Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[Roland Johansen]

This is probably not the best place to ask but it is a quick question nonetheless.

I noticed that when unloading a spy into an rival coastal city from a boat (from inside the city), the spy can conduct a mission on the turn he is dropped. Normally you can't conduct a mission til the spy has spent a turn in the city. This seems a bit fishy to me and while I suspect it may be the minorest of bugs, others may like to think it's an intended feature.

See technically the spy has not moved because sitting in a transport does not count as moving.

This is using BtS 3.13 + Bhruic's patch.

Anyway, bug or feature?

The limiting feature is having full movement points and unloading doesn't cost any movement points as long as the ship is inside the city and the spy doesn't have to move to unload, so I'd say feature.

When borders are closed (which makes detection of spies a lot more likely), then transporting of spies with a ship becomes harder as only ships that can enter closed borders can then drop the spy.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The limiting feature is having full movement points and unloading doesn't cost any movement points as long as the ship is inside the city and the spy doesn't have to move to unload, so I'd say feature.

When borders are closed (which makes detection of spies a lot more likely), then transporting of spies with a ship becomes harder as only ships that can enter closed borders can then drop the spy.

I agree the the actual limiting feature is that your spy has to have full movement points but I get the feeling the point of this feature was to make sure you couldn't conduct a mission in the city the turn you moved into the city, probably to represent the need for the spy to spend a bit of time in a city before it can carry out a mission. So perhaps the devs missed that unloading a spy from a transport doesn't count as moving a spy.

Consider this strange example. Suppose there are two coastal cities - one owned by me and the other by my rival with OB. Suppose also that a transport can go from one city to the other in one turn, and that a spy on the ground can go from one city to the other in one turn. If I were to take two spies, send one by land and send one by transport to the rival city, only the one in the transport could conduct a mission right away. Also I'm pretty sure this would mean that on the following turn the transported spy would have the -10% for stationary spy while the road-running spy would have 0% still.

In this light does it not seem a bit odd?

I think I would tend to agree this is a feature but it's fairly awkward the way it's implemented IMO.


EDIT Actually it turns out the spy in the transport in this example has moved because he was loaded into a transport. But if you consider the same example but with the travel time being 2 between the cities then the point still stands.

 

[DroopyTofu]

This discussion leads me to another question.
Does the turn that the spy moved count in the -10% cost?
Can a spy get caught waiting to be able to conduct the missoin?

 

[a4phantom]

How do you decide between Cottages and Farms
QUOTE]

What Runner said, plus remember that happiness caps your usable population, so having limitless food isn't as valuable as having limitless commerce. If a city has several flood plains and food resources (corn, goats, cows, fish) then you might not need any farms (except the farm you build to exploit the corn) and you can build a lot of cottages (and mines for production in your hills).

 

[PieceOfMind]

This discussion leads me to another question.
Does the turn that the spy moved count in the -10% cost?
Can a spy get caught waiting to be able to conduct the missoin?

The turn the spy moved does not count in the -10% cost. eg. you move spy into city, hit end turn, then you could conduct the mission with no discount. Hit end turn again and you get -10% discount etc.

Yes a spy can get caught while waiting to conduct a mission. This is part of the trade-off of having a spy waiting til the mission is cheaper because there is a greater risk of being caught over several turns.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I agree the the actual limiting feature is that your spy has to have full movement points but I get the feeling the point of this feature was to make sure you couldn't conduct a mission in the city the turn you moved into the city, probably to represent the need for the spy to spend a bit of time in a city before it can carry out a mission. So perhaps the devs missed that unloading a spy from a transport doesn't count as moving a spy.

Consider this strange example. Suppose there are two coastal cities - one owned by me and the other by my rival with OB. Suppose also that a transport can go from one city to the other in one turn, and that a spy on the ground can go from one city to the other in one turn. If I were to take two spies, send one by land and send one by transport to the rival city, only the one in the transport could conduct a mission right away. Also I'm pretty sure this would mean that on the following turn the transported spy would have the -10% for stationary spy while the road-running spy would have 0% still.

In this light does it not seem a bit odd?

I think I would tend to agree this is a feature but it's fairly awkward the way it's implemented IMO.


EDIT Actually it turns out the spy in the transport in this example has moved because he was loaded into a transport. But if you consider the same example but with the travel time being 2 between the cities then the point still stands.

