CIV103: The Espionage Economy at Prince Level

Round 1: Turns 0-50, 4000BC to 2000BC
Round 2: Turns 51-101, 2000BC to 350BC
Round 3: Turns 101-155, 350BC to 900AD
Round 4: Turns 155-185, 900AD to 1250AD
Round 5: Turns 185-236, 1250AD to 1630AD

Not all settings are yet decided for the game, but I want to start posting some introductory info on the game, so I am starting the thread. The game will probably be played with Joao of Portugal (EXP/IMP) because he seems to be the weakest for this game, and at least part of the point of the CIV103 will be playing a game without any of the top tier, easy to use traits.

At the time of this writing, Joao is not yet set in stone as the leader, the map will definitely be Standard size, Normal speed, probably default continents. I have still not decided on whether or not to use Aggressive AI. If you have any comments on the leader or game settings, please post in the pre-game thread:

CIV103 pregame thread

Additionally, for those of you interested in some of the math behind Espionage, Bhruic has a nice, math intensive thread here:

Bhruic's spy detection thread.

I think this game should be great fun, and hopefully will open up a new facet of CIV4 for your enjoyment. And what better leader to play the pilferer, but that jack-ass Joao?

I intend this game to be a 'pure' Espionage Economy (EE) game. By a pure EE game, I mean that shortly after getting Alphabet (the tech that allows spies), all techs will primarily or completely be gotten via espionage.

Some characteristics of this sort of game:

Early on, the first goal is to get to Alphabet (after appropriate worker and necessary military techs). Up to this point, research is gotten much as any other game. Because espionage points are hard to get from specialists, the economy is based on tile commerce ... be it coastal squares, cottages, or other high commerce tiles like dyes, gold, and gems. Trade route commerce is of course also a contributor, and on a map with lots of coastal cities, harbors and the Great Lighthouse can be great benefits.

Most likely, cottages will be used extensively to increase commerce, which will eventually be used primarily for espionage. After Alphabet, we will be able to build spies to steal technology. But not all techs are worth stealing. Early techs like Polytheism and Priesthood should be self-researched rather than spending hammers on spies. Because of this, there will likely be a short period where the science slider will probably be run around 10-20% to take care of any cheap techs that are left to be researched. Another option is to just trade for these techs. Since we likely won't be trading much in the long run, it is highly unlikely that WFYABTA will be a problem.

After Alphabet, the Economy is simple ... choose a likely nearby target, put EPs towards them, and steal, steal, steal. Key techs to focus on are CoL for courthouses (+2 EP each), and Engineering for castles (+25% espionage). After that, any military tech is good, and as we get into the middle game, Republic, Democracy, and Communism are all very high priorities for the very nice EP buildings. Once these buildings are in, one or more cities will want to run several spy specialists to generate Great Spies to build Scotland Yards in any and all commerce cities. Consider that a city with a jail, intelligence agency, and SY gives 200% EP generation ... the same as the beaker bonus to a city with academy, library, university, and Oxford. And EVERY city can have this, not just one! Additionally, all the EP buildings give 20 base EPs and no buildings give base beakers. Also consider that often the EP spending to steal a tech can be as low as 60% of a tech's beaker cost, and you can see the power of the EE.

Another goal is Nationalism for Nationhood. +25% EP generation +2 happy per barracks, and the ability to draft. Pretty sweet for an EE.

I recommend figuring out a way to be first to communism. The free great spy can be used on Scotland yard in one of your highest food cities. In that city is then important to build the Kremlin (gives an extra 2 spy specialist slots). It can be rush-bought or built straight out if you have the production and especially if you have stone. Running 9 spy specialists in this city can lead to it pulling in over 200 esp/t on its own.

Overall, I'm very much looking forward to this game as I think it is very innovative and will be an opportunity to see what can be done by pushing the espionage system to its limits.

