Espionage

[paulcarri]

Hey all

Im looking for a guide that covers espionage, how to target one victim rather than general spending, and the odds of causing a city revolt.

Im playing the huge european map, and want to expand from the british isles, but ive beelined cavalry rather than steel... and a nose around my victim shows 1 or 2 muskets, LOTS of promoted longbows (due to the endless world war) and a lot of cultural defense. I have a pile of cavalry, rifles for holding land, and galleons are almost ready to go.

Ive never really used espionage, but ive read you can use them to cause a revolt and cut defense bonus's which sounds potentially brilliant.

Anyone use them in this manner to avoid needing seige?

Cheers, its an area of the game ive completely neglected apart from counter espionage

 

[Robert FIN]

Haven't read it myself but try this one!

 

[paulcarri]

Haven't read it myself but try this one!

cheers, i did search but couldnt find one!

 

[Robert FIN]

Okay, you tried to search it with google or CFC search right? If you want to search for guides, I recommend to try search from "Strategy Articles", the only subforum of S&T forum. Check it out. And try to search for "War Academy". Its like Strategy Articles All Stars !

 

[Unconventional]

As well as revolting you can also take city walls down with espionage, which can be useful. Some people think that espionage can't do anything to a huge rival but in fact it can be quite effective many times. Especially if you are behind in the space race

 

[simishag]

The guide is more about the "Espionage Economy", in which you generate a ton of EP and then use those to steal techs (rather than research them). That can work but it is (of course) situational. You need a lot of cities, and a lot of EP buildings like Courthouse & Jail. But I'll leave the discussion of that to the guide.

I think the more common use is the one you mention: forcing city revolts in warfare. This is pretty simple. Park spies in your target cities as early as possible before the war, as after 5 turns you'll get a 50% discount when using EP. You'll use the spy to cause a city revolt, which will completely eliminate the city's cultural defence, but for ONLY 1 TURN, so all your troops need to be in position to attack the same turn. So yes, this can save you a LOT of siege units and/or turns pounding the city's defenses. It does require some preparation to pull off.

As far as targeting a specific civ, you need to use the Espionage screen to allocate your EP. The BUG mod does a better job of showing this than standard. The relative allocations may be a lot more skewed than you think. I've found that for every 1 EP you allocate to a small civ, you may need 3, 5, 10 EP or more for larger civs. Use the Espionage screen to evaluate your position relative to other civs, especially as the game goes on or if you want to attack a specific civ.