RR12 - A perfect spy

Ok time to start this one

The variant

I also want to add that, unlike previous games with the same theme ( the RB29 games and some other scatered efforts posted in the Strategy & Tips forum ) , we will make this based in a ol'friend of ours, the spread culture espionage mission ( see RR6 for more details ) . Not that if a city will flip without our espionage effort we will deny it automatically ( well , we might deny it to be able to settle a city that fits more in our plans ), but the basis of our effort will be the cloak and dagger action.

Starting spot ( checked by a third party ... no islands ):

Ok, 2 golds is nice, but a lake and a hill pig as sole food sources is quite bad. So, the usual stuff: move scout where, settle where ... well, you know the drill

Roster

r_rolo1
Thy_Spellcraft
nocho
Brian Shanahan
lymond
Thrar
LKendter

Alternates
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(?) means pending confirmation

P.S CFC cookie as usual for the first to say from where the title comes from. This one is not particularly hard

I'm popping in to visit, and sign up. As regards leaders, I don't really care, though someone with a defensive UU may be handy.

Sullla did a similar game using just culture pumps back in Vanilla days. The report is here if anyone is interested.

Passive-Agressive hatty ... now that is pretty Good lessons to be learned from there , still

The old ones are generally the best.

That means that I'll have to wait some more years to do good stuff ?

Here we go!
And my vote concerning the leader goes to.... Zara! (never played him before so this seems to be a good chance to do)!

Hmmm.... RB29 was one of my more fun games even if my team missed due to a couple of islands.

As long as a neutral party will work the map to avoid any islands, sign me up. Next three weeks are busy, but after that plenty of time.

Do you want to barge in then, LK ? Good to know, someone with experience in this is always useful Will slot you in the end of the roster and skip you if needed then.

Thy, will take the (?) out then ... and you NEVER played Zara ? You should really try, his UU is actually something.

Count me in!

I was assuming the title came from Austin Powers, though I never saw any of those movies. Just bits and pieces reenacted by friends over and over and over again. Google leads me to this though.

If we just Oracle CoL I'm fine with any organized leader... Their courthouses are actually cheaper than the zigg, right? I think even in RR6 we didn't have a very specific advantage thanks to ziggs becoming available a bit sooner. So Zara for me will do, though don't have a strong preference. Gilga will do too.

And the cookie goes to nocho. I guess that a title from a novel of one of the best writers of spy books around ( in spite of the one I chose was definitely not the best of his hand IMHO ... ) would fit right in here ( better than The taylor of Panama, for a example ) . The story ... hopefully not so much

The issue with ziggs is the fact that we aren't forced to Oracle CoL to cut the maintenance. We will surely need to settle a good bunch of cities ( IIRC we didn't oracled CoL in RR6 as well ). But again, you are right: ziggs didn't gave us much, but if we are to be honest, no civ is particularly fit for espionage games ...

Like I said above, I think we can do this with any civ . So I'm not stressing this point much ( besides the fact that I need a decision on htis before generating the game ).

BTW, I forgot to mention: Standart size map, 7 civs , Pangea. Going small pangea makes things easy, maybe too easy

Louie might make an interesting option as wonders will help with the culture whoring, but Giggles is fine. Financial civs are another option if we are going to raise the EP slider much at all, instead of relying on spy specialists.

Well, in the end cottages beat specs in brute EP, but the issue is always the same: anything below hamlets is rubbish But a fin leader would be quite OK, though.

Is there still a spot left? I haven't played an SG in ages and not much BtS either recently (caught up in FfH), but should be comfortable on Immortal in a regular game, so I think this'll be fine for me if you'll have me.

How about a philosophical leader for GSpys? Most suitable to me seems Pericles (a good culture producer as well), although Fred might be another option. Settled GSpys produce a lot of EP, so getting a few of these and Scotland Yard early could be big.

King rolo decides on that Thrar, but for me you're more than welcome. I guess the king won't have objections either.

Fred may work out quite well indeed. In my first espionage heavy SG we used Fred and it worked out pretty well.

I can slot Thrar, OFC ... in fact I'll do that right now

Philo would be also nice... in fact the only trait that would be virtually useless for this variant would be agressive ( and even then ... ).

Ok, so far we got:

- Gilga
- Zara
- Someone Fin
- Someone Phi

So what will be? Or do I roll random ?

