How important is espionage?

[TheMeInTeam]

EP makes the game easier. Spam some IA/jails and possibly security bureaus and you have a very strong output in EP without the slider. It's not hard to get the steal cost below the beaker cost at all, just open borders and stationary spy will do, shared religion will make it even better, as will spending.

Cottages can easily convert to it if for some reason they're behind. So can hammer/spec cities (whip the multiplier buildings or just build them).

Of course EP can also be used late game to wreck ship parts (what else will you do if you have all the needed space techs yourself?) or influence civics for some diplo win power. Or just support city revolt for fast wars. Whatever.

It's not a critical aspect of the game but if you address it espionage can cover your mistakes or make the game easier.

 

[popejubal]

I'm probably just echoing a lot of what you've heard already, but I've found that a little Espionage is just a waste that would have been better put toward either cash or beakers. An enormous amount of Espionage is only useful when you have a target civ that you really want to mess with or steal from. If you do have a rival civ nearby with the appropriate modifiers (especially religion modifiers), then you can really go to town on them.

At lower levels, it's really not worthwhile because the AI doesn't present enough of a challenge with military to need Espionage revolts to take down cultural defensive bonuses and they don't tech fast enough to have much worth stealing. It can still be worthwhile to steal techs if you are beelining to something expensive. When you're racing ahead to something like Education, your rivals might be going for less expensive techs. If you steal those less expensive techs, you can keep moving toward Liberalism without either trading away Education or going without those smaller techs.

Being able to see what your rivals are researching is also fun when you are headed toward Liberalism on the lower levels. Normally, I'll try to make sure I put that last turn into Liberalism as soon as my rivals are able to do start researching it. When I can see what my rivals are researching, I've been able to put off that last turn to gram something extraordinary like Biology instead of just going for Chemistry.

On the higher levels, espionage can be part of a broader strategy because you can get a whole lot of bang for your spies buck. Infiltrated spies give an enormous number of EPs, so early in the game, you can grab 5-10 techs with the number of EPs that you got from a very early Great Spy. Obviously, this is only going to be worthwhile if your neighbor has 5-10 techs to steal at that point in the game. If you're going to beeline something that the AI doesn't prioritize, this can be pretty nifty. It's also pretty limited, though, because if you infiltrate an AI civ, you can't move those EPs to another civ. If you settle the GSpy, you can always switch your focus to another civ when you've eliminated the first.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A full set of spy buildings gets you over 40 EP/turn without the slider. Using 12 cities, it's totally reasonable therefore to net around 500 EP/turn just for building them. Since focused EP stealing = better conversion rate than BPT, you're looking at a healthy # of techs for doing nothing more than sinking some hammers (which might be well-spent if behind after a war). Stealing something you can trade is most comical.

If you slider that, you can really up an empire, and then use a production bonus to steamroll someone slightly behind or even at parity.

 

[Ibian]

Hmm well sure but again, if i have a bunch of cottages at that point ill be ahead, even if my empire is smaller than yours and i can buy my army too. It seems to me that EP is just a different way of reaching the same goal, perhaps with a slant towards warmongering.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmm well sure but again, if i have a bunch of cottages at that point ill be ahead, even if my empire is smaller than yours and i can buy my army too. It seems to me that EP is just a different way of reaching the same goal, perhaps with a slant towards warmongering.

Pretty much. You use it to nosedive AI ship parts or screw up their culture or manipulate diplo if you're in the lead (mostly the latter TBH), otherwise you use it to recoup ground after a warmongering spree, especially an early one that sets you back.

The diplo manipulation doesn't take much though, you can do it with just jails pretty much. Flipping an AI out of another AIs favorite civic for a war bribe or to SCREW religion blocks can be pretty effective. Have you ever had a continent with say izzy and another buddhist who isn't spiritual, and spread your religion there? It's pretty fun to make her HATE her neighbor she was just friendly with.

Many games can be played without any EP at all, but some aspects of it are just FUN, others let you win catch-up games. I usually tech using cottages too, but I probably use less than you do.

 

[noto2]

Espionage can be VERY POWERFUL. In my current game, as Shaka, I was on a small continent with Portugal, separated by ocean from the rest. I killed Jao and took over, but the continent was so small that even with cottage spamming by the time I met everyone I was WAY behind. I was researching COL while others were already done education. I beelined constitution for jails and then ramped up the espionage slider to full. I stole communism and spammed the intelligence agencies, then stole democracy to spam the security bureaus. With all those buildings built I have now caught up to everyone at assembly line and artillery. Even though I'm one of the smaller civs, I have reached tech parity and can now launch an invasion with infantry/artillery. All thanks to espionage. If I had just tried to catch up with research I would have spent the rest of the game catching up.

