My new view on espionage

[madscientist]

Just my opinion of the use of espionage in my current game.

A little prelim, random map playing as Genghis Khan. Got Louis/Wang/Vicky/Zara on teh same continent. Quickly eliminated and took French and Korean lands. Paris (the only French city we retained) became a stronge GP famr and already had the Great Wall. Kep three Korean cities, all very nice riverside cottage crazy cities. The Mongol capitla was lndlocked and had good land but I kept about 8 tiles with forrests (did not need them chopped. Second city was a prime production powerhouse for military but limited on food.

Now to the espionage

First GP we got from Paris was a Great Spy. I settled him in The Mongol capital, so I now have and extra 12 eps spread evenly amongst Victoria and Zara (who are pleased due to religion). I did not war anymore and teched.

As you would conclude I teched slower than those two waiting for the Korean cottages to mature. What I did not expect is the dominance espionage played in this game.

I eventually got another Great Spy which I build Scottland Yard in teh capital. I got 3 more GSs (One from first to Communism) and settled them in the capital. I quickly built all the spy buildings in the capital as I acquired Constitution/Democracy/Caommunism. I build forrest reserves in all 8 forrested tiles, then the National Park which gave me basically 7 or 8 free spy specialists. Massive amounts of espionage, I leveraged 1 part towards Zara and 4 parts to Victoria. I ignore Peter and Isabell who were on the other continent. I NEVE Adjusted the EP slider, ran mostly science and gold wuth a 10% culture slider later for happiness. Also never ran Nationalism (we maxed the CE) and never built a castle.

By the end of the game (well it is near over), and using wise missions to the cheapest cities and stationing the spies in that city for 5 turns we stole the following

meditation
Compass
Machinery
Divine Right
Artillery
Assembly Line
Fission


There are about 4 other techs I cannot recall at the moment. I stole mostly from Victoria but a few from Zara. Pretty soon I was surpassing the others in tech as I could keep my own tech pace as I wanted and just stole what the AI did.

This is definitely the way to use/abuse espionage. I was never stealing from a deficite in tech as is the case when adjusting the slider to sacrifice beakers. I used espionage from a position of strength.

THe one drawback is my relations with Victoria are cautious (and she's stronger in power now) because she caught 3 of my spies. One reason I have not stolen Fascism (which I easily can) and plan to ge that and satellites (and maybe robotics) via the internet which I was able to build.

It really pays off to spend the time and build a stronge espionage base. Great Spies are definitely a plus as they get you an edge over the AIs.

I'll Post a picture of my capital tonight when I get home.

 

[qwertz]

The good the about the espionage is that is a lot of buildings that give you some . Add a great spy or three and you get a ton of EPs, which you can use any way you like, without much effort.

 

[LlamaCat]

interesting results and good to see it can be so useful later on. I like the national forests angle. With the right infrastructure, espionage can be as free of the commerce slider as anything else, even for expensive tech-stealing.

of course, the AIs always have the possibility of generating great spies themselves so in some games these can cancel each other out, depending on how they are used. I had one AI must have spy bombed me or had some good base EP because I could never catch up to him no matter what I tried.

but ultimately, land is power and that's what your Khan game demonstrates once again: you conquered some neighbors and established a strong land base, which allowed you to unlock the power of the game's other features. unless you do this, you're pretty much just tinkering around with espionage and hoping to get lucky.

 

[madscientist]

Good point about counter espionage. In that game Zara stole refridgeration from me while Victoria stole Mass Media!

 

[Tyrant Roger]

Does it make sense to dedicate one city to maximize EP points? That is put in all the EP producting improvements, settled spies, scotland yard, etc?

 

[madscientist]

Does it make sense to dedicate one city to maximize EP points? That is put in all the EP producting improvements, settled spies, scotland yard, etc?

There seams to be a debate on this. Some say a scotland yard in each city. I have found that scotland yard with settel Great spies works better, at least for me. I can focus on the expensive spy buildings there (Jail, security Burea, on th other spy building) as it is hard to just globally initate those building throughout your empire. Generally the city should be farmed and mined to allow several spy specialists to be run. The Kremlin would help there as it allows more spy specialists. The National Park can be very powerful and should not be limited to the espionage city, although I used it here. The NP can help in the Oxford/Globe theater/wall Street city.

