Dummies guide to building espionage points

[christopher1234]

In my games i never ever or hardly use spies except towards the later mid to end game,when enemy spies are causing havoc in my borders.
After reading some posts on spies i,ve realised they actualy have a very important role to play.

Could some-body give me a condensed dummies over view of gaing espionage points.For example focusing specificly on stealing techs and grooming a city to rebel so that my armies can attack.I know its all really simple aspect to grasp but it just aint an aspect of the game that i really enjoy so sifting through the tons of material of spies gets boring really fast.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[lymond]

I'm not the best at EPs but when I do use them to effect, I try this:

1) Pick a target and focus all EPs in him first thing
2) Build the Great Wall. Highly likely that first GP will be a Great Spy. Great Spy will net you a tremendous amount of EPs against the target to use to steal techs or run spy missions
3) Oracle > CoL ....whip courthouses and run some spy specialists - CHs will give EPs of course
4) If your primary goal is to steal techs then choose a reasonable target that techs well - so don't pick Toku or Monty
5) Reverse this is you goal is running spy revolts

So, to take down city defenses, build several spies while building your army. Send at least 3 to the target city and plant them there as your army moves toward the city. The longer spies sit in a city the greater the success and cheaper the mission. The city revolt mission only last the turn you run it so make sure your army is adjacent to the city tile and ready to attack that turn. It's still a good idea to throw some cats/trebs at the defenders first. Move remaining spies or have them already sitting in the next target city.

I find spy city revolt missions especially useful for mass Curs attacks in the Renaissance era with little to no siege on higher levels. All about speed.

Oh...and the reason to have lots of spies in the city is that as they are sitting in the city they may get caught and the revolt missions may fail, so make sure you have enough to be successful. At least 3 is good but have a lot for the whole war.

Similar logic to stealing techs. Have a stack of spies ready to steal techs in case one gets caught. If you have enough EPs you can steal several techs in a short amount of time. Also, note that spy missions are cheaper in cities that share religion. I think distance from your cap may be a factor too. Check the EP screen for your target cities to check the cost of missions - note that it may vary by city and sometimes significantly.

You can always raise your EP slider for short periods to gain loads of EP points. Especially useful later when you have the EP modifier buildings like jails, SY, bureaus.

 

[christopher1234]

Hmmm.looking at it from my point of view, do,s that mean like for example if i want to attack gengis-khan,that opening up the espionage screen and dedicating a higher ratio of my total espionage points towards his civ will do the trick?

Do,s spending more gold on espionage as opossed to research automaticaly spread the extra espionage points out according to the ratios i set in the espionage screen?

Also at times when a spy is to perfom an espionage mission beforehand the options screen opens up with a list of available espionage mission to choose from.In my case most of the time steal a tech do,s not appear at all.Do,s mean that through-out the game i have dedicated to little infrastructure and gold towards espionage in total,or just dedicated to little towards that specific civ?

 

[lymond]

Hmmm.looking at it from my point of view, do,s that mean like for example if i want to attack gengis-khan,that opening up the espionage screen and dedicating a higher ratio of my total espionage points towards his civ will do the trick?

what is "do,s"?

Just set Genghis to 1 while all the others are 0. The sooner you do this the more points you will accumulate against him over time. Of course, the first AI you meet you start accumulating points toward and with each new one you meet the EPs get divided up unless you change this on the EP screen.

Do,s spending more gold on espionage as opossed to research automaticaly spread the extra espionage points out according to the ratios i set in the espionage screen?

First of all, you don't spend gold on EPs. I assume you mean commerce. Raising the EP slider effects how much commerce is going toward your "total" EP points. The total EP points are then split by the ratios or weighting you set up on the EP screen. If all AI weights are set to 0, then the EPs will be split evenly depending on how many AIs you have met and the number of EPs. For example, you start with 4 EPs from your palace. If you have met 5 AIs then that is 1 more than the total EPs, so only 4 AIs will get EPs. Might as well just put them into 1 AI so that you can actually do something with them.

Also at times when a spy is to perfom an espionage mission beforehand the options screen opens up with a list of available espionage mission to choose from.In my case most of the time steal a tech do,s not appear at all.Do,s mean that through-out the game i have dedicated to little infrastructure and gold towards espionage in total,or just dedicated to little towards that specific civ?

Spy mission will only pop up if you have enough EPs to actually perform the mission on that city. Stealing techs is generally one of the more "relative" expensive missions and the rate of this increase over time and as you successfully complete a mission. In other words, if you steal a tech from City X then the next mission will be a bit more expensive.

Check your EP screen. Click on the Target Civ and then check the right side of the screen for how expensive each mission type will be in the target city.