Medium Term Strategy

[damnrunner]

I am looking at screen shots and man are we close to Sirus. The land mass is only 5 tiles wide or so at the location where both our border touch.

If we could found Judaism in a city on the main land mass we could likely trap Sirus on their island. Just a thought.

 

[Norton I]

What they get? They get us not butt-r***ing them, that's what.

A tech alliance is always accompanied by a non-aggression treaty, remember? I think you confuse the wording in the diplomatic correspondence with what we actually are saying and what we want. Besides, they need us teching for them just as much as we want them tech for us.

I completely agree with this. The tech trading might be slightly more advantagous for us than for them... but the NAP on the other hand is more in their interest.

Part of the deal is us letting them live Now of course, this part of the deal is only "real" is we have the means to attack them. Therefore, we need to settle on Jennilund fast and make sure our presence there is stronger than theirs. I am not suggesting to really threaten them... I just want them to realize that we could wipe them off Jennilund if we don't need their friendship anymore.

In other words: being a war-monger civ doesn't have to mean we attack, it can also mean we can get good deals because we are feared.

 

[damnrunner]

I completely agree with this. The tech trading might be slightly more advantagous for us than for them... but the NAP on the other hand is more in their interest.

Part of the deal is us letting them live Now of course, this part of the deal is only "real" is we have the means to attack them. Therefore, we need to settle on Jennilund fast and make sure our presence there is stronger than theirs. I am not suggesting to really threaten them... I just want them to realize that we could wipe them off Jennilund if we don't need their friendship anymore.

In other words: being a war-monger civ doesn't have to mean we attack, it can also mean we can get good deals because we are feared.

Excellent point!

 

[SilentConfusion]

I completely agree with this. The tech trading might be slightly more advantagous for us than for them... but the NAP on the other hand is more in their interest.

Part of the deal is us letting them live Now of course, this part of the deal is only "real" is we have the means to attack them. Therefore, we need to settle on Jennilund fast and make sure our presence there is stronger than theirs. I am not suggesting to really threaten them... I just want them to realize that we could wipe them off Jennilund if we don't need their friendship anymore.

In other words: being a war-monger civ doesn't have to mean we attack, it can also mean we can get good deals because we are feared.

I second damnrunner's praise of this comment. This is the most effective use of our military early. If we can use our military to garrison our cities and maybe boost happiness levels with HR, and use the threat of potential violence to help us diplomatically, they will be definitely worth the hammers.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I also think that military strength is a very effective negotiation tool, however, I would like to point out that the same could be said for strength... however, I seem to remember some saying that being strong in points would "make us a pariah", make us feared and despised and make our rivals suspicious of us and want to gang up on us...

I am not metioning this to say that we should forgoe military strength, we should definitly use military. All I am trying to point out is if you are not worried that teams will "gang up on us" when they see our Power graph numbers or Soldier demographics spike, then why worry about us becoming a "pariah" for having high numbers?

I think good recon and a heathy lead on our rivals is the backbone of military strength. If teams know we can steal their tech at will, and that we can see in their cities with our high espionage numbers... that instill some of that "fear" that you feel will help us so much in negotiations.

 

[nabaxo]

Oh dear Jeebus! Military might and espionage economy. It would be unorthodox as hell, but I'm all for that! >:3

My question is: why the heck not? Why play it like everyone else?

 

[remake20]

I'm fine with using some espionage, but I would like to research most of what we get. And I think espionage might make our diplo worse, because they might think we have some plan or something. Well maybe not, but I still feel that way.

 

[damnrunner]

An Esp econ will leave us isolated and we will be ganged up on by the other teams. We will lose.

It is a really bad idea in my view.

 

[remake20]

 

[SilentConfusion]

An Esp econ will leave us isolated and we will be ganged up on by the other teams. We will lose.

It is a really bad idea in my view.

I do not think that an Economy based on tech stealing is viable in this type of game and have not been shown otherwise. However, having a high EP can be quite valuable though. So while I would not be in favor of a tech stealing economy, I do value EP and having a high EP level opens up a lot of options for us. There might be a time when a stolen tech can be the right call and can turn the tide, even if I don't think we can rely on it too much.

My opinion is that we need a different source of beakers for teching purposes, and that the more EP we can get the better. Cottages translate into EP better than specialists, but we will undoubtedly have both.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We seem to be having so much trouble distinguishing using well, and DEPENDING on espionage for all of our tech.

Just because we use missions, and build points does not mean we are running an Espionage Economy... and just because our hybrid economy has an espionage element does not mean that we will depend on espionage for most of our tech. I don't think anyone is advocating a pure Espy economy or pure Specialist economy for that matter. Anything we do will be a hybrid.

And this comment:

An Esp econ will leave us isolated and we will be ganged up on by the other teams. We will lose.

I just don't get it... You could say the EXACT same thing about building up our military... ie., 'A large military will leave us isolated and we will be ganged up on by the other teams. We will lose.'

But the MOST thing about that comment is this previous one:

I have no experience with EE but ... That looks like a great incentive for human players to gang up on us...

Rejecting the use of based on experience using it is one thing, but if you have no experience with using , then there is no way for you to know that other teams will "gang up on us" if they see us with higher than them.

I don't understand why you think that teams will be perfectly happy with us stacking an amada of Immortals to block them from settling Jennilund, but they will go ape and gang up on us if we have a higher value. What am I missing?

 

[remake20]

I guess your right. I'm fine with using some E points, but not a whole lot.

 

[Norton I]

There is a difference between military strength and ESP points.

During peace time you already have to decide how to distribute your ESP points over your opponents. That basically gives away who you want to use it against. (Although I am not sure how much of this info is accessible by other, I am sure there are a lot of subtle ways to find out.)

