What We Love About Espionage

[rah]

I am not totally dissing the ESP aspects of the game.
MY point was that the AI isn't very good at maximizing it's benefits. NOT as good as a human.

I do play a more passive ESP game. I use a lot of counter-esp missions, will steal a few techs if I get a GS, But yes, I lean toward warmongering which means I am more interested in gaining a military tech lead and leveraging it with a good size army. That takes money and science and doesn't leave me as much room for espionage. I did try the total ESP game but the big problem I had with it (in my mind anyway) is if you're stealing techs, the AI has to have more techs than you for this to work, and that always makes me feel vulnerable.

[Norselord]

While I understand the purpose of this thread...



Because simple game mechanics says you have to give up one for the other. If you are putting something against culture or money, there is usually a good reason for it. To add Esp, you have to give up something, and it's usually science. So indeed, science is the most likely to suffer.

You ask "how high does the science slider have to go"... and then say you can get by at lower but respectable levels... I personally never want to be at "respectable" levels... I want to be out teching the AI's or human opponents by as much as I can. So the answer to your question is... I set the science slider as high as my civ will allow...

Hrmm,

It seems to me that when i am running an SE, the slider has little to do with how many beakers i generate.

For Example: at a science slider of 30% it may take 8 turns to get a tech, compared to a slider at 60% to get it down to 7 turns. Is the best use of that 30%?

[rah]

Excuse me. I posted #9 a benefit of esp. Then posted I like espionage because the I felt the AI has flaws using it. How the hell is that off topic. You are the one that took issue with it, I thought I was discussing YOUR comments. I never once said I was always right and even agreed with you when you said that i was a warmonger and it influenced how I viewed it. If you feel unwelcome because people don't always agree with you, that's your problem.

[Garth Vader]

How would being able to see inside a city help someone who only cares about waging war...

...oh wait...

... i get it...

... you are saying that it might help to plan an assault. It might help prioritize which cities to attack. It would assist in finding out which cities have the barracks, military academies, settled great generals. Yeah, I can see how that might be useful information.

I'd rather have a few extra turns with riflemen and cannons when they only have longbowmen and knights.

[rah]

Garth, agreed.
And with the exception of Capitals and Shrine cities, my priorities on capturing enemy cities is more location based then what's in them. (oh, and which city has Zeus)

[Norselord]

I am not totally dissing the ESP aspects of the game.
MY point was that the AI isn't very good at maximizing it's benefits. NOT as good as a human.

I do play a more passive ESP game. I use a lot of counter-esp missions, will steal a few techs if I get a GS, But yes, I lean toward warmongering which means I am more interested in gaining a military tech lead and leveraging it with a good size army. That takes money and science and doesn't leave me as much room for espionage. I did try the total ESP game but the big problem I had with it (in my mind anyway) is if you're stealing techs, the AI has to have more techs than you for this to work, and that always makes me feel vulnerable.

How do you research?

My current game i am trying to combine Great General UberUnit/SE/Espionage into one. I am playing as DeGaulle. Built the Great Wall and Pyramids and collected some minor wonders. I am mainly beelining the espionage techs and the Musketeer/Cannon techs. I use espionage to backfill the techs that i haven't got.

For fun i built courthouses, walls, and castles in each city. The walls perform double duty. Firstly they provide the prereq for the castle, which is one of the first espionage buildings, and secondly they dovetail nicely with the GGUU (great general uber unit) requirement of fighting within ones own borders.

I focus three times as much espionage on Isabella and Wang Kon and little on others. Wang Kon is friendly with me and he hasn't noticed the techs disappearing. The 'fog' has lifted in everyone's territory. I can see what Isabella is building in each city and exactly where each army is.

In score I am #1, Isabella is #2, and Wang Kon is #3. She will eventually be forced into attacking me, at that point the spies that are in my cities protecting me from espionage will be directed at each one of her cities/resources.

[Norselord]

Excuse me. I posted #9 a benefit of esp. Then posted I like espionage because the I felt the AI has flaws using it. How the hell is that off topic. You are the one that took issue with it, I thought I was discussing YOUR comments. I never once said I was always right and even agreed with you when you said that i was a warmonger and it influenced how I viewed it. If you feel unwelcome because people don't always agree with you, that's your problem.

Misread.
Misunderstood.
Edited.

However you have appeared somewhat confrontational and aggresive in other threads. Your playstyle might be a reflection on you.

[Norselord]

14. There are special random events that are triggered when you have enough espionage points or spies in the area. Can't think of what they are at the moment but there is the one with criminals fleeing from justice that can be interrogated, the one with the crashed airliner, and the one that allows your spies to make a natural disaster (or is it revolt) worse by destroying improvements around the city.

[rah]

How do I research?

It's different many times. In MP games I don't get Pyramids that often so a SE game is not always the best way to go. So then it's either (shrines, cottages or a sea based run) to keep the science slider higher with Scientists wherever you have the extra food.

And since I'm one of those, you don't let them get to your cities kind of player, castles don't quite dovetail as well. I'll build the castle only for the extra trade route in only the cities that can take advantage of it. The shields needed for walls and castles could be a few extra siege units to my SOD. And you can never have enough siege units. (if I have stone, sometimes I'll build a few extra castles)

I too spread the points on those that I think deserve closer attention.

If spies were more reliable I might use them more. You don't want your whole strat based on a spy succeeding. But I have seen humans cause me problems with them. The ai not so much.

And I've tried most of the 'DIFFERENT" games discussed here and had fun with most of them but for some reason I didn't have as much fun on the esp game. (part of the reason is probably because I'm not an expert at it) But I still enjoy reading other peoples experiences with it, because no matter how arrogant you may feel my posts sounds, I am no where near the best player here and try to learn wherever I can.

[rah]

However you have appeared somewhat confrontational and aggresive in other threads. Your playstyle might be a reflection on you.

Let's just say competitive. Growing up with a twin brother will do that to you. I do love to argue the finer points of CIV and maybe my desire to learn using the Socratic method, makes me appear aggressive and confrontational. I'll keep that in mind in the future.

[Norselord]

dammit.

Now i am trying to remember the exact random events that work with espionage. anyone have a handy list or link to a post on this site that lists all of the random events?

[rah]

here's one link, I'll see if there are others since this isn't the latest list

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...e/938800/49511

This thread has other details

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236727

[Norselord]

here's one link, I'll see if there are others since this isn't the latest list

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...e/938800/49511

This thread has other details
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236727

Bummer.

Those sites are blocked. This forum is one of the few gaming forums not blocked by my work network. I'll check them out in a couple of hours when i get home.

Unless, ofcourse, you could ctrl-c/ctr-v some of that here

[rah]

Try to download solvers file from here

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=168754

[Ming]

Hrmm,

It seems to me that when i am running an SE, the slider has little to do with how many beakers i generate.

For Example: at a science slider of 30% it may take 8 turns to get a tech, compared to a slider at 60% to get it down to 7 turns. Is the best use of that 30%?

When I play SP, I run an SE most of the times. And yes, that is the best use.
In some games of my SP games, every 10 or 20% difference means a turn saved. But as you say, consider if you save just one turn for every tech you get... That's a dramatic advantage over the AI. That means that I get to some of the key later techs 20 or 30 turns sooner than I would have if I didn't. While you can steal techs with ESP, if you stay ahead of the AI, there is nothing really worth stealing. The back fill techs may indeed cost a turn or two vs stealing them, but I've tried the ESP route, and it never seemed like it was worth it the long run.