Spies and civic changes

[Ari]

Here's something I just thought of that should be viable:

If you're in a situation where you have no turns of anarchy between civic changes, it should be possible for you to plant a spy (or several spies!) in an enemy city on turn 1, and on turn 2, change to what would be *awful* civics (slavery in the modern era, for example), and then influence your enemy's civics with your spies before immediately changing your own civics back to what they had been. It seems like this leaves an enemy with the choice of anarchy, and LOTS of it if you've used multiple spies (unless they're spiritual) or coping with undesirable civics. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be any reason you can't repeat this as long as you have espionage points.
Anyone see any reason this would be impossible or less favorable than it seems?

[ben04]

With the new patch this wont work any longer. You will always have to wait at least 1 turn between changes.

[Ari]

At least as mentioned in the patch notes, that only applies to the Cristo Redentor, not spiritual civs or golden ages (doing it to spiritual civs would be a serious nerf, since all they get otherwise are cheap temples). Even with just the CR, if I change all 5 enemy civics with 5 spies (well, more, since percentages are << 100%), that's 2 turns of anarchy for me, and several more for him if he doesn't want to run to worst civics, which is potentially a good deal (one way or another, you're tying a hand behind his back).

[ben04]

AFAIK every non Cristo civ has to wait 5 turns before changing civics again.

[Dinner]

Yeah, without Christo Redentor the OP isn't possible.

[Ari]

Doh! I'd forgotten about the can't-change-for-5-turns thing, and thought of this in a game where I'd happened to get the CR .
Still, with the post-patch CR, I can imagine some limited circumstances where this could be viable.

[jdunson]

This sort of thing can still work at a more general level against opponents that have significantly different victory goals or economy structure than you do. For instance, if you're planning on a cultural victory and running a specialist economy, forcing your Free Speech and Pacifism on your more warlike opponents will hamper their military buildup. Of course, the opposite would also work; kicking an opponent going for a cultural victory out of Free Speech can slow them down significantly.

[wodan11]

Where it would work best is if you plan to change civics anyway. So, before you do so, this strategy would encourage some planning as to what opponent is to be your biggest rival, maxing your espionage points with him and/or using a great spy, and then -- just before you switch -- forcing him to switch out of a civic which is helping his own strategy.

e.g., if you see Cyrus is running a SE with farms, you force him out of Caste System and into Slavery, just before you do the opposite.

Wodan