So... if we pile up an army "against" a rival, they will try to befriend us and hope we'll use the army against other civs. If we pile up ESP points against an opponent it's pretty clear it's used against them sooner or later.

BTW, this is not meant as an argument against investing in ESP... just want to point out there is a difference.

 

[Sommerswerd]

That might work with the AI, but human players will not respond that way. Humans are able to intuit who you are stacking units against and they will most likely launch a premptive strike, not beg you to attack somebody else.

Plus they will know that it wont work against humans anyway... I Human player #1 builds an Army to attack human #2 to take their holy city or source of elephants, there can be no persuading to go across the ocean and randomly attack someone else... Whe you build an army and plan a war you do it with a specific target in mind. They are not going to be able to persuade you to give up your plan to conquer them after the army is already built.

So that argument that military is different from espionage is somewhat unpersusive... at least on the points you raised.

 

[damnrunner]

@ sommers
I don't own bts just vanilla so I don't have 1st hand knowledge of playing an esp game. But that comment was at the very beginning of the discussion on running an esp econ, and I think the arguments against an esp econ were hashed out fairly extensively by both myself and others. Hence my short hand summary - "we get ganged up on and lose."

Military power is only a threat to your immediate neighbors - other teams will still view you as a potential ally. A powerful esp civ threatens every team equally. However, you are right that being too powerful militarily could result in a situation where all other teams allied up against you. But this would only happen if you were disproportionately more powerful than all other civs (something like a power ratio of 3+:1:1:1:1:1). This situation is unlikely to happen on the military side as other teams will grow in power at about the same rate. I see esp being different though. To run an esp econ a team is going to have far more esp than any other team - this disproportional balance of power is what i see as the reason why a team would get ganged up on.

Anyhow - that is my logic - it does make sense though I understand that you disagree.

 

[nabaxo]

I think that some would consider us a threat, but others will want us as allies since we would sit on a huge amount of information.

By the way, you don't have to distribute espionage points equally. You get to separately choose how much to spend on who.

Personally, I'm all for a hybrid economy with cottages and spies.

 

[Sommerswerd]

@ sommers
I don't own bts just vanilla so I don't have 1st hand knowledge of playing an esp... To run an esp econ a team is going to have far more esp than any other team - this disproportional balance of power is what i see as the reason why a team would get ganged up on.

Sorry I forgot that you don't have BTS... that explains a lot. As nabaxo said, you can allocate points to your enemies so there is no risk of offending your friends.

Also, there is no way for your rivals to know how much Espy you are producing. All they know is how much you have on them. And if you are using spies effectively to run Espy missions, they won't even know that because you will use the surplus Espy as soon as you get it... they will never know you even had Espy points on them.

GW will not give away that we intend to use Espy, because we have another great use for GW... barb defense on Jennilund. That excuse gives cover for the Espy benefit.

If you use q spy bomb on someone, they will certainly hate you, but at that point you are probably established enemies anyway so it does not matter.

I have a good amount of experience using Espy in multiplayer and I can tell you from experience that when your rivals know you are an Espy powerhouse ,they are MUCH more likely to want to BEFRIEND you. Because they want to benefit from your enhanced info and stolen tech etc.

They also want you to direct your Espy at someone else. Unlike an army that was built to conquer a specific civ... Espy can be more easily directed at a different Target. You can steal metal casting from anyone after all...

 

[remake20]

Isn't there a message saying that someone has stolen a tech? Which would lead to people finding out who it was.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Isn't there a message saying that someone has stolen a tech? Which would lead to people finding out who it was.

you are correct but there are three reasons that is not relevant.

1. The only way you would have the Espy to steal tech is with a Great Spy bomb(infiltration mission). You would never use this on an ally because it is totally unecessary... you already have all your allies tech. Against an enemy... who cares if they know? What are they going to do? Be your enemy?

2. Unlike in a real time or SP GAME where the message comes upvwhile you are at the CPU. In pitboss the "tech was stolen" message comes up while you are Logged out and then it disappears before you log back in. So you never see it. You would have to go to the games message log and read through it to see the message, and few people do that every turn unless they looking for something. Did you look every turn when you were turnplayer?

3. Item 2 does not matter that much since they can look at the diplo screen and see that you have the tech. but they have no way of knowing for sure that YOU Stole it. Maybeyour ally stole it. If you spybomb and steal at the end of turn, beingcareful to trade that tetch to your allies right away, they won't even be able to count Espy points... andthat is assuming that they are even trackingespy points, which most people usually don't.

 

[remake20]

you are correct but there are three reasons that is not relevant.

1. The only way you would have the Espy to steal tech is with a Great Spy bomb(infiltration mission). You would never use this on an ally because it is totally unecessary... you already have all your allies tech. Against an enemy... who cares if they know? What are they going to do? Be your enemy?

2. Unlike in a real time or SP GAME where the message comes upvwhile you are at the CPU. In pitboss the "tech was stolen" message comes up while you are Logged out and then it disappears before you log back in. So you never see it. You would have to go to the games message log and read through it to see the message, and few people do that every turn unless they looking for something. Did you look every turn when you were turnplayer?

3. Item 2 does not matter that much since they can look at the diplo screen and see that you have the tech. but they have no way of knowing for sure that YOU Stole it. Maybeyour ally stole it. If you spybomb and steal at the end of turn, beingcareful to trade that tetch to your allies right away, they won't even be able to count Espy points... andthat is assuming that they are even trackingespy points, which most people usually don't.

I see where your getting. I think we can use both espy and military to "make" people like us.