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**SlowThinker** · June 10, 2001, 17:32

Post 2

Post2
Instructions for use

This thread tries to concentrate all wisdom about diplomats and spies into one document (see the link in the Post 1). Please post your comments or insights about diplomats and spies.

You will post any suggestions :

to add new wisdom (will be marked green),
to put new questions that should be answered (will be marked blue),
to mark/unmark insecure or unsettled wisdom (will be marked red),

A note: I expect you will respond to the red text also if you agree with it so that I may remove the red color

remarks to mistakes or clarification needed (and my weak english )

and discuss them here.

I will integrate your suggestions into the main text (see the link in the Post 1).

I suggest to mark your posts by numbers (Post 5, Post 6...) for easier reference.

**SlowThinker** · June 10, 2001, 17:35

Post 3

List of my sources
Let me know if you know other interesting source of information related to dips/spies.

Civ2-Strategy: Poisoning and sabotaging
Civ2-Strategy: In response to the sabotage thing
Civ2-Strategy Bribing non-barb units
Scrolls of Ancient Wisdom (Winkler)
Civ2-Strategy To bribe or not to bribe
Archive Bribing cities - Apolyton Civilization Site Forums
Archive Can diplos survive attacks - Apolyton Civilization Site Forums
Archive Expelling diplos - Apolyton Civilization Site Forums
Archive Tips On Diplomacy - Apolyton Civilization Site Forums
Archive Finally a way to protect cities from bribing!
Archive Veteran diplomats - Apolyton Civilization Site Forums
Archive War in a diplo game... Is it worth it - Apolyton Civilization Site Forums
Archive bribe-proofing my cities - Apolyton Civilization Site Forums
Civ2-Strategy: Best use for a Diplomat-Spy
Civ2-Strategy: Early Diplomatic Warfare
Civ2-Strategy: city bribe question
Civ2-Strategy: Partisans
Civ2-Strategy: Poisoning (w-Spy)
Civ2-Strategy: Sabotaging SDI Defenses
Civ2-Strategy: Spies and City Walls
Civ2-Strategy: Spy questions
Civ2-Strategy: Spy-Dip question
Civ2-Strategy: Stealing techs
Civ2-Strategy: Stopping the cheapness! Inciting revolts
Civ2-Strategy: The AI can bribe a Democracy!
Civ2-Strategy: Using Diplomats Effectively
Civ2-Strategy: Vet Spys and Stealing Techs

**SlowThinker** · June 10, 2001, 17:41

Post 4

Recent important updates

06/10/01
The thread was moved due to Apolyton upgrade.
02/01/01
7.4 moved to 2.13-14
01/30/01
I removed old "new wisdom" highlights (green).
4.5-4.7 renumbered to 4.10-4.12

**SlowThinker** · June 10, 2001, 17:47

Post 5

deleted

**SlowThinker** · June 10, 2002, 13:46

Post 6

Starlifter posted this very useful comments to Civfantics (he is unable to load Apolyton pages):

Originally posted by starlifter at Civfanatics
Notes/Comments by Reference Number:

My Notes: I use Civ 2 MGE, 5.4.0f, 24mar99 (the Patch 3), and comments apply to Single Player games only (if any differences with MP, I have not tried). Some comments refer to possible options in scenario usage and/or game editing (e.g., Barbarian comments).

The comments follow the order of the website:

1.2: The "contact bribe" (at least in MGE SP) can change a unit to the enemy civ.

1.4: Other functions, like sabotage, are also allowed.

1.8: Change wording from "are ways how to get dip/spy with veteran status." to "can gain a non-vet's veteran status"

1.9: Delete "neither".

1.10: Insert closing parenthesis at end of 1st sentence.

2.11 Change "is" to "may be" (doing these dirties will not always result in an incident).

2.31 Insert closing parenthesis at end of sentence.

2.32 Change "arbitrarily " to "an arbitrary".

2.33 Add "or reputation" to "and it doesn't affect attitude."

3.4 Change "... plus all units one square out of the city ..." to plus all units (belonging to the civ owning the city) one square outside of the bribed city ...".

3.9 Two years ago, I tested the partisan issue just for my own info, and found out the increments of partisans followed the aquaduct/sewer cutoff as I recall. e.g., when city hit size 8, more partisans were formed, and size 12, even more. I believe size 5 was the cutoff for no partisans forming at all. I'd have to retest again sometime to verify the numbers and relative civ stuff, as I didn't keep the info... so don't quote the numbers as fact . It takes both Communism and Gunpowder (or Comm + Partisan Warfare) to produce partisans. GP, PW, and Consc can increase the number of Partisans produced.

PS, I cannot get the Apolyton pages to load to check those links... All Apolyton pages always timeout before loading, so Poly=Useless for me personally.

3.1 Move this section up to top (it is 3.1), or rename it to 3.10.

3.1: The modifiers are multiplicitive (meaning multilply together); change " ...(these modifiers are cumulative)... " to "(these modifiers are multiplicitave, e.g., multiply them together to obtain the final result)"

3.20: Barbs can, by editing, be allowed to gain gold and have any form of government. In normal random maps, though, this section is OK.

3.21. Not true. Bribed barb cities can have disorder after they are bribed.

3.22 True, as you can't have a CF, Peace, or Alliance with Barbs.

3.23. Totally untrue. Barbs can have any form of Gov't, but the human must set a flag manually. In regualar SP games, however, barbs by default will not be in Communism. Scenarios and manual editing are how barbs can be in Democracy (ugh!), Comm, Fundy, have gold, science, etc.

