Chungsu is almost hilariously bad compared to ARC

[Idleray]

This is another instance of "what where the developers thinking?".

It is almost ridiculous how much Chungsu is strictly worse than ARC when both factions are focused on the covert ops aspect of the game.

Chungsu gets a spy that dawdles around doing nothing for the first x turns before you meet another Leader.

Then when you start performing ops with said spy, it still has a Recruit-level success rate so it's quite likely that it fails its first few ops netting you no benefit from your trait (gain science from successful ops).

The science gain of 10/20/30 is pretty weak and doesn't scale well in the late game. At 90 science for a lvl 3 agent doing ops in 12 turns(with maxed Subtle trait and soul-discerner training in my game), it comes out to be ~7 science a turn or 9 science a turn if you can do Steal Science(which takes 9 turns but 1 level of intrigue).


Another overlooked thing is that as a ocean-starter you're taking a hit to your early explorer production.

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On the other hand we have the now massively OP American Reclamation Corporation, who with the proper traits can shorten the time it takes to do ops down to SIX turns for steal science.

Since steal science can be abused if you switch your research to a high-cost tech the turn before it completes (you get 25% science of your currently researched tech), the science gains from it can be HUGE, so much so that it makes ARC by far the premier science-oriented faction. And you can do all of this without worrying about intrigue levels.

 

[MAMoob]

Chungsu can get better than ARC IF they manage to sign the agreement with ARC, as they will have similar speed with more agents and extra science yield (which is per rank, so 90 at rank 3, if you're completing an operation in 5 turns that's 18 sience per turn per agent (more likely smth like 12-15 as you don't succeed all the time)). ARC can get steal science to 4 turns actually btw.

Water start is not necessarily bad, you can get the spy agency very fast if you go for scavenging and hydrocoral farming with gunboats and you can scout faster and grab more pods with patrol boats than you would be able to with explorers. It's more difficult to do expeditions initially though, but you can get artifacts from nests too, so all in all it's a tossup.

But all in all ARC is a better spy sponsor unless you get very lucky with Chungsu (if everything turns out perfectly for them they can be stronger)

 

[Idleray]

Anyone can be super-op with the right agreements.

Some of them feel so down-right op I don't use them, for the same reason I don't use the big 3 of artifact combos (Dimension folding, Quantum politics, machine-assisted free will)

Besides, the AI willingness towards agreements with you is largely out of your control anyway. ARC is just consistently better. You can actually have a game plan with them.

 

[Miravlix]

If your lucky you can flip a town before the civ gets spy's itself.

There is rather massive luck elements in CiV as well as BE, whatever the player is smart enough to take advantage of the options available is all that matters really.

Besides how good a civ is compared to another is entirely pointless, the game was clearly not made to be an amazing multiplayer strategy game, seems more like multiplayer is in the game because some coder didn't have anything better to do, but no one told the designers to make well balanced setups for each lander.

BTW: There is a second element to the in-born traits, how much the other civ's want the agreement and give you diplo points and the other civs really loves Chungsu's agreement, giving you a very good growth rate in diplo points, but that might just have been "luck", as I've seen idiotic civs get ARC agreement before they get spies.

 

[Natura]

I think one of the things that makes ARC so much better is that spies themselves feel quite nerfed compared to base BE. With the base time on operations increased (25 turns vs 20), needing more operations to rank up and seemingly greatly increased failure rate, it feels like you either play ARC, sign an agreement with ARC, or forget about doing espionage altogether.

Even as ARC, with maxed out spy traits, espionage feels weak. I had operatives doing Steal Science in 5 turns, and yet my failure rate was still very high. In the course of the entire game I only got one city up high enough for a coup (which admittedly did go off, though i was at war anyway and had an army ready to take it).

It feels like Firaxis set out to fix espionage by nerfing Surveillance Web, buffing ARC and adding in Spy-based traits, but then they thought this might be OP so they put a boat-load of negatives in to even this out. Meanwhile they let Polystralia and the trade-route buffing traits through...

