A great big hello from a long time lurker

[Dinner]

im going to take senethro's advice and leave this "dying website", civfanatics is much better, no favoritism there.

CFC is a good website which does have a larger mods section but it's on topic minus mods is about the same. In any event Senethro has a bone to pick mainly because he went off to another site with a former mod who enjoyed sending death threats to posters and who was upset when the other mods intervened when he acted like an asshat. Basically that mod got fired by the other mods for being a complete out of control ****** and now that group has a vendetta. Hopefully you'll stay and give the place a chance though.

[Dinner]

If you post over there like you did here, you won't last very long over there either.

Enjoy.

If he is a real poster and not a DL then the mods at CFC will ban him so fast his head will spin.

[Dinner]

Note that i am proposing a high espionage rate. The use for spies is to irritate the economic enemies by forcing them into different civics and also to destroy improvements that give the bennies of corps. Spies can be used to undermine economies and also to aid wars by denying resources, switching religions, and undermining production.

I've honestly never found spies to be all that useful as it is better to build military units and take the other guy's cities.

[Ming]

While I would agree with the build military units advice, that's part of the fun of trying new approaches. While you might not try an approach full blown as part of your regular strategy, it might teach you some new tricks to use as part of your overall strategy. By going 100% in a single direction, you get to learn the ins and the outs, the advantages and the problems. It's kind of like the warlord strategy many of us are currently playing with...
I would never use it every game, but I'm learning some fun stuff that might be useful. Plus, it's just plain different and fun.

[Norselord]

I've honestly never found spies to be all that useful as it is better to build military units and take the other guy's cities.

This isn't about winning easier, its about winning differently.

I am at about 1000 AD on my current trial game.
Augustus (needed the IND to guarantee 'mids and Wall)
Research order (1st 19, stopped writing since then):
1) mining
2) BW
3) Masonry
4) writing
5) alphabet
6) mysticism
7) meditation
8) priesthood
9) COL
10) hunting
11) archery
12) polytheism
13) monotheism
14) aesthetics
15) literature
16) monarchy
17) feudalism
18) civil service
19) music

Civics:
Representation
Nationhood
Caste System
---no economy yet--- shooting for mercantilism-->free market
Pacifism


The idea with the espionage is partly about using spies, but its also about setting yourself up for the Great General Warlord strat. I am capable of seeing everyones research, and starting to bust a lot of the fog. I am building up towards my max military cap with macemen/longbowmen/cats. Getting ready to invite monty to attack me.

After years of playing this game, do you really want to play it the same way every time? I want to see if i can build only enough cities to ensure i can build Oxford and Wall street, use spies, executives, and great generals. Although it might not be super-powerful, it will more than likely improve my skill at using corporations, espionage, and great generals. These three aspects of the game are the ones that most people have mentioned having the most difficulty with...

[Norselord]

there are two aspects to espionage.

active and passive

the passive skills are pretty huge, in my opinion.