Espionage Help

[Nkot]

When it comes to the new espionage system, I feel like an confused, old grandpa that is flailing his arms in the air because of this new fangled mumbo jumbo. People talk about stealing technologies and using spies to lower city defenses, but I have only been able to steal a technology once and have never strategically sent a city into revolt. My problems are these.

1. Alphabet is not a very high priority on my list. Now, especially with Aesthetics, it is almost a dead-end tech. I say almost because it is a prerequisite for something, and you need it in order to build spies. Should I simply try to priortize this tech for trading, or just jack up the espionage slider to prevent rival spies to do missions in my territory?

2. My spies never survive very long in rival territory. Within 10 turns, they usually are caught. Is this a result of having a low espionage slider? Or is this the way it is for everyone? If so, does that mean you don't have spies actively engaged in enemy territory?

3. While the abilty to steal a tech seems powerful, I rarely have the necessary points, and when I do, I am afraid that the AI will just come in and steal one of mine. I play on Emperor - Immortal, so is tech stealing even feasible at this level? How often do you do it?

4. What are the prerequisites for the missions? I know you need a substantial amount of espionage points for even something like sending a city into revolt, but the one time I tried to do this I was unable to.

5. In the later stages of the game, is it really worth it to build the building that give more espionage points? I know courthouses and jails are universally useful, but what about castles, intelligence agencies, and security bureaus. Are they really worth the hammers?

6. What's the deal with Great Spies? Are they worth the investment?

7. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, how can you afford all this while still balancing everything else. I need every beaker I can get to mantain strong in techs, and I always cringe at moving the espionage slider to 10%. I cannot even recall a time where I moved the slider past that. It just seems like the other things are more important.

 

[Zanttu]

1. Alphabet isn't such a high priority for me either, and for normal play it isn't necessary to grab it early.
2. Yeah, at some point your spies will get caught. That's why you don't want to keep them hanging around in your rivals territory if you aren't planning to use them soon.
3. Normally I don't steal any techs in my games, except if I decide to use a Great Spy for infiltrate mission, which gives you a huge amount of espionage points to spend.
4. AFAIK there aren't any other prerequirities for performing espionage missions than the amount of espionage points. But if you don't have enough those points for a specific mission like putting a city to revolt, then that option doesn't appear to the mission list.
5. One of the most important uses of espionage IMHO is the ability to see what your rival is researching and the city wiew. Without enough espionage points you won't be able to see your opponents demographics (Power for example), so that's one imporant thing to note. I'm not sure about castles, but other espionage buildings I build almost always.
6. Especially in the early game where you can get a Great Spy by building The Great Wall, it can be very powerful. That's because there aren't any other espionage resources early in the game, so you will have the highest espionage of all civs for a long time, if you decide to settle him. If you use him for infiltrate mission, you can steal many techs from your rival after you discover alphabet.
7. Normally in the game I never push the espionage slider over 0%. I just don't have a real need for it. It's the same thing as with culture slider, do you touch it if you have happiness anyway and aren't going for cultural win?

There is also possibility to run an Espionage Economy (EE). In that type of economy you turn your research slider to 0% after discovering alphabet, and only steal all techs from your rivals. There's a good game of that kind going on, played by xanadux. You should check that one if you want more info.
EDIT: The game can be found here

 

[xanadux]

If you are going to use Espionage extensively to steal techs, it works better the more you use it. This is because The more EPs you make, the cheaper the missions are (mission cost is based on the ratio between the total EPs you have ever created to the total EPs the target has ever created). Also, the chances of your spies getting caught decreases and the chance of you catching enemy spies increases as you generate more EPs than the opponent.

All the uses for Great Spies are good, and of course it depends on the game, and how you plan to use Espionage which is the best. An infiltration mission can be a big early game boost allowing you to steal 5 or more decent early techs. A settled Great Spy is pretty nice too, and will give you more EPs over the course of the game. This is a good option if you plan on using spies throughout the game to drop city defenses. Scotland Yard is best if you are planning on devoting a lot of Commerce to Espionage throughout the game.

The Espionage buildings are very strong. Any city with good production should build them. With a courthouse, jail, Security Bureau, and Intelligence Agency, a city produces 40EPs from the buildings alone. By prioritizing these buildings once they are available, you can strongly supplement your tech rate. Suppose you have 10 cities with all these buildings ... thats 400 EPs/turn which will get you a little more techs than 400 beakers/turn. When you see an AI researching something you want, put all your EPs towards them and research something else. 10-12 turns later you can steal it.

If you are going to steal a tech, make sure to have at least 5 spies ready, and send them to the closest city to your capital so that they arrive 5 turns before you are going to steal the tech. Once you steal it, if that's all you are going to do, get them out of there so they don't get caught.

Inciting Revolts is very powerful. It's the earliest and quickest way to drop cultural defense. It can make wars much shorter because you save time by not having to bombard. Also when it takes several turns to bombard, the AI gets those turns to reinforce the city. It generally takes 200-300 EPs to incite a revolt in the early game, when your EPs are about the same as the AI. If you have a big Espionage lead (look at the Espionage graph to see where you are at), this can drop even below 100 EPs. If you want to use spies early to drop defenses, check the espionage screen and see how many EPs you have stored up on the target. You might want to turn the slider up for a few turns to get enough (about 300/city to be safe). Failed missions do not use EPs, you just lose the spy.

 

[Martin79]

I'm playing my first game with BtS exp. pack and i'm asking to myself: "How does the new espionage option change my game"? Do you guys have a very different strategy now that you can spy on your enemies? On a scale of 1 to 10, how does it change it and why?

 

[Martin79]

Failed missions do not use EPs, you just lose the spy.

For all missions?

 

[Zanttu]

For all missions?

AFAIK yes.

 

[Martin79]

AFAIK yes.

Ok, thanks.