Winning with Diplomats and Spies

Nick Garai

Prince
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
301
Anyone here ever win with just diplomats and spies? Buy the enemies cities, sabotage, planting nuclear bombs, etc...???
 
Have we ever gotten a conquest victory using ONLY dips and spies? I doubt it. I'm pretty sure you can't poison or nuke a city below size 1, and you can't bribe a capital, so you would need the other civs to take out each others' capitals (and the barbs to take the last capital, I guess). You would need at least some other units.

Have I done the vast majority of my conquering with dips and spies before? Sure, lots of times. Particularly after taking out the capital with military units to reduce the cost of the rest of the cities.
 
Its impossible to win a conquest game with only spies and dips. The odds of the other civs wiping out each others capitols and barbs getting the last capitol are so long as to approach zero.

Tim is correct. You cannot "wipe out" a city by nukes. I have tried it and a size one stays a size one, even after multiple nukes. Have not tried to poison one to zero, but I believe the only way to destroy a city is to capture a size one, or, if its one of your own, to rush build a settler in a size one city. Those are the only known ways to destroy a city. (afaik).

Note: you cannot win a game without settlers and vans. No vans, no coins to finance your dips and spys.:crazyeye:
 
Ace said:
Note: you cannot win a game without settlers and vans. No vans, no coins to finance your dips and spys.:crazyeye:
If I had more time on my hands, I'd consider that a challenge (Other than the initial settler(s) of course). I may have to store this away for a rainy day.
 
TimTheEnchanter said:
If I had more time on my hands, I'd consider that a challenge (Other than the initial settler(s) of course). I may have to store this away for a rainy day.

Agreed Initial settler(s) don't count. If you do try it, without vans/freight,please post saves. That would be an exceptional and very interesting game. We would have to get DoM to create a "special" category for it in the HOF.:scan:
 
I have a rough idea on how I might approach it. The lack of vans is what really worries me, although I think that can be overcome.

I assume I can keep the initial settler(s) around for a few turns, so long as they don't do any improvements? I guess I can define my own rules, but I assume the premise would be that I can't use settlers and vans at any time - i.e., no bribing them and then using them, as that would defeat the spirit of the exercise.

The real challenge is to do this against 7 civs on deity, but that implies an automatic 2 settlers instead of just one. I guess that's probably ok too, as long as I don't do any "work" with either one.
 
I had not thought about "no improvements" with the starting settlers. That really makes it harder, but, technically, your right. They should just be used for building the first two cities, of course, if they have to "explore" to find a good start position...., and only bribing cities themselves, no bribing of units as that would defeat the ideal of only using dips/spies.

That also means a reload if a unit pops out of a hut, right?

That is a really tough task. In fact, I believe it really is impossible because without ships, you would be stuck on your starting land mass.
 
Ace said:
I had not thought about "no improvements" with the starting settlers. That really makes it harder, but, technically, your right. They should just be used for building the first two cities, of course, if they have to "explore" to find a good start position...., and only bribing cities themselves, no bribing of units as that would defeat the ideal of only using dips/spies.

That also means a reload if a unit pops out of a hut, right?

That is a really tough task. In fact, I believe it really is impossible because without ships, you would be stuck on your starting land mass.
Oh wow! I wasn't combining "no Settlers or Vans" with the "only dips/spies" thing. I assumed we could use other units to explore, conquer, and as you mentioned most importantly, sail. I thought we had switched gears so I started playing a game last night where I could produce units, just not use settlers and vans. If the only units I can build are dips and spies, that makes it even tougher. I won't necessarily say it's impossible, but definitely much tougher.

Actually, this ends up forcing me back even more towards my original thoughts on how to approach it anyway. based on how things went when I started playing, I diverged from my original plan a bit (probably not for the better). But the lack of boats would be most painful in most situations other than a pangea. Maybe we can allow boats, so long as we don't attack with them?

I'll have to think about it.
 
My original statement about it being practically impossible was based on a literal interpetation of "using only dips/spies". Only building dips/spies and city improvements, and I still think that is approaching zero chances for success.

You would have to use ships to cross any water between land masses (ultimate irony would be for a civ to start on a small, one city island, and having no way to reach it, and no possibility of barbs landing).

If you use other units it would really be like a modified OCC game. And the "no settlers or vans" was just clarifying the only dips/spies statement. I guess my position is that without "other units", it is almost impossible to win the game. Taking the position that building other units is okay, just using dips and spies to bribe the AIs cities and units and using the other units to conquer the AI caps is actually how I play most of my games. Bottom line, I think that without vans, its game over. No trade routes, no big payouts for rush building, rapid science advances and coins to bribe with.

