Eyes and Ears Network

[SwordofStriker]

I was just curious as to how many techs people have been getting on average from building this.

I'm still in a game where my gf and I are on a team, and tech trading has been turned off. When she built this, we received a grand total of 12 technologies. At the time, we were only slightly in the lead score-wise after knocking off the third member of the AI team that had been leading the race the entire game. After building the Eyes and Ears Network, we are way ahead and feel like the game is ours. It almost feels game-breakingly powerful.

 

[Bitwise]

It does cost a massive amount of production to build though.

 

[Chip56]

+at least 5 expensive inns
+open borders to get any advantage.

I agree on no tech trading it CAN be very powerfull, but it can also be a lot of wasted hammers.

Edit: The number of techs gained varied in my game sbetween 0 and 10.

 

[brainpan]

It's pretty powerful. Maybe it's limited enough by being completely useless in MP games.

 

[JDexter]

I've never ever built it because I always play with tech trading (but not brokering). It would never give me a single tech that has any value to me (maybe a religion-founding tech that I didn't yet trade for, but those don't help except for a few points).
In my opinion this wonder is very much underpowered in a standard game.

 

[westamastaflash]

I've never ever built it because I always play with tech trading (but not brokering). It would never give me a single tech that has any value to me (maybe a religion-founding tech that I didn't yet trade for, but those don't help except for a few points).
In my opinion this wonder is very much underpowered in a standard game.

What level do you play on? When I play on higher than Prince, I find that I usually get tons of techs from it! (now I usually play Lanun, meaning i go for lots of Inns anway).

Slaves make it super cheap to build wonders & buildings - gold rush buildings for like 1/5 of the cost of gold rushing with the button.

On high difficulties, you can basically set your slider to 0 once you have some advanced friends and the eyes and ears.

 

[SwordofStriker]

I'm not sure how it can be called useless in multi-player. Twelve techs is far from useless. Only about 3 of the ones I got were religion techs. The rest were all things I wanted but had not researched yet. That's pretty useful to me.

Normally I do allow tech trading but not brokering in my games. I imagine it would have been less useful if I had been trading for techs, so I can see how some might find it underpowered, especially considering the cost. If you were lagging behind in your research though, or if you area player who doesn't like to trade techs, this can be a way to keep yourself in the game.

 

[Chip56]

I doubt many players will sign open borders with you in MP when tech trade is off and you own the Eyes and ears network.
-> no techs gained from it.

 

[onedreamer]

it also depends from the map. If you play a standard map, where there are 5 civs besides you, this wonder is almost useless.

 

[westamastaflash]

it also depends from the map. If you play a standard map, where there are 5 civs besides you, this wonder is almost useless.

Not on Deity level

 

[kumquatelvis]

Playing on Emperor, tech trading on, I usually get so many techs it's hard to count (10 at a minimum). Of course, I'm really friendly and usually have open borders with everyone.

 

[onedreamer]

Not on Deity level

on any level, and especially Deity. The problem in a standard map is 5 civs. You need to have open borders with 3 of them, very unlikely in the long run (when the wonder is available), especially on Deity when the AI is more confident and aggressive.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Is FFH even winnable on Deity? I could win deity on regular BTS, but FFH... I don't know, how do you even survive to reach Eyes and Ears Network?

I guess a more useful question to ask is, what great people do I need to most efficiently lightbulb my way towards it? The Grigori, with their worldspell, could pull this off.

 

[westamastaflash]

Is FFH even winnable on Deity? I could win deity on regular BTS, but FFH... I don't know, how do you even survive to reach Eyes and Ears Network?

I guess a more useful question to ask is, what great people do I need to most efficiently lightbulb my way towards it? The Grigori, with their worldspell, could pull this off.

Turn on raging barbarians, and usually the orcs win the game for you.

 

[Brokenbone]

I'd never tried the Eyes and Ears until seeing this post... did it on the Nikis-Knight huge 19 civ map, and oh boy was it worth it. Turn it was built, maybe got around 7 techs, and within the next ten turns, maybe another 3-5 techs, with the game still ongoing. I was already the score leader with pretty much no one agreeing to trade any techs ("We fear you are becoming too advanced!"), so this was an excellent work-around.

As to the cost of it and the associated inns, those were all taken care of by purchasing slaves and having them "Hurry" things. Inns were all complete by the turn I got "Guilds", and the Eyes and Ears itself was completed in one turn, by purchasing loads and loads of slaves, and using them to Hurry things as well... this was a wonder I didn't want to miss given the tech lead I'd lost.

Anyhow, fun wonder in the right circumstances.

 

[feydras]

When i build E&E Network i usually get plenty of techs from it but i almost always play Huge maps with 18-33 civs.

Does anyone know how or if No tech brokering and No tech trading figure into E&E Network tech aquistion. I have noticed that if two civs have a tech i don't but one can't trade it (No tech brokering on) then i don't get it. In hindsight i should have checked to make sure i had Open Borders with both of them but i believe i didn't.

Also, the super-rushing of slaves was brought up in this thread. I have noticed this too and it feels like buying slaves to rush is far too easy/cheap but that should probably a new thread topic.

- feydras

 

[SwordofStriker]

No tech brokering and no tech trading don't affect it at all. The game I mentioned in the first post had no tech trading and it still works like a charm.