 

[Ishea]

Actually, with the right artifacts and other perks you can get, you can have ARC do steal science in 2 turns on standard speed, with the proper reasearch etc, you'll also have a bazillion spies doing this, and have a bunch at home to increase success rate. I was doing those 2 turn steal science jobs with something like 91-95% success rate. It was insane.
To add to that insanity, because of the fast rate, I had something like 5 or 6 cities I could do a coup d'etat if I wanted to, with at least 40-50% chance of success.
I just didn't bother with that, because with all that science, getting to my victory wonder was far, far easier.

 

[MAMoob]

Hmm, I wasn't able to reduce below 4 turns even with all tre perks (even though technically the reduction should've been 100%). I assumed 80% reduction is the cap. Are you sure it's standard speed? Maybe a bug.

As for spies being weak, yes they feel weak unless you're ARC or you cooperate with ARC, which is imo a bad design as they should do smth for non spy factions too.
With ARC however they are ridiculously strong, my ARC games were much more successful than any other sponsor including Hutama. With tech cost percentage steal and enough agents it's like getting a free tech every 4 turns or so. If it's indeed possible to get it down to 2 turns then it's even crazier. Success chances are good too, you get 75% for steal science for instance with a leveled agent (who levels very fast because of ops speed).

 

[Amrunril]

I feel like this is primarily an issue with the overall balance of covert ops. If steal science scaled with turn number or the target city's science output instead of tech cost, and if mission speed hadn't been nerfed for everyone but the ARC, the trade offs between these factions would be a lot more reasonable.

 

[MasterEcabob]

For Chungsu specifically, I found it much easier to just jump around the map and preform the level 0 recruit operatives mission, which lasted about 5 turns max. Sure you don't get much from it normally, but once you get your trait leveled up that's a nice science boost for the early game for little cost.

Another thing I noticed with spies is that propoganda campaign is really underwhelming. I got about 40 diplo capital when I was producing over a 100 from deals and buildings. It really should give a higher bonus to be worthwhile, as I can't imagine ever going for it normally.

 

[Promethian]

ARC doesn't need the reduced intrigue level for ops. Its too good and too much of an advantage with the already extremely strong reduced ops duration built in. This would bring ARC more in line with Chungsu.

 

[Chaleb]

You're strongly underestimating Chungsu's water start, you can start with a cutter and explore around the map very quickly getting massive amounts of resource pods especially if you have the continental surveyor. And Chungsu's overall spy game is weaker than ARC yes but you can become a lot better if you happen to have ARC in your game. In the early game you can use that spy to get early science since none of the AIs will have any defense against it, and later on once you invest in spy boosts you can quickly take down affinity technologies by spamming steal science. You'll have an extra two spies total compared to ARC which means you'll be getting more science overall combined with your ability.

 

[Amrunril]

ARC doesn't need the reduced intrigue level for ops. Its too good and too much of an advantage with the already extremely strong reduced ops duration built in. This would bring ARC more in line with Chungsu.

I'd actually rather see ARC keep the reduced intrigue level but lose at least part of its speed bonus. The reduced intrigue level is a unique bonus that makes it easier to attempt rare, dramatic missions, while the speed bonus just lets you do the same things as everyone else only faster (and completing missions in 4-5 turns is going to be imbalanced regardless of what those missions are).

 

[Maximus_Light]

I'd actually rather see ARC keep the reduced intrigue level but lose at least part of its speed bonus. The reduced intrigue level is a unique bonus that makes it easier to attempt rare, dramatic missions, while the speed bonus just lets you do the same things as everyone else only faster (and completing missions in 4-5 turns is going to be imbalanced regardless of what those missions are).

Alternatively, if Chungsu had the speed bonus too... then the extra spy would be worth it and the science just icing on the cake...
*diabolical laughter*

 

[Promethian]

Thinking it through I agree the spy speed bonuses from ARC (both trait and agreement) are too good. Removing the speed trait and changing the agreement to reduce the intrigue level requirement would be better for the game overall. I think Chungsu might become a bit better than ARC then but not by a lot and that could be remedied by making the higher intrigue ops more useful. Currently steal science is the best option in almost every circumstance. Only ops that are worth doing otherwise are Coup and Defectors and those are hyper situational.

 

[Tiberiu]

OP is utterly wrong, in fact Chungsu is by far the most overpowered faction in Rising Tide. You are NOT supposed to steal science or gold with them, this is a No-brainer.