 

[King Jason]

Yeah but, spy points means less beaker.

Why?

I utilize espionage to gain a wealth of technologies in every game I play and never allocate my slider toward it. The only beaker translation I can think of is the 1 or 2 Gspies instead of Gscientists, which I'd say absolutely equates to more beakers over time... due to theft and subsuquent trade, since a lot of early espionage (for me) is done with Gspy points. Another would be having a spyspecialist instead of a scientist... which again one doesn't have to do. But even still I think there's a thread out there somewhere detailing the spy being more efficient than a scientist anyway... but I'm not about to crunch those numbers or dig up the thread.

I personally think espionage is worth every bit of investment... because it requires very very little investment from your empire period. A couple of extra hammers diverted, a GP or two diverted, and potentially some city specialists if you choose (Guess this goes with the slider too, but I don't bother with the that, as I mentioned). Since I usually have larger empires, Courthouses and Jails alone (two things I build anyway) are more than enough to sustain my espionage needs. As such... to fuel a functioning espionage system... I don't really have to change how I play at all... I just need to actually pay attention to espionage.

In my experience, the rewards of espionage in techs alone, far exceeds the investment.

Oh and Just to talk tech lead;

I never tech slower or intentionally fall behind in order to utilize espionage. As I said, I play as I always would, The only change is trying for an early Gspy. I think Espionage actually complements having a tech lead wonderfully. As you can keep going down whatever paths you choose, without having to backfill certain techs. For example, I hate damn near every religious tech in this game, and pretty much never research any of them. Instead, I aquire them all via stealing from those that do.

You can also "research" two techs at once in general. If you see an enemy researching one tech that'll take about X turns, you can research something else and just steal his tech when he's done. Like Stealing machinery when you're researching Civil Service. In fact, when confidence is had in the liberalism race, I've even researched Printing Press after Paper, only to steal Education when the AI was done with it, and still manage to beat them to Lib.

 

[noto2]

One thing that I find helpful is this: it is a difficult decision to make between doing your own research and upping the espionage slider to steal techs. If, however, you are very far behind the AI the choice is easy - espionage. I look at the tech tree and pick a goal and see what techs I need to get there, these ar ethe techs I would research normally. If the AIs already have those techs then I lose nothing by putting the resources into espionage. Once I finally hit a point where I can research something the AI doesn't have, then I need to think about where to put the slider, but until that time I can put espionage at full, and science at 0. This, of course, assumes I have the espionage infrastructure up.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

You can also "research" two techs at once in general. If you see an enemy researching one tech that'll take about X turns, you can research something else and just steal his tech when he's done. Like Stealing machinery when you're researching Civil Service. In fact, when confidence is had in the liberalism race, I've even researched Printing Press after Paper, only to steal Education when the AI was done with it, and still manage to beat them to Lib.

On Lib and Espionage, I find that once you research Liberalism the AIs will ignore it. If you keep it to yourself, it becomes pretty easy to beat everyone else to Communism for the bonus Great Spy, a shot at the Kremlin, and intelligence agencies. National Park plus Kremlin w/ the free Great Spy dropped in for a Scotland Yard produce a metric ton of EPs without any slider investment.

 

[Cashew]

Yeah but, spy points means less beakers. Over long enough time it might turn into more beakers than you could otherwise have gotten, if you are behind an AI who is also close enough to walk to, but early beakers matters more than late beakers. At least, thats the mantra i see preached all the time.

Now, sure, you could just focus on hammering out a mounted army and not care about research once you reach whatever marker you decided on, but that late in the game my entire empire except for one city will be covered in cottages and i can just buy an army big enough to crush anything in my way in a matter of ~15 turns. Could be a matter of taste i suppose.

Even if you use an espionage economy of course you would still put down cottages. Just as no pure specialist economy exists no pure espionage economy exists. I was merely saying I put a tremendous emphasis on it when I'm going for it.

 

[scothed]

Well since I posted this thread I've actually used espionage a bit in my last game, but it came about out of necessity. I had launched an amphibious invasion and in the resulting peace treaty trapped my army (d'oh!). As I tried to get them back to my continent I was getting worried about the Celts who were the only country left on my continent not conquered by me. I started building spies and unleashed them on the Celts. I knocked my espionage slider upto 30% and at one point had 800EP's against them each turn. I managed to put them on the back foot for long enough to get my army across to defend against their DOW that I sensed coming.