BtS : More n00b questions

[wodan11]

Sabotaging strategic resources also is quite useful, particularly if you get in a space race.

[Theben]

Sabotaging strategic resources also is quite useful, particularly if you get in a space race.

Or just sabotaging the spaceship itself.

[Boracks]

Also, if spies from a neighbour get annoying, doing counter espionage missions is handy.

[Ming]

Sabotaging strategic resources also is quite useful, particularly if you get in a space race.

Sabotaging strategic resources can also be quite useful when at war.
Nothing better than limiting the type of troops the enemy can whip by taking away his strategic resources at the opening of a war

[wodan11]

Sabotaging oil is pretty nifty. You don't realize how many units require oil until you don't have it. Especially on an archipelago map.

In MP it fulfills one of the 4 prime tenets of a MP game: the Annoyance factor. You can be the Oil Nazi (c.f. Seinfeld). No tanks for you!

[Ming]

Early in a MP game, there is nothing worse than somebody taking out your only source of metal or horses... forcing you to whip only archers... assuming you bothered to research archery

[sorinache]

Bloody espionnage again

Ok so here I come again rambling against the "espionnage" implementation in BtS. Did I mention I liked the simpler, better vanilla version much more ?

Since in my new game (Darius, emperor, large "tectonics" which turned out to be a literal pangaea) I had a good starting position and enough hammers, I managed to build AP, which turned out to be pretty cool because of the +2 of the state religion buildings. With my cities producing additional I managed to build lots of espionnage buildings : many of my cities have, in addition to the courthouse (a must), a jail (I never built those before since I don't do wars) and the KGB and CIA buildings. I'm producing more espionnage points than I ever had in any of my previous games.

Yet I discovered that "more" is never enough : I had the bloody germans (I suspect it was them) stealing bloody Biology from me ! At that point I switched my allocation so that all my espionnage points were going to the americans and the germans only. I also put a spy on sentry in each of my cities, for counter-espionnage work. Then they stole refrigeration ! Again, I was not even able to find out WHO stole refirigeration (the game didn't tell me, I suspect strongly it was neighboring Frederick). At that point I changed my allocation again : 100% of my espionnage points directed to Germany. Since I have lots a food in my cities and they grow quickly, the governor also quite often creates specialist spies. So I produce about 200 espionnage points per turn and they all go toward germany. And despite this, they managed to steal Mass media from me on the turn I discovered it, from a city where I had all 4 espionnage buildings and a resident spy. I even reloaded a save in frustration, brought in a second spy from a neighboring city and changed 4 of my engineers / artists into specialist spies. Yet Mass Media still went to germany the next turn.

What gives ? I know the AI plays at "noble" difficulty level but are they also massively CHEATING ???? Piping the dice ? How could they possibly succeed in stealing 3 techs from me ? Despite putting 100% of my esp. points into Germany, I, for my part, have by far not enough points to even ATTEMPT to steal technology from them ! They not only can do so, but they also succeeded 3 times !!!

I hate BtS espionnage ! And unfortunately choosing the "no espionnage" option when starting a game is NO REAL OPTION because the espionnage points are converted to culture !!! Hello ? Why ? This, IMO, completely spoils the game by "inflating" culture points - they simply are not worth as much now. The game doesn't feel and doesn't play the same if I don't need to build, say, a monastery or a library anymore to expand a new city borders because building a courthouse does that nicely while at the same time reducing maintenance !!!

[Unimatrix11]

Well, i guess the germans did not only allocate most if not all their ESP towards you, but also they allocated a high percentage of their commerce to ESP. Deducing from them stealing a tech from you the turn you researched it, i assume they have the same infrastructure pretty much. You saying you do no war, makes me assume that they are also comparable in size.

+On high levels, the AIs do get hammer and commerce boni AFAIK - there is a complete table about the difficulty levels´ effects somewhere - but i forgot where i saw it. But die rolls are the same for everyone in any situation.

Didnt know about ESP treated as CUL when playing no-ESP. That indeed is quite a stupid idea IMHO.

Anyways, i think it´s got a lot to do with bad luck, also.

(1 spy does all spies can do when it comes to protecting a city - the second doesnt add anything, or so i read somewhere)

[Supr49er]

... (1 spy does all spies can do when it comes to protecting a city - the second doesnt add anything, or so i read somewhere)

True. And the Security Bureau replaces the Spy, allowing you to move that Spy onto a critical resource, guard the border, or perform espionage missions.

[Jaybe]

Yes, AI espionage CAN be very irritating.

OPTIONS I usually use:
Get irritated ... This Means War!, or

Deploy defenses (buildings and spies), and IRRITATE THE AI by IGNORING the bleepers! (other than counter-espionage missions ... every 30 turns at marathon speed), or

Play around fighting back in kind. Buildings! Spies! Espionage Spending!
Destroy them without force of arms, but with the power of espionage missions. While this can be a bit of effort, it's just a DIFFERENT KIND of effort compared to warmongering or flying to the moon, etc.

[DirtyMartini]

you have to console yourself with the fact that if they're spending that much on espionage, they're not spending it on their own research. Some of AI are complete spy spammers.

[Blaupanzer]

Every spy they build is a troop they don't. Also, that process requires lots of spy spending (rate), which means that opponent is not spending on techs or income, both of which can threaten as well as hurt.

Going down the same path is a BAD idea unless the spyer is the only other civ of consequence in the game. Otherwise, while you two battle it out with spies, another neighbor builds a few monstrous SODs and takes you both out. The AI is not good at the "scorpions in the bottle" game. (Put three scorpions of the same species in a bottle with no food and water. The two biggest will sting each other to death. The third will wait for the death of one of the first two then step in and win.) However, it is good at IDing other civs with weak militaries and building SODs of sufficient size to take out more than one at a time.

[sorinache]

Well, i guess the germans did not only allocate most if not all their ESP towards you, but also they allocated a high percentage of their commerce to ESP. Deducing from them stealing a tech from you the turn you researched it, i assume they have the same infrastructure pretty much. You saying you do no war, makes me assume that they are also comparable in size.

+On high levels, the AIs do get hammer and commerce boni AFAIK - there is a complete table about the difficulty levels´ effects somewhere - but i forgot where i saw it. But die rolls are the same for everyone in any situation.

Didnt know about ESP treated as CUL when playing no-ESP. That indeed is quite a stupid idea IMHO.

Yes I've tried to start a game like that, got very disappointed and abandoned it

Anyways, i think it´s got a lot to do with bad luck, also.

But then not being able to influence odds from one turn to another it's also kind of frustrating. I know reloading a save, changing specialists to spies and hoping to get luckier is akin to cheating, but we are talking about a hugely frustrating situation I'm trying to avoid here, this is worth a waiver !

(1 spy does all spies can do when it comes to protecting a city - the second doesnt add anything, or so i read somewhere)

Good to know

[DaShi]

Just build the Great Wall. It will net you an early lead in ESP that the AI will have a hard catching up with on Noble.

[joncnunn]

I'm a bigger fan of Great Wall on Monarch than Noble for a completely different reason. With the Great Wall, those barbarian random events target the AI instead of me.