What We Love About Espionage

[Norselord]

Collection of thoughts and strats on Espionage:

1. Great Spy Bomb Tech Steal
2. Exploration (protected goody hut looting)
3. Pillaging ocean resources from subs and caravels
4. Saving siege units for collatoral damage
5. Space ship sabotage
6. tracking SODs
7. teching transparency
8. forcing civic/religion changes

more?

[Lord Avalon]

High stakes gambling
Villains
Beautiful locations around the world
Seducing beautiful women for king and country
Chase scenes
High tech gizmos
Things that go BOOM!

Oh, wait, were you just talking about Civ?

[rah]

9. counter espionage

[Norselord]

10. resource denial. Some civs get pretty nasty with certain resources...balista elephants... Also, you can in one turn trash 3-4 happy resources and foment unhappiness in 3-4 key cities to cripple someone very badly. Especially useful if someone is neck-and-neck towards a key tech that grants bonus for first to discover.

11. Trade your own gold to another Civ for a resource, then send spies in to steal the money back.


12. If Civ A is trading a resource to Civ B and you want to trade the same resource, sabotage the resource in Civ A and make an offer to Civ B for the same resource.

[rah]

Now we're starting to talk about a level of micro-management that might start to annoy me.

[Theben]

Causing revolts in cities building spaceship parts, or attempting to reach legendary status, if military options aren't available.

[rah]

13. Watching the AI prioritize EP over Science and falling behind in the tech race. And then wasting them on silly stuff that doesn't really hurt me and expending hammers on spies that would have been better spent on unit to protect his lame ass.

[Norselord]

13. Watching the AI prioritize EP over Science and falling behind in the tech race. And then wasting them on silly stuff that doesn't really hurt me and expending hammers on spies that would have been better spent on unit to protect his lame ass.

Silly AI...

...that obviously doesn't apply to humans.

Humans like to explore different paths to victory to enhance enjoyment.

Maybe the AI should explore a way to get both Science and EP...maybe then the AI would realize that the cost of creating the spies to steal techs after a GSP (Great Spy Bomb) is cheaper in hammers than researching.

Perhaps the AI needs to also learn that a good espionage program is compliment to, not a substitute for, a gameplan.

The AI also needs to learn that there is a difference between absolute power and relative power. Espionage is about creating a relative difference between empires by slowing, limiting, and hindering the opponent.

If a spy costs 30 hammers to build, and through her life she denied an opponent 18 hammers by destroying a mine and forcing the rebuild and 13 hammers through a revolt, she has given her master a net edge on his opponent. If she destroys progress towards a wonder, building, or unit on top of that, she is widening the gap further.

Ofcourse, the only time the AI would have to build a spy is each time a spy was caught. If the AI used his spies wisely, then the same spy could carry out several missions.

Too bad the AI is not as smart as the human...right?

[rah]

If a spy costs 30 hammers to build, and through her life she denied an opponent 18 hammers by destroying a mine and forcing the rebuild and 13 hammers through a revolt, she has given her master a net edge on his opponent. If she destroys progress towards a wonder, building, or unit on top of that, she is widening the gap further.

Even in your example here the AI lost in the exchange because of the EP points expended on those missions.

The AI doesn't steal enough techs, and when they do it usually means they're behind because their slider was on EP instead of beakers. And if they're behind in tech, most of the time, their civ is soon to be eliminated by my superior troops.

Yes, the AI is not as smart as the human.

[rah]

Oh, and the last game I played, I'd check the ESP points the turn I eliminated each civ. They usually had over 10,000 to my 2500 or so. In my book that's 7500 wasted that could have maybe gotten them a few more techs that would have led to better/more defensive troops. (the 20 or so spies that expired sitting in my cities waiting to perform mission) No, not smart at all.

[Jaybe]

Oh, and the last game I played, I'd check the ESP points the turn I eliminated each civ. They usually had over 10,000 to my 2500 or so. In my book that's 7500 wasted that could have maybe gotten them a few more techs that would have led to better/more defensive troops. (the 20 or so spies that expired sitting in my cities waiting to perform mission) No, not smart at all.

Tsk, tsk. You REALLY should have a house rule requiring you to have at least the EP to gain visibility in most cities (at least on your continent). Better would be to inspect their cities.

You have more EP; less research, so the game is more challenging/fulfilling; more awareness of what the AI is up to. It's a relatively simple way to lower yourself toward the AI's level (in the science/espionage realms).

[Norselord]

The AI is dumb, because it splits all of its EPs relatively evenly amongst all the Civs it is in contact with.

The AI should probably identify the warmonger and the techer and spend the majority (>90%) of total EPs on them.

The AI is pretty silly if it builds Spies without having a mission in mind, which appears to be the case in Rah's example.

On the other hand, when a player builds EPs, he is insuring that his investment in hammers is not undone by other spies through pillaging, sabotage, revolt, etc. That investment can be cashed in at a later time through a mission.

Rah, your points are semi-valid as it pertains to the way you play the game. It seems to me you are a linear warmonger who fights his way across the map, one enemy at a time. Espionage can dovetail with warmongering by taking down enemy walls with a revolt, which allows your siege units to soften up a city one turn quicker. Espionage can pillage a resource that has enemy units stationed on it. If you are SPI you can switch to a poor set of civics for free and then force it on your enemy, they will have to go to anarchy for a turn or more (how many hammers is that?!) in order to switch back.

I suggest you try a SE/Espionage game before you dismiss it. If nothing else, it might give you some better arguments against it.

[Norselord]

Tsk, tsk. You REALLY should have a house rule requiring you to have at least the EP to gain visibility in most cities (at least on your continent). Better would be to inspect their cities.

You have more EP; less research, so the game is more challenging/fulfilling; more awareness of what the AI is up to. It's a relatively simple way to lower yourself toward the AI's level (in the science/espionage realms).

Why does science need to suffer while running espionage? While running a specialist economy in representation, how high does your science slider need to go? You can get by with 20-30% and still do respectable teching. That leaves you with 30-50% to put into culture, cash, or espionage.

I am well aware of all the nice things cash can do in the game, but that is not what this thread is about.

This thread is about all the nice things that espionage can do.

[Norselord]

Better would be to inspect their cities.

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.

[Ming]

While I understand the purpose of this thread...

Why does science need to suffer while running espionage?

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...