My first try at an Espionage economy

[Bhruic]

Yeah. Someone does.

Bh

 

[David_e08]

Does it depend on what city you spy on, for instence will it be cheaper to spy on a city with 2 pop or a capital with 6 pop?

 

[King Jason]

So what are the disadvantages of this strategy?

 

[Gliese 581]

So what are the disadvantages of this strategy?

I'm still in the beginning stages of a test game where I plan to rely solely on an EE if possible after literature (I feel the exact start point can be a bit flexible, I happened to get marble close by anyhow) so I'll probably discover things on the way, however..

The most obvious drawback that I can think of right away is of course that you can only steal techs that have already been researched. This means you wont get any great people from techs, you wont win the liberalism race, and you won't be in a position of out-teching your opponent militarily unless they're a backward civ. A further problem with this is that it will be harder to get good tech trades since that often hinges on you having a tech that is not well spread and then trading it to several opponents.
I also suspect that you will encounter a make or break point in the middle game where you haven't yet developed your spy infrastructure enough to compete with your opponents library infrastructure. The EP boosting buildings mostly come later in the game, jails and security bureaus for example, are not until you approach the industrial age.
However this should be offset some by so far outproducing the AI in EPs that tech-stealing become much cheaper in the commerce required than actually researching the tech yourself.

Another thing that I have thought of is the importance of culture and the dual function that libraries fill here. In my current game I play as Napoleon and my closest neighbour is Kublai Khan. Bad news for culture wars. I'm going to be forced to either go to war very soon or build some libraries to complement my monuments or start to lose land to a superior culture. This makes me think that creative could possibly be a strong trait to use with an EE, especially on maps where you are likely to have several neighbours. Unfortunately, beyond the automatic 2 points of culture that creative generates, you wont have much use of the trait if you're going to ignore library building for the most part.

Well..back to testing.

Also, thanks for the link Bhruic, I'll read it later.

 

[xanadux]

Does it depend on what city you spy on, for instence will it be cheaper to spy on a city with 2 pop or a capital with 6 pop?

When choosing a city to spy from in an empire, there are really only 2 considerations ... distance from your palace (closer is cheaper), and does it have a Security Bureau (you'd rather it not because it adds 50% cost).

Move a spy to a city, let it sit a few turns then try to run a mission ... mouse over the mission and you will see all the things that effect the mission cost.

@Bhruic

I was hoping you would chime in there.

 

[Shigga]

Hm you got me curious. Is there a HowTo-Writeup on EE somewhere?

 

[Tonifranz]

When choosing a city to spy from in an empire, there are really only 2 considerations ... distance from your palace (closer is cheaper), and does it have a Security Bureau (you'd rather it not because it adds 50% cost).

Move a spy to a city, let it sit a few turns then try to run a mission ... mouse over the mission and you will see all the things that effect the mission cost.

How about your state religion in the city? I heard, though I can't confirm where, that having your state religion in the city that you're going to use espionage on would give you a certain discount, by how much I'm not sure, but a significant discount still.

 

[xanadux]

yes, state religion is a factor too ...

 

[xanadux]

Hm you got me curious. Is there a HowTo-Writeup on EE somewhere?

I'm not aware of any, but in the next day or 2, I am going to start the CIV103 game: Espionage Economy at Prince level.