Role Play Challenge: Peter, Spy Extraordinaire II

[madscientist]

Hmmm, Gonna have to think this over a bit with the GE. I was hoping to convert Ragnar to hinduism and get the AP vote of me against him but that may be a tough thing to get done.

I could also save the GE for the Great Library and spam out alot of GS's from one city. That would open up our SE and free more of the slider for espionage.

Parthanon would get us the GS's faster but the the GL 2 free scientists with representation and library gets us 15 beakers.

OK, I agree it's not all that clear!

 

[tycoonist]

unfourtunately a GE!!!! are you mad! they are so good in the early game. burn him on GL

 

[madscientist]

Peter Spy Extraordinaire: PArt IV

This is a pretty long segment, with lot's of screenshots because of diplomacy, trades, and some tech stealing. We ended the segment by taking nationalism with the free liberalism tech and Rush building the Taj for a GA. We need to decide civics (the biggest decision), our ep position, potential allies, potential expansion, and what ultimate victory conditions to pursue!!! Yes, alot on our plate. Also the future tech path!!!

First of all, the diplomatic situation at the beginning. Alot of people keeping each other busy.

My goal has been to keep friends with Hammarabi as much as I can while conceding Ragnar is a lost cause. Abe remains to be seen.

We steal a tech off os Ragnar.

Which leads us towards construction for war elephants.

Par tof Diplomacy is knowing when to cave in and appease AIs

OK, OK Peter the Pansy. But that's OK, the important think is to keep alive.

During this time we teched construction, Aesthetics, literature.

We also bulbed Philosophy with this GS

And Used our GE from the previous segment to rush the Great Library but not in the capital (we do not want that much dilution of our GPs).

We then got some needed military stability

And teched civicl service, as that is on the way to liberlism and we want Bur for a while to please Hammarabi.

Even running 20% ep slider we are doing well in Diplomacy

Just so Ragnar is kept busy

We refused to declare war on Ragnar once, broke trade with Ragnar at Hammarabi's request, and later declared war at his request.

Now, Victoria earlier Vassaled to Saladin voluntarily (without war). So unlikely Hammarabi goes after those two. Victoria has turned into a very good trading partner, good thing religion does not matter much to her.

Here is where we gave in to Hammarabi.

We also have made good friends with ABE

And very soon met three more AIs, two of which are colonies of Cyrus.

Bismark adopted Hinduism which allowed a later trade.

The AP vote finally popped up

It really does not matter and glad I took that earlier advice!!!!!

We send a force north and took Atlanta away from Ragnar, which would be a serious source of conflict later

All this time we teched along teh liberalism path: Manually getting CS, paper, bulbing the bulk of education with a GS, then teching Liberalism.

To be continues......................

 

[madscientist]

Peter Spy Extraordinaire: Part IV continued

We appease Hammarabi some more

Get some peace with Ragnar.

And make a decent trade with Saladin to help relations

We also direct our eps towards Lincoln in the hopes of getting the Compass for free.

Now with literature I also had access to the HE which I built in the northern city which is a heavy farm/mine city. And the NE in MNoscow in the hopes of getting some more GS's.

We did not get a Great Spy but we got a GE from Moscow which we saved for rushing the Taj.

We make a decent trade to cement relations with hammarabi

And the GE

Ragnar took peace with hammarabi earlier, then

And assaulted mostly Atlanta. We did a valient defense with moslt outdated units until we coul reinforce with longbows.

We got Hammarabi to join the fun for a cheap tech and then Abe joined in for the hell of it (I could not bribe him).

THIS was a ket tech I was looking for

And since I was ten turns from Liberalism I was not concerned about losing that race.

We finally got enough eps to steal this off of Abe.

All eps are now directed towards Victoria.



And get some AP helps in peace with Ragnar.

And Hammarabi makes a request for the stolen tech

We give it to him. Interesting this was the second time Hammarabi asked for a stolen tech, anyone notice this during ee games???

