Spaceship and espionage question

[Kemal]

Perhaps some of the more experienced civ4 players can help with this?

After a long break from Civ4 I started another BTS game recently, and I'm now in the end-phase of the game, in the process of completing the spaceship.

There's two continents. I own a large part of my own continent, and have a small foothold on the other consisting of a few american cities, including former capital washington. There's no centre of government there though.

So how come that when on the turn I finish my SS-stasis chamber in one of my cities right next to Babylon, on my own continent, I get the message "an SS-stasis chamber has been destroyed in Washington by enemy infiltrators"? That's on an entirely different continent and has nothing to do with spaceship production whatsoever!

I did get the "Kemal has completed SS-stasis chamber", "Mira has added SS-stasis chamber to the space ship" messages and the add button for the chamber on the space screen, but I still have to build a new one.

Totally lame and boring, since I was trying to time the parts as good as possible and now it takes like 7 more turns to complete the game. I would have accepted it if they have managed to sabotage in my own cities but like this...?

Note though, that the Americans got destroyed by Zara Yakob this same turn.. not that this should have anything to do with it, except if it's a bug of course.

I tried to upload pics and the save here but it seems one can't upload at the moment here, which is really a shame. Therefore, I've posted some pics at CDZ illustrating stuff some more, hope that's okay mods.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5189

Game settings are standard immortal level game, 7 players, BTS all patched up (including Bhruic (sp?) patch), no mods installed.

Thanks in advance for any help on the subject, appreciated!

 

[Refar]

Finished parts are not tied to a city, so winthin the time frame between building the part and the launch a "Sabotage Part" mission can be run from any of your cities. It's a bit odd, but it's how it is.

The mission is quite expensive tho, more so (and less likely to succed) if you have a Sec.Buero in the city where the AI try it (Which means that you need to put Sec.Bueros i.e. in those cities that are easly acessible for the AI.).

Also when going for space i regulary run counter espionage misisons at AI's i am not at good terms wich. This will significantly raise the cost of the mission (which is alredy quite expensive) and make it even less likely a enemy can afford it.

 

[Codver]

Thanks for the heads-up, Refar! I haven't run into this yet, but I am glad to know this is how it works. While I have used espionage to thwart an AI cultural win, I have never used it to stop a space ship build, and the AI has never done it to me. I would have thought they or I would have to send the spy to the actual city doing the production. Now I know to have counter-espionage if I have a situation like the OP, with cities on the other continent in a hemispheres game (which is usually my favorite map). And if the leading AI gets a city on or near my continent, instead of getting upset, I may see a new espionage opportunity!

Peace,
Codver

 

[Polobo]

Projects and spaceship parts, in addition to being hurry-less, also don't not become associated with a specific city. Thus, you cannot raze a city to destroy a project (Internet, Apollo, Spaceship).

I am not sure if you raze the capital is all spaceship progress is lost and/or if other projects are destroyed...

Just keep in mind what the AI can do to you, you can do to them (at least according to the rules, actual implementation may be header).

 

[Rvil Plum]

All spaceship production is lost if the enemy capital city is captured, and the spaceship will abort its journey if it has already launched, (presumably needs ground control from the capital city).

This gives you a military option against an AI who is building a spaceship or who have launched a spaceship, as you can do a surgical attack aimed at just their capital city. Needless to say, if their capital city is on the coast, then it makes the strike easier to achieve.

I once had to stop 3 AI's launching before me in an Emperor game. I destroyed 2 enemy capital cities via a surgical strike. I didn't attack anything but the two capital cities, and lost all my attack forces, but destroyed both capitals. I dealt with the third AI using a large stack of spies to sabotage their spaceship production. I knew from previous games that I had a very low chance that a few spies could manage it alone, so I sent 15+ in one go, and my first target was the city's anti-espionage building. Once I had taken that out, I then tried for the "sabotage spaceship production" and sure enough most of my stack of spies failed, but eventually one of them did the business.

It's better to sabotage an expensive part, rather than a cheap part, as it takes the AI longer to rebuild the expensive part, but the mission does cost more espionage points.

Enemy spaceship parts are built in different cities, so you have to hunt for them. Park / rest / camp spies in various cities for one turn to see what it's building. The AI use their high production cities to build the expensive parts, so don't bother with the low production border cities if you are hunting for a part to sabotage. I assume it's more difficult and more expensive to sabotage a part being built in the enemy capital city, so when two cities are building a part, and one of them is the capital, I always try my sabotage mission in the ordinary city, rather than the enemy capital.

The key to sabotaging enemy spaceship production is early forward planning, as each mission costs a huge number of sabotage points, so it helps if you identify the AI you intend to target as early as you can, so that you can have all your espionage points focused on him/her.

When conducting the actual sabotage mission itself, don't do it in the early stages of the part being built, as it will only take a few turns for the AI to recover the lost ground. You need to destroy the part when it's at least half built, to get the maximum bang for your bucks. If you don't have a spy in the city at the start, then you will not know when the AI started building the part. If your spies therefore arrive in a city after building has started, then take an educated guess. For example, if you have 30,000 espionage points to spend, but the part is an expensive one that takes ages to build, but it will only cost you say 10,000 points to destroy it, then the AI has only just started building it, so wait. Keep waiting until the sabotage cost matches your 30,000 espionage points, and then destroy it.

The above is usually a "must do" when playing at the higher difficulty levels, and the enemy will certainlly have a go at sabotaging your spaceship at those levels.

N/B: I have never tried it, but if you are playing at a lower difficulty level, would closing all your open borders stop enemy spy missions? Might do, as any spy mission would be regarded as an act of war.

Regards - Mr P

 

[Polobo]

Closing borders only makes success less likely. Spies, if caught, only affect diplomatic modifiers but do not cause a war to start immediately (like moving a normal unit into their territory does).