Early great spy, what to do?

[Gliese 581]

I'm playing a game with Frederick (normal/fractal/deity). I'm semi-isolated with Willem on a decent size island. I got copper auto-hooked up by river in bfc and seeing that it was just the two of us I figured I'd make a go at the GW which I got. Now a gpsy has been born and I'm undecided on how to best use him.

After the GW I blocked Willem and grabbed what land to the north I could get. I might win the culture battle on the marble but it's no guarantee (non-cre first ring vs 2nd ring cre deity AI), I figured I'd give it a shot though.



Unfortunately it turned out the area I blocked off is about roughly the size that Willem got so we're gonna get about 10 cities each assuming I can backfill all of the land before Willem gets grabby.



The way I look at my diplomacy Willem is basically going to DOW me sooner or later. He will attack at pleased and he's quite aggressive when he runs out of land to settle which will happen any minute since he has good land (already 7 cities). He's almost impossible to get to friendly pre-renaissance since his favourite civic is free religion and he only give a pathetic +1 for shared religion (+3 if he has holy city).
I can only hope that I have some time before the attack.

My question is, what to do with the great spy in this situation? Willem is a great techer and he has great land so I should be able to steal quite alot if I go that route, OTOH you get worse deals on stealing during war and I might not have the hammers to spare. Unfortunately Willem also likes to spend alot on espionage himself which would counteract an EE somewhat. Willem has horses copper and iron so he's 3/4 or 4/4 for strategics so far. He might or might not have ivory since he's got some jungle. I have copper and horses so far.
Infiltrate and settle gives passive bonuses that are unaffected by the slider. the SY might be the strongest option longer term though.
I could try and go all out stealing and mostly ignore teching. Freddy is phil/organised which is quite nice for an EE actually, I get gps fast and I can build a courthouse quickly to run a second specialist.
If I get the marble I could also try for the GL to get some scientists and attempt to be first to Lib.

I don't have much experience with Gspies so I'm not sure what the best choice is here. Any ideas?

[vanatteveldt]

I think I would settle, if I'm not mistaken that gives you some science as well, and (compared to infiltration) it is still of some value even if you can't steal anything from willem. SY is weaker than settling as the base value to multiply is very low and you don't get any beakers. If you get a second GSpy you can create a SY with him to multiply the first ones EP...

[DampRain]

I am very surprised to see you make a post like this XD.

"Gspies" made me think gypsies :P.

Anyway onto the game, given that he will be declaring on you, I'm inclined to infiltrate.
Reasons are:
Settling won't be much use because if you go to war, well.. espionage isn't so useful if he rolls over you.
Since you are going to war, you'll want to completely wipe him out, giving you a continent to yourself which being 20 cities, is a nice base to go from. Also given that if you wipe him out, then espionage becomes useless since you are alone on this continent.
Infiltrating gives you the mass EP to have a good idea of what he is up to, and to steal key
tech(s), construction I'm thinking.

Those are my ideas,
alternatively if you have the option, you could leave wilem with 3 cities and vassal him (I know feudalism is a bit far off but you never know) and then just use him to help out your research by espionaging later.
Don't infiltrate the gspy, use the gspy to scout around his land etc, particularly looking for unit stacks, and then infiltrate at an appropriate time (a few turns before construction, before he declares :P, etc.)

[Matthew5117]

Bull city. Absolute desert. Who would settle that?

Sorry, I had to say that.

[royal62184]

I think he just really wants that marble.

[ABigCivFan]

Settle the GSpy.

You need alphabet to steal techs and you are many turns away from it. So a settled Gspy gives 12 EP + 3 beaker is much better long-term wise.

You are philosophical, try to get the 2nd GSPy for SY, and then you should be able to steal techs easily from Willim.

Also I dont think setting that marble city is a good move, it increases border tension with Willim and is in the middle of desert, and not defendable. Would be better to just forget about the marble and settler along the Flood plains for a real nice cottage city.

He s already got a stack, seems attack is imminent. Beef up the D. Good luck.