A good point, hermit. Since I foresee having a good commerce base, with proper preparation, getting Communism first should be doable on Prince level.
I may do an expert level game on the EE with a more suited leader when this one is finished. I think Elizabeth would be perfect ... FIN for more commerce, and PHI to generate Great Spies quickly after EP buildings come in for lots of Scotland Yards.

Before I watch the game a few questions from someone pretty CIV savy but new to the EE

1) Do you ever run non-spt specialists and how would you be using the GPs that are non-spy? DO you bulb or settle?

2) What if the AI your directing EP's towards take a bath in tech. An example is I played a game and got the GW, and subsequent Great Spy. I sent him on a mission to Mansa Musa figuring he would be the best to spy on. Of course that was the one game he teched like a dog and I think I got theology only.

3) Do you tech trade, or do you clam up?

The other thing to watch is map choice. I've been fooling around with this type of economy as well and maps with neighbors, 1 neighbor, etc., don't do well with this type of setup.

Did you have a map set in mind?

@madscientist:

1. I've used science specialists in a city or 2. Usually when I have a city with a lot of food, and no good production squares to use the food on, and only to help get to alphabet quicker when REXing has severely dropped my science slider. I don't really want Great Scientists, but if they show up, usually settle in a city that can use the hammer. Emperor and above, I would probably save the scientist for a later lightbulb. Once I have MC for workshops, and HR to cover happiness problems, generally no non-spies are run. My thinking is that very few Great People should be generated until the spy specialist buildings allow running more spy specialists. With a commerce based EE, Scotland Yard is the most powerful building in the game, and you want a lot of them.

2. Usually not a problem because with a lot of EPs, you should always have enough assigned to see what everyone is teching, and get an idea of their tech rate. Don't stockpile a huge amount against one AI unless you are fairly sure you will get to use them. If there is no clear target, spread them more evenly with emphasis on those closest, and those you are likely to war with soon.

3. It depends. Trade whenever it seems to your advantage. There will probably be little trading since it is Prince level.

@idiot

Planning on standard map, continents, possibly hemispheres. I will restart if isolated.

I've started the game. We will be playing Joao II of Portugal, EXP/IMP. Map settings are Continents, Standard size, Normal speed, everything else default settings. Prince difficulty level. I am using the 3.13 patch with Bhruic's unofficial patch. Here is the start:



And the initial save: CIV103 Initial Save

And after moving my warrior 1NE to see if there was anything interesting (You can see that SW is just more water), I settled in place:



Nothing spectacular, 3 clams and cows, so plenty of food, but only 3 hills for mines. Sufficient for the early game, and with 13 surplus food without farms, good potential for a later GP farm. We can discuss build orders, tech paths, and how best to leverage Joao's traits of Imperialistic and Expansive. Starting techs are Fishing and Mining.

Imperialistic gives +50% to settler production, but remember this is +50% to hammers only, not food. Also, 100% Great General Emergence.

Expansive gives +2 health, half price granaries and harbors, and +25% worker production (again bonus only to hammers).

IMO, probably the 2 weakest traits, but of course not useless, and they do have a synergy for quick expansion and city growth.

Joao's UU is the Carrack. It is a Caravel with that can hold 2 units instead of 1, and can transport military units, not just spies, Great People, and Missionaries. This could actually be quite useful for an Espionage game, as we will be able to transport twice as many spies with the same # of ships before Astronomy.

The UB is the Fraetoria. It is a Customs House that gives +1 commerce to all water tiles. Not bad, but not incredible, and it comes rather late in the game.

I say BW ( to chop our faster settlers and workboats), hunting, archery unless you have copper really close by. Build I would go for a workboat/Worker/Workboat/Workboat/Archer/Archer/Settler, substitute warrior if not up to archery.

I'm thinking tech path of BW/Masonry/(Hunting or Agriculture depending on what happens)/AH.

Tentative build order of Work Boat/Worker/Worker(chopped)/Warrior/Great Wall/Work Boat/Escort Unit/Settler. Of course all this depends on what scouting reveals. It would be nice to save forests for settlers to get the Expansive bonus from the hammers.

