Role Play Challenge: Peter, Spy Extraordinaire II

[madscientist]

Lots of jungles and calendar resource.
Long shot !

if you decide to settle there.
get Iron working asap, and lots of workers.
to chop jungle (clear your surroundings for defence)

the horses might be more important at that point.
any news about the Great Wall ??

I think the horses are the number one choice as I have agressive Hammarabi right there. I thin a second settler is on order for the dyes city as that wll not last long.

The next tech is masonry for the GW which will likely be chopped out pronto.

 

[Killroyan]

Great stuff again MS. Too bad of the first game. This one looks promising again. I do expect either iron or copper in your BFC otherwise it would be a dissapointing capital site. Will be following this one again. Bring it on again.

 

[madscientist]

Peter Spy Extraordinaire: PArt II

Well we are off to another good start, let's hope this continues to be good and not spiral into another Shaka death game!!!

Before any pics, here's the tech path for this segment

Wheel
Mysticism (sorry, I didn't get it earlier like I reported last part)
Iron Working (for jungle chops and military, yes we have iron!)
Agriculture (we need the food)
Masonry (A real gamble waiting this late, but with Stonehenge not build I felt OK)
Pottery
Writing
Math

So first things first, we settled the horse city to the south, built another settler and settled the dye city. That's all we settled this segment

After teching IW we find a convenient source

There is another to the north that I will get to later

We also leveraged Peter's expansive trait and built ALOT of workers which allowed to chop out

Very fast!!! Well, espionage plan 1 accomplished!

We avoided religions and open borders until

OK, Hammarabi is an Agressive AI, but in my experience he is actually one of the more rational and easiest to get along with beside Kublai. Any disagreements here??

Oh, this was the other iron I was talking about.

It's in a badly located Barb city which I plan to raze early next phase once I have a settler prepped. That would be out northern city cutting Ragnar off and getting us a nice compact empire, with some coastal east/south fillin cities. At least to start.

We also get this nice option

We convert to hammarabi's religion. Soon we will be friends (I hope) and if we are lucky Ragnar will follow after. That woudl leave us with some decent/strong friends surrounding us. We have the military resoruces so if we stay up in power we can stabilize well. We shall see.

And we get another request for open borders we like

So now here is the kicker in this game which opens us up for ALOT of flexibility for numerous reasons.

We pretty much used all our workers to continually chop out the wonder in our capital. No forrest remains anywhere near Moscow but we got 2 wonders out of it, which makes up for the poor food in the capital. However, as you can see we have lot's of grasslands for farms and cottages which I mixing up until we decide how to move on this.

We chooped out the pyramids 6 turns before the Great Spy popped, and luck held out

At which point I saved.

Here is the tech situation

And we are holding our own on the power graph numbers. Hopefully soon Ragnar and Hammarabi will be off harassing some of the other AIs.

So there are several thing to do and decide

1) Raze the northern Barb city and settle on the Fresh Water River for city #4.
2) What civics do we switch to. Representation seams the most logical. However, if we go HR Ragnar will eventually be our friend since that is his favorite civic.

3) If we adopt representation I think we need to committ to a SE and build cottages for the ep. If things go well I see no reason to NOT up the ep slider earlier and higher. As long as we can still tech ourselves to parity.

4) But the Million Dollar question is what to do with the Great Spy???? Infiltrate one of the leaders and then hit alphabet? Scotland yard? Settle (we will be getting +4 beakers with representation). Or we can wait and see.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

Peter the 2nd..lol...

1st, settle the Great spy, its 4 beakers post Rep, and 12 Espoinage points, 2nd spy can build Scotland yard for 24 Points, which you can assign. Infiltration you can't assign, and if they dont' reasearch/trade for tech you desire, you've lost the points, and if they DIE...again lost points.

I read up that Team game on the Spy economy, and its INSPIRED ME to try a similar game, tech to Alphabet or ancient worker tech's ONLY, STEAL THE REST.