Yes, there are advantages to transporting the spy into the city by ship. The spy can't be caught while moving towards the city and given the lay of the land, it might be faster to get there by ship. Although often movement by land is faster than movement by ship.

What this effectively means is that coastal cities are slightly more vulnerable to spying efforts by your opponents. And that's not that weird compared to real life as these coastal cities are often the trading hubs of a country and as such they are in real life more vulnerable to infiltration by terrorists. In game, you need to construct a ship to transport the spy which adds to the cost of the mission. And as long as I can make some real life justification and it doesn't harm game play, I will not have a problem with it.

 

[a4phantom]

Is the Hwacha considered a strong UU?

 

[CCRunner]

It's decent imo. It was much better when siege could kill.

 

[a4phantom]

It's decent imo. It was much better when siege could kill.

It just seems awkward to have your siege unit specialize in hurting melee. I'd much rather it get a bonus vs. archers, but maybe that'd be too powerful. Now if it got enhanced collateral damage against melee, that'd be a different story, but probably harder to code. Also, it's very anachronistically placed so early in history as a replacement for catapults.

 

[DroopyTofu]

It just seems awkward to have your siege unit specialize in hurting melee. I'd much rather it get a bonus vs. archers, but maybe that'd be too powerful. Now if it got enhanced collateral damage against melee, that'd be a different story, but probably harder to code. Also, it's very anachronistically placed so early in history as a replacement for catapults.

I wish that there was a unit that got a bonus against archery units All you have to do is keep a city safe is build an archery unit w/ city garrison and a wall, and your city is safe from most units. If they had something with a Arch. Unit advantage, that would force you to build a variaty of units to defend and atack.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^Quechua

 

[DroopyTofu]

I meant one that all the civs can use.

 

[a4phantom]

^^Quechua

You beat me to it, I was going to point out that the Inca are very popular.

 

[Crowqueen]

Droopy - Promote your units to Cover once they have Combat 1.

As for the spy issue, caravels can enter enemy territory, so it might be worthwhile keeping a few spare un-upgraded to make sure you can keep inserting spies into enemy territory even after you can make transports or destroyers or whatever obsoletes caravels. The enemy might think it was a historical re-enactment and not attack on sight!

 

[frankcor]

Can you enter enemy ports with a Caravel (or submarine) in BTS? In Vanilla and Warlords, you need an Open Borders agreement in order to drop off a spy in an AI city.

 

[Crowqueen]

In BtS spies/espionage work differently than in Vanilla and Warlords anyway - they are available with Alphabet and have a wider range of missions than previously (one of the aspects of the game I quite enjoy but have yet to really explore and exploit). Caravels can enter enemy territory, I'm not sure about ports but I would drop the spy on land near the city and move it in over land.

 

[r_rolo1]

Same as in Warlords ,frankcor. You can't enter in a other civ city without OB ( except spies OFC ) .

 

[Crowqueen]

Same as in Warlords ,frankcor. You can't enter in a other civ city without OB ( except spies OFC ) .

QFT. I could drop off a spy last night in Khmer territory from a caravel without an OB agreement but I initially tried to use a galleon which, obviously, failed. I sent the spy overland from the immediate point of access to Khmer territory next to my own, partly because it was part of the same island but there was an impassable peak between myself and the city of [Circassian] which I couldn't send the spy through onland, so I had to try and get it past that obstacle into [Circassian] even though technically we were on the same landmass.

EDIT - not that it matters because I won't ever post the save, but I got the name of the town wrong. Needless to say it is now the proud German city of Zirkass.

 

[frankcor]

Inopportune placement of mountains is a regular and familiar frustration of this game.

 

[a4phantom]

Does an army of Drill4 Oramo Warriors/Rifles/Infantry mixed with the appropriate siege engines and pikes seem like an effective strike force? I'm told that high levels of Drill are ideal for mopping up weakened opponents, ie those hit by suicide siege, and Drill4 mitigates 60% of collateral damage. I don't think I've ever built a single musket, I usually upgrade CR3 macemen to rifles and rely on them until I get tanks. But easy Drill4 units sound like fun. What I'd really like is that the same units could be used for attacking cities and fighting in the field, whereas City Raider units are both weak in the field and irreplaceable once you get rifling.