That's some impressive wonderspamming going on there.
Your empire size at this stage seems to work very well... cottagespam cities, cities that make great people, etc.
I was surprised that you had mentioned a worry of losing cows to the portuguese back when lyons was a holy city with creative bonus and stonehenge bonus. I think you might have already had a world wonder there too. Your wonderspam cities are old and have culture points like nobody's bizness.
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I get a Great Spy and settle him in Paris for the beakers--again. I don't really care for Scotland Yard. I don't care much for espionage in the early game as you can tell from my perpetually-zero-percent espionage slider. (EDIT: in later games I would realize that you can Infiltrate with great spies and gain an ENORMOUS amount of beakers doing so. So I recommend that route rather than settling, for the early game.)
So now I have a pair of Great Spies settled in Paris.
More interesting developments. But this caught my eye. Strange that someone who writes a thread on an Espionage Economyshould say this ...
Scotland yard gives +100% EPs to all sources in the city, including palace, courthouse and spy specialists. So it simply doubles any other GSpies settled there. It is nearly always better (in terms of EP production) to make Scotland Yard with one of your first two GSpies if you're not going to use them for a GoldenAge or an Infiltration mission. The dilemma I've not yet resolved for myself is, assuming I will have 2 GSpies which should I settle, the first or the second? That depends on other sources of EPs and will vary from game to game. The downside to Scotland Yard is the loss of 6 beakers (with Representation) which can be useful at some stages of the game but making your capital an Espionage City as well as Science City is a great combo with strong synergy.
EE is completely tongue in cheek. It is more proper to call it an Infiltration Gambit or something like that.
I have yet to try the Infiltration Gambit (that is a good name for it) more for lack of a suitable target than any reluctance to try such an interesting strategy. In my games so far when I get an early GSpy my neighbours always seem to be behind me in tech... so I settle him. Then the next one does indeed become a Scotland Yard.In any case, I have learned the error of my ways and now only use early spies for golden ages and Infiltration. Scotland Yard doubles spy points, but early on that just gives you a whopping +4 spy points per turn, which is pretty sad compared to Infiltration or a golden age (though usually the Music free artist is my first GA so a spy is typically just half of my 2nd golden age).
My comments about settling the first or second GSpy were meant to cover a situation later in the game. If you don't get the Great Wall it can be a long time or only a stroke of good fortune to get a GSpy. It is not until Constitution and jails that you can run many spy specialists. Getting a GSpy at that stage of the game means you have palace, courthouse and jails and maybe running 3 spies so the decision is not so clear cut and if you were planning to raise the EP slider that would also favout Scotland Yard over a settled GSpy. That's what I meant by my comments. Of course everything you've said is correct but assumes early GSpies, probably from the Great Wall.Therefore, if I were to get 2 spies early on, I would use the first to Infiltrate and the second I'd keep in reserve since I inevitably spawn a Great Artist that needs a partner to generate a 2nd golden age (after I already burned the free Music one as my 1st).
If I didn't want to Infiltrate or GAge for whatever reason, I'd rather settle the first and use the 2nd as Scotland Yard since a doubling of +4 EPT is really sad, but upping the stakes to 3 beakers and 16 EPT via settling, is okay. That's just my 2 cents though, as those +% really start kicking in later on, whereas the +# help out no matter what.
don't take my comments too seriously... I was only pulling your leg
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I have yet to try the Infiltration Gambit (that is a good name for it) more for lack of a suitable target than any reluctance to try such an interesting strategy. In my games so far when I get an early GSpy my neighbours always seem to be behind me in tech... so I settle him. Then the next one does indeed become a Scotland Yard.
My comments about settling the first or second GSpy were meant to cover a situation later in the game. If you don't get the Great Wall it can be a long time or only a stroke of good fortune to get a GSpy. It is not until Constitution and jails that you can run many spy specialists. Getting a GSpy at that stage of the game means you have palace, courthouse and jails and maybe running 3 spies so the decision is not so clear cut and if you were planning to raise the EP slider that would also favout Scotland Yard over a settled GSpy. That's what I meant by my comments. Of course everything you've said is correct but assumes early GSpies, probably from the Great Wall.
Great post Axident, I am enjoying this, always wanted to do it myself but someone would declare on me everytime spoiling my wonder collection!
I have been looking at your pictures in detail and I'm surprised that you are developing Paris the way you are. Why so many cottages? It is your wonder machine, it has a happiness limit of 19 and health of 16 in 560 AD, which is impressive. But the pop is only 10 and growing slowly with a food surplus of only 4.
If you replaced any 2 of those riverside cottages with farms earlier in the game you could have been 2 or 3 pop bigger for many turns. The same number of cottages could have been built on non riverside tiles so you'd have the same commerce and no restrictions from irrigation. The 2 extra food would enable you to either fuel faster growth (6 food is 50% faster than 4 food) and when nearer the cap each farm would allow you to work another grassland mine. An extra 2 pop, with grassland farm and grassland mine pairing, would give an extra 3 basic hammers. Those hammers with forge, OR and Beaucracy are 6 every turn and when building a wonder with the appropriate resource 9 hammers. That would speed up you wonder backlog a huge amount. Building wonders faster means growth in GPP production and hence earlier GPs.
Orleans and Marseilles has the same low food problem which a riverside farm or two would alleviate. Note, I am not advocating farms-instead-of-cottages since you've chosen a CE approach but a farms-as-well-as-cottages approach, at least until you run out of space. It only requires a little more planning and maybe one extra worker to build an occassional cottage and farm instead of just cottage. The cottage is delayed a few turns while the farm is worked for growth, but that can be recovered by better trade routes. Obviously working a farm and a cottage is preferable to just working a cottage as long as the happiness and health allow and as long as there is space... and both these conditions apply.
You are doing amazingly well, but could you have done even better by this simple improvement? How say you?