My 2nd try will be a Peter shadow game, 1st try, I got De gual, and Alexander to my East, Stole iron working but didn't build mine straight away, *mistake*, as Alex declared on me and I only had archery for defence (stolen), took my 2nd city, and I gave up, De Gual couldn't have been far off, but it was Aggressive AI's, so...just bad luck.

Anyway, My strat, will be Ancient workers tech only, tech to Alphabet, then STEAL STEAL STEAL.

As allway's Post results in spoiler.

Good luck

 

[CivCorpse]

tech horse back riding (you will need it for jumbos anyway) and horse archer rush harumbi. If you wait until jumbos and cats...he will surely have spears. From what i can see, your economy is already a wreck LOL, taking and resettling the barb city will kill it worse. It is in a pile of jungle which will take forever on marathon to turn into anything worthwhile. Though I would definately go raze it. Just for the cash.
I would switch to representation and settle the super-snoop. I know you prefer to build scotland yard, but you need beakers badly. Though I now correct my previous advice regarding the horse rush for the same reason that I wouldn't resettle the barb city. You are not economically prepared for a war at the moment. Have you considered shooting for CoL and running a spy specialist in each city from the courthouses? With representation you get lotsa and 4 per spy specialist. I think the problem we ran into with the deceased Petey Numero Uno was waiting to steal techs. By the very nature of that strategy, you are always behind in techs because you can't steal them until someone else knows them first. I have never tried an EE before. I basically ignore the entire espionage feature the entire game. So I am following this game double closely

 

[madscientist]

Thanks for the input, I had what looked like a clear path which is totally confused now!!!

SO some of my comments

1) Our economy, is not so bad. I am alooking to block off the north and the land is really good. We have alot of workers and can mass chop single areas quickly. Probably quicker than the population can grow. I also a nice force of swords/chariots that need to be blooded. Definitely can afford at least one more city.

2) Representation seams like a no-brainer to me. The extra happiness helsps the population which will increase the commerce or allow us to run some scientists.

3) NOTE, the ame will NOT be an exclusive steal tech game. We tried that game one only to be killed off by SHaka. I am leaning towards a SE, allowing the flexibility of using the slider for whatever we need.

4) The Great Spy. First understand I have diluted the GP pool 50% with the pyramids, not a bad idea since I want that rare GE for the production corps anyway. But likely we will be diluting it further with scientists if we go SE. SO my point is the next GS may be rare, or at least until we get a courthouse for the spy specialist. What I do see is that ABE has alphabet and HBR, thus we could steal alot of techs from him.

SO all my reading I find it rather unclear what the general consensus for the first GS. Scottland yard is definitely the best long range, but very poor early on when we could use it. Settled will always be there, but long term not as good, however we can get good beakers. Infiltrate would work if it goes towards a leader who will live a bit. Abe looks tempting but very possible Ragnar goes after him soon.

So I am leaning towards settling. 12 ep/ turn gets us 9600 in 800 years without modifiers, let alone beakers. That's enough to be stealing any remaining early religion or worker techs if we beeline alphabet.

 

[absimiliard]

I vote use the GSpy to infiltrate. If you want to play an early-game EE that's the only way to get enough EP to do useful stuff with. Settling him will give you enough EP over time to cause like 2 cities to revolt, not enough to fuel your tech-needs via espionage or cause revolts over a whole civ if you war with him. (remember that 9600 EP is over the whole game. what you'll get in the ancient and classical eras will be MUCH less.)

Basically making a Scotland Yard is VERY long-term, settling is mid-termish, and infiltrating is "Use Now".

So I vote "Use Now" and a beeline to alphabet, you can then leverage those EPs by stealing all your remaining low-level tech needs and bee-lining higher-level stuff you want. (Like CoL for your Rep civic, or walking the Liberalism path)

-abs

 

[Thomas G.]

*I* vote infiltrate.

He will last the whole game.
His efforts will be greatly multiplied later on.
You can divide his efforts against different targets later on in stead of committing now.
Infiltration means you have to build up a spy-corps now to take advantage, costing you hammers and diplomatic incidents. I would suggest you might want to focus on military right now.
Low-level techs can easily be backfilled at a single stroke with one high-level tech in trade.
The spy-master Peter would surely keep his oldest and most venerable trusted expert spy near his court.
He is a steady supply of EPs that can tide you over later moments when high upkeep otherwise would stop EPs and therefore cause you to fall irrevocably behind your opponents.
HE looks cool in your city display, along with his compadres.