If Great Wall is built, early archery isn't necessary. It may be wise to delay or skip GW if blocking the AI or getting a strategic resource early is necessary. It all depends on what scouts reveal.

Yeah, I think your start pretty well demands slavery and/or caste system. Since you're going to be running an EE, you need to go slavery and turn that capitol into a crazy-mad production center. If you can grab monarchy from someone, HR will let that city be a uge commerce capitol, because you'll have neough foo to grow to pretty much any size, particularly with expansive.

I just noticed this thread in the Strategy Articles Forum for those interested:

Espionage Mission Costs

It may be worthwhile to found a religion and spread it to our target tech stealing city as if you have the founding city of a religion and that religion is in target city, you get a 25% decrease in EP cost of missions.

I may try this if the situation allows. My target would be Judaism. I don't start with Mysticism, so going for Buddhism or Hinduism would be not just risky, but also greatly delay worker techs. With plenty of tiles to work in the capital just from the starting techs of mining and fishing, pursuing Judaism after BW may be reasonable. Of course if a close neighbor founds an early religion, might as well just capture the holy city.

Regardless, I will need to keep this bonus in mind throughout the game. Capturing a key holy city at some point may be extremely profitable.

I was thinking to myself on the way home today that you will lose the ability to beeline given that you will be relying on stealing techs.

To me, what that means is that you will want to buddy up with the tech leaders and then use the stolen military tech to beat up on the more backwards civs. Does that make sense?

You'll always be on par with the tech leaders and never behind and never beyond. So you probably won't be wanting to fight the tech leaders (at least not earlier in the game) but instead be beating up on the tech losers. That probably means that diplomatically you'll want to discourage the tech leaders from trading with the tech losers as much as possible!

xanadux said:

I'm thinking tech path of BW/Masonry/(Hunting or Agriculture depending on what happens)/AH.

Tentative build order of Work Boat/Worker/Worker(chopped)/Warrior/Great Wall/Work Boat/Escort Unit/Settler. Of course all this depends on what scouting reveals. It would be nice to save forests for settlers to get the Expansive bonus from the hammers.

If Great Wall is built, early archery isn't necessary. It may be wise to delay or skip GW if blocking the AI or getting a strategic resource early is necessary. It all depends on what scouts reveal.

Click to expand...

You're the EE expert here, but it seems to me that GW is pretty awesome for EE because it's the only way to get those early GSpy points. It's also pretty cheap so if you really, really want to get it out of the way I'd say chop it. It's probably the only wonder you'll really want in the early years. Actually, Stonehenge would be nice if you get an opportunity to grab it because I've noticed in my own EE game that culture becomes an issue when I'm not building libraries. Maybe after AH go for mysticism and build Stonehenge in the capitol after 2 settlers are out?

This is really nitpicky, but why 2 workers so early and why the extra warrior? If you build GW you won't need protection from barbarians (another reason to prioritize it) and the AI isn't opportunistic enough to attack you early on (at least not on prince). I'd just go for the escort. So the build order would be something like: work boat/worker/GW/escort/settler/etc... otherwise sounds good!

the extra warrior is probably garrison for the capital to avoid the i would think getting a settler out would be a good idea before the great wall if possible that way the second city can work on continuing to expand your empire.

Round 1 finished, will be posting it in a few minutes. Although Stonehenge would indeed be nice, I don't want to pollute my Great Spy points so early.

I wouldn't say I am an EE expert ... I've used espionage quite a bit, but this is only my third true EE game.

Even with GW, you need minimal escort ... at least a scout to make sure the way is clear. The settler is vulnerable until it settles.

I am planning on chopping the GW, and so don't see that the settler will be much delayed. As the game played, I had just gotten to happy cap a turn or 2 before completing GW, so the settler isn't really delayed.

Round 1: turns 0-50, 4000BC-2000BC:

Turn 0 Lisbon founded in place, start on workboat.

