InvisibleStalke
Emperor
Playing on Emperor with Charlemagne, I have been forced to catchup from a huge tech deficit using Espionage. In fact my only chance has been to rely on my spies and they have done extremely well.
I started the game wanting to explore Espionage using a protective leader. I like this combination because of the cheap castles and the synergy with the nationhood civic giving bonuses to espionage and producing promoted units with protective.
The game started well - I got the Great Wall and the Statue of Zeus. When Ragnar attacked Ghandi I decided to help Ghandi. I then realized I had made a huge blunder and settled my great spy in one of Ragnar's cities instead of the tech leader - Ghandis. While Ghandi teched away I fought a heavy duty war with Ragnar eventually crushing him and vassalizing him.
I stole Engineering from Ghandi and then attacked him. Probably my second blunder. The war started as an enormous slugfest. Ghandi had very high power but I couldn't see that he had the military to back it up. But his units kept coming. I fell in love with Landskneghts - I had four settled great generals and was producing CR3 Landskneghts every couple of turns. Ghandi loved to build knights and war elephants. My Landskneghts loved to kill them. In their thousands.
War weariness and the cost of a big army wrecked my economy. I was done to 80% cash and desperately researched drama to get us to 20% culture. Eventually after taking half Ghandi's empire I accepted peace. He just refused to capitulate.
It was now around 1600AD. I hadn't taken Education yet. Meanwhile on the other continent Augustus was at least 8 techs ahead. Liberalism was long gone. I needed to play catchup. Desperately.
Enter the spies. I switched to maximum espionage (only 20% at this stage) and started cottaging up and growing back my cities. I started stealing techs off Ghandi and building castles in every city. Stole my way to democracy. Meanwhile Augustus built the Pentagon!
With all the castles Ghandi was suddenly impressed at all my military might and volunteered to be my vassal. What! He wouldn't capitulate when I was at war razing cities but he was happy to pal up once I had castles. We shared a religion so that set him to friendly. Great - he could research techs I wanted and I could steal them from Augustus. Luckily Augustus had built a single city on our continent.
Built jails in every city. Built Intelligence agencies and security centres. I am stealing techs from Augustus faster than he can research them. Every 4 turns or so I pull another tech from him. The cost to research is higher than the cost to steal and I just march up his tech research. The deficit is down to around 3 techs now and I am up to Industrialism. I haven't researched a tech myself since Education.
Eventually I hope to catch him and switch to free speech and max research instead. By then all my towns will be fully grown. Meanwhile I have joined the rest of the world in fighting Montezuma. With two friendly vassals on my continent maybe a diplomatic win is acheivable. I lead in production and population but not in GDP. I have no idea why Augustus teched so quickly - but I am happy to take advantage of it.
Anyway this proves to me that espionage is viable well into the lategame. And it may be the best strategy for come from behind wins.
I started the game wanting to explore Espionage using a protective leader. I like this combination because of the cheap castles and the synergy with the nationhood civic giving bonuses to espionage and producing promoted units with protective.
The game started well - I got the Great Wall and the Statue of Zeus. When Ragnar attacked Ghandi I decided to help Ghandi. I then realized I had made a huge blunder and settled my great spy in one of Ragnar's cities instead of the tech leader - Ghandis. While Ghandi teched away I fought a heavy duty war with Ragnar eventually crushing him and vassalizing him.
I stole Engineering from Ghandi and then attacked him. Probably my second blunder. The war started as an enormous slugfest. Ghandi had very high power but I couldn't see that he had the military to back it up. But his units kept coming. I fell in love with Landskneghts - I had four settled great generals and was producing CR3 Landskneghts every couple of turns. Ghandi loved to build knights and war elephants. My Landskneghts loved to kill them. In their thousands.
War weariness and the cost of a big army wrecked my economy. I was done to 80% cash and desperately researched drama to get us to 20% culture. Eventually after taking half Ghandi's empire I accepted peace. He just refused to capitulate.
It was now around 1600AD. I hadn't taken Education yet. Meanwhile on the other continent Augustus was at least 8 techs ahead. Liberalism was long gone. I needed to play catchup. Desperately.
Enter the spies. I switched to maximum espionage (only 20% at this stage) and started cottaging up and growing back my cities. I started stealing techs off Ghandi and building castles in every city. Stole my way to democracy. Meanwhile Augustus built the Pentagon!
With all the castles Ghandi was suddenly impressed at all my military might and volunteered to be my vassal. What! He wouldn't capitulate when I was at war razing cities but he was happy to pal up once I had castles. We shared a religion so that set him to friendly. Great - he could research techs I wanted and I could steal them from Augustus. Luckily Augustus had built a single city on our continent.
Built jails in every city. Built Intelligence agencies and security centres. I am stealing techs from Augustus faster than he can research them. Every 4 turns or so I pull another tech from him. The cost to research is higher than the cost to steal and I just march up his tech research. The deficit is down to around 3 techs now and I am up to Industrialism. I haven't researched a tech myself since Education.
Eventually I hope to catch him and switch to free speech and max research instead. By then all my towns will be fully grown. Meanwhile I have joined the rest of the world in fighting Montezuma. With two friendly vassals on my continent maybe a diplomatic win is acheivable. I lead in production and population but not in GDP. I have no idea why Augustus teched so quickly - but I am happy to take advantage of it.
Anyway this proves to me that espionage is viable well into the lategame. And it may be the best strategy for come from behind wins.