[Gliese 581]

Well the good thing about Willem is he only gives -1 for close borders so he is less concerned with that than any other AI in the game, which gives me -1 for default diplo, -1 because he outranks me and -1 for close borders. This is offset by +1 years of peace so we end at -2, which means he'll remain at catious regardless. The difficult thing is going to be getting another +4 to get him to pleased (most likely he'll need to found a religion for +3 and then OB for another +1 but it will take time). I'm not wasting any FPs as is, they're all in 2nd ring and the one remaining fp to the west will be picked up by another city.
I've been in this situation in the past (but without GW) and sometimes Willem doesn't attack until quite late middle ages or so. He might go for religion/wonder whoring although he missed out on the early stuff here so I do think he will attack soon unfortunately.

[wioneo]

It's so annoying to not have a 3rd party to use to check his "We have enough on our hands right now" thing...

[smackthewise]

He is using B.U.G so he can just check the military adviser for a good indication.

[DMOC]

Actually, the BUG mod has let me check WHEOOHRN even without a 3rd party. I guess this shouldn't be part of the mod.

[Gliese 581]

Originally Posted by DMOC

Actually, the BUG mod has let me check WHEOOHRN even without a 3rd party. I guess this shouldn't be part of the mod.

It has? I hadn't noticed since I always look for the fist icon in the score-board after they implemented that.

[dirtyparrot]

So Gliese, how did this turn out?

[Minor Annoyance]

I usually scout the whole continent with a great spy, then infiltrate. I like infiltrate because the huge gain of EP also decreases your espionage mission cost while increasing the costs of everyone else.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally Posted by DMOC

Actually, the BUG mod has let me check WHEOOHRN even without a 3rd party. I guess this shouldn't be part of the mod.

I said something along those lines a while back, but I guess the BUG team didn't notice it. Technically, this is an advantage (and a potentially material one!) that BUG users have over non-BUG users.

[Dirk1302]

It shouldn't do that. I think it doesn't, in a game i played everyone was vassalized to me or Monty and Monty attacked without the bugmod wheoohrn fist showing first.

[Minor Annoyance]

I think it only has that military buildup icon when if you contacted someone they wouldn't declare war on someone because "We have enough on our hands". So if you open up communications with everyone every turn you'd have the same information, but it would be time consuming.

[troytheface]

The evidence is clear.

Join the Great Spy to your capitol - which you may switch- and set that capital to make Great maniacs - then the next one you build Scotland Yard - in the captiol

this is the superior

[DanF5771]

Originally Posted by Gliese 581

Well the good thing about Willem is he only gives -1 for close borders so he is less concerned with that than any other AI in the game, which gives me -1 for default diplo, -1 because he outranks me and -1 for close borders. This is offset by +1 years of peace so we end at -2, which means he'll remain at catious regardless.

IIRC Willem will only start giving you a -1 for close borders if you steal >=20 tiles from the BFCs of his cities. Likewise you will never receive a hidden -1 for him outranking you, unless 2 new players spawn as colonies and you are dead last (rank = 8) while Willem is the top dog (rank = 0 --> RankDifference = -8). So typically you merely need to overcome the -1 for handicap >= NOBLE which might even be compensated by the hidden +1 "underdog"-bonus if both of you are not among the top 3 (on a standard map with 7 players).

Thus I think you should be able to get Willem to pleased at visible +3/+4, depending on his current rank. I personally like to earn +ves for very early resource trades/gifts, especially for health bonuses which aren't needed in the early game, so I'd recommend hooking up the Sheep and the Crab as Willem probably doesn't have these. You could also use the bomb'n'trade tactic later = bomb improvements with spies and immediately trade him the resource. You can get very lucrative deals for metals and horses, but OTOH you also risk to earn -ves for spies getting caught.

Oh yeah, the BUG mod does NOT cheat with its WHEOOHRN indicator = you'll definitely need a third party.

[Gooblah]

Originally Posted by troytheface

The evidence is clear.

Join the Great Spy to your capitol - which you may switch- and set that capital to make Great maniacs - then the next one you build Scotland Yard - in the captiol

this is the superior

...WTF is a 'Great Maniac'?!

I would settle, considering that you're about to be DOW'd on by Willem, which means he'll eventually be eliminated (optimism FTW! ) and thus, the splurge of EPs on him by settling would be wasted IMO.

[Minor Annoyance]

Originally Posted by Gooblah

...WTF is a 'Great Maniac'?!

I would settle, considering that you're about to be DOW'd on by Willem, which means he'll eventually be eliminated (optimism FTW! ) and thus, the splurge of EPs on him by settling would be wasted IMO.

The EP spent on him would still count for your lifetime EP gain which decreases your mission cost and increases everyone elses against you.