Role Play Challenge: The Return of the Russian Spy

[Kev]

At this stage, it certainly looks as if Zara will be the best target for espionage. If he is offshore as you suspect (figure the land to the east?) he won't be as much as of a military target compared to Kub or Gil. Plus, with the latter two after each other, Zara (excellent REXer as we all know) might excel more (unless he clashes with Izzy if she's out there with him - how did you meet her?). Furthermore, Zara seems a pretty decent neighbor in most of my games with him if you can stay relatively pleased.

If Zara is out to the east, best watch your eastern shoreline as that Zara will settle like crazy.

The only problem is that you might have trouble trading techs that you steal unless some sort of religious bloc ends up forming.

 

[JammerUno]

Although the diplo against the AI will be simpler because of the difference religions, it's a though break espionage-wise, since you'll most likely miss out on the 'same religion' spy bonus allmost every time.

Also, the watertiles to the south of St. Pete, is that sea? It seems that way because of the fish, but ifn't it a bit small? I've seen similar patches of water that were fresh.

 

[Jaaboo]

Mad, was I playing against you last night or something? Playing a water map as Hannibal with a stacked start and Peter on my island who was wreaking absolute havoc on me with spies. ><

I thought of this game and then killed the SOB with Numidians before he could bring War Elephants to bear (which he did but they died too.)

So yeah. Boo Peter, I hope you lose this one.

(Just kidding! Espionage is obviously something I need to get better at so thank you for these games. I still read the Mao thread every now and then when I need some learnings on the stuff.)

 

[madscientist]

Return of the Russian Spy: Part III

I started this segment focusing on getting to Code of Laws and Settling msot of the good lands. By the end we have CoL and a wrecked economy!!!

We started by tributing writing to Kublai. Yes it's going to be a suckup game!

I directed all eps to Kublai for a while.



we met another AI



And I started to open borders with teh Ais! So far no ill diplomatic effects.

I started to settle areas that IO expected the Ai to focus on



Which effectively blocks off Zara.

Next city claims stone



And we stole our FIRST tech from Kublai





Happiness was an issue so we certainly could use this tech. We revolted to HR.

It also opened several trade opportunities



We also popped our second GSpy



Which we used for scotland yard in Navrogad

We continue to settle along the coast



Further stretching our economy.

We next stole



From Isabella.

And made a pretty large trade



The next city



And then we built an army of swords to take out the remaining Barb cities





And made a trade with Gilgamesh



SO I saved here. Yeah a pretty dull segment, but hopefully espionage willt ake off once we get some courthouses established.

The map



OK, Zara is smaller than us, let's see where that goes.

Our cities



Getting set to whip out some building at the start of next turn.

Espionage still going against KK as I am shooting for Metal Casting for good trade bait.



And finally techs



SO I am thinking Metal casting and HBR from Kublai and perhaps Fuedalism from Zara as the nexttechs!

So far, our espionage has gotten us

Monarchy
Monotheism

Plus several techs off trades from those stolen techs.

Also I have saved alot of hammers on libraries and invested them in settlers and military.

Now what I really need are some mroe workers. Anyone think by teh last RPC I'll actually learn to build more workers!

 

[Killroyan]

Land is power, so you are set to get the great espionage network going. Economy may be in shambles but you know you are going to recover pretty quickly. Right now you are researching currency, but wouldn't it be wiser to divert all espionage point to gilgamesh and steal it

 

[madscientist]

Not exactly sure what to get next as far as stealing techs. I am researching currency only because I need to research something!

Witht eh espionage game this early I need to be thinging of stealing a tech to trade it arround, thus metal casting will usually get me currency and cash. However, Gilgamesh already has both currency and metal casting so that's not going to work. Zara is the tech leader but without currency at the moment.

Also I would like a little more protection out there as I do not trust KK or Issy.

Right now I am thinking of stealing HBR from KK and station a few Flanking II HSa in those border cities to take out any approaching catapults. Since an attack would be aganist ONE of the cities I can shift HAs back and forth as needed.

Perhaps I do need to direct eps against Gilgamesh for Currency. I do not need libraries but I certainly could use a few markets.

 

[royal62184]

Ok I have a question. The first great spy I always settle for 12 EP and the second one i do scotland yard for.