 

[MysticWind]

Two random complaints about the lore of Chungsu:

1. Han Jae-Moon is constantly referred to as "Moon" when he should be referred to as "Han". In many East Asian languages the family name is placed first, and "Jae-Moon" is obviously is personal name, similar to "Sheng-Ji" Yang. (A case where the family and personal name are reversed to follow the Western convention.) Funnily enough the doctor who's onto him is also named "Jae Moon".

2. The faction's name supposedly means "clear water" (청수), but that should be transliterated as "Cheongsu". Chungsu means "appendix".

 

[vorlon_mi]

OP is utterly wrong, in fact Chungsu is by far the most overpowered faction in Rising Tide. You are NOT supposed to steal science or gold with them, this is a No-brainer.

Please elaborate. You're saying that Han's agents should be performing higher intrigue level missions, e.g., steal tech? Are any of the custom missions useful, e.g., dirty bomb? What affinity fits well with Chungsu?

 

[Tiberiu]

Here is what I think. Some strategies to make Chungsu deadly, and also comparisons to Arc. Sorry for any spelling issues or if I forgot anything important.

Chungsu has an espionage-based science snowball advantage similar to ARC, along with more versatility due to their water bias and possible coastal start. Some people could argue that their start bias is a slight disadvantage in that it makes you exposed to being attacked, when you are forced to settle on the water, and I would partially agree, but with a few measures, it is really not a big deal, and depending on the map this might even be quite beneficial.

Let us see how they can use their bonus to the maximum. For clarity this is for Standard Speed. I don't really know how playing for example on Marathon would work but I am pretty certain that playing on Quick makes Chungsu even better.

The biggest reason for which I make my case for Chungsu is that their bonus applies for the operation "Establish Network" too. Establish Network takes 5 turns traveling and 5 turns to complete, initially. Later these come down to 3 turns traveling and 2 turns to complete. This means that during the first half (~100 turns) of the game (where you will snowball) they have access to this alternative form of "Steal Science" operation that differs from the normal one by this:

- It is 100% successful instead of a max of 75%...
- Spies will never die doing it (not that this was a big deal, but all small things add up)
- Not percentage based - and, for the first half of the game, the technologies that you'll want to research are cheap enough that the 10-90 you get is meaningful, effective for those costing around 1000 science. Well 90 out of 1000 is almost 10%.
[5 spies - (2 base+3 Agency) establishing networks x 90 = 450 science each 5 turns from espionage alone. during the mid game. For the very endgame (researching the last few costly technologies like Hypercomputing - you can simply switch to Steal
Science when at that point the operation would be much faster or possibly steal Energy since at this point the quantity you steal is at least worth something. Please note that YOU DO NOT need any more expensive techs so the fact that you receive only 90 science / spy is irrelevant since that 90 science is already a good percentage of many of the techs. So ARC has no real advantage during the midgame anyway.

- There is another way to profit Scientifically from snowballing a bit faster in the early-mid game with Chungsu and that is getting a small elite army (for example 2-3 Countess + 1 Baron and use these to capture cities and raze them, and then take Spoils of War in the form of Technologies that you do not have. This is maybe a bit situational but I think this is something to be aware of doing with Chungsu whenever you are ahead in affinity compared to your neighbours. You do not want to capture cities, just boost your War score in order to take bigger spoils of war. You might not even want to capture capitals because you can't raze them, and they will raise your Technology costs.

Yes, until you level up the ability, the science we get from Espionage won't be very meaningful but it's still - something - compared to Arc that get -Nothing- at this point. And by the time ARC would come from behind and overtake Chungsu in Science, the game will already be well on its way to end, or, due to the snowbally mechanics of Civilization, the benefits Chungsu got until now help them well enough to remain ahead.

So let's list a few things that are necessary to make this effective.

1) Do not go wide. Two cities are enough! More cities will raise technology costs and this makes the science from Establish Network less meaningful.
However, there's a problem. You WILL have problems with supply for a while...but you'll have to accept the production hit that comes with it. But not building tons of explorers (if settled on land), or tons of patrol boats feels wrong, so... simply try to compensate this as much as possible by having as much food and production in your cities as you can. Don't panic if you won't get too much infrastructure/population/etc in the beginning, as long as you don't allow others to outright conquer you, you're fine.