Oh yeah, I guess I meant settle. Stupid ...words... are after me.

 

[madscientist]

*I* vote infiltrate.

He will last the whole game.
His efforts will be greatly multiplied later on.
You can divide his efforts against different targets later on in stead of committing now.
Infiltration means you have to build up a spy-corps now to take advantage, costing you hammers and diplomatic incidents. I would suggest you might want to focus on military right now.
Low-level techs can easily be backfilled at a single stroke with one high-level tech in trade.
The spy-master Peter would surely keep his oldest and most venerable trusted expert spy near his court.
He is a steady supply of EPs that can tide you over later moments when high upkeep otherwise would stop EPs and therefore cause you to fall irrevocably behind your opponents.
HE looks cool in your city display, along with his compadres.

I think you are describing to settle the spy (I like the idea of being in Peter's court). Infiltrate is sending the GS off to an AI and directing all the eps against that AI.

 

[fjordan]

Well it depends on at which point you are going to turn up the EP slider. If that's pretty soon I would say Scotland Yard. If you are planning to keep it on 0% for a while, then settle. Infiltration would IMO not be in line with the goal of the RPG, that's something you would do if you get a great spy but do not plan to start an EE. I vote SY, especially since you are not completly focusing on Great Spy's, may be a while before you get another.

 

[Mesousa]

I'm with fjordan on this one, though I really like the idea of settling him too, especially since you're going with Representation. If you plan on running a spy specialists from a Courthouse, so the chances increase you'll soon get another GS, I'd settle him, otherwise SY. Just don't use him to infiltrate, I think that'll turn into too much of a normal game, not one really heavy in the use of espionage.

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Scotland yard. Long term is the most important right now. Build up your economy, and once you start getting nice EP flow start stealing.

 

[semirami]

So I am leaning towards settling. 12 ep/ turn gets us 9600 in 800 years without modifiers

I guess, you mean 800 turns, not years. In 800 turns you will be in Modern Era and 9600 points will be not so much.

If you can, beeline CoL and run a spy specialist, to assure another GSpy, the best move is settling the first and build SY with the second. Otherwise, send him to Ragnar and beeline Alphabet.

With the first plan you will have:
4pts- Palace
2pts- Courthouse
12 pts- Gspy settled
4 pts - Spy specialist

Total: 22pts*2(SY)= 44pts/turn.(and much more with additional late multipliers, later in the game)
In 150 turns you will generate the same points, which you will receive now, if you send the Spy to infiltrate. Not to mention +2 beakers(8 under REP), and you will be free to use your points against any AI, not only one.

 

[madscientist]

Peter Spy extraordinaire: Part III

We here we are to what I think is turning out to be a rather INTERESTING game.

First of all because of real life issues (remember I have a wife and 2 early tean daughters) I played a bit, got distracted and made some major errors. I just reloaded the last save and started over. Happens to all of us!!!

First of all, what to do with the Great Spy? Infiltration is really not fitting with teh RPC, Scotland yard is OK, but I really like the idea of Peter having his most trusted advisor next to him throughout the entire game!!!! We settled him in place, +6 beakers with representation and +12 eps.!!!

Very early Ragnar both settles a city near our future one (of course after we raze the barb city) and has the nerve to send another settler further south!! We declare war and steal the settler!! It's us, hammarabi, lincoln against Ragnar.

we capture the offending city and raze it

Quickly sueing for peace.

We also tributed elephants to Saladin to avoid a war.

We ge tto finally settle Rostov

And make a series of trade

Now here is another interesting thing in this game..Hammarabi slammed a city right to our south which turned out to be the christian holy city!!! It then culture flipped to us!!! in which we

Disbanded the useless city!!! No bad effects from hammarabi, good.

We stole one tehc, yeah!!!

