Culture through Espionage - Exploit?

[WastinTime]

I just had an 'ah ha' moment. This should help direct our efforts on how to fix it (opposed to how much above)

The culture mission has been around a long time, and most players that have been around were aware of it. So I thought, why have all the culture-mongers like jesusin ignored this? Even in it's bugged state (giving 0.05%), it's still something. Without even trying, you have some EPs laying around at the end of the game. Why wouldn't these competitive culture players use the mission even if it's just for a 100 or 1000 culture to top-off their LC?

Answer: They probably thought the mission was not capable of doing this. After all, you cannot do a spread culture mission to your own city.

Here's the annoying thing that is the dealbreaker for me. Since you have some EPs, whether you want them or not, every competitive culture game will now require the player to use this tactic now that the cat's out of the bag. You can get 2000+ culture with just one spy mission and a couple hundred EPs (which are basically free from the Palace). The act of giving away your almost-legendary city and recapturing it on the last turn of the game will become routine/mandatory. That has got to feel dirty to most players.

So I'm for keeping the culture mission to do all things we used to think it could do (probably still at the 5% level).
But the argument above has convinced me that it should not be able to contribute to a culture victory city. Bottom line: spy culture can push you past 50,000 if you want. This has the effect of popping borders and adding culture pressure to flip other nearby cities. However, any city with spy culture cannot qualify for one of the 3 victory cities. (not sure how you'd code that in a mod)

edit: So since I'm also for letting the spy-lovers (me included--don't look surprised) have their fun. Having a new espionage victory (EV) is currently at the top of my list. We just need the mod (above) to prevent any "injected cities" from counting towards Culture victory.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So the culture game is played by the entire 2000 city empire( intended exaggeration) instead of 3 culture cities and a puny support empire. The mechanism is broken for this purpose hence it is an exploit. Why can I not have the protective hammer boost that gave me all that gold with Buffy? Why is that an exploit and this is not?

The standard mechanics get support from the rest of the empire too...that is why 6 and 9 city times can easily beat 3 city times. allows further focus into the 3 cities, but that does not mean it is either an exploit or broken by itself.

Why can I not have the protective hammer boost that gave me all that gold with Buffy? Why is that an exploit and this is not?

You can't have the protective boost to in the base game, either. Firaxis patched that out and never restored it. It's not an "exploit" so much that it's not even possible anymore.

What end result would I want to get in the end? I'd love to see this tactic predominant in some maps and suboptimal in others. I'd like to see this tactic as a complement to a typical cultural game in some special situations.

I agree, though I believe we need to be careful how it's accomplished.

- Make the spy diplo penalty a cummulative one.

Just a quick note: this is already true. If you really gouge failed spy missions you can get -10 or more for spies being caught . I don't know if it caps.

Off-Topic

Don't worry man, I don't bite lol. I overreacted early in this thread and admit it. This thread has become a lot more than just a long list of people stating opinions, and it would continue to be that if I weren't in it at all. In arguing whether this (or any tactic) gets banned, it is necessary to look at it from many different angles but also to clarify those angles. This requires more than one post in a lot of cases; there are far more people in this thread who have made multiple posts than haven't and IMO that was a predictable outcome .

I like the not gifting cities. It seems as a lot of abuse.

Gifting cities is applicable to early game diplo manipulation and in a lot of cases making sure you get conquest rather than domination, so if one *does* choose to alter the rules this is probably not the ideal method for nerfing CtE. Whatever method chosen would ideally not have serious consequences on VC that have nothing to do with culture.

Capping the mission itself would probably be the swiftest and least-impacting method I've seen proposed, because it would block CtE while having very minimal (if any) impact on other victory conditions (edit: WT's solution above this post would work just as well...better if making a new VC).

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I don't like any of the proposals to modify the Spread Culture Mission or limit the number Spies or any change to the game with the current BUFFY module. I don't believe that any of us are qualified to make these changes or even check the game balance at all.

I would prefer to do nothing. The espionage assisted cultural victory strategy is perfectly legal to use. No one can say for certain that this wasn't intentional. There really is no way to get into the developer's head and really understand why they did what they did. The developers knew that the AI will settle right next to the Player's Border (especially with their second Settler at Deity level), so no gift city 3 plots from the capital is needed (+5% anti-discount). They were also perfectly aware of all the real espionage discounts, State Religion Holy City -40%, Majority of City Culture -50%, 5t fortification -50%, Great Spy Infiltration/Espionage Spending discount -<varies>% and even the Trade Route discount -20%?. When you add all these discounts up, you find that you can do many espionage missions extremely cheaply. Thus, the developers knew what they were doing and we should not be second guessing them or undoing what they designed.

