Espionage Economy

Gagonite · Apr 2, 2009

Hey guys,

I've been browsing around the Strategy & Tips forums, and I haven't really found a good solid strategy on doing an Espionage Economy. I think I've figured out the basics from what I have found, but I'm not sure if there's really more to it.. Here's what I know:

Philisophical is a major trait for this, due to the faster accumulation of GSpys. Organized is helpful too, for cheaper Courthouses. Thus, I will be trying this economy out on the Earth 18 Map (I pretty much only play on that or the Earth 34 map) using Frederick.

Beeline for the Great Wall. If you don't get it, find who did (In this case it will probably be Louis.. if not, I'd probably have to restart) and build it, but don't build any other wonders in that city that would ruin your chance of getting that first and very important GSpy.

After that, beeline for Alphabet, then turn your research slider down and raise the Espionage Slider up as high as your economy will alow. Focus your Espionage Points at your neighbors, with a higher weight on one who's more tech savvy. Make friends with that person and steal their techs often without hurting their economy.

As for everyone else, kill those who are not friends with your techy neighbor, and hurt the economy of those who are his friends.

So, have I pretty much got the basics down? And is there anything else I might need to know?

Betato · Apr 2, 2009

I've also been trying to play espionage more efficiently, and though I haven't actually done very well, I've found out that:
There are two ways in which you can achieve an enormous amount of Espionage points. you can either assing a lot of spies on Scotland yard city with settles great spies or you can have a city filled with towns and moving your espionage slider up.. It isn't that useful to convert all your commerce to espionage points when you're not getting that much commerce output. It's gonna be harsh if you reduce your research to espionage after alphabet, its probably better to wait and beeline for espionage techs like Democracry, Nationhood and communism are good techs (Espionage multipliers for buildings are higher than for commerce or hammer, and Nationhood provides a huge bonus in all your cities)
On the other hand, I've found espionage to be more useful as a way to catch up in technology than as a way of conducting your whole reserach (though some people have done it). If you're gonna go on 100% espionage slider, then It'd probably be wise to have a few scientists (possibly under representation) so you can still have a decent beaker output.

RRRaskolnikov · Apr 2, 2009

If you want some fun with espionnage:

Try building the GW (for an early spy in your bureaucratic Berlin), and oracling COL (it's best to put it in your second city to get the damn spy and not a low probability priest) with Frederick... Now you can 2 pop whip a court in every cities and get at least 2/3 early spies!

Also, espionnage goes well with a military game, as you need the production capacities to instantly raise a big army (so needs an increasing number of cities), because you will obviously never have a monopoly on anything.

Cheers

Gagonite · Apr 2, 2009

RRRaskolnikov said:
If you want some fun with espionnage:

Try building the GW (for an early spy in your bureaucratic Berlin), and oracling COL (it's best to put it in your second city to get the damn spy and not a low probability priest) with Frederick... Now you can 2 pop whip a court in every cities and get at least 2/3 early spies!
Also, espionnage go well with a military game, as you need the production capacities to instantly raise a big army (so needs an increasing number of cities), because you will obviously never have a monopoly on anything.

Cheers

Thats a good idea, the Oracle-CoL. Neal just did that in his Persia game.. lol. Sadly though, the current game I just started, that opportunity is over

I'm going to be restarting anyway, I don't like how it's going atm. So far though, I'm focusing all my Espionage Points (~35-40) on Julius and Catherine. I had some going after Louis, and I used them to steal a tech then cause his capitol to riot as I took it.

But yea, I'll try out the CoL beeline. I'll have to hit up the Oracle before Alphabet though, lest someone with marble gets it first.

RRRaskolnikov · Apr 2, 2009

a possible tech path: a food tech (agriculture or AH) -> BW -> myst ->masonry ->med -> PH -> writing

Don't expect to pull it every game though, going for two early wonders is a good gambit

TheMeInTeam · Apr 2, 2009

RRRaskolnikov said:
If you want some fun with espionnage:

Try building the GW (for an early spy in your bureaucratic Berlin), and oracling COL (it's best to put it in your second city to get the damn spy and not a low probability priest) with Frederick... Now you can 2 pop whip a court in every cities and get at least 2/3 early spies!
Also, espionnage go well with a military game, as you need the production capacities to instantly raise a big army (so needs an increasing number of cities), because you will obviously never have a monopoly on anything.

Cheers

Gilgamesh is built pretty well for EE too. Zigs lend themselves to city spam and on top of that give the player access to EP earlier than the AI. Also, since EE favors larger empires (just building EP based buildings provides some "economy") there's some synergy. It's a little slower in Gspy than philo but still pretty stout.

UncleJJ · Apr 2, 2009

Betato said:
I've also been trying to play espionage more efficiently, and though I haven't actually done very well, I've found out that:
There are two ways in which you can achieve an enormous amount of Espionage points. you can either assing a lot of spies on Scotland yard city with settles great spies or you can have a city filled with towns and moving your espionage slider up.. It isn't that useful to convert all your commerce to espionage points when you're not getting that much commerce output. It's gonna be harsh if you reduce your research to espionage after alphabet, its probably better to wait and beeline for espionage techs like Democracry, Nationhood and communism are good techs (Espionage multipliers for buildings are higher than for commerce or hammer, and Nationhood provides a huge bonus in all your cities)
On the other hand, I've found espionage to be more useful as a way to catch up in technology than as a way of conducting your whole reserach (though some people have done it). If you're gonna go on 100% espionage slider, then It'd probably be wise to have a few scientists (possibly under representation) so you can still have a decent beaker output.

