Late-game espionage

[futurehermit]

I did this in my first few games, but have gotten away from it currently.

I think it is pretty cool.

Basically, if you are shooting for space race and have a slight lead, or want to ensure a substantial lead, or want to catch someone who's ahead of you, then engage in spy tactics.

Make sure you are producing a pile of espionage (see my thread on a super espionage city) and then get an army of spies (around 20-30).

You need an army because sometimes you have to travel great distances and after completing a mission spies return all the way to your capital. Also, some spies will get caught.

Here are some tactics to support your space victory:

1) Wipe out their towns/villages/etc. Completely decimate a few top commerce cities and watch their tech rate plummet

2) Sabotage science and production buildings. These are the two key buildings needed for space race so hitting them will put a hurt on

3) Sabotage production tiles and special resources like copper, aluminum, coal

4) Steal tech. If you're behind or at tech parity this can be a good way to go. Means you avoid trading your tech, but catch some of theirs.

5) Happiness/health sabotaging. I don't know how much of an impact this has on very large cities on normal/epic speed, but I imagine it must have some impact, especially the health one in production cities that are already hurting for health.

Load up your army of spies, slap them into stealthy naval ships, and then go have fun. This is still warfare, just a covert variety. Ensure yourself of victory style

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

Sobataging happines buildings is actually quit good. Markets and forges give the biggest effect when sabotaged. When the city becomes unhappy for a few turns I had often the riot event happening. Wich resulted in quit a few destroyed buildings.

 

[futurehermit]

Good idea.

1) Sabotage all happiness buildings

2) Foment unhappiness

You could even add in some support city revolts to prevent the rebuilding of the buildings

The same technique could be used for health:

target granary/grocer/aqueduct/etc. then hit poison water

if you have enough spies and espionage points to put these two combos together you could really roast a capital or other important city

 

[Polycrates]

I am a big fan of this approach, and I think it's the biggest boost that the SE has gotten in BtS. About when you hit Constitution is about when their cottages are starting to hit townhood, and it's also exactly when spy specialists really come into their own.

The spy specialist is the best value specialist in the game anyway in pure commerce terms, generating 5 commerce instead of 3 (I suspect mostly because espionage commerce is very easily wasted). If you run Representation and build a jail, you can now run 3 spies who are 2/3 of a scientist specialist, plus are generating 6EPs as well - and are putting GPPs towards one of the best great people in the game. Add in an Intelligence Agency when you hit Communism (and eventually the Security Bureau) and you've got one hell of a specialised espionage city.

The other great thing is that with the espionage buildings (and hopefully a library and observatory) you can be running 10 heavily-beaker-generating specialists per city without having to be in Caste System - so you can run slavery to whip in a whole bunch more espionage buildings everywhere (if you stack them, their base espionage generation is worth it even without specialists) or run Emancipation for the happiness and to further any cottages you may have.

The great thing about this is the near-perfect efficiency of espionage generation, with buildings that were probably more designed to compensate for the hopeless inefficiency of using the slider for espionage (ugh).

As for using the espionage:

I find it's best to choose one of the tech leaders, focus all the EPs on them and build up your passive knowledge of them before striking, so you've got a better idea what to hit.

1) Hitting towns is such good value it's amazing. I don't even bother sitting them around waiting generally, because the cost is so low that it seems more beneficial to minimise the chance of being caught and getting a diplo modifier.
However, in Solver's newest patch version, it only takes towns down one level, which reduces its value somewhat - so hitting villages just about to turn into towns is the best value, as well as hitting towns down one level in a wave, then a second wave to take them down to hamlets when the villages start developing again, etc.

2) Health/happiness: Can be very nice if used effectively and in a focused manner on one city. To really work well, I've found a two-step approach is best. The first attack wipes out most of their food surplus but probably won't hit their population terribly hard. That's when the second attack really hits them and the city gets really wasted. The first can just be a single health/happiness attack; the second is best if you really turn the screws with health, happiness and sabotage of food specials.
If they're in HR, health attacks generally work much better, since they will compensate for unhappiness with troops. Once they switch, though, the happiness attack can be extremely powerful. The industrial age is a perfect time for hitting their health, when they're building a whole bunch of factories etc anyway.

3) Hitting buildings is very expensive, I'm not convinced it's the most worthwhile use of espionage.

4) Stealing tech means you MUST MUST MUST use more than one spy and leave the spies in the city for the full 5 turns, but if you do, then the cost can be less than the regular beaker cost of the tech. And you can then use the tech for trade too (even if no brokering is on).

 

[bode404]

Recently, I've been thinking about heavy assaults on food/health. (havent tried yet)
That is, destroying all farms around a city at once, while poisoning water and destroying health buildings.
Though farms arent as productives as cottages, you probably could quickly diminish a city's population.