Role Play Challenge: Peter, Spy Extraordinaire II

Welcome to a replay of my next RPC game. Previous games can be found in my signature. These games add a certain amount of fun to this forum as well as show different strategies often focusing and a specific strategy/economy.

The first attempt at this game was a bitter disappointment, as we struggled bigtime in tech resulting in Shaka wiping us out . This time we will alter our espionage although the goals arethe same, to play a good diplomatic game utilizing espionage and corps which are two big BTS items.

This game we will play a Diplomacy based game as Peter the Great of Russia. WE will use the espionage to help steal techs as well as other mischievious things to help out game, while exploring the full potential of corps and corp espionage (spreading the corps to AIs for excess gold). As usual I will make a distinction between rule (essentially unbreakable except for rare circumstances) and guidelines (how we plan to play but can adjust for the benefit and enjoyment of the game). All are welcomed to to shadow, advice, criticise, comment but please put all spoilers in appropriate spoiler wraps
Spoiler:
Like this!
. Finally remember that war is the ultimate (and usually final) diplomatic tool.


Rules:
1) I still want to explore uses of espionage so I still plan to utilize the ep slider at certain points. The ranges are fixed, so we are committed to those barring financial constraints. Given these rules we should be able to tech military to avoid complete military collapse.
A) Once we tech alphabet the slider must be at 10-20%.
B) At engineering the slider must go to 30-40%.
C) At Democracy the slider must go to 50-60%.
D) At Communism the slider must go to 60-80%.
E) Once all spy infrastructure is up in all cities, we have to turn the science slider off and proceed with specialists and espionage.

2) We must give diplomacy a chance against any AI, meaning we must try to open borders. We must get a certain number of eps towards an AI to view the power graph numbers, after which we can shut down eps towards that AI.
3) Great Spies can be used as we please.

Guidelines.

1) All types of economies (yeah, I call them economies, it's my RPC and I'll call them what I want) are open, CE, SE, TE, HE, whatever the map dicatates. Peter is Philosophical and I see no problems popping GS's for bulbing and subsequent trading. 3) Tech trading is encouraged at all times although no specific rules.
2) We should try for as many corps as possible, even the ones that contradict each other (Sid's vs Cereal). GMs, GEs, GAs should be saved for the corps however the GSs are easier to get and thus can be used earlier if it helps Peter's cause. Once we get corps they must be spread to other AIs
3) Regarding war, Peter can declare war against anyone he wants if there is a clear diplomatic positive. What we do not want to do is steamroll everyone (like MONTY and Willem) unless that is the only path to victory.
4) Civics: All are in play except State property because of the Corp conflict. We should encourage or force and AI out of SP if possible. Free Market should be the preferred civic and there had better be a very good reason to go to environmentalism (Doubtful as Peter is Expansive) or Mercantilism (doubtful again as we plan a diplo friendly game).
5) All wonders are in play but Great Spy one's such as the Great Wall, Kremlin, and the Pentagon should be encouraged.
6) Empire size. We will try to run as compact a civilization as possible to force us down the diplomatic route. Expanding to conquer another AI is a viable option ONLY if there is a strategic resource involved (iron/horse/oil/coal etc...)


Map is a random Big/Little map with large continents
Monarch difficulty (I will keep this)
As always, Marathon speed.
All others random.

Victory conditions:

Diplomatic (UN) or space, both equally acceptible

NOTE: If once again we fail in this game, I will end the espionage RPC and move on to the next.


Peter starts with hunting and mining, very nice for early military tech although light on food. His UU is nerfed even more in BTS with the delay in cavalry but still very good. I particularly like the late UB (research institute), who cannot like a Great Library in every city post-superconductors with a philosphical leader.

Peter's trait's work excellently together, Philosophical for the generation of GPs and expansive for fast ganeries and extra health for larger cities.

Onto the Game!!!

Our Extraordinary Leader





Our random settings. Looks like a Cold boeard

And of course the start



Looks production heavy, food light.

OK troops, how do we start?

*Settles down with a bowl of popcorn and mug of hot chocolate, and quietly waits for the show to start.*

I've only read your last two RPCs, but enjoyed them. Despite not having BtS, I'm curious as to the viability of a Espionage gambit. Back in SMAC, I'd usually run amuck with Probe Teams, so having a neutered Spy in Vanilla and Warlords is ... irritating.

A_Hamster said:

*Settles down with a bowl of popcorn and mug of hot chocolate, and quietly waits for the show to start.*

I've only read your last two RPCs, but enjoyed them. Despite not having BtS, I'm curious as to the viability of a Espionage gambit. Back in SMAC, I'd usually run amuck with Probe Teams, so having a neutered Spy in Vanilla and Warlords is ... irritating.

Click to expand...