And finally liberalism!! We take nationalism, use a GS to partly bulb printing press, rush the Taj in Moscow, and saved the game.

The status of our empire

OK troops where do we go from here??

We are in a GA so free civic changes!!!!

Civics:
1) Normally I am sure what to do, not here. nationalism gets us +25% eps but we lose the 50% commerce from Moscow (which converts to eps) as well as the favorite civic from Hammarabi.
2) FR: not worth it for the +10% beakers as we are shifting towards an ee game, and we do not need the happiness. But this is definitely an icebreaker with the other AIs. Theocracy can help alot with putting awat Ragnar though.
3) I assume we stick with representaion here.

Tech Direction: I assume we get one more GS from the GL city, which I will use to bulb scientific method and make a run at Communism. We also have the option of hitting constitution/democracy but that requires ignoring the gunpowder/replaceable part/rifling/steel/military tradition for a while. Remember we can steal only what the AI has.

My feeling is top delay the military here, as we should be able to steal them once they pop up. we just have to hold the eps and not bulb anything else (such as the current open tech of optics).

Slider: OK, with nationalism and engineering we have to up the slider to 30-40%, which mean less teching and more reliance on the specialists.

GGs, we popped two in the Viking wars and settled both in teh HE city.

Expansion and Victory: OK, where to here?

Diplomacy: Hammarabi is on our side, and likely Abe once we all have emancipation. Victoria is a possible swing is she opts for her favorite representation and adopts FR. Sal will be a tough nut to crack and best if he is either eliminated or becomes the UN rival (if we get that far). Cyrus is a little bit of a concern as he can amphibiously assault us and is doing well techwise.

We are seriously going to need to think about saving future GEs and GMs for corps if we want to start dominating those.

Lot's of fun here!!! EE has it's advantages and diplomatic espionage is great, especially when it works!!!

 

[semirami]

You are doing great job, man !
But would be nice if you show us also the espionage screen.
How much EPs do you have to Victoria and can you steal guilds right now?

 

[madscientist]

Semirami, I am like a rat in a maze, always goes towards the cheese the same way!!!

Here is the ep screenshot

I can steal a teach soon. At least music or oprics, but if I wait I can up it to guilds, a miltary tech which I can likely shop arround for music and optics.

One other question noy in the above post. During the GA, we get extra commerce. Do we want to hike the ep slider up as far as possible to build eps, or put it to science and ep?

 

[semirami]

Right now Ragnar is at war with both Hammi and Lin and maybe is a good time for you to take some cities from him. You have only 6. You can switch to war mode durring the GE and if you steal Guilds for some knights it will be easy. Also is not a bad idea to keep a little higher power rating. Saladin is a nut and is very likely to declare on you. Scared. Victoria is his vassal and she has guilds. It's time for his stupid UU. I bet he wants to show its power and very likely you are his target.

About the espionage slider 30-40% is enough I think.

BTW Any ideas about the victory condition we are pursuing?

 

[madscientist]

Right now Ragnar is at war with both Hammi and Lin and maybe is a good time for you to take some cities from him. You have only 6. You can switch to war mode durring the GE and if you steal Guilds for some knights it will be easy. Also is not a bad idea to keep a little higher power rating. Saladin is a nut and is very likely to declare on you. Scared. Victoria is his vassal and she has guilds. It's time for his stupid UU. I bet he wants to show its power and very likely you are his target.

About the espionage slider 30-40% is enough I think.

BTW Any ideas about the victory condition we are pursuing?

I am pretty sure Sal has to get through Hammirabi and perhaps Ragnar to get to me. One reason not to clip too many Viking cities yet.

I willt ake any victory although I prefer a Diplomatic soultion. Space would be tough. If we go the military route I want it late to give a full example of the espionage game. Another words, I do not want to role over the world for domination before we get all teh corps going.