The espionage system is currently great fun to play with. Let us please not spoil that fun by making any changes that 'fix' whatever perceived issues some players may see.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[pnp_dredd]

Personally, I'm very unlikely to rely on a strategy that requires me to gift a city to the AI with the express purpose of capturing it back 2 turns later. That just feels too "exploity" to me. There's not a logical reason for this, but it's not a strategy that I would feel comfortable using.

However, I'm also not that active anymore. This competition is run for the benefit of the people who participate in it, and their opinions should be given more weight than those who haven't submitted a game recently.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The AI holds the city for much longer than 2 turns typically. Not sure whether it really matters though. Also not sure why giving a city and taking it back is such a bad thing to do. The Chinese gave Hong Kong to the British Empire and took it back 99 years later based on mutual agreement. Cities freely given by one nation to another were also taken back by force later in some cases.

Finally, using the "Culture Flip after Conquest" option, the city will flip back to its original owner without the need for military force, though it may be hard to get all three cities back on the optimal winning turn in this fashion.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[WastinTime]

It's easy to flip the first two peacefully. Then the third can be captured in 1 turn with a single warrior. Game over. Not exactly a military investment like some would like you believe.

 

[Folket]

I think two real options are espionage culture is base on opponent culture. This will prevent gifting and retaking soon to be legendary since the opponent has not built up culture there. It also does not cause spies to be more and more efficient as you pile more culture into your opponent city.

The other option I have been thinking about is that spies should not be able to get standing around bonuses from standing in friendly territory. If we remove this it will take 5 turns of risking getting spies caught or less efficient conversion rate with less chance of success.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

It's easy to flip the first two peacefully. Then the third can be captured in 1 turn with a single warrior. Game over. Not exactly a military investment like some would like you believe.

Last city has a stack of twelve Macemen/Crossbowmen/Pikemen/Longbowmen defending. It would take more than a Warrior to capture it.

It also requires the "Culture Flip after Conquest" option to get the first two cities peacefully and you still can not determine the timing of when that happens.

BOTM can avoid this tactic anyway by never using the "Culture Flip after Conquest" option.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I'm having trouble with getting better than 71% odds on a Spread Culture mission. I have -20% discount for Trade Route (which is still not clear to me how to get), -50% discount for Culture, +5% discount for Distance, -15% for Espionage. Spending Points, so I'm getting a very good over all Espionage discount. However the 71% odds isn't so good. My host AI will quickly become unhappy at these low odds.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Mitchum]

When you have more than one spy in a city, your odds go down. I thought the TR bonus occurred when you had OB and a trade connection with the target AI.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

20% trade route bonus is indeed the open borders bonus. If you are at war or close borders (IE toku nearby) it goes away. If you really want to gouge good bonuses though you want to have a holy city in a religion you're running, while the target city has that religion and the AI isn't running it. Since the idea is to get as much of this as possible in a short time, you probably won't care much about spies being caught aside from the cost to produce them (admittedly significant). However, Kait mentioned considerably better odds of avoiding capture than 71%...he mentioned over 80% IIRC. Could the religions influence this rate? I'd bet that's the difference.

To expedite this victory you want every bonus possible, and the religion one is too big to pass up IMO. Same with stationary spy although I assume you were taking that for granted.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

When you have more than one spy in a city, your odds go down. I thought the TR bonus occurred when you had OB and a trade connection with the target AI.

You are right, but these are merely necessary conditions for getting the -20% Trade Route discount. They are not sufficient conditions for getting this discount. If none of the cities listed in the gifted city are the player's cities there will be no -20% Trade Route discount. Note that this is determined by the game cycling through all teams/civs and seeing which city in the world will provide the highest Trade Route Commerce per turn for every trade route in the world. I believe there may be indirect ways of improving the chance one gets a (desirable) Trade Route with the gifted city, but it probably is something that is not entirely controllable by the Player. I guessing that some "RNG" luck is involved in getting this discount which obviously has no correlation with Player skill.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

20% trade route bonus is indeed the open borders bonus. If you are at war or close borders (IE toku nearby) it goes away. If you really want to gouge good bonuses though you want to have a holy city in a religion you're running, while the target city has that religion and the AI isn't running it. Since the idea is to get as much of this as possible in a short time, you probably won't care much about spies being caught aside from the cost to produce them (admittedly significant). However, Kait mentioned considerably better odds of avoiding capture than 71%...he mentioned over 80% IIRC. Could the religions influence this rate? I'd bet that's the difference.

To expedite this victory you want every bonus possible, and the religion one is too big to pass up IMO. Same with stationary spy although I assume you were taking that for granted.

I'm getting every discount, including the Holy City -40% discount and -50% Culture discount and -50% Spy fortification discount. I may be coming up short on the Espionage Spending Points (ESP) discount. -15% is the largest I recall ever seeing it. There also seems to be a correlation between better ESP and better mission success odds. I believe that may be why I'm seeing only a 71% success probability versus Kaitzilla reportedly getting well over 80%.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm getting every discount, including the Holy City -40% discount and -50% Culture discount and -50% Spy fortification discount. I may be coming up short on the Espionage Spending Points (ESP) discount. -15% is the largest I recall ever seeing it. There also seems to be a correlation between better ESP and better mission success odds. I believe that may be why I'm seeing only a 71% success probability versus Kaitzilla reportedly getting well over 80%.