Could I be so bold as to ask to be either 2nd in the roster (before Thy) or much lower? Likely I'll be unavailable for playing for some time (maybe a week or 2) from somewhere half way next week. Lurking won't be a problem probably.

Fine ... will do that .

nocho said:

Could I be so bold as to ask to be either 2nd in the roster (before Thy) or much lower? Likely I'll be unavailable for playing for some time (maybe a week or 2) from somewhere half way next week. Lurking won't be a problem probably.

Click to expand...

I'm fine with switching!

About the leader discussion: As it's Pangea astro even gets less important and therefore the additional culture of Zara's stele would even get more effective. And the starting tech also should be considered: As we're not allowed to have any troops (not sure but I think everything that cannot attack anything won't count as "troops") a scout would be the only way to scout around. So hunting as starting tech would help a bit! So still Zara seems to be the strongest decision..
But what's about someone who seems nearly useless according to our variant maybe Joao?

Nonetheless there are a few things to get clarified:
What exactly is meant with "troops"? So do spies, scouts, explorers and GPs count as troops? Does the recon mission of air-units count towards "leaving"? Is there any limitation concerning the "escort"?

Do need a definition of troops - is that anything with Att/Def ability.

Look at the UB for each nation to. Which one gives a free artist - the French UB? May be to late in the game to matter.

If we are going spy heavy, then a UB / trait that improves spies would rock.

Good point about scouting. I guess we'd either want to start with hunting or at least research it as the very first tech if we don't to be able to get an overview of the land.
Regarding traits, ORG seems more valuable than FIN to me. We'll have to become big to gobble up everyone and ORG really helps to cut the costs and getting those courthouses online. From the middle ages or Renaissance I'd expect ORG to be better economically.

To summarize the civs/leaders mentioned so far:

Sumeria - Gilgamesh:
Their main advantage is probably the UB, allowing us to get spy points a lot earlier and postpone CoL. However, we won't be able to make much use of them before alphabet. CRE is a useful trait as we'll want lots of culture on our borders.
They start with agriculture + wheel, so we'd want to research hunting soon and likely won't get many - if any - huts. PRO as second trait and the UU won't have a big impact on the game.

Ethiopia - Zara Yaqob:
CRE and ORG are two excellent traits for this game. They start with hunting and mining, allowing us to get to BW quickly to start chopping and whipping. The 25% culture from the UB is excellent as long as we delay Astro - which, as discussed, shouldn't be very attractive anyway. Even the UU should be of some use as by that time we may see some wars and have to reduce enemy garrison.
They don't synergize all that well with spying. ORG is good for cheap courthouses, that's all.

France - Louis:
CRE as discussed, the main value of IND to me appears to be denial. Most wonders produce large amounts of culture that we'd have to overcome if someone else builds them. Not a lot of wonders produce spy points IIRC and by mixing them we'd end up with a pretty polluted GPP pool.
Starting techs are agriculture and wheel, so the same issues as for Sumeria apply. A double-move musket won't be that much use as we won't have to do tactical combat on terrain where we can't use roads anyway. The free artist from the Salon is nice, but it comes late on a tech we don't really need (Astro) and is not typically a priority build in newly acquired cities.

Greece - Pericles:
CRE as discussed, PHI is excellent to get great spies quickly. Building (chopping) the GW would give us a nice early start here, possibly allowing us to postpone CoL a bit. We'll get more GSpies throughout the game which provide a lot of spy points when settled. The UB is early and gives 3 points of culture more than regular, it is built quickly by CRE and gives a happiness boost to boot. Hunting is a valuable starting tech as discussed.
We almost certainly won't use the special traits of the UU (chariot defense). Fishing as second tech likely won't be much use early which makes it rather weak.

Germany - Frederick:
PHI and ORG make this possibly the best leader for SE spying in the game. Hunting and mining are good starting techs (same as Ethiopia).
Both the UU and UB won't be of much use to us. We don't need a large army so production should be secondary, and because of the health penalty we might not even want to build factories/plants in our main specialist cities.


From these considerations, my favorites would be Zara or Pericles, depending on whether we want a more cultural or espionage-oriented game.
Of course, trying a leader who doesn't offer anything useful would be a nice challenge as well...