Glad you enjoyed the previous two RPCs.

I too would like to see how well espionage can be used, which is my purpose for palying (education for my own game).

This comes just in time as I'm totally on the fence about upgrading to BtS from Warlords!

Show me a cool game with espionage and corporations and I guess I'll buy it! No pressure though

Seriously though, I like the RPC series, I always pick up something from them to apply to my own games. Keep em coming!

Desk Jockey said:

This comes just in time as I'm totally on the fence about upgrading to BtS from Warlords!

Show me a cool game with espionage and corporations and I guess I'll buy it! No pressure though

Seriously though, I like the RPC series, I always pick up something from them to apply to my own games. Keep em coming!

Click to expand...

Thanks for folloing the series.

My feeling is that espionage is definitely a big plus, even if you just use spies to toss an AI city into revolt rpior to an attack.

If you look at the Victoria RPC game you'll get a good view on how much a corp can alter a game.

There´s a very interesting thread about castles on the strategy forum.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=253674

Since you stated :

madscientist said:

Rules:
B) At engineering the slider must go to 30-40%.

Guidelines.
6) Empire size. We will try to run as compact a civilization as possible to force us down the diplomatic route. Expanding to conquer another AI is a viable option ONLY if there is a strategic resource involved (iron/horse/oil/coal etc...)

Click to expand...

Sounds like you are going to build some of them.
I want to know if you might do somekind of Engineering beeline/economics delay ??
Well not to long a delay I suppose.
But somehow go for economics only when you are ready to go for Corporation. (don´t stay idle in-between)
Actually you might have to steal those 2 techs. (ur research might be poor at that time)
My opinion is that you should definitely take nationalism before economics for the +25% esp of nationhood. Sounds synergetic to me.



Since you want to limit the size of your empire, and go diplomatic, you might have defensive wars to do. those proud towers of stone and your walls will be quite handy.
(+ great wall => GG )



the +1 trade route is nice too.
and you can force Ai back to decentralisation with spy missions (is worth it? I don´t know, but your RPC cries for it !!!).

By the way, is there a random event or a quest that creates greater synergy between castles and the great wall, espionnage-wise ??

On top of that
I expect to see some exotic use of spy missions, IF your economy can afford it.
Go get them !!!

The Shakanator struck again ... better luck this time!

madscientist said:

2) We should try for as many corps as possible, even the ones that contradict each other (Sid's vs Cereal). GMs, GEs, GAs should be saved for the corps

Click to expand...

Will you save them for corps no matter how far you might yet be from the technologies allowing the various corporations?

I'm glad you didn't go for Always Peace, it will be better to see Espionage succeed (or well, fail) in a more normal game. Lowering the difficulty level might have been a good idea though.

OK, something I can answer, yes all GPs outside of prophets/spies/scientists must be saved for a corp.

This brings up the damned if I do and damnned if I don't. Economics get's us a free GM, probably the toughest GP to get besides a GE early but also cuts short the life of the castle. So I will play this situation as it comes.

The more I think about it, the more I may emphasize an SE (Yes, SE dammit, I can call it what I want in my RPC) once I get the first Great Spy (can you say Great Wall!!!).

Note, OP was modified to include the starting position.

Just a thought I have to offer before you get this game going: Why not wait until you have CoL and courthouses in place before kickstarting your EE? I think someone might have mentioned this in the other thread, and I tend to agree that this could help avoid some of the problems you had in the last try. This way you get to stabilise your economy a bit more IMO and will allow you to self research another few techs for trades.

Just my opinion however, I'd just hate to see a repeat of what happened last time . Better luck this time around.

madscientist said:

Note, OP was modified to include the starting position.

Click to expand...

you should move ur scout 1SW of settler on the forest hill to look for food.

edit : I meant SE, of course

I'll bet there is additional food in the BFC, can't believe the CPU want's you to grow a capital with a measly plains cow as only food? Settling in place is often good...

Build worker first, obviously. Elephants on grass are food-sufficient, good hammers and decent commerce. Lot of hills with trees to chop away, so Great Wall is certain if you want it.

Regarding visable land, Looks to me like we have a plains cow (3F, 3H), grassland jumbo (2 F, 2H, 2C), plains jumbo (1F, 3 H, 2C) as visable resources. We also have at least 2 forrested riverside grasslands which can be farmed, plus 3 forrested hills.

Look like the best plan would be to send the scout 1E of the settler to see if we have some food (that tile 2E of the cows looks a little dfferent).

Regarding ep slider and CoL. Going 10-20% at alphabet is not a big deal, and we can always delay alphabet until we get CoL. OR we could use the oracle for CoL. So the alphabet rule stays.

I see the GW as a must have in this map. We are landlocked and would prefer that barb protection early as well as the Great Spy points from a PHIL leader.