 

[CivCorpse]

Very well played as always. i love reading your games. My observations at this point. I like the idea of going for constitution for the jails. More EPS all around. But would stop there rather than heading for democracy. Start working towards rifles manualy. you can steal Music from raggy and guilds from vicky for military tradition.
If saladin DoW...Ragnar is a buffer in his favor. So definately bribe hammy into the ar at all costs so he has to go the long way around. If he won't join the war the bribe him to stop trading with saldin which makes sally go the long way through vicky. i am all for attacking ragnar because you know he will dog pile you if sally DoW's. Start cranking cats,pikes and crossbows to decimate the SoDs of zerkers cand camel archers. Also, you have great relations with hammy, is a defensive pact an option.
Other options are a surgical strike into damascus and bagdad. It appears the bulk of his other cities are on a seperate landmass, this makes it harder for him to crank out troops. If you can eliminate his production on your landmass and gain naval superiority, you can negate the arabian threat. And maybe victoria can break free. Hopefully you can do this prior to redcoats. If they DoW when she has redcoats it could spell trouble. Especially if ragnar is still in play.
You used a GS to bulb a chunk of printing press, this sort of commits you to the replaceable parts/riflemen path. I would finish printing press the go for constituion for the jails, while they build the jails and your start grabbing eps from them. Finish replacable parts and rifling and start building rifles while getting the techs for cossaks. Using your EPs to steal the commercial techs.
I am not very familiar with EEs but it looks like you're doing great. I can just never drop the science slider to espionage. I like the guarenteed techs from researching them. and fear spending all that commerce to have a tech theft fail. Just my two cents, but I would rather get the extra spy specialists under representation generating EPs and scince than use my poor little towns. I actually tried an EE game with liz. My most favorite leader. i figured I could use the extra commerce from the financial trait for espionage spending and the pholo trait for great spies. LOl, I ended up with two cities with gold mines and lots of flood plains. i have such a huge tech lead I have nothing worth stealing. Got rifling from liberalism before most of them have gunpowder. And that is with THREE cities only. I now do my espionage with cannons and redcoats.
Anyways back to your game. With saladin and ragnar hating you i would definately go for military techs. with his superior land mass and a vassal, you need superior units to hold him off. his power is climbing and I am sure he has a lot on his hands right now. And whatever is in his hands is probably pointed at you. Or your buddy hammy. But with your low power ranking I am guessing you. I notice he is in vassalage AND theocracy....someone is in for a DoW

 

[madscientist]

Peter Spy Extraordinaire: PArt V

Another good round, culminating with a potentially devastating event!!! WE played our GA from the Taj, declared on Ragnar twice, Took some Viking cities, got constitution. And we are stuck in a very interesting diplomatic situation at the end of teh round, what is it? Well read on....


It is long with alot of screenshots, diplomacy requires alot of this.

First we rush the Taj with teh GE

Hammarabi seamed to get dogpiled a bit (well alot) this round.

Then we made a series of 5 trades, this first has no screen shot but I gave Hammarabi education for Divine Right.

Then

DR for Optics.

DR and education for Astonomy

A cheap tech and Hammarabi (made peace with Cyrus) to DoW against Ragnar.

And some more use for DR. A tech noone likes much but very valuable in trades, the AI loves that tech.

Which leaves us to the techs

WOW!!! And Guilds will soon be ours via a spy. This running 40% science, 40% eps. We have some specialists, but I would not say we are running a SE.

And how could we refuse of good Babylonian friend

We send a force to try and capture Nidros, but end up being too weak and

During thsi time

And via the spy

Eps afterwards, we start again directing eps to Victoria who has banking

And we use this worthless tech for diplo points and cash

And we accept this to cement those relations with Abe.

We get a random event to help our relations with Hammarabi

And use our new source of American friendship to further weaken Ragnar.

And using an opprtunity to get extra money

Before you say I am crazy, Hammarabi had 2 turns left to tech it, so an advantageous trade.

To be continued.......

