Use of Spies and Espionage

[Mongo78]

I'm curious to know if there are players out there that have maximized the benefit of espionage and succeeded with this strategy. I know it can be a useful way to temporarily handicap a rival (destroying developed squares, cutting off resources, etc.) but could you, say, pump the slider so high and "milk" other Civs' technology advancements in lieu of researching them yourself? Constantly send their cities into revolt and force conversions of their religion without leaving yourself vulnarable to attack, or ruining your relationshup with them? I am interested in exploring this possibility myself, I would just like to hear of some success (or failures) from some of the more seasoned players. Is it a viable strategy in MP? I usually ignore it - it's one more "layer" to the game that can be - but I'm started to turn a close eye towards it and really figure out how useful espionage could be if it is used to it's fullest extent.

[Supr49er]

Re: Use of Spies and Espionage

Originally posted by Mongo78
I'm curious to know if there are players out there that have maximized the benefit of espionage and succeeded with this strategy. I know it can be a useful way to temporarily handicap a rival (destroying developed squares, cutting off resources, etc.) but could you, say, pump the slider so high and "milk" other Civs' technology advancements in lieu of researching them yourself? Constantly send their cities into revolt and force conversions of their religion without leaving yourself vulnarable to attack, or ruining your relationshup with them? I am interested in exploring this possibility myself, I would just like to hear of some success (or failures) from some of the more seasoned players. Is it a viable strategy in MP? I usually ignore it - it's one more "layer" to the game that can be - but I'm started to turn a close eye towards it and really figure out how useful espionage could be if it is used to it's fullest extent.

Welcome to the Forums Mongo78.

The early Great Wall/Great Spy will allow you to use espionage to steal many early technologies (after you research Alphabet to buils spies). I don't know how viable this strategy is in MP, I play SP.

[wodan11]

Re: Use of Spies and Espionage

Originally posted by Mongo78
I'm curious to know if there are players out there that have maximized the benefit of espionage and succeeded with this strategy.

Yes, I do know.

Wodan

[snoopy369]

Re: Use of Spies and Espionage

Originally posted by Mongo78
I'm curious to know if there are players out there that have maximized the benefit of espionage and succeeded with this strategy. I know it can be a useful way to temporarily handicap a rival (destroying developed squares, cutting off resources, etc.) but could you, say, pump the slider so high and "milk" other Civs' technology advancements in lieu of researching them yourself? Constantly send their cities into revolt and force conversions of their religion without leaving yourself vulnarable to attack, or ruining your relationshup with them? I am interested in exploring this possibility myself, I would just like to hear of some success (or failures) from some of the more seasoned players. Is it a viable strategy in MP? I usually ignore it - it's one more "layer" to the game that can be - but I'm started to turn a close eye towards it and really figure out how useful espionage could be if it is used to it's fullest extent.

The Great Wall/great spy combo mentioned above is definitely viable in MP, assuming you either are superior militarily to the target civ, or can otherwise assure you won't be militarily targetted. It becomes much less effective as you do it more, and particularly once your target civ develops alphabet, but you often can get a lot of early techs for basically nothing.

I would say that it's much more effective in a no-tech-trading game than in a tech-trading game (where you can generally trade for what you need at little cost to you), because of the alternative being less.

I'm not sure about actually ESP-slider running to steal tech; I don't like that strat myself, but it's possible it would be better. I think overall the Great Spy method is more efficient (because a GS gives you much more esp-wise than a lightbulb), though you end up being limited to one civ to use it on; don't use it on a civ you plan on conquering early

[Hercules]

I am starting to investigate it more in my SP games, than before.

The stealing the techs (which I am very interested in) seems very expensive, unless I am looking in the wrong area.

But I noticed the enemy spies concentrate on knocking out mines and special resources such as wineries.

[snoopy369]

Try doing it in a RAH game once, particularly with a relatively safe target (I don't suggest masterdave... ) Although it doesn't really hurt the target, it seems to piss people off...

I did it once using Barono, and it worked like a charm (but pissed him off, but I had more military so it was irrelevant). I got a ton of low techs that I didn't have to research, allowing me to run straight for later techs like gunpowder and ignore early ones.

[snoopy369]

Just to clarify - the great wall/great spy gambit is what i'm talking about, not using the ESP slider points to steal tech (which I don't recommend in MP).

The gambit goes like this:

1. Build the Great Wall as early as is feasible.
2. Wait for the Great Spy; while you wait, get Alphabet such that it is researched around the same time the Great Spy comes. (Also, don't do anything to make that great spy be a great-anything else.)
3. Use that Great Spy to get you ESP points against someone - a target that is going to do okay on tech, but won't attack you (or won't successfully attack you). It should give you several thousand ESP points.
4. Start producing spies and stealing all of his techs Start with the expensive ones, because you will not be able to keep spies at the full 5 turn wait for minimizing the ESP/tech ratio.

All the while tech normally; but you can and should beeline for a very late tech (not filling in back techs you didn't get before), ignoring some early techs. Typically I'll beeline for Liberalism and then Printing Press, and then Gunpowder, getting the various monarchy-guilds path techs through espionage. Keep your slider at 0% ESP, just use the Great Spy points to steal the techs. You probably won't need a second great spy, but who knows.

Steal as aggressively as possible - it's best to have at LEAST three spies active, and the more the better. If you can steal everything within 10 turns, for example, then you will be able to do it before he knows what is happening.

[The Priest]

The early great spy certainly works, though when I have experiemented with running EP rather than Research it wasn't effective (though fun to try).

The only other real use I have found for spies is bringing down the city walls (ok causing a revolt) when you want to attack. I will regularly use this rather than artillery. It can be very powerful when combined with mounted attacks to form a real blitzkrieg - so much faster than slowly bringing up artillery and reducing the cities defences.

The other thing I noticed in my last game when I had very little EP, is how much you do benefit from the passive effects - it is a real loss if you can't see opponents on the graphs etc.