 

[dragomaster]

yes Scotland yard is an amasing building and The greate wal can be an extreamly good wonder if you use the GSpy well. I played as Zarah once and got a great start I thought. then realised outher civs where far away and the most surounding titles where tundra and desert. I built a settler and then the wall becous barbs where going to be a problem. My capitol where greate my three outher first citys where far away and low on food or barely no food at all. I poped a GSpy and settled him then anouther GSpy and built Scotland Yard, the espionage helped me alot thowards where I am now. Stole many techs and stil have the game unplayed but I am in a position where im 10 % from domination and have not traid many techs mostly stolen and reseched.

The turningpoint where when I stole Nationalism, I had resently built the globe theater and reserched gunpowder. with Zarah this means drafting crazy. Drafted alot of UU menwhile i built many pikemen, teched thoward Steel so when Steel where finished I changed civis and whiped alot of canons. Poor Percles stod no chans of my army and later Charlamage stod no chans when my uppgaded riflemen raped his country. The espionage where importent in this game and and two early GSpy's is one of way to secure us from using the espionage slider at all if we use them on the settled and Scotland Yard combo.

 

[alex sword]

Why so many GS-es were settled in capital? I wonder if it was better to lightbulb something or build academies in those cotteged cities (by scientists generated instead of spies, it adds more to total GNP). Even GA from my standpoint is better than 6 beakers or 3 EP in a middle or a late game... If you want make espionage a priority why not to use 10% slider instead of great people?

Also additional little comment. I consider Jail is worth to be built anywhere if you are targetting on domination. I usually am so I build it very soon in each single city. After Emancipation you just can't whip all the WW-unhappy peope.

 

[madscientist]

1) Why so many GS-es were settled in capital? I wonder if it was better to lightbulb something or build academies in those cotteged cities. Even GA from my standpoint is better than 6 beakers in a middle or a late game...

Also additional little comment. I consider Jail is worth to be built anywhere if you are targetting on domination. I usually am so I build it very soon in each single city. After Emancipation you just can't whip all the WW-unhappy peope.

In this case, GS = Great Spy (since I am talking espionage). Sorry for the confusion.

I agree on Jails although they sometimes get a lower priority. They are a very good all arround building, much much improved in BTS!

 

[futurehermit]

I agree. When BtS first came out I routinely dedicated a strong espionage city in the renaissance era and did much the same thing. I would also use espionage missions to slow down my closest space-race rival.

I've gotten away from doing it a bit now, but should start to work on getting espionage back into my game.

 

[UncleJJ]

Interesting MadScientist, I tend to use a food driven version of this approach as opposed to a commerce driven one. I have always found there is a strong synergy between Spying and normal research in BtS. The dedicated Espionage Economy doesn't seem that attactive to me but one that is balanced between say half espionage and half research is very effective. Bear in mind that I basically run SE or HE economies so there is plenty of food around to run spy specialists and I am likely to run Nationhood (for drafting and happiness) instead of Free Speech, making cottages useful but not overwhelmingly so.

So I often combine Oxford University with Scotland Yard in my capital and have a few settled GS and GSpies. In the late game this city with all the building multipliers available produces a huge amount of beakers and EPs. Once Sid's Sushi is available and running Representation, spy specialists give 4 beakers and 4 EPs and are arguably the best specialist available. Depending on the situation I'll run more scientists or more spy specialists and I don't care too much whether I get a GS or a GSpy as my next GP, both are useful either for a GA or to settle. Very late in the game when settling is no longer worthwhile I'll lightbulb a GS (2500 beakers is a nice boost to research) and use GSpies for the espionage mission (3000 EPs is a nice boost to cost of the next tech to steal). My other large cities will build jails and intelligence agencies (gives +100% EPs) and have libraries, universities and observatories (+ 75% beakers) so running spies or scientists in them is again very efficient way of turning extra food from Biology and Sid Sushi into beakers and EPs. Slavery can be run until very late in the game to allow rapid building of infrastructure in captured cities.

The huge advantage of this approach is that you can choose to research techs that the other AI's are not researching and then steal the techs that they researched. This sort of economy (half beakers, half EPs) is very powerful for warmongering and allows you to get and maintain a technological advantage in some areas and to easily catch up if you fall behind in an area (due to AI tech whoring trades among themselves). The Nationhood civic gives very cost effective drafted troops and a boost to EPs. The high total of EPs mean that I'm pretty safe from enemy espionage activities and can see what all the other civs are doing and "knowledge is power" allowing me to select the right targets for future expansion. Building up large EP totals against particular AIs allow tech stealing or devastating sabotage campaigns against resources or Space ship parts and to discover any AIs trying to steal a Cultural win. This allows me enough time to gain a Domination win or a Diplomatic win based on domination.