Quick questions

[Platinum Onyx]

What is the point of espionage? I find it very useless and unnecessary to the game. It gets on my nerves when spies destroy granaries. I don't want to give up any percent of research away to espionage. Also what does the culture slider do besides provide happiness with the theatre, etc? and how many military units are good for defending cities?

 

[lordqarlyn]

You can also have buildings that give you espionage points - it seems the more you generate, the better chances you can catch spies in your borders.
If I remember right, the cultural slider also increases cultural output of your cities.
Depends on the location of the city; border cities are going to need more, while cities away from any border can be defended with less - some players even leave them ungarrisoned.

 

[Refar]

It's odd reading "It's useless" and "It get's on my nerves when spys [get used]" in the same post....

Perhaps you should just try to use the feature for your own benefit as well. Using slider on espionage isn't necessary (but can be rewarding) there are many buildings giving points 'for free'... Also deploying defensive spy's and running counter espionage missions might help.

The culture slider gives you culture... d'oh Good for culture victories, Boarder Pops, and of course as you mentioned Happiness - i.e. to fight WW.

 

[warhead66]

What i don't get is that you can't trade espionage.

It would be so awesome if you could trade knowledge to other civs. Imagine if were russia with Stalin for example (best espionage as far as i know) and you pretty much knew everything there is to know about every civ, you could make a lot of money or techs that way. It just seems to be a minor detail that is missing, not that important but really cool.

 

[Bleys]

Good SEs can take larger advantage of the EE because a lot of its research is generated by specialists, not the slider.

I dont know enough about it to use it directly, I use it more defensively. I might steal a tech early, or cause city revolt in wars, but later, I usually go defensive (200% cost on any spying that civ does to you). I do like to keep a few spies kicking around my border cities, though, to help with catching theirs, it does suck when they do get you.

 

[Shirastro]

The culture slider, beside giving you more also gives you......drum roll......more culture !!!!

/crowd gets wild

 

[Bushface]

Put a spy unit to "sleep" in each of your cities to get a 50% better chance of catching enemy spies. Later, when you can, build Security Bureaux which do the same job (and boost your espionage-point generation) and then use the spies actively. Courthouses and Jails also produce EPs for no cost.
Refer often to the Espionage screen and mouse over the other civs' names in the score panel to see how you're doing.