 

[madscientist]

Peter Spy Extraordinaire: Part V continued

Continuing....


We finally get our second Great Spy for Scotland yard.

And the ep screen

And a request from our American Friend,

Of course

And we make sure Hammarabi joins the dogplie party

Our sufficient SoD

Not so bad in power although Saladin is looking like a beast, more on that later

Cyrus declared on us and sent a token assault fleet against our lone coastal city

A little involved here, but don't worry it gets better.

After beating down cyrus's invasion fleet to earn some GG points

A mutually beneficial war, we get some experience and Cyrus gets a little treasury filler.

Back to Ragnar,

We take Nidros and head south to take that annoying hill city.

We also popped another Great Scientist

Which we used to partly bulb Scientific Method (yeah I still have my sights on communism and the free GS).

Here is where diplomacy starts to get interesting

Sal declares war on Hammarabi. Better than use, but is it????

We take the annoying Viking city

And sue for peace.

We finish teching constitution and steal...

This is where things get very interesting

Hammarabi capitulated to Saladin. This is a problem since if Sal goes after us it will be impossible to fight off Hammarabi.

Techs

And eps

So what is everyone's advice here???

We are teching SM for communism.

Look's to me like we have ONE choice. Switch to Buddhism and hope we can get Saladin pleased real fast. We already have the favorite civic in Theocracy. I cna also send a spy to switch Hammarabi to Buddhism.

 

[dragomaster]

wow, this situation is werry hard. you will soon find yourself in a big fight. Victoria, Hammurabi and Sal vs. you (maybe ragnar will follow aswell). Attack Hammurabi or loose i belive. Sal is furius with you so you got to be the next target, buddhist or not. hopfully before gunpowder units start to appear. so tech thowards better troops or attack Hammurabi now/soon/when sal attack.

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Wow, um, okay.

It looks like your not in the best position...

All of your allies on the continent capitulated to your enemy.

I guess the priority would be to make Saladin happy. Switching to Buddhism is a must, IMO.

 

[Infantry#14]

nice game so far, I dont think the situation as hopeless as others had suggested. I would suggest getting gunpowder and steel early for cannons and steam power (ironworks) and railroad for machine gun + faster movement+ corporation (did you save a GE?).

Edit: Also, steampower gives you ironclad, which hopefully protects your coastline from naval invasion from cyrus again.
Once this tech path is established, I think you can get replaceable parts (or maybe steal it meanwhile on railroad path) and physics, rifling and artillery for mainland dominance. From experience, AI wont have assembly line until a very long time.

 

[madscientist]

Infantry, thanks for the support although I am thinking the others are correct. I have played a bit more and see this game going into a very stagnant game. Without screenshots or a proper summary, which I will post later, I am at teh following

1) Ragnar is declaring war on me on and off. I had to let him recapture two of his three cities and puttingup a gallent defense in Atlanta.
2) Abe is still helping me with Ragnar but I fear that will only go so far.
3) Cyrus hit me again (Ragnar at same time) which I ended up repelling.
4) I am at pleased with Sal and he's pretty warmed up. However, he likes Ragnar and will not help there.
4) Vicky is steaking ahead in tech, and I cannot get enough ep's to steal one tech let alone all the ones she's getting.
5) Trying to tech with teh science slider at 40% is very hard.

I will play this out until it is lost, but I believe this is very bleak. This EE is probably the worse I have played (and I did bad twice with it!!!!). My feeling with an ee is that it supports a standard game and the ep slider should be adjusted once you establish a large empire, but at point you might as well stick to the traditional science slider.

My feeling on an EE, is bah. It sticks!!!! Now espionage has it's advantages and setting up a single ep city with scotland yard, settled Great Spies, and running an infiltration mission can help alot, especially early on (I have uised GS to infiltrate in off-line games and they work well). But I think espionage should support a solid research game or a stronge military game. Trying to use it to support a diplomatic game like this is going to be an eventual lost cause.

