Specializing an espionage city?

[futurehermit]

I was wondering if someone would be able to provide a complete list of espionage buildings, including buildings that let you run spy specialists, and wonders that give great spy points. Basically, anything that enhances espionage in a given city.

I would do it but I am going out of town today.

Then we can discuss specializing a dedicated espionage city, like IW, Wall Street, Oxford, etc.

 

[sneaky]

What I came up with so far.

Great Wall

Scotland Yard

Kremlin

Jail

Castle
+25% EP

Courthouse

Security Bureau 220
+8 EP, +50% defense vs. espionage, can train two spy specialist
Helps thwart rival spies

Intelligence Agency 180
+8 EP's; +50% EP; Can turn two citizens into Spy specialists;
enhances espionage spending and amplify your efforts to spy on others.

Maybe even more.

 

[frob2900]

From the Civilopedia (got BtS yesterday ):

[EDIT]
Forgot these:

 

[ChrTh]

Thanks for the info, frob2900, great work!

EDIT: Are Intelligence Agency and Security Bureau the only way to make Spy specialists, or does a Civic allow you to do so?

 

[frob2900]

Are Intelligence Agency and Security Bureau the only way to make Spy specialists, or does a Civic allow you to do so?

Courthouse also allows a spy specialst.

No civic allows spy specialists.. but there is the following interesting change to Nationhood:

Despite it saying "Draft 1 unit per turn", nationhood still allows 3 drafts per turn on standard map size.

 

[futurehermit]

So, I count 7 spy specialists incl. Kremlin? Thanks for this Frob. Too bad castles go obsolete so early

 

[futurehermit]

So, it looks like the core of the espionage city would tech:

CoL (courthouses/FP)-Engin (Castles)-Constitution (jails)-Democracy (s. bur)-Comm (intel ag/Kremlin)

Pretty nice

 

[frob2900]

Sorry, I also left out Jail I fixed the second image. That makes 9 spies including the Kremlin


Breakdown for a spying super city:

Points:
2 Courthouse
4 Jail
8 Intelligence Agency
8 Security Bureau
---
22 EPs

Spies:
1 Courthouse
2 Jail
2 Intelligence Agency
2 Security Bureau
2 Kremlin
---
9=36 EPs

Multiplier:
25% Castle
100% Scotland Yard
50% Intelligence Agency
50% Jail
25% Nationhood
---
250%


So this super city would have 58*2.5=145 EPs/turn without settled great spys. Is that a lot? I haven't played that much yet..

 

[facistal]

That would be huge if you settled a couple of spies there. I love the new elements have done to city specializatio, the national park is making me beeline biology lately

 

[Grey Fox]

The techpath for Espionage stuff fits my new settler sprawl strategy as the Holy Roman Empire.

Code of Laws early for their super courthouses then rush to Engineering to get their UU.

EDIT: Oh, and yeah, the great wall is great for my settler sprawl since I don't have to stop building settlers to build defensive units for a while.

 

[futurehermit]

145 is a lot

To put it in perspective: It's around 650 pts or so at a certain pt of the game to put an enemy city into revolt. So you can do that about every 4-5 turns with this super espionage city. If you have some in the bank already you could theoretically put every city into revolt just before you sack it as you march through their empire.

 

[ChrTh]

If you make your capital a superspy city, you'll have an additional 10 points (4 points * 2.5 multiplier), so you're looking at 155 before great spies.

 

[Virulent]

Read my thread here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234727

I'm surprised there isn't an option to have a city build espionage.

 

[futurehermit]

That's true, but I would rather have my capital working a mix of cottages and mines than running a pile of spies. If I run a SE then I would rather be running a pile of GSs with the GL.

I see the capital GSpy pts as being for early spy efforts rather than being for a super espionage city

However, it is true that the palace produces espionage pts so it should be on the record

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

You're also forgetting that you can adjust the slider to get a 250% boost to the commerce of the city for espionage.

 

[LlamaCat]

Despite it saying "Draft 1 unit per turn", nationhood still allows 3 drafts per turn on standard map size.

It means you can only draft 1 unit in that city per turn, but you can draft 3 per turn in your empire (3 cities) under Nationhood.

 

[gregh87]

Build the Great Wall to get some Great Spies. You'll need one to build Scotland Yard, and each one you settle will give you 42 EP's with the multipliers. In my first game I got a total of 4 great spies, and settled 3 and built Scotland Yard with the other. I ended up getting over 600 EP's per turn running 0% espionage, and I destroyed all my nearest competitor's towns and fomented unhappinness constantly.

And it's 58*3.5-a 200% bonus multiplies the base by 3- so 58 plus 3 settled spies + 4 spy specialists = 110 base EP's, x 3.5 = 385 EP's per turn = a ton of fun wreaking havoc on everyone .

 

[ChrTh]

That's true, but I would rather have my capital working a mix of cottages and mines than running a pile of spies. If I run a SE then I would rather be running a pile of GSs with the GL.

I see the capital GSpy pts as being for early spy efforts rather than being for a super espionage city

However, it is true that the palace produces espionage pts so it should be on the record

Well, the advantage of using your capital as an uberspy city is that you can run Bureaucracy for even more espionage points (presuming you have the slider set above 0%, and some of the multiplier buildings built).

 

[frob2900]

Personally, I wouldn't make the capital a spy city (unless playing a very espionage-themed game), but nevertheless, the issue does beg the question, should a spy city be running specialists for EPs (and thus also for the great spys) or are other great people more useful after the first spy (for Scotland Yard) and the city should be running a lot of cottages with the espionage slider set to 20-30%?

I think the slider might be better for research/gold, so maybe the epsionage city should be a food heavy specialist city? (in addition to the NE city which should be getting you most of your actual great people..)

[EDIT] Seems like a waste of GPPs tho.. but really, is the great spy better than e.g. a great scientist or a great engineer?

 

[UncleJJ]

I usually make my capital my spy centre with Scotland Yard and a settled Great Spy or 2 and combine it with Oxford to make a joint Science and Spy City. Spy specialists and settled Great Spies all generate beakers, and even more with Representation, which I seem to run for half the game at least. So that combination has a lot of synergy.

But I find the best way to generate a lot of espionage points is to have several core cities build the courthouse, jail , security bureau and intelligence agency for a total of 22 base EPs and 100% plus 7 spy specialist slots. Spending 14 food on the specialists gives another 28 base EPs for a total of 50 which is then doubled to 100 each. So they produce between 44 and 100 EPs depending on priorities.

In the late game when a junk city doesn't have a chance to contribute much in the way of gold or beakers I turn in into a mini spy centre. It needs courthouse anyway, then a jail is cheap at 120 hammers, and the intelligence agency for another 180 makes a good cheap combination that can be built and whipped in. With the 100% bonus that gives 28 EPs and 8 more for each specialist it can afford to run upto a total of 5. The security bureau is a lower priority but gets built eventually. You can afford to keep cities like that even if they make a smal loss in gold terms.