you are showing it how).

But I haven't understood quoted. Because according to the 2nd quote I've thought one can generate via slider and SYs only in good cottage cities = . So, how to generate a lot of via slider and SYs from a poor land? I don't understand? Trade routes? Cottages even there?

A poor map just calls for an espionage game. Crappy snaky archipelago without rivers, or something... (+GL to build). I would like poor land is a real motive (among others) to go espionage, not because it's fancy thing to do.

Additional questions:

Where would you settle the 2nd SYs? Again in the capital or in another cottage city?

When would you switch 'on' espionage slider? After Alphabet? How much? For how long? How to pick right moments for switching on and off? Any specific clues?

This I don't understand, too?

It also allows to stay on the same tech-level and conquer your opponents with city-revolts in every city that gets attacked.

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Tuscarora87 said:

I would like to use espionage more in my games (in the way you are showing it how).

But I haven't understood quoted. Because according to the 2nd quote I've thought one can generate via slider and SYs only in good cottage cities = . So, how to generate a lot of via slider and SYs from a poor land? I don't understand? Trade routes? Cottages even there?

A poor map just calls for an espionage game. Crappy snaky archipelago without rivers, or something... (+GL to build). I would like poor land is a real motive (among others) to go espionage, not because it's fancy thing to do.

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Yes, Cottages, even in a bad burocratic capital. Traderoutes too and hire a Spy-Specialist from the Courthouse, and build a Jail too if your game goes until Constitution. Maybe even a Castle.
Also, poor land doesn't necessarily mean that the capital is poor too, it's sometimes the case, that the capital has good food so is a good city but that all the surrounding is bad.

Additional questions:

Where would you settle the 2nd SYs? Again in the capital or in another cottage city?

When would you switch 'on' espionage slider? After Alphabet? How much? For how long? How to pick right moments for switching on and off? Any specific clues?

This I don't understand, too?

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WastinTime once wrote about espionage-assisted Cultural Victories that "you only Alpha, you can shut down research after that basically" , and it really is like that.

When to switch Espionage on and off, is mostly a question of how much money one has, and if one knows which AI to steal from next, so which AI has got a valuable tech, that it doesn't trade to others. When you play for an espionage-assisted Cultural Victory, you run 100% Espionage on the same target the whole time, but as you're speaking from using Espionage in other types of games, in those you simply spy with the base-EPs on one target to see what it's researching, and when you discover that someone different researched something that meets the criteria, you switch, turn on 100% once you got the money, bring the Spies into position in between, steal, and trade that tech around for everything else.

Towards the last quote:

City-revolts are a Spy-missioin that's available if you got enough on someone, and got a Spy stationed in the city, then you can make the city revolt for 1T (quite expensive, but also very powerful) , which brings it down to 0% defenses. This is great when conducting war with mounted units, because then one doesn't have siege usually, because siege is too slow. The necessary for this can also come for a Great Spy, of which you'll get quite a few, if you run a full EE and hire a Specialist everywhere where it's possible. Then you sometimes can steal a tech, invade the target with city-revolts and even steal its once its down to 1 or 2 cities.

Secondary Scotland Yards I wouldn't build too many, better use the Infiltration mission if you already got one in your capital. Golden Age is also a good possibility.

Hth.

Thanks for the answers. There's plenty of fun when going for espionage, it seems.

Now I understand what you've wanted to say in the last quote: Of course, I know about city revolts..., but still you gave me some good clues when going for HAs or smt similar, because I always struggle to get enough for revolting cities later.

Tuscarora87 said:

Thanks for the answers. There's plenty of fun when going for espionage, it seems.

Now I understand what you've wanted to say in the last quote: Of course, I know about city revolts..., but still you gave me some good clues when going for HAs or smt similar, because I always struggle to get enough for revolting cities later.

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HAs are too early for city-revolts, and the cities also only got little cultural defense at that time. City-revolts are something to make Knights and above more sucessful. I mostly use them for Rifles and Cavs, which I reach at about 700 AD with Deity-AI-tradepartners. If you go for a full EE though, you should have enough even earlier. Sometimes is also only a single city-revolt that makes the difference, because the AI often parks their stacks in one of their border-cities. Attack that one directly in the beginning of the war, destroy AIs complete stack, GG.

Also don't forget to read the guide on Hybrid Economy, it'll help you greatly if you don't know it yet.

And you're welcome .

Little late reply, but thanks for the tips. Sometimes I go for full HAs , and then I need help from a spy or two. Meanwhile, I'm practicing espionage strategies; it's nice to grab a sideline tech from an advanced AI in a crytical moment. ...Of course, I'm reading and rereading your articles. I've learned a lot. Great job! Looking for more interesting topics.