Go ahead with your game. It should be an interesting one without the settlers and vans. To be honest, I really don't see it working without roads, railroads, mining and irrigation and other than the two starting cities, just AI placed cities....
 
I started a new game. Since I'm pretty much making this up as I go, I'm implementing my own rules as follows:

1) Deity/Raging hordes.
2) Initial settlers can do no "work." They can explore, but they can only use the build order.
3) No building any units other than ships and dips (and spies)
4) Only ships with transport capability can be built
5) Ships can not be used to attack
6) Ships can not be used to garrison a city or used as a city defender.
7) Units can be bribed, but disallowed units must be immediately disbanded before moving, performing any orders or ending turn.
8) Cities can be bribed, but any units that come along with the city other than those allowed above must be disbanded.

I may have left something off, but that's pretty much what I'm trying to live within. I started a number of games before I found one I was willing to give a shot. It was hard to pass up the one with seven starting techs including monarchy, but the terrain was just awful.

I haven't done much exploring yet, but I have yet to actually build a ship. Depending on how I feel as I learn more about the map, I may try to stick with no ships at all for a while, but my map settings were probably not conducive to doing that. We'll see how it goes.
 
Duke of Marlbrough said:
If you can get some good alliances going that may give you the cash to get things going. I'm assuming you're playing on classic?
:yup:

10characters
 
I think it would be fair to modify rule 7 to allow you to move the bribed units to your nearest city before disbanding them. The unit is still destroyed, but you don't waste %100 of the resources used to bribe them.
 
Ace said:
I think it would be fair to modify rule 7 to allow you to move the bribed units to your nearest city before disbanding them. The unit is still destroyed, but you don't waste %100 of the resources used to bribe them.
The risk here is that it would be easy to get defensive advantage from those units while in transit, even if inadvertant. I don't think i'll go that route...unless I really get in a bind and need the sheilds :mischief:
 
TimTheEnchanter said:
The risk here is that it would be easy to get defensive advantage from those units while in transit, even if inadvertant. I don't think i'll go that route...unless I really get in a bind and need the sheilds :mischief:

As you wish. It will really be a challange just going without the settlers and vans. Ahhh, if you really want to make it difficult, you could play in Gold...:lol:
 
No way I'd try this in MGE.

I'm at midgame, up around 1000AD and chugging along fairly well. Things are starting to slow down as I can't improve anything, but I still think this is doable. Not by conquest, mind you (That was never my plan) but I have hopes of still pulling out a victory - it's a crippled OCC effort for right now. Whether I bother investing in some other cities later is up in the air. There are costs and tradeoffs that have to be weighed.

As of right now, I haven't built any ships and I'm entertaining serious thoughts of not building any. I have a rather circuituitous land connection to 2 civs and the capital of a third (it's blocking an isthmus to the rest of that civ and one other) but can't reach anything else without boats. The question becomes - do I think I really need to get dips to those other locales before I'm finished.
 
:sad: ahhh, I don't want to be a party pooper because your doing something I would not even try, but the original concept was for a conquest victory...
 
Ace said:
:sad: ahhh, I don't want to be a party pooper because your doing something I would not even try, but the original concept was for a conquest victory...
Oh. :twitch: :blush: :cringe: :sad: :cry:

But you said...
Ace said:
Its impossible to win a conquest game with only spies and dips. The odds of the other civs wiping out each others capitols and barbs getting the last capitol are so long as to approach zero.
So when you then said...
Ace said:
Note: you cannot win a game without settlers and vans. No vans, no coins to finance your dips and spys.:crazyeye:
I assumed you meant ANY type of victory since conquest was clearly out of the equation because you couldn't capture the capitals. :wallbash:
 
Needed a 2nd post to give myself this. :stupid:


While I'm at it, after posting that I was trying to avoid ships altogether, I played again last night and almost immediately realized I was going to need them after all. I really need the embassies to work diplomacy properly in this game and once communism comes around, I won't be able to afford the UN - so I need to get embassies set up the hard way, and since I can't get to 3 of the civs by land, I have to sail there. The shield support is very expensive (The city produces 15s, so ANY support forces me to iprb the dips and once i lose horses things get even worse) so I'm looking for boats to bribe quickly.
 
Original posted by Tim: "I assumed you meant ANY type of victory since conquest was clearly out of the equation because you couldn't capture the capitals.

Well, No, I hadn't thought about SS landing because I figured if you can do it OCC style, its within the realm of possibilities without dips and vans....

However, under the rules you have chosen, a victory of any sort will be a major accomplishment.

Note that my original position was that a "conquest victory was clearly out of the equation because you couldn't capture the capitals". I'm glad you agree with me. ;)
 
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