4.4 To avoid confusion between the Engish "non" with the "NONE" unit, I personally always refer to nons as "NONEs"... it can be very confusing to newer players as 4.4 is written. So change "non-unit" to "NONE unit" is my suggestion.

4.20 might want to add "(there is usually no barbarian gold (G=0), no barbarian capital, and no barb Democracy)

4.4 (notes) change "2nd row applies to formula 4.1 (10 shield-unit, 0 gold)" to "2nd row applies to formula 4.1 (10 shield-unit, 0 gold, not Set/Eng)"

5.1 (Table-Incite) Change "5/6 (2/3 if veteran) of price" to "5/6 (2/3 if veteran) of a Diplomat's price"

5.1 (Table-Nuke) Change "may be lost" to "Will never be lost"
Add "Non-vets will not achieve Veteran status if successful"

7.1 (after "Secondly"): Seems confusing in format; it took a several times of reading it to understand just what was meant . Maybe just a plain sentence like this:

Secondarily, her attempt may be foiled by an enemy dip/spy positioned in the city for the "steal technology/any will do" mission only (see 11.2); she completes her assignment for all other missions.

7.3 Add a comment about planting Nukes, mabye as a 7.5. When planting a Nuke, if the mission is successful, the spy will return to your nearest city; non-vets will not be upgraded to veterans; a successful nuking spy will always survive the bomb blast.

8.11. Veterans have 50% better odds of surviving a unit sabotage. The non-vet odds are 50-50, according to my experience (but I have not run a large series of tests under various conditions to fully test the odds).

11.1 The "Stolen Tech" flag may indeed change over time, as Xin Yu and Lucky have suggested. I have not tested or paid attention to this before, so I'm not sure. But the "Stolen Tech" flag will be reset if a city changes hands .

11.2 Maybe add wording: "The anti-espionage effect of more than one Dip/Spy in is multiplicative (multiplied) for each unit present in the city

11.5: I have not specifically tested the "sleep" vs. "fortified" anti-espionage effectiveness; I rarely see an AI spy get thru to a city. From a small sample size, I had not noticed a difference. I normally Sleep my spies (except in coastal transport cities) so they will wake up and alert me to any AI units moving nearby in a huge empire.

12.2 Definitely can't sabotoage an SDI in MGE, even at size 1 (from My_Wife_Hates_Civ). Besides tests, here is the message if you specify the SDI:

12.4 In this case, if you try to get the SDI, you'll never get the menu.... the production is always sabotaged if the SDI is the only improvement in city.

14.1: I've not run enough tests to verify exact Nuking odds, but I personally plan on 2 Vet or 4 non-vets to get a city nuked.... on average.

21.4 Expel to Capitol (Palace) city, not home city (your nearest city if no capitol).

21.5 Take AI Capital first (and assuming it does not move), many remaining city bribes are much cheaper (if AI not in Democracy) due to 4.12.

Well, that's about it You have a very comprehensive reference page, SlowThinker! Nice job to you and anyone who helped!

**TCO** · June 10, 2002, 15:43

Can you blow up the SDI if you send diplos or spies with random improvement setting?

**SlowThinker** · June 10, 2002, 17:11

Post 8

GP, no.
Do you want to say it is not clear in the main document?

**TCO** · June 10, 2002, 20:50

It was not clear from Starlifter's remarks. I've noted (or maybe just think I've noted) that there is a difference in lieklihoood of succes for when you speicy what you want to blow up or when you just destroy soemthnbing at random. For instance if you are htting a place with only city walls (and something under construction) you might be better off destroying stuff at random versus specifying the walls.

**War4ever** · June 23, 2002, 18:28

GP is correct, its much easier to destroy random objects with spies and after doing so the city is on high alert to your presence for the next 8-10 turns i think? I just remember getting the message... of the cities citizens being on high alert

**SlowThinker** · February 21, 2003, 17:07

3.20 Bribing barbarian cities: Formula 3.1 applies (there is usually no barbarian gold (G=0) and no barbarian capital (S=16; see 3.23)), but the price is halved.
3.24 not tested: "city was yours before"

I am sorry, this was false.
There is no price halved. "City was yours before" applies if needed. So bribing barb cities is equal to non-barb cities.

**Ren** · January 14, 2004, 00:15

Post 12

12.17
If you choose "give primary target" against the capital or walled city, then a message "Attempting sabotage in enemy capital or against city walls is very risky" appears. How much it lowers probability of a success? Have city walls and capital similar effect in other types of missions?

City walls don't affect other missions. The only difference is City Walls are less likely to be successfully sabotaged than other improvements (excluding SDI Defence, of course).

**SlowThinker** · January 16, 2004, 19:53

Originally posted by Ren
City walls don't affect other missions. The only difference is City Walls are less likely to be successfully sabotaged than other improvements (excluding SDI Defence, of course).

How did you get this conclusion? From testing or from missing "xxxx against city walls is very risky" message or ...?

**Ren** · January 17, 2004, 10:44

Post 14

Originally posted by SlowThinkerHow did you get this conclusion? From testing or from missing "xxxx against city walls is very risky" message or ...?

Uhh, I don't think I've missed any message; from my experience that message only appears when you specify City Walls for sabotage (or try any (sabotage?) mission against a nation's capital city).

**debeest** · January 17, 2004, 20:08

Ren, I think you stated correctly that city walls don't affect a spy's chances of completing any mission other than sabotaging city walls. But then, I think there was misunderstanding. SlowThinker intended to ask whether that conclusion was based on the evidence of testing, or just on not getting the warning message when you try other missions against in cities with walls.

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