We opened borders with Victoria, as well as a trade. Hamarabi seams cool with her.

And surprizingly, we are second in land with basically only 4 cities!!!!

We finally opened borders with Ragnar with the hope that we can send missionaries into Viking lands.

2 more very timely trades

And then we popped another GP, unfortunately a GE this time.

Techs

And the map

So where do we go from here???

1) GE: We can hold him until corps and railroad (we have a rule on this but, bah), Bulb metal casting and trade it arround, holfdhim and tech theology so we can ruch the AP (talk about espionage with that thing!!!).

2) Expansion: We have very tight borders and need to expand eventually. Diplomacy is one thing, survival is another!!! SO my thinking is to get construction, theology, steal HBR then go and smash someone.

3) We are building courthouses for maintencne cuts as well as spy specilaists. We are at 20% ep right now and doing well with the hydrid CE, SE, EE.

 

[TRJS]

Ballsy disbanding a holy city.

Settle the GP. REP bonus will help and the extra production is nice, for the whole game.

 

[madscientist]

Ballsy disbanding a holy city.

Settle the GP. REP bonus will help and the extra production is nice, for the whole game.

WHAT, and have that competition in Peter's court!!! Never, settling is out of the questions (Besides, the setteld spy would just kill him).

 

[TRJS]

In that case hold on to him for the AP. Extra hammers from Temples etc are very nice.

I'm really starting to like hammers these days.

 

[semirami]

Do you have enough EPts to see what Hammurabis cities produce at the momment? Maybe he builds the palace already. If he is willing to build it, why you should waste a GE? There are no additional benefits for the owner, except full membership forever. Not to mention, that he is a very good candidate for your rush later.

So, postpone the decision and fortify the GE. Assign all Epts to Hammurabi, until you have city visibility.

 

[madscientist]

Do you have enough EPts to see what Hammurabis cities produce at the momment? Maybe he builds the palace already. If he is willing to build it, why you should waste a GE? There are no additional benefits for the owner, except full membership forever. Not to mention, that he is a very good candidate for your rush later.

So, postpone the decision and fortify the GE. Assign all Epts to Hammurabi, until you have city visibility.

Thjere are several reasons I am considering ruching it myself.

1) Full membership forever as you state.

2) I intend to see how far I can push diplomacy, so I may see how long I can keep Hammarabi happy with me. I have played games in the past where a neighboring AI was my friend throughout. He's also the least agressive agressive leader, so he makes a good attack dog.

3) If I build the AP and have the most hindu cities, I am the only one up for elections, correct? Hammarabi would be second most and if friendly, vote for me. That's enough to smack some AIs arround with diplomatic bullying.

4) There is a chance another AI pops it first, thus we lose the AP religion benefits.

 

[semirami]

) Full membership forever as you state

Not a big deal. You will be full member always, if you follow the Hindu faith. The benefit for the owner is, that he will be full member, even if he converts to another religion, or to FR. On the other hand the only benefit for the full member is the Diplomatic Victory and he can be a candidate for AP resident. I think your goal is not this type victory. Even as voting member,you keep the production bonus.

I intend to see how far I can push diplomacy, so I may see how long I can keep Hammarabi happy with me. I have played games in the past where a neighboring AI was my friend throughout. He's also the least agressive agressive leader, so he makes a good attack dog.

It will be the same, if Hammurabi builds the AP

If I build the AP and have the most hindu cities, I am the only one up for elections, correct? Hammarabi would be second most and if friendly, vote for me. That's enough to smack some AIs arround with diplomatic bullying.

You and the leader with the largest hindu population. Obviously Hammurabi will never vote for you, because he will vote for himself, no matter who is the owner.

There is a chance another AI pops it first, thus we lose the AP religion benefits.

Noone has Teology yet. Of course we dont know what happens with the 2 unknown AIs. If you know what Hammurabi produces and if you see him with AP in progress, there is no doubt. He will be the owner. In this game it is the same for you.


I agree with you, to use the GE for wonder, but another wonder will be much more useful. In this game I can say The Parthenon.