Playing the Diplomatic Game

[JothHago]

This was a situation I encountered in my latest game playing as Mayan on Immortal.

In game I had Spain, Monty, Iro, Gustavus, Bismarck, Austria and Ottoman.

I think by T80 or so I out-teched the all of them.

Fast forward many more turns later, most of them has spies in Palenque.

Spain and Monty I couldn't be bothered doing much because they are generally denounced through the map.

The tricky bit is Gustavus himself. He spied, I asked to cease spying, he complied. A few turns later, he does that again, and I was about to denounce him, only to realize he has a DoF with Bismarck and Sully, who is also in DoF with myself.

Reason why I didn't want to get negative diplo hits with Otto and Bismarck is because I have successfully bribed both of them to DoW Austria and Monty at early stage of the game allowing me run away from them.

They were still quite useful at later stages to control some of the other civ without themselves being too big, so I didn't wanted negative diplo by denouncing Gustavus.

Problem is, Gustavus NEVER EVER stops spying on me. I know on a gaming perspective, it's beneficial to keep forgiving him as I still get to sell items to him, but on a personal note, I got so frustrated with his continual spying. By my last count, at least 10 times he was caught, warned and he still keeps doing it. I was gunning for SV with most of the other Civs already soften so I didn't bother putting production into units but boy...was that game really frustrating.

I'm sure some of you guys feel where I'm coming with this. If he didn't had DoF with Bismarck and Ottoman, I would've wiped him clean.

Very
Frustrating

 

[nanomage]

well the solution is to stop being frustrated about him spying. There's not anything you can do without harming yourself, short of wiping him of the map (though that maybe more harm then boon, too) .
I'd advise to keep forgiving him and keep using his (or their, all of them) spies to level up yours.
I suspect they only would stop spying when asked if they are afraid of your great might, which is a rare thing on immortal.

 

[Unresolved]

I just let the AI spy away on me. It means less competition in CS. The diplomatic forgiveness is also pretty substantial if you do it a lot.

 

[JothHago]

Yea I know the only solution was to keep forgiving him. But it was really frustrating because he seems to be able to steal my tech even when I have my lvl 3 spies in base with Police Station. Not that it matters much but it was just frustrating on personal level.

Gustavus, DoF with Sully and Bismarck, how can we manipulate the situation to have Sully/Bismarck to have negative relationship with Gus? Or it's something that's out of my control?

 

[nanomage]

well I suppose you could forge a DoF with Gusty by forgiving him enough and then really piss him off, like, steal his CS, steal his land, ask him to stop settling near you, that sort of thing. Then presumably he'll take the diplo hit for denouncing you - his friend. However, if others liked him more than you then you'll have the hit too, and overall thaT seems to be too much hassle. Also I don't get the point of building Constabularies and Police Stations - for me they just slow down the rate at which your counter-spies get their promotions.

 

[Unresolved]

It's hard to get the two civs to DoW each other if they're allies. There's not much you can do about that. If they don't have borders, then having one of them take over a neighbor inbetween them might stir up some land envy.

 

[JothHago]

Yea too much hassle to get him to denounce me.

By the time I got to that stage of Constabularies/Police Stations, I pretty much know the game was in the bag. I bought them outright anyway. Gold wasn't an issue as I managed to chain 5 golden age from turn 190 to end game. Was more of an outright frustration and wanted to see if those buildings actually help decrease his spy times. (which I feel it didn't, hence proving that those buildings are pointless).

All my spies were already lvl 3, and due to the nature of the game, constant warring between some of the civ, I had enough gold and quest to buy off all CS for most of the game, that is until the end when Sully took the SP to affect my relationship degradation.

But sorta goes to show unless you get Great Firewall (which another one that I won't know if anyone if ever builds this on standard/epic speed, or even build it), it seems like those anti spy buildings are really...a waste of production. Should've been addressed in BnW :S

 

[nanomage]

...
But sorta goes to show unless you get Great Firewall (which another one that I won't know if anyone if ever builds this on standard/epic speed, or even build it), it seems like those anti spy buildings are really...a waste of production. Should've been addressed in BnW :S

I guess it might be sort of adressed by making spies really dangerous like steal your great works or stuff, but I don't know enough about those mechanics. Lack of information about anti-spy buildings does seem a bit troubling, it may very well be the case that they're left excatly the same, which is kinda not good.