Turn 1 Start researching BW, warrior heads NE scouting.

Turn 6 Warrior pops a hut for a Scout

Turn 7 Meet Willem van Oranje. His capital is 12 tiles E and 6 tiles N of Lisbon.

Turn 9 I adjust tile assignments in Lisbon so Work Boat completes the same turn as city growth.

Turn 13 Lisbon completes Work Boat and starts on worker. Buddhism founded in a distant land.

Turn 15 BW completed. I start on Masonry. Copper shows up on the plains tile 1SW of Lisbon. My warrior gets lucky and kills a bear without taking a scratch.

Turn 19 My Scout is unlucky and dies to a wolf.

Turn 23 Worker completed. I had planned on chopping a second worker here, but with the appearance of copper, I am thinking a second work boat. The reason is that improving the copper immediately is of more value than immediately chopping the worker, and with the hammers from the copper, the next worker will be built with a bonus from the Expansive trait. The worker starts mining the copper. Masonry completed, and I start on Mysticism. I intend to pursue Judaism.

Turn 26 Hinduism founded in a distant land.

Turn 27 Willem converts to Hinduism. My worker is finished mining copper and moves 1E to chop a forest.

Turn 29 Mysticism completed and I start on Polytheism

Turn 31 Finish Work Boat and start on Worker.

Turn 34 Worker 2 completed, start on warrior. The second worker goes to start chopping on the NE hill.

Turn 37 Worker 1 now chopping on the last grassland hill. Warrior completed and goes to grab hut outside city that I didn't notice when borders popped. Lisbon starts on The Great Wall.

Turn 38 Polytheism completed, start on Monotheism.

Turn 43 Worker completes mine, and moves to forest NE of Lisbon to wait. GW will be done in 8 turns, and I want to keep growing, and use the chop on a settler.

Turn 44 Willem switches to slavery.

Turn 49 Monotheism completed, and Judaism is founded in Lisbon. Start on The Wheel. Great Wall completed, start on a settler.

Turn 50 End of round. Screenshot of the continent so far:




Lisbon:



End of round save:

CIV103 2000BC save

It can definitely be argued that once I decided to pursue Judaism, I shouldn't have built a second worker right away.

It looks like it may be just us and Willem for now ... maybe a super early optics beeline? Just because this will be an Espionage Economy doesn't mean I'm not allowed to research some things.

It looks like it may be just us and Willem for now ... maybe a super early optics beeline? Just because this will be an Espionage Economy doesn't mean I'm not allowed to research some things.

Click to expand...

not a bad idea imo. in a recent game i infiltrated HC with an early great spy and stole techs from him for ages. but having only one target isn't ideal, he was of course slower than i wanted him to be. that was amplified because he noticed that i had a huge espionage point advantage over him so he ran his spy slider higher than he probably would have otherwise, turning down his science rate. you'll run into that with willem even using the spy slider without the great spy bomb. the very fact that you're spying on him to get what he's learning will make him learn things more slowly . extra downside, he'll get no "i know someone who already knows this tech" beaker discounts if you're the only one he knows and you're not researching anything on your own. i don't think he'll be showing his most brilliant side early in this game, if you're really his only neighbor.

Yes if you're alone with Willem that will complicate an EE. He will for all intents and purposes treat you just as if you are the only two civs there are ever going to be, which we of course know is not the fact.
It's unfortunate that you drew a creative opponent, how do you plan to handle culture wars? Perhaps you can take him out before it comes to that if you can transition your spying to another continent. All of this assumes you are truly alone with Willem of course.

Very nice start indeed. 3 clams, cows and copper and 3 grassland hills. Very good production site. I guess AH after this to work the cows. And the next city under the 2 spices east of you I guess which nets you in 3 spices, rice and copper? You have some very nice land around you. Will be following this with interest. I don't have BtS yet so spy economy is something I can't try out. You might want to check Axidents thread in the story board where he used a spy economy as the dutch.