After 1 GSpy is settled i'm getting 16 EP from capital
After 2 GSpy forms scotland yard i'm getting 32 EP

The way you did it you got 8 EP after making your scotland yard in your capital and latter you made a 2nd scotland yard.

A little background on the way I play. I almost always have a secondary EE going in addition to the main CE going by going after the great wall. However, I never use the slider for the secondary EE this way. With 32 EP points generated in captial after ~300 turns it gets easy to steal techs pre-jail, security bureau, and forgot the third building. So overall my main question is why make scotland yards with both of the GSpys instead of doing a settled/scotland yard combo in the same city.

 

[madscientist]

Ok I have a question. The first great spy I always settle for 12 EP and the second one i do scotland yard for.

After 1 GSpy is settled i'm getting 16 EP from capital
After 2 GSpy forms scotland yard i'm getting 32 EP

The way you did it you got 8 EP after making your scotland yard in your capital and latter you made a 2nd scotland yard.

A little background on the way I play. I almost always have a secondary EE going in addition to the main CE going by going after the great wall. However, I never use the slider for the secondary EE this way. With 32 EP points generated in captial after ~300 turns it gets easy to steal techs pre-jail, security bureau, and forgot the third building. So overall my main question is why make scotland yards with both of the GSpys instead of doing a settled/scotland yard combo in the same city.

Update coming and perhaps it will answer your questions.

I normally play as your described, and the Mao RPC was run that way. Also I have a strategy article (linked in my signature) that goes over it a bit.

NOW, why did I build scotland yard??? Because I plan to generate alot os espionage via the slider, so all that capital commerce turns into eps and the scotland yard builds on that nicely. 100% eps from SY versus 50% from an academy for beakers!

Is this a viable strategy? Well, let's take a look..................

 

[madscientist]

Return of the Russian Spy: Part IV

Well our espionage game is going very nciely as you all shall see. However, the game is rather dry so bear with trades/ep screens and general description. My overall goal is to win this game as peacefully as I can, either via space or diplomacy.

I will summarize all the tech stolen at the end of the segment, for now

we start off with a trade with GW



In this game I am not concerned at all about weighting the trade heavily on the AI side. Diplomacy is the key here!

And while I will not show every tech stolen a few key ones we got early



And



Alowing a better defense and bolstering the economy!


I ended up trading HBR to Zara for cash, trying to get him on our good side!



And while the EE seamed to stagnate just a little, we finally got this option from Zara



we took Machinery for potential trade and crossbows.

It seamed to work



we revolted to vassalage and spammed military for the power numers. 2 promotion units and free upkeep are great considering we are saving hammers from no libraries.

And while we established a large tech lead over Isabella, we decided to shake things up a little bit



At the save these two were still at each other's throat!.

Zara got himself a vassal who does not like us too mush



Hopefully this will nto adversely affect Zara and our relationship.

Another fillin trade with backwards Issabella



Our third GSpy we used for Scotland yard in the next strongest espionage city.



At this point we decided to save after stealing our way to a pretty good position.



Not bad, huh!

A map of our lands



Yes, I finally sent a HA arround scoping out our rivals.



Espionage is not 100% directed at Zara. It's not too hard how I did this, just find the closest city, drop the spy there for 5 turns and steal. With so many eps my spies rarely get caught and noone ever found out it was me. Also only maybe 1 or 2 missions have failed.

So the techs we have stolen

Monarchy-KK
Monotheism-Issabella
HBR- KK
Currency-Zara
Machinery-Zara
Engineering-Zara
Compass-Zara
Aesthetics- Zara
Optics- Zara
Civil Service-KK
Drama-KK
Paper-Zara

I got all courthouses/castles done as well as karbors in the coastal cities.

I am thinking of redirecting espionage to KK and steal Guilds, and trading that to Zara. Alternatively I may just spy on Zara and steal him dry first!

Meanwhile I am trying to loadup in those border cities!

 

[CreeDakota]

Is Space the planned Victory for this game?

EDIT: Ok I see you said Space or Diplo. I'd vote for space!

 

[v8_mark]

Very impressed that the Monarch AI has Astronomy in 920AD!

 

[royal62184]

After reading the article in your signature and the discussion between you/virus/obsolete, I see that SY are much better when you are using the slider. In my games it is usually a secondary EE where I still do the bulk of my research manually. In the end, it just depends on your situation, your goals, and the map. Every game is different and that is what makes it a great game . Thanks for the RPCs!!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Peter says



Keep up the good work!

