point in Tech stealing?

[Finsch]

Hello everyone

Sorry if this question has been asked before. I did not find something on this topic, hope I didn't miss something:

What is the point in Espionage for the purpose of tech stealing? Gathering EPs subtracts directly from your beakers, in a 1:1 ratio. The cost for stealing a 500-points-reasearch is something like 480 EPs, after adding and subtracting some bonuses and (for example 50% stationary bonus) I end up with something like 300 or 320 EPs as cost. Then I have a success rate of ~62%, which - in the long run when statistics kick in - equal again about 500 points.

So why would I go through the trouble of building spys for the purpose of stealing tech in the first place?
Or is tech stealing only in the game for the purpose of doing something reasonable with your EPs in case you have all your EPs gathered on a former-enemy who is now your best friend and you no longer want to poison his water supply?
Or is my observation wrong in general?

[Unimatrix11]

why not have it in the game ?

[Finsch]

I would have thought, tech stealing is a way to catch up in research with more advanced civs.

But this does not seem to be true.

The feature is nice, if it gives you an advantage in a certain situation. But to me, the advantage is not clear.

[Willem]

I don't know about anyone else, but I always have some sort of surplus in my treasury. Before BtS I used it for upgrading units but now espionage gives me another option. So if I have some extra cash doing nothing and the option comes up for stealing a tech, why wouldn't I? It's just like getting a free tech IMO.

[popejubal]

Gathering EPs does not directly subtract from your beakers. Your commerce can be directed toward Science, Espionage, Culture or Cash. This commerce is then multiplied by any multipliers you have (libraries, banks, etc).

Since you generally will have better science multipliers than espionage, you are actually losing more than one beaker per EP gained.

Stealing tech comes in when you generate a Great Spy. Great People can Lightbulb technologies. If you beeline for Alphabet, an early Great Spy will still not lightbulb any technologies for you, but it will enable you to steal several (as many as 6-8 Techs in the early game) technologies to backfill those you skipped.

An early Great Wall giving you a Great Spy on a Pangea map is so strong that I consider it an exploit and would only use it on a Diety map. It's just that darned good.

[PrinceBimz]

Re: point in Tech stealing?

Originally posted by Finsch
Hello everyone

Sorry if this question has been asked before. I did not find something on this topic, hope I didn't miss something:

What is the point in Espionage for the purpose of tech stealing? Gathering EPs subtracts directly from your beakers, in a 1:1 ratio. The cost for stealing a 500-points-reasearch is something like 480 EPs, after adding and subtracting some bonuses and (for example 50% stationary bonus) I end up with something like 300 or 320 EPs as cost. Then I have a success rate of ~62%, which - in the long run when statistics kick in - equal again about 500 points.

So why would I go through the trouble of building spys for the purpose of stealing tech in the first place?
Or is tech stealing only in the game for the purpose of doing something reasonable with your EPs in case you have all your EPs gathered on a former-enemy who is now your best friend and you no longer want to poison his water supply?
Or is my observation wrong in general?

Well, if you steal a tech, you won't have to wait the several turns or go out of your way to research it. So you will most likely have some EPs laying around, use them and save yourself several turns. Especially on epic or marathon games, a tech can take several turns, and I mean several to research.

[Kuciwalker]

EP's are generated in fixed quantities from buildings. So you can convert the +2 EP/turn from a Courthouse into beakers.

[Jaybe]

As I understand it, if the spy fails its mission, you do not pay the EPs. Therefore there is no risk involved. Just rebuild the spy.

To gain intelligence on the AIs requires EPs, whether via buildings or also as part of your budget. If you have the points and the tech need, then you have flexibility to exchange some of those EPs for tech, losing some intelligence margin.

[Kuciwalker]

As I understand it, if the spy fails its mission, you do not pay the EPs. Therefore there is no risk involved. Just rebuild the spy.

Let's play the "spot the contradiction" game

[snoopy369]

meh, yet another kuci post...

The point is that cost of spy << cost of EPs. There is no real risk to trying to steal a tech unless you mind being noticed and possibly declared war on [if that ever actually happens...]

[Wiglaf]

Tech stealing may sound gay, but in fact you can generate EPs even with 0% on espionage, as kuciwalker said due to buildings and **** of that nature.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by snoopy369
meh, yet another kuci post...

One that obviously got the point across (or apparently it didn't, in your case, since you argued with it...): building a spy that might die is obviously not a "no-risk" proposition.

[Finsch]

Originally posted by Jaybe
As I understand it, if the spy fails its mission, you do not pay the EPs. Therefore there is no risk involved. Just rebuild the spy.

I didn't know that.
In this case, stealing techs is cheaper by ~40% if you neglect the cost for the spy and assume that your city multipliers for beakers and EPs are the same. (Which they are not, usually. So whenever your city multiplier is higher than 1.5 in average for your cities, researching becomes cheaper than stealing. With the exception of EPs generated by great spies and buildings.)

[khearn]

I've never moved my espionage slider off of 0% and still usually find myself ahead of most of the AIs in espionage points. Just build plenty of courthouses and jails, which are useful anyways.

It also pays to take a look at the espionage screen from time to time and adjust the weights. If you can investigate Ragnar's cities, but can't even see Mansa Musa's demographics, lower Ragnar's weighting and raise Mansa's.

I do wish the default weight was 1 instead of 0, though. If I've met two civs and decide to put more weight on one that the other, I have to move them both off of 0 or the one left at 0 will get nothing. So I might move then to 1 and 2. Now if I meet another civ, it starts at 0 and gets nothing unless I remember to go and bump up the new guy's weight. I'd rather have newly contacted civs start with the weight set to 1 so they at least get something if I forget to adjust their weight.

[Unimatrix11]

The "default be 1 instead of 0" is certainly something to be thought about for the next patch i think