So I have no regrets, it has been educational and certainly alot of fun. Part of my RPC games is to test out a strat to see if it works, and I think a game using eps to produce your reseach, or to partyl support it is a weak game. It should help diplomacy and can get techs from an early tech hound, but in the long run it is doomed for failure.

So on to the end of the game, for good or ill.

 

[madscientist]

Peter Spy Extraordinaire: Part VI

OK, as I mentioned I played this out for a while, and continued after the last post. Things got brighter and looks like we can hang on to this game, taking it to the end, IF WE WANT!!! The problem, and I think it's an EE thing, is that there is no real way to win this thing. The only way is to stay as we are techwise and accumulate eps to steal electricity, radio, mass media and try to pop the UN for the vote. However, I am pretty certain that I cannot win the UN. DO not suggest stomping anyone militarily to do, we cannot. We are too small and underteched.

SO here is where we are!


To summarize what was done: A series of wars with Ragnar, Saladin became pleased, Vicky broke with Sal and became my sugar-Daddy (well I guess Sugar-Momma), Abe and me are still best buddies, Ragnar hates my guts but does not want to get into a three front war. Cyrus continues to be a jerk, but now is swamped with Sal for a while. We stole a bunch of techs, enough to defend ourselves at least up to the tank era.


Sal almost has this so we soften him up a bit

Hell breaks loss with ragnar and the idiot Persian

Good old ABe comes to my rescue in two ways

We contiinue to soften up Sal and get some cash

we mad epeace with Cyrus then got this random event

You bet we took it


If anything, we ar epopular

Tech #1 this segnmment stolen

All hell breaks out again

Making another trade with ABE

Peace breaks out again

Thigs get intersting as Vicky breaks with Sal

Let's see if Ragnar like her redcoats

With all the pile on Ragnar did an impressive job of surviving. After peace he defensive pacted with Sal and got all his techs, so byt the save he is more advanced than us!!! Damn!!!!

We stole Replacable part and rifling from Victoria and Military tradion from Ragnar.

We got biology in an American lopsided trade, stole Physics from Abe and Steel from ragnar.

Here is the status at the save.

Vicky and Abe are friendly so no danger of cross-attacking.

We popped a few GPs, 2 spies which went into scotland yards. We are now at 80% eps as the 20% beakers were not getting us very far. We have one saved GW which I was going to use for a corp but I think the idea of corp espionage has gone out the window in this game, sorry folks!!!

Last thing We got was a Great Siencitst which is pretty useless in this game, so I burned him for a GA. At the save it is almost used up.

Status

Techs

EE

Powergraph? HAHA, please.........

So I see our options are very limited. Victoria and Abe are sheltering me for a while. Ragnar still wants my hide and probably only a matter of time until he does. I am popping Cossacks and CG III rifles (got 3 settled GGs) from the HE city. Heavey defense, heavy diplomacy, heavy espionage.

Our choices..

1) Burn the GM on a trade mission. Up the slider to 100% eps.
2) Steal electricity (Ragnar), radio (Sal), Massmedia (no one yet).
3) Run an engineer in each city and pray for a GE to rush the UN.
4) One way I see to win the diplomatic game. Somehow get Cyrus to ge the number 1 guy and have me build the thing. I do not see how this can get done.

Alternatively:

I could concede the game and simply say the ee game is not for me. Or at least not these rules.

After playing this and a few off line games a stronge ee games goes like this

A) Tech normally until democracy and inrastructure is in place
B) Produce GS's but burn all of them on infiltration missions to get a tech edge.
C) To be honest, sounds like any old game and not an interesting RPC.

I have decided the nest two RPCs, in this order

Persians in Space with a strict CE for a space victory ASAP. Only cottages, resources, and a few token mines. A good review for the proper tech path.

Shaka a Man of culture. Culture win using slider, artists, corps, Great Artists; Cathedrals are forbidden. Shaka would need two other capitals for the three legondary cities.