Sun Tzu Wu

Ya, if you infiltrate with a Great Spy and get +3000 instant and your espionage spending bonus gets up into the high -40%'s, I think it increases your odds of success to 84% with multiple spies.

Also, the 71% problem might simply be that you accidentally gifted the AI a spy and the presence of the spy is reducing the chance of success of your missions
One reason that pink gift button of doom was placed next to the espionage mission I'm sure.

Here is proof that 84% success is possible:

Spoiler :

As for ensuring the -20% open borders bonus, all you can really do is close all borders except with your target civ and hope you have enough cities for your gifted legendary cities to hook up with your empire.
The Great Lighthouse helps with this. So do Castles which give +1 trade route.

In that Mansa game I closed borders with everyone but Mansa and only 1 out of 3 legendary cities got the -20% discount. I was rather mystified as this should have worked! I need to look the save over closely to see why it didn't. If I can't figure out why, then I agree that sometimes the player is at the mercy of RNG on the -20% bonus.

Cost me about 1 Great Spy worth of points I estimate, so I'm sure 850AD can be beaten.



Didn't have the stone to build castles

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Kaitzilla, thanks for the clarification. The best I got infiltrating with a great spy was -16% Espionage Point Spending (EPS), but the AI may have been countering that via using the Espionage Slider. I've never seen anything close to -50% for EPS before that I vividly recalled. Finally, I've made misclicks, but that never resulted in giving a unit unintentional; no, I did not give the AI a Spy; I know that the AI does use counter-espionage missions, which makes the mission cost significantly more in Espionage points though I'm not sure it affectes the mission success probility.

Wow, closing borders with all other AIs to get the -20% Trade Route discount is very course and carries significant risk and only 1 of 3 cities got the discount, so I'd say that's a rather high risk return on investment.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wow, closing borders with all other AIs to get the -20% Trade Route discount is very course and carries significant risk and only 1 of 3 cities got the discount, so I'd say that's a rather high risk return on investment.

At the point you'd be opting to make that decision, you're about to go all-in anyway .

 

[LowtherCastle]

As for ensuring the -20% open borders bonus, all you can really do is close all borders except with your target civ and hope you have enough cities for your gifted legendary cities to hook up with your empire.
The Great Lighthouse helps with this. So do Castles which give +1 trade route.

In that Mansa game I closed borders with everyone but Mansa and only 1 out of 3 legendary cities got the -20% discount. I was rather mystified as this should have worked! I need to look the save over closely to see why it didn't. If I can't figure out why, then I agree that sometimes the player is at the mercy of RNG on the -20% bonus.

I could be totally wrong on this, but I have a faint recollection it goes the opposite way. If those cities have foreign trade routes with another player, then you can't get it. If that's correct, then the solution would be to make other AIs close their borders with your target.

Didn't have the stones to build castles

Really?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I could be totally wrong on this, but I have a faint recollection it goes the opposite way. If those cities have foreign trade routes with another player, then you can't get it. If that's correct, then the solution would be to make other AIs close their borders with your target. If the target Civ's only open borders are with the player, all his foreign trade routes with be with the player.

Really?

Trade routes are one way and the trade route that provides the -20% trade route discount is the Target Civ's trade route from the three gifted cities to any of the player's cities. Thus, I believe LowtherCastle's statements above are correct.

If the target Civ does not yet know currency or have The Great Lighthouse, there will be only one trade route per city. One just needs to be sure one has at least the same number of cities as the target Civ, so every target Civ's city and every trade route with be with a player's city. Getting the AIs to close borders with the target AI may take some bribing, but at least the player has the option of controlling the situation (it is not completely RNG dependent as I had previously incorrectly assumed earlier in this thread).

With more than one trade route per city, one would either need to have twice (x) as many cities as the target Civ, if it has two (x) trade routes per city, or make sure that the gifted cities are better (get priority for trade routes) which is unlikely since the Culture discount will require that these cities have no workable tiles other than the turn they were gifted on.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Doshin]

I am sure that I've gotten a 95%+ success rate before. I think it is linked to the ratio of your EPs and the AIs EPs, but I could be mistaken, e.g. (not my game):

Spoiler :

A Great Spy bomb isn't enough.

Oh wait. Are culture spread success odds calculated differently (more harshly) from tech stealing %s ? That could account for the discrepancy.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The main difference is almost certainly that having multiple spies on a tile drops your odds of success. CtE requires a ton of missions in a short period of time, and thus lots of spies on one tile.

95% odds is certainly attainable with a single spy if your "-culture" bonus were greater.