Eyes and Ears Network

[Barak]

In a current game as Bannor, as I have lagged behind in tech, I built the Eyes and Ears Network but was surprised that I did NOT receive all the techs that at least three other civs know. I did receive some of them on that turn, but now, 2 turns later I still have not received about 5 techs that I should get.

What am I missing?

 

[Onionsoilder]

This isn't FF specific. E&EN is in vanilla FFH2 as well. As far as your predicament, I don't know. It should function just like the Internet in normal civ games. Are the civilizations with the techs in a permanent alliance? Like XXX/Basium and XXX/Minister Koun? If so, those 4 civilizations only count as 2 teams, which the E&EN really counts by.

 

[Barak]

This isn't FF specific. E&EN is in vanilla FFH2 as well. As far as your predicament, I don't know. It should function just like the Internet in normal civ games. Are the civilizations with the techs in a permanent alliance? Like XXX/Basium and XXX/Minister Koun? If so, those 4 civilizations only count as 2 teams, which the E&EN really counts by.

I looked into that, and no in the case of Honor and Deception, 4 separate civs had it. Perhaps they will just start trickling in...

 

[black_imperator]

i think there is a restriction for religious tech such as honor or deception which cannot be obtained by E&EN , so as to prevent auric and cassiel from obtaining them

 

[Sarisin]

I think you have to have an open borders agreement with the civs for this to work.

 

[WarKirby]

I think the Eyes and Ears Network should be a COE only religious building, requiring it as your state religion. Like the Tower of Complacency for OO

 

[stupidnewbie]

I think you have to have an open borders agreement with the civs for this to work.

This. The network has always worked for me.

 

[Barak]

Slowly the techs came to me. I did receive some religious techs through E&EN, just not Honor or Deception. Also I think Basium was the third civ in some instances, which threw me off. Slowly but surely I received the techs I was due.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I think you have to have an open borders agreement with the civs for this to work.

Yeah this is definitely it. I just built the wonder in a game I'm playing, got like 10 techs, then reloaded, declared war on the tech leader, finished the wonder, and only got a couple techs which are known by almost everyone in the game.

 

[zup]

So the point of E&EN is to prevent AI from getting it? There is no real benefit I can see from opening borders. International trade is a joke once your cities top 50 and have all trade buildings. On the other hand, keeping the borders closed I can block AI expansion. If I really have to move my units through enemy territory, I can simply declare a war, take a couple of cities (perhaps get a mana node or two for my troubles) and make them capitulate. Then I can move through their lands at will, but they can't enter mine.

 

[WarKirby]

opening borders helps relations, trade is always good even if it isn't a huge amount. And you make declaring war sound like such an easy option, it really isn't. You have to go and build an army big enough to not get killed by their army, and it's a difficult option if you're already at war because then you spread yourself thinner.

 

[xxHammerxx]

The Eyes and Ears network is useful if you want to build up from the deceptive technologies, playing a Esus heavy trader who tries to maintain relationships with everyone until the time to betray each one individually with a massive sneak attack, preferably while their army is off fighting someone else.

 

[zup]

Well if I was going for backstab maybe. But war is easy. All you really need is one or two uber promoted units that can kill anything the enemy has and a stack of units to protect them from massive counterattacks. And before anybody whines about 300 unit AI stacks in Deity: I play noble.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Even on standard Deity the wonder's pretty much crap. You need one of the modmods that enhances economic AI for it to be worthwhile.

 

[xxHammerxx]

well, I would rather it not require open borders.

I was just thinking of making a game around getting the eyes and ears network to be as useful as possible in its current implementation. I'm not quite sure how effective it would be but it sounds like lots of good fun. I love using assasins and deception, even if deception is currently implemented quite weakly.