Espionage Economy

[DeaExMachina]

In an MP game last night I was Gilgamesh and got stuck in a really piss poor place for commerce. So I decided I'd try something special and built the Great Wall and places Zigs in 6 cities and filled up a Spy Specialist in each city. After popping three Great Spies I was looking at 120 Espionage a turn and had my Science slider set to 0% and my Espionage slider set to 40%.

I focused my espionage solely on my three neighbors with varying importance depending on their tech level. It took a little getting use to since I've never used Spies before but I managed to steal the techs of all three of my opponents and kept up as the leader of the tech race, as soon as anyone discovered a tech I'd have it. Especially since I knew what techs they were researching and if they did something I didn't like I'd start destroying their buildings to mess with their economy.

Now the major downside of this is that I couldn't get a tech I wanted but they didn't want. I was coastal and wanted Optics but didn't get it for ages. However I wouldn't have been anywhere near that high in tech if I had tried to cottage spam my really poor tundra rich territory.

The Zigs make Gilgamesh perfect for an early game Espionage economy because they come so much faster with Priesthood then Caste System and snagging the Oracle can be very beneficial. Isabella has good potential for a late game Espionage economy because of Citadels but up until Engineering you have to use your own economy.

Has anyone tried Espionage Economies and have any thoughts on their effectiveness?

 

[obsolete]

I guess it never dawned upon your friends to simply run a counter-espionage mission. The fact that you split your pts 3-way, and were still stealing from all of them surprises me, as to how they could let you get away with that.

I assume they probably left their own spy weights on default, which only served to let you prance around even easier.

I'd be surprised if they even built a security bureau

Anyhow, EE is for my very late games, I get far better return on investment with real beaker research.

 

[absimiliard]

I find that one GSpy invested in the right enemy can allow me to steal pretty much all the tech I need up to the end of the classical era. That's a lot of savings I can then pump into other stuff like deep-beelines in the tech-tree or gold for upgrades and bribery.

Then you need some other sort of economy until you can get the late-game buildings that provide the really good EP multipliers up and running.

So I'd say Obsolete is right, EE is best late-game. With the caveat that a brutally exploited GSpy can power your research for a long time.

-abs

 

[King of Town]

with great spies coming in your cities and not theirs EE seems like it would be best early. They would have no way to produce more espionage short of hurting their research to increase their slider. After running one for a while I don't run 0% science anymore because you can usually pick the AI science leader as the sole recipient of your espionage and run 50-20 most of the game and do well. Since you are transferring commerce into espionage because early spy specialists are hard to come by, it tranlates back into science quite easily. Later in the game I am usually going for my own victory direction and don't want to follow the general tech path the AI takes.

 

[killercane]

I guess it never dawned upon your friends to simply run a counter-espionage mission. The fact that you split your pts 3-way, and were still stealing from all of them surprises me, as to how they could let you get away with that.

I assume they probably left their own spy weights on default, which only served to let you prance around even easier.

I'd be surprised if they even built a security bureau

Anyhow, EE is for my very late games, I get far better return on investment with real beaker research.

Counter intel only works for 10 turns and cannot be stacked, depending on whatever speed you are on. It also has a bit of a cost. If you keep your stack of spies across the border and wait, you should have an opening to steal whatever you want. Not only will you catch some spies, you should be able to sneak over and still get a significant discount on tech from closeness to the other guy and total espionage spending, even without stationary spy bonus.

In other words, to run counter intel the enemy has to 1) raise their spy slider; 2) not get caught sneaking in your lands; 3) pay extra due to total spy points; and 4) manage to succeed on their mission on the turn that the previous counter intel ends to extend it. Not so easy, and pretty counterproductive overall.

 

[Gliese 581]

The Great Wall is the holy graal of early EEs. In any game where you can get 2-3 Gspies as your first GPs you can maintain a healthy espionage lead on half a dozen opponents or more, and you don't need to hurt your research to do it.

Edit: Well I guess that makes it something else than an EE.. heh I don't believe in the viability of an EE anyhow..

 

[obsolete]

manage to succeed on their mission on the turn that the previous counter intel ends to extend it. Not so easy, and pretty counterproductive overall.
__________________

Counter Espionage missions have a 100% success rate. So yes, it's rather easy. You MAY get caught, but who cares. Even when you are caught, the mission is still a success.

 

[DeaExMachina]

Counter Espionage missions have a 100% success rate. So yes, it's rather easy. You MAY get caught, but who cares. Even when you are caught, the mission is still a success.

If you're running a spy heavy economy you probably have stationary spies in your cities. With the stacked effect of decreasing success rate you'll probably catch the spies before they can select their mission.