How are these things added together? Why don't I get everything for free now? 20+15+1-5+50 = -81%, then -31% added to that would be -112% (I would get EP from spy missions?
)
But 1216/5070 = 0.24, hence I'm getting -78% discount.
Is it multiplicative all over the board? O_o
0.8 * 0.85 * 0.99 * 1.05 * 0.5 * 0.69 = 0.244, which should give a total of -75.6%, or reducing the cost of constitution from 5070 to 1237.
Close to the stated 1216, but not exacly... Cumulative rounding errors perhaps?
Ya, cumulative rounding errors.
Start with the number 100.
Then perform Floor (100 * 0.8) = Floor(80) = 80
Floor (80 * 0.85) = Floor(68) = 68
Floor (68 * 0.99) = Floor(67.32) = 67
Floor (67 * 1.05) = Floor(70.35) = 70
Floor (70 * 0.50) = Floor(35) = 35
Floor (35 * 0.69) = Floor(24.15) = 24
Floor (5070
* 0.24) = Floor (1216.8) = 1216
I have attached a save from a game I'm currently fiddling around with. Had some initial bad luck going for the marble wonders and losing out, then had a DoW that I was ill prepared for.
Have never really paid that much attention to active espionage, but here I tried my luck with it abit, as I had a city in close proximity of the capital paired with the fact that I'm playing Monty who is SPI.
If you want to take a look at it, and give some pointers as to what I have done right, what I have screwed up and what options that might be available continuing the game, I would appreciate it!
Whoa, you are playing Deity and quite far behind the rest of the world tech-wise.
I see you are running Hinduism to get to barely get to Friendly with the world leader Ottomans within 20 turns or so.
Being Friendly with the world's #1 power is a good idea.
What I would do if it was my game:
You've already indulged in espionage stealing quite well against Sury, and you have a golden opportunity to
rob Ethiopia blind thanks to Kushans and Fish Island.
Use your Great Engineer for
Golden Age immediately.
Switch to
Free Market and Pacifism.
I know it would be great to use the Great Engineer for Mining Inc. or IronWorks, but the game-changer Kremlin is already built in Spain, your capital can build IronWorks in good time with Bureaucracy + Workshops, and you don't have enough resources for Mining Inc. to be good.
Run 3 Spy specialists and 1 Engineer in your Heroic Epic city to get a Great Person in 4 turns.
Run spy specialists in your capital as needed to get a Great Spy in 5 turns.
Ideally you will get
2 Great Spies, but it is not realistic to expect more than 1.
Use any you get to infiltrate Ethiopia for +3000
Ship 12 spies to Kushans within the next 3 turns. (More is even better)
Sign Open Borders with Ethiopia immediately.
Run 100%
slider vs. Ethiopia. (Try to build up 7000 or 8000 espionage points)
Whip 2 more spies in Kushans. At Size 2 use fish and +1
citizen to speed up the spies.
Spread Hinduism to Kushans some time within the next 10 turns.
In about 10 turns on T203 or T204, you should be able to
gift Kushans which has 12
to Zara and then steal a whole bunch of techs on the same turn.
You will have -50% culture espionage bonus for 1 turn because the city will have 12 from you and 0 from Zara.
If you don't have -20% trade route bonus with Zara, close borders with other AI until you achieve it.
Or try stealing Corporations first and see if +1 trade route in every city does the trick to give you the Open Borders bonus.
Kushans should not have a very large distance penalty.
I could calculate it probably.
It should just about cancel out the Open Borders bonus.
I recommend stealing Corporation, Gunpowder, Chemistry, Steel, Replaceable Parts, Sci. Method., Communism.
Physics is nice for Airships.
Zara does not yet have Steam Power, Rifling, Biology, or Electricity, but any of these would be quite nice to have.
Rifling is great because you can draft Rifleman. Can't draft Genadiers.
Try to steal Rifling so you can bash Sury hard!
The main limiter to how many techs you can steal from Zara will be espionage points and -50% wait bonus spies.
Once Zara has Kushans, he will build
quickly and your -50% culture bonus will quickly vanish making tech steals cost twice as much.
Jails and Intelligence Agencies (Communism) in all your cities will give you +100%
bonus.
Combined with Nationalism and trade routes, and your small empire should be able to steal techs comfortably.
Once you get another huge pile of
points piled up against Zara, you can
gift him Fish Island with a whole bunch of spies to repeat the trick a 2nd time.
Even better, at that point you might have captured the Confucian holy city from Sury.
You could spread Confu to Fish Island, adopt Confu, and then get a -40% bonus for stealing techs from Zara instead of -15%.
Eventually, leverage your tech advantage over Sury to conquer him.
He is your main neighbor and has all the resources you need to have a proper empire.
All his resources can be traded to the main continent for advantages.
The main continent is quite tricky.
The Ottomans are quite far ahead of everyone.
I see they have a Destroyer (Combustion) and have Rock and Roll already (Radio)
I'm not sure you can stop them from winning a Space Race.
Zara and Isabella also have a defense pact, ugh.
I would say Zara is the weakest link, but at that point things will most likely go nuclear.
If you can capture one of his cities, you could build culture in the city for 1 turn and then gift it to Spain to steal some of her techs for 1 turn.
**Edit**
I'm not sure about running Representation during the Golden Age.
You don't really need
and I don't remember if the +4 shared civic with Zara decays or not.
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