Enrico Swagolo
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2013
- Messages
- 2,387
I'm seeing a common theme in people either posting about removing England from their games, restarting/ragequitting if she spies on them too much or simply agreeing with posts that say about that, so I think this poll has to be made. I am unsure if it belongs in this subforum or the balance/leader one, but I think here it'll get more visibility. If it doesn't belong here, it can be moved but looking at other threads in this subforum that are also partially leader/balance related, I don't think it's in the wrong place.
Here's an explanation how England works for those who don't know - Elizabeth can send an Agent Spy to someone's capital and he'll steal a tech the spied upon civilisation has discovered that England knows not after X amount of turns. It can be checked in the spy menu. The Spy is an Agent (lvl 2 out of 3 total levels), but he levels up almost immediately after being sent to a city belonging to another civilisation. Besides the tech stealing, he'll also have a random chance to:
The above is extremely crippling for humans and impossible to counter - if Merlin (the Spy's name) ends up in your capital, only RNG will lessen his impact, you cannot do anything to stop his subversive onslaught. The only counter available to you is starting a new game or modding England out. Sure, you can declare war on her when you see her Pathfinder to try and ensure she doesn't see your capital, but if that doesn't stop him from moving or she did see it anyway, you've only made Elizabeth more likely to send that dastardly Spy to you and ignore any request for his removal.
I don't think the civ is overpowered - she usually does badly in AIs hands as she gets repeatedly stabbed by all civs who are around her and I can't remember a single game she really did well in. The UA doesn't seem to damage AIs as bad as it does humans and it doesn't seem as powerful as some other unique abilities while the UB is not only very late but also generally awful and unimpactful in my experience, but she's the primary reason for my restarts anyway. She's just frustrating and unsatisfying to fight against, even when I force myself to continue despite the neighbourly espionage and kill her, none of that brings me any fun.
I myself restart when she latches on to me early, so the first option. I've made the poll rather detailed because I think it's important to know the particulars here.
Here's an explanation how England works for those who don't know - Elizabeth can send an Agent Spy to someone's capital and he'll steal a tech the spied upon civilisation has discovered that England knows not after X amount of turns. It can be checked in the spy menu. The Spy is an Agent (lvl 2 out of 3 total levels), but he levels up almost immediately after being sent to a city belonging to another civilisation. Besides the tech stealing, he'll also have a random chance to:
- Steal
Science or 
Gold. They're added to England's tech progress/treasury. The amounts depend on how much is generated by the city for the former and on the civ's treasury if the latter. is usually 0.5-1 turn's worth so not that much with how rare it is, but I often got about 1 to 50+ per steal. It ranges from almost nothing to several turns worth of Gold.
- Destroy
Production towards anything that is being built, including units, wonders, buildings. England doesn't get the hammers. It frequently takes half of an unit/building. I've removed 30+ on Napoleon's Warrior by spying on him on Epic last game. That's many turns worth of Production at this point. It's huge.
- Destroy
Great People points towards a random GP type. England doesn't get them, enemy loses them. From my experience it can be as much as 25-50% of a Great Person.
The above is extremely crippling for humans and impossible to counter - if Merlin (the Spy's name) ends up in your capital, only RNG will lessen his impact, you cannot do anything to stop his subversive onslaught. The only counter available to you is starting a new game or modding England out. Sure, you can declare war on her when you see her Pathfinder to try and ensure she doesn't see your capital, but if that doesn't stop him from moving or she did see it anyway, you've only made Elizabeth more likely to send that dastardly Spy to you and ignore any request for his removal.
I don't think the civ is overpowered - she usually does badly in AIs hands as she gets repeatedly stabbed by all civs who are around her and I can't remember a single game she really did well in. The UA doesn't seem to damage AIs as bad as it does humans and it doesn't seem as powerful as some other unique abilities while the UB is not only very late but also generally awful and unimpactful in my experience, but she's the primary reason for my restarts anyway. She's just frustrating and unsatisfying to fight against, even when I force myself to continue despite the neighbourly espionage and kill her, none of that brings me any fun.
I myself restart when she latches on to me early, so the first option. I've made the poll rather detailed because I think it's important to know the particulars here.