Most of this is correct in my experience. It is interesting to note that the combination of jails (Constitution) and intelligence agency (Communism) in a city give the +100% EP bonus which is equivalent to a Scotland Yard. But you can build/ whip these buildings in every city for a mere 300 hammers. These buildings also add 12 base EPs which is the equivalent of 2 towns worth of output dedicated to espionage. Combine that 100% bonus with cottages and trade route commerce, or use spare food to run spy specialists and you can easily produce 100EPs per city per turn.

I disagree with your point about running scientists under representation for beaker output. Why ever would you do that in a joint research-espionage economy? The spy specialist is the strongest of all the specialists in the late game in cities with the +100% EP bonus and another +25% for Nationhood they can generate 9 EPs and with good science multipliers 7 beakers from Rep, that compares with a scientist producing 10.5 beakers. Obviously the 9 EPs is worth more than 3.5 extra beakers in most circumstances. Getting both types of output means that you can adjust the science and EP sliders to research one tech (that you know the AI is not researching) and at the same time build up EPs against an AI who is reserching a tech you know you can steal once he's finished. Meanwhile you can move your spies into position ready for when he finished research and steal the tech the turn after it is finished.

IAM · Apr 2, 2009

Gagonite said:
Focus your Espionage Points at your neighbors, with a higher weight on one who's more tech savvy. Make friends with that person and steal their techs often without hurting their economy.

As for everyone else, kill those who are not friends with your techy neighbor, and hurt the economy of those who are his friends.

Disclaimer: This isn't my play style but have done it a few times so here's a thought. Running spys into an AI civ will occasionally get caught. This has a negative diplomatic -1 I think. So if used extensively, my experience, then that AI won't be very friendly for long.

Why "hurt the economy of of those who are his friends."? If your are stealing techs wouldn't be to your advantage for the civ your stealing from to have several good trading partners so they'll have a nice assortment of techs to steal?

And of course at some point you'ld have to damage the goose that lays those golden tech eggs. For instance in a space race to steal a tech they have to have something that you don't hence a possible jump on some space ship parts.

Cashew · Apr 2, 2009

Espionage economy is so much easier to run with Sumeria because of how early you can get Ziggurats. I've never bothered running EE without Sumeria as it gets way too hammer and tech costly.

madscientist · Apr 2, 2009

I think Philosophical is the best trait for EE as it get's you a GSpy the fastest. IND is the next as it helps speed up the Great Wall.

Any leader that starts with Mysticism or Mining is preferred as this is one tech away from unlocking access to teh Great Wall.

After getting the Great Wall, beeline alphabet to open up spies. A EE can be run either by settling Great Spies in the capital with Scotland Yeard (at least until constitution/democracy/communism), or scotland yards in all cities and leveraging teh espionage slider.

The RPCs in my signature have 2 excellent EE games, Mao II and Peter II using both strats. Or you can click on the "Settled Great Spy" article in my Signature.

I have found Gilgamesh more difficult to use as he has so many early advantages, espionage is not needed. I prefer faster libraries and spam Great Scientists with him.

Betato · Apr 2, 2009

UncleJJ said:
Most of this is correct in my experience. It is interesting to note that the combination of jails (Constitution) and intelligence agency (Communism) in a city give the +100% EP bonus which is equivalent to a Scotland Yard. But you can build/ whip these buildings in every city for a mere 300 hammers. These buildings also add 12 base EPs which is the equivalent of 2 towns worth of output dedicated to espionage. Combine that 100% bonus with cottages and trade route commerce, or use spare food to run spy specialists and you can easily produce 100EPs per city per turn.

I disagree with your point about running scientists under representation for beaker output. Why ever would you do that in a joint research-espionage economy? The spy specialist is the strongest of all the specialists in the late game in cities with the +100% EP bonus and another +25% for Nationhood they can generate 9 EPs and with good science multipliers 7 beakers from Rep, that compares with a scientist producing 10.5 beakers. Obviously the 9 EPs is worth more than 3.5 extra beakers in most circumstances. Getting both types of output means that you can adjust the science and EP sliders to research one tech (that you know the AI is not researching) and at the same time build up EPs against an AI who is reserching a tech you know you can steal once he's finished. Meanwhile you can move your spies into position ready for when he finished research and steal the tech the turn after it is finished.

Might be true, but I've found that one of my problems while running Espionage is that I was doomed to be left behind TechWise, so maybe a city with lots of scientists, oxford and so on would let you still research something while stealing / trading.
As for the best Espionage trait, I think it's financial, as long as you're using the slider

Espionage Economy

Gagonite

Irishman

Betato

Chieftain

RRRaskolnikov

Goldfish

Gagonite

Irishman

RRRaskolnikov

Goldfish

TheMeInTeam

If A implies B...

UncleJJ

Deity

IAM

Emperor

Cashew

Prince

madscientist

RPC Supergenius

Betato

Chieftain

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