How to find enemy´s capital

[Cobra]

One of my first steps on my way to win a duell is to find enemy´s capital. It´s much easier to make a surprise attack, if no unit has ever made a step on enemy´s land. All I need is an enemy-city not more than 15 fields away from capital.
With only one diplo, p.e. on a ship, I find the correct place of the capital. I send the diplo into the city to get the price to bribe the city. I leave and go to another place and sent the same diplo into the same city, get a second price, if possible I make it a third time, then I open an embassy with this diplo to get informations about enemys gold.
A conclusion of the spy-threads is to make a formula, that helps to find the distance to the capital. The formula is:
Distance=(((CitySize*(1000+Enemygold))/price to bribe)-3)
With my diplo I got 2 or 3 distances, now I use my matrix to find the capital. That´s it.

H=Capital (German: Hauptstadt)
x=no bribing possible

[La Fayette]

sehr schön!

[Henrik]

Is that an eye?

[Elephant]

wunderbar!

[Shaka Naldur]

quite interesting!

[DrSpike]

Cunning in the extreme.

[Cobra]

I posted this many months ago in our stupid krauts lforum....

http://civ2-forum.gamigo.de/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6750

[Shaka Naldur]

nothing in english?

[Scouse Gits]

Neat piece of work - well done

SG[1]

[Straybow]

Yes, I see. Bribe price = size*(1000+gold)/(distance+3) by that formula. However, I believe that building a Courthouse has some effect on the bribe price. Perhaps it is fairly rare in MP? It is certainly rare for the AI to bother.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Straybow
Perhaps it is fairly rare in MP?

Rare would be an understatement, for all practical purposes one can consider the case with no courthouse.

[War4ever]

actually, its rare, but it is done..if i have a sweet city that is suffering from corruption then i will build a courthourse right after the temple.

sometimes i get the market in there first, but if you have the cash the courthouse is great for republic/monarchy and of course the xtra happy in demo makes celbrating the city afterwards much easier..

its not something i/we as mp'ers do early in a game, but if you get rolling, its a viable strategy.....

as for that eye..jesus, big brother is everywhere

[rah]

Ditto what War said. If there is REAL SWEET city far away, I may consider a courthouse early. But using this method would ding me right around 99% of the time.

But he uses this to plan a sneak attack against your cap. Unless my cap is on the shore, it will be surrounded by other cities and surprising it will be impossible. It can be dangerous moving your units into the black, when they can already be seen by your opponent's guard city.

[War4ever]

yup the ring of ciites with the cap in the middle, best way to guarrantee safety, i get nervous if i can't block the cap in all directions

[Cobra]

Is your capital always in the middle of your land? Look at your saves. Mostly the capital is max. 5 fields away from coast.
If I never attacked one of your cities, there are in the normal case only 3 cheap units in a city at monarchy, 1 or 2 in republic. If I come along with 3 Ships with only 9 elephants, I need 4 elis to get a city at the coast, drive in with the 2 other ships and still have 5 elis to walk 3 steps on a road and attack the capital. Look at your saves, i bet in over 80% there would be a chance to make it, if someone knows your capital.