I await all your input. If you are interested I will follow through on the Peter game, it is not a complete deadend like the Washington game was, but it is pretty tedious.

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Don't give up!

My suggestion is thus...

Put all of your money into Espionage. Don't worry about teching up yourself, just steal, steal, steal. Yes, you will be behind, but it looks like you have a lot of friends, so thats no problem, and you have corps, which would help.

I think you are thinking of this more like a normal game where if you don't have a huge advantage right now, you lost. It's not a normal game. Don't give up, I actually think if you keep playing you will win.

So, my suggestions:

100% espionage, don't worry about teching yourself.
Get corps and start spamming them.
Stay diplomatic

 

[madscientist]

Puzzlemaker, Yes I will play it out until all avenues of victory have been killed.

I do realize that ee requires stealing and dealing with being behind it tech. However, I am behind in land (because or of the start) and military (because of the diplomacy emphasis rules) so it is tough to win.

Corps: I have none yet and the best I can do is to steal refridgeration off od Saladin, after stealing electricity to found cereal. Sid's doesn't look to help much. Also my financial situation is poor so I cannot run 100% ep, nore can I properly afford the corps as I have no banks/markets/grocers and Wall street is essentially impossible to get.

UN: my only hope as it is too late for culture. The problem is right now Saladin has 36% of the population plus has hammarabi (who is at 42% of Sal's population) vote which is over 40%. Enough to get him elected. If Cyrus exceeds him I have a chance but Sal is much higher in tech and trashing Cy's colonies.

SHow a way to win and I will play it out.

 

[Mesousa]

Good job on improving relations with Saladin.

I do realize that ee requires stealing and dealing with being behind it tech. However, I am behind in land (because or of the start) and military (because of the diplomacy emphasis rules) so it is tough to win.

What would be great, once the game is finished, is an analysis of whether (or how bad) you were behind in tech because of the EE, and what's the point of it therefore. If you can achieve the same or a better result with a normal approach, why bother?

 

[madscientist]

Good job on improving relations with Saladin.



What would be great, once the game is finished, is an analysis of whether (or how bad) you were behind in tech because of the EE, and what's the point of it therefore. If you can achieve the same or a better result with a normal approach, why bother?

I think I can answer that now. The ee defeinitely hurt us. we were pretty even at one point, but then the AI soared ahead. WHile we can do OK when the AI is stalled themselves, we got killed once the financial Liz, Philosophical Abe, and large empire Sal kicked up the techin abilities (during the era of financial and science buuildings).

Think of it, I had to wait until constitution/democracy/communism to start the ep buildings. Compare with the science building which are at writing, education, astronomy or financial at currency/guilds/banking. CoL helps a bit but a library gets you 2 scientists compared with courthouses which get's you 1 spy; plus caste system does not help run spies. Alot stacked against you for a pure ee game, or modified like mine.

SO my view on working espionage

1) First few Great spies go on infiltration missions. Once that is done you can steal techs like philosphpy/theology/currency for 1 mission (I great Spy) compared with needing 3 GPs to bulb those in a game. This is the way to go with the Great Wall Great Spy, and any you get from spy specialists.

2) Espionage is a big factor and definitely you can use it later in the game. The thing is to dedicate ONE city to it at first. All three buildings up in one city with lot's of spy specialists. Then drop a Great Spy (preferable from Communism) as the Scotland yard in that city. Added benefit to build or better rush the Kremlin here. Have all food or at least the National Park with needed Forrests. That is one Killer spy city, better than my entire empire in this game.

3) Fill other cities in with spy building after the first is complete.

4) At this point you can see everyone's research and can move the slider if you want (I still see no benefit to this). Research what noone else does or at least your enemies, and steal what your enemy techs.

Personally, I think EE is not a good economy or approach. Maybe fun to try, but not useful. Best to use the eps to see research, disrupt AI production or most importantly revolt cities during Assaults.