2) Rush Computing. You have to do it, it's simply the best way to make your faction ability better. If you happen to have 1-2 artifacts that give big production boosts, you might want to keep them and use them to quickly get your 3 extra spies. It is a good use of them... otherwise building the Spy agency normally will take a lot of turns... Another idea is to keep 1-2 or 3 crashed satellites ready for being excavated right when you can build the Spy Agency. You have to decide depending on your map, conditions, etc, if you want/need another tech before Computing. For example you might want to first go to Chemistry in order to build Laboratory (for extra expedition) - depending on your Virtues choices. I try to get to Computing ASAP, and just take Engineering first, hoping for some Titanium. If on land and in desert zone, taking Ecology for the vivarium might also be worthwhile.

3) Obviously get the character ability to lvl 3 and then go to Political - Subtle and boost it until you get the 3 turn travel -2 turn establish network times. If settled on water, first building the Old Earth Relic might be a good idea as aquatic gets culture boost.

4) If possible, get the Covert Operation artifact bonus. Having it will be good during the game. The artifact system is another topic, obviously you will want to try and get all the good combinations but just a reminder here that if you are lucky with 1-2 Pristine production artifacts, using them for the Agency might be a very good idea. Also Sky Chitin is something I try to have in any game because it's just so good.... and also applies to Drones which is not obvious but it is very useful if you happen to have a few Drones. Also Sky Chitin works well with being Aquatic since you don't really need Fabrication for Carrier in order to keep your neighbor in check. If you need to move 1-2-3 tiles to reach important targets, Move city +Sky Chitin helps.

5) Having a quick, small, promoted, elite army is maybe easier if you first build/buy the units while they are reasonably cheap. It's fun to see what 2 Countesses and 1 Baron can do while the AIs are still on affinity 3 .

6) Exploration efficiency is KEY. DO NOT FORGET TO SWITCH to highest cost important tech of your choice before taking Resource Pods because if you roll the reward that gives science, you get an amount that is proportional to the cost of your selected tech. ALSO SWITCH TO CULTURE project before finishing any expedition that can award culture because you can receive like 3 times the amount by doing this. Until you have Computing, you will want to let that Science go into it, even if there is some other tech that you can switch to. This is because Computing is so essential that it wouldn't be worth receiving a bigger quantity of science into something else. But after computing... always watch out for it and put it into Communication or Artificial Intelligence, if possible.

7) If you focus hard on exploration and happen to have a lot of explorers doing nothing after finishing exploration, don't delete them yet - first take Genetics and Alien Lifeforms (after finishing Computing, of course), and use your Explorers to leash a few useful alien drones or something. HOWEVER beware Drones can't pillage nests unlike other aliens. (this sucks!) Even Sea Dragons can be leashed. You can't leash colossal until much later but having a few Drones can be very useful for defense etc.

Thoughts on Virtues:


Might - My favourite tree. To think that I used to consider it the weakest when I first played civ be....I think that it's pretty much the best for Adaptive Science (Might, tier 2) to be ready when you will start to research the techs that give affinity. It is not something absolutely needed but it is surely helpful for victory to come faster. Whether you first take something else depends on the particular map.The combat boost against aliens is very much relevant and useful once you start fighting them as you should. For artifacts, science etc. Sadly there is zero real benefit in being friends with them.
Also, it is important to point out that having the option to take a virtue that gives affinity on standby, before a major push, is something very strong. Sometimes you only need just a bit extra affinity to get to some major unit upgrade - for example Countess 7+7 Purity/Supremacy. Starting a big assault with elite units on neighbours is very fun, too. I used to delay this policy for a lot of time but now I think one of the best ways to use it is to enable such a powerful push inside your neighbours. Using it for moving from affinity 12 to 13 is also strong, to upgrade those Combat Rovers to their final form (unless you have 8-8 ready faster, that is...)


Prosperity - I am not really a fan of prosperity, not with Chungsu or Arc at least. However if you start in water, you might really need that 3 extra expeditions that Prosperity allows. A way to try to benefit the most would be to simply build Patrol boats and keep the sites covered so that they don't get stolen. And buy explorers with gold whenever you have the required sum. And send them to dig. Those 3 extra will help. And of course there's the initial one. But with a land city, no, just build more explorers. Everything else in the tree isn't really that useful for a small empire of 2 cities.