I will likely start the game today or tomorrow depending on when I end my off-line game with Emperor Shaka conquering the world. otta play that one out first.

Peter Spy Extraordinaire: Part I

We started the game and boy does it look crowded. The good news is we have no Shaka, as of yet. The bad news is we other thugs to worry about. But enough, let's get right to the game

First we send the scout1E of the settler to maximize the view. After finding nothing except soem far off rice, we settle in place



Our tech order is AH/Archery/BW/Myst/Wheel. Yeah, the military techs first of all.

The build order was worker (24 turns at marathon due to expansion trait) then scout/scout/scout/archer/archer/archer/settler. We were only at population 3 when we committed to the settler, and chopped a forrest to speed him along. Why change from my normal routine, welll....

In rapid succession we meet







Aren't we all comfy and cozy! And we are going after a diplomacy/espionage game? Well, the spies have a short distance to go.

So I saved pretty early to get a feeling out there what we should do but first the lanscape

Our immediate area



Trying to map out potential cities




And a little further view to see the other AIs




Ok, three potential sites. If it's not clear, We have ragnar to the north, Lincoln very close to Ragnar in a NE direction. Hammarabi is immediately to our west and Victoria immediately to his west. Like I said, comfy cozy.

So how do we approach this?

Where do we settle?
1) City 1 has the horses and a hill for defense but we would need to pop the borders
2) I like to the north to further block Hammarabi and block Ragnar a bit, although he would have to get through jungle to settle near us. Looking to nail the dyes and rice with city 2.
3) We could settle right on Hammarabis eastern border but not sure how well that would do.

Also we do want a good shot at the great wall, which can likely be chopped out after masonry.

Also what should be the tech path be? Looking at masonry the perhaps IW. However fishing/sailing get's us trade on the river eliminating the need to build roads. Of course we want writing, priesthood, CoL, alphabet.

Vicky and Hammarabi already have opposing religions, and I looking to stay out of it. But a Babylonian/English war should open us to an opportunistic waar against the Babylonians. I am definitely looking at using the religion angle for diplomacy.

I would probably plop the settler just to the left of the circled square near city 2 marker is placed. This gives you four dyes plus rice, although it needs its borders to grow. Tech wise, I would research masonry to start great wall in Moscow, then a research of bronze working to reveal copper (I don't see it anywhere on the map, so I assume you don't have it yet) and to allow you to chop the forests. After that, what I propose is risky, and kind of goes against what you want to do, but hear me out. Next I would beeline for monotheism (only if no one else has Judaism, otherwise ignore this). Should you get it first and found Judaism, odds are the holy city will be in your second city (near the dyes). This lets the city grow it's borders without you needing to do anything else. Also it will ask you to convert, but don't. This way, you have a religion, can work it later to spread it to everybody, then covert to it when the majority of players are under it.

I also just want to note that I don't have the game on this computer, but I have played civ4: bts before numerous times. So if I have anything incorrect, it's because I can't actually access the save to see everything that is going on.

Hmm, no copper(?) makes me think you need to settle city1 for the horses and then beeline IW. Keep in mind that the Babylonian UU is the bowman and they're also aggressive so you can't neglect a solid army. Hammurabi just has to go early if you ask me or else you will be swamped. Other than that I'd also consider settling the rice/ivory just south of the capital, especially if there's some more seafood we can't see down there. Beelining IW will also help you nab those prime jungle spots to your north as well as hopefully showing up closeby.

Leventis said:

Hmm, no copper(?) makes me think you need to settle city1 for the horses and then beeline IW. Keep in mind that the Babylonian UU is the bowman and they're also aggressive so you can't neglect a solid army. Hammurabi just has to go early if you ask me or else you will be swamped. Other than that I'd also consider settling the rice/ivory just south of the capital, especially if there's some more seafood we can't see down there. Beelining IW will also help you nab those prime jungle spots to your north as well as hopefully showing up closeby.

Click to expand...

We teched Bronze Working but the only copper I saw was in Ragnar's lands (which had a farm on it meaning Ragnar does not have BW yet).

I agree about Hammarabi going, just a matter of when. I see sending a horde of War elephants and cat's sometime in the future while Vicky attacks from the east. Let's see the Bowmen stand to that!!

this is a realy good city. even better than the capitol. four hills, four dyes one rice and one ivory in FC. i whod make this my capitol in this game. you need IW, worker crew no problem when peters build workers fast.

I gotta agree that this is the best location for the city. Not sure but there may be a chance I can monopolize the elephant market with that city. Probably Dye also.

Lots of jungles and calendar resource.
Long shot !

if you decide to settle there.
get Iron working asap, and lots of workers.
to chop jungle (clear your surroundings for defence)

the horses might be more important at that point.
any news about the Great Wall ??