 

[madscientist]

Return of the Russian Spy: Part V

Another uneventful segment, although very interesting. In short, Isabella and Kublai are still at war with each other (Damned that was one great trade) and at the moment we are leading in tech except for one leader who is tied with us!

Again alot of trades, espionage, key stolen techs but that's the way the game goes!

After stealing Printing Press, Astronomy, and Philosophy from Zara (I catually lost a few spies and had a few missiona fail) the tech situation looked like so



Eventually Washington was willing to make a trade



While I expected decent trade fodder, that did not pan out. Oh well, I would have tried to steal it anyway!

One way we have stayed completely out of war was to continue building military as things like this



Yes, Peter has become a major suckup!

We redirected eps towards KK at certain times, once to steal guilds and the other to steal gunpowder. Otherwise we relied on stealing techs from Zara and trading what we could.

Eventually we stole



The turn after Zara researched it and revolted to nationhood. We also made a major effort to get the glode theater built in the food heavy thracen.

We made alot of trade with Gilgamesh, continuing to be generous as to get a strong, yet not too strong allie



Frankly I am not trsuting Zara that much as we did not adopt any religion and thus not theocracy.

But the map from Gilgamesh showed us



Yes the last AI is the Moron Aztec who is pathetically behind in tech!. We eventually met him but he's not worth a screenshot!

After stealing constitution and democracy from Zara we made these series of trade, one turn after another











All of which got us to a tech situation of



At which point we saved! Gilg is friendly with us and our currasairs ar eenough to hold off any Mongol or Spanish attack although I am now toying with teh idea of flexing some Russian muscle towards the west!. All I need is to get Gilgamesh and Zara to tech towards rifling for Cossacks!!

A few resource comments! We have no oil (Hence my peaked interest in the "West" and apparently the Mongol do NOT have horses and have been running arround with war elephants.

Right now espionage is arround 500+ eps/turn and I have only started construction of jails and bureas. As soon as Zara finished physics we can steal it!

A view of our cities.




Espionage



And of course Civics



Looking to delay economics for a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time.

So what do you all think. Time to draft/build an army to take over some mongol lands! Or steal our way further along and use superior technology!

 

[madscientist]

Update on stolen techs

Monarchy-KK
Monotheism-Issabella
HBR- KK
Currency-Zara
Machinery-Zara
Engineering-Zara
Compass-Zara
Aesthetics- Zara
Optics- Zara
Civil Service-KK
Drama-KK
Paper-Zara
Printing Press-Zara
Astronomy-Zara
Philosophy-Zara
Guilds-KK
NAtionalism-Zara
Constitution-Zara
Gunpowder-KK
Democracy-Zara

 

[Anexus]

This is an interesting game to follow since I'm still learning about the uses of espionage. With your espionage rate so high, what is your success rate stealing techs?

 

[Gorrable]

Really interesting game. I really should stop ignoring espionage!

If the game goes that far you should go for the Internet for RPC consistency. So many stolen (hacked?) techs!

 

[madscientist]

This is an interesting game to follow since I'm still learning about the uses of espionage. With your espionage rate so high, what is your success rate stealing techs?

Not sure rate, but I lost a few spies to Zara although in teh entire game only 1 was discovered and only a -1 diplo penalty. The success rate is almost always 100% except at the start of the last segment where I lost several spies in a row to failure and I suspect Zara ran a counter-espionage mission.

I was at first concerned about sending the spies overseas but perhaps that has worked better as counter espionage is lower.

We shall see what happens once Zara builds some bureaus and agencies.

 

[madscientist]

Really interesting game. I really should stop ignoring espionage!

If the game goes that far you should go for the Internet for RPC consistency. So many stolen (hacked?) techs!

Yes, definitely the interent. I also need at least extremely stong production cities as I will likely need to out-produce the AIs that I am stealing SS parts from. Either that or just kill off Isabella, KK, and perhaps Gilgamesh for a domination but I am leaning away from amilitary might game (well perhaps against KK and Isabella, just to keep my "skills" sharp )

 

[apenpaap]

Once the Space Race starts, you can use your massive amounts of EPs to destroy parts while they're being built. Like that, you won't even need a huge production.