Knowledge: Taking Knowledge in order to try and get another extra spy from the virtue tree is not something that looks strong to me. I've tested it with weak results. You have to sacrifice too many virtues for it. I'm almost certain that taking only Knowledge 2 (opener+ expedition science) and then doing something else with your policies, is better.And is something I sometimes do and the results are good. Computing comes much faster with this and the game snowballs after that.


Industry: Taking industry at some point during the game is useful. However it feels to me that it's not the best to take it immediately. But I will say this - it's a potent tree, requires maybe a bit of luck with Stations... but if the right Station comes up in a good place, there's lots of gold and other yields to be made...with the known combo of Station Sentinel + Profiteering trait and Alternative markets from Industry.But I wouldn't base a strategy with Chungsu or Arc for this combo. I prefer to take Industry in the last part of the game...

Pitfalls to avoid:

- Aliens... do not underestimate the risk of aliens running havoc into your terrain if you attack them too early, before you are ready to not care about them. Depending on how the game goes, I would try to leave them alone in order to not make them abandon Neutral Stance, and focus on exploration for a while. But each player must decide when it would be the right time for him to start attacking them. Surely one idea is to first be ready with Might 3 virtue that gives Science for them, and, if possible, to have Purity 2 for extra power vs them. I have lost 1 Apollo game that I was dominating ( was ahead like 6 affinity compared to next AI), because I neglected my capital and didn't think a single Kraken can take out my capital. I only had the capital and lost the game. I think it's the only game that I lost except the first few games played on Apollo.

- Do not stay too much without an army (explorers and aliens don't count). Sooner or later around turn 75-100 everybody will hate you on Apollo with this approach. And they will attack. Normally, you should be ahead already by some margin, depending on how lucky you were with explorers/pods/etc. If you don't have an army, it doesn't matter that you are 10 levels of affinity ahead, you can and will be crushed !!
If you are on Land, you don't need that much to defend, it's pretty easy.
The risk comes when you are at water, and you lack the units to defend. This is why you need to have some boats around. I don't think defensive buildings are needed (Rocket Battery or Defense Perimeter), but you have to be good at war. i.e know when to attack, how to position units, nurture units to veterancy (I try to never take instant heals)

Other important elements:

- After Computing and all the other important techs like Chemistry or whatever is needed for the particular case (Robotics if you have tons of firaxite, Alien Sciences if you have tons of Xenomass, etc) absolutely go for Communications as next tech. It has 2 buildings that unlock spies, build or buy them asap. Same thing with Artificial Intelligence which is less useful, having only 1 building.

Affinities and my recommended victories.

- With such a strong science push, it wouldn't be very hard to win Domination victory so for people who like to do that this is a good option. If you want to do this simply rush affinity 7-7 Supremacy-Purity for Countess and take over the whole map with them. Later invest a bit in a few Carriers+ air to reach the inland cities faster, and send some land units to take over what the naval units can't reach.

- Contact might be another option, because you usually find 1 part of the signal in some progenitor ruin, and the victory comes much easier having that head start.

- Harmony is a bit awkward for Chungsu, I say this because Computing and many techs that are needed at the start of the game give you the other 2 affinities, it will simply be more natural to stay on the path of Purity and/or Supremacy. I guess you want to consider to go for harmony when you are lucky with some Alien Skeleton giving you Harmony XP, or when you receive some Affinity Quests that are easier or more convenient to solve by the Harmony choice. I am not saying Harmony victory is hard or anything, it's just a bit boring and also requires techs that you normally don't even need to bother with.

- Supremacy - this is clearly the Chungsu favourite in my opinion since both buildings that award extra spies require Supremacy (Feedsite Hub and CEL cradle) so going for Supremacy victory feels natural and simple.

- Purity - Purity is good to have at least for the lvl 2 where it gives you extra power vs aliens. And after that, getting it to 6 or 7 or 8 is nice in order to get important hybrid unit upgrades (like for the melee unit, combat rovers, gunships). If you want to win by Purity method that's your choice but you should already be closer and faster to Supremacy instead.

Thank you for reading and hopefully anybody can have fun using these strats. ! Happy new year!