Turn 239: 1240 AD

[Aeson]

I meant seeing what is in the cities on Lego if/when we capture/build them.

If we have a city on Lego that we choose to defend will only show them the top defender. Without a spy they won't know what our troop composition in the city is, if we had the 13 Transports all full or some were empty, or if we loaded the Marines back up and are sailing to another port.

If we have more than 1 city it's even more important as they have to guess the troop distribution between them. On turn 2 they won't know if we dropped off units from the S task force into the harbor city or if we kept them on the ships.

It's only going to matter for a couple of turns, but will be a huge advantage if we can be spying into their cities while they can't spy into ours.

I think at least until we can spy out which city is the best target, and then verify the FP location, we need to do everything we can to keep them from having a spy planted with us, and keep our spy planted with them.

[Arrian]

Are we going to declare war on Vox as well? Because if not, Vox can investigate cities for Lego.

Just a thought for the day. Oh, and one more: this is going to be incredibly bloody.

-Arrian

[asleepathewheel]

wow, lot to digest here.

Great week for my internet to go crazy

[DeepO]

I can only concur, sleepy... it's nearing 4 am, so allow me to respond to all of this in the morning (too much reception and high-alcohol beers for me, today), but it's excellent to see many of our members posting their views! Keep it up, comments from me are coming in the morning

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
wow, lot to digest here.

Great week for my internet to go crazy

Yeah, I'm on a pay-by-the-second dial-up until my DSL line gets enabled .....

[DeepO]

In the spying discussion, a few more thoughts:

1. We currently do not have money to burn. We're not short on cash, but we still need some extra 3000 gold for upgrades to get Stormia safe. Especially nearing the end of the war this becomes very important, as we won't only need to protect against GoW, but also against ND, who will have tanks by that time (they currently still rely on cavs, which also solves the discussion whether Lego can get them to attack GoW. Nope, no chance with cavs...)

2. we've got Vox who can spy, and Lego... both with updated information. If we prevent Lego from gaining information, we also have to prevent Vox.

3. cash is not the problem for these allies: There is nothing to research for Vox except marines (now that they have flight). That's no priority once they are under attack... and Lego can most likely research at 4-turn pace without deficit spending. Further, planting a spy is half as expensive as exposing spies (but I don't know how this will evolve when at war)

4. You can plant a spy, and investigate cities in the same turn. Exposing spies is merely an annoyance if they can be safely replanted.

5. Does anybody knows anything on how we can improve our chances to prevent spies entering? Is there any documentation on spies, either for vanilla Civ or PTW?

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

It sounds like what you're suggesting, DeepO, is that counter espionage isn't cost-effective against 2 civs with copious wads of cash.

Apart from switching to communism later (productive Legoland, anyone?) I don't know of any other methods.

[DeepO]

Well, let me repeat that I'm in no way an expert in espoinage, but from what I know, it seems like it isn't cost-effective at all. When we would have cash to burn, I would do it immediately, but that is not our situation.

We made the decision a while ago to go for MI at, or around the time of invasion, on the cost of having just enough to upgrade all our forces (maximum to I level), and a bit of espionage. We're as a result not short on cash, but can barely manage... in a few turns our situation should improve greatly.

Does communism prevent espionage? While that is right now not an option, it could be possible to consider in case we would get invaded... taking away the invaders' eyes would certainly be welcome.

DeepO

[Krill]

In communism the spies are vets, not regular, like all other civs are. I'll search for an article on it. I am sure that I read one over on CFC...

[Krill]

Here is the link that I was looking for...

[DeepO]

Great read, Krill Thanks!

This changes a lot... There is a connection between the date a spy is exposed, and the chance of success a few turns later on. I need to read the details once more, but if we expose a Lego spy in the first turn of the war, it is unlikely they can immediately plant a new spy.

However, this still leads to the second problem: If we don't declare war on Vox, they remain ideally placed to spy for Lego. They don't even need a spy, an embassy will be enough, and 'investigate city' will always succeed. Only at war can we expose possible spies, and be somewhat certain of our privacy

DeepO

[vmxa1]

Is there any likelyhood that Vox will not declare on us once the war stats? Won't Lego want to be able to use whatever forces Vox has to aid them?

[DeepO]

Not in the first few turns. And thats when spying is most critical.

I think the best way to proceed is to wait for now. If they expose our spy, we don't plant a new one, but wait until D-day (once planted, investigating a city will allways work). At that moment, we expose Lego spies (if they are there, and if we can find them), which should leave them blind for at least one turn. I think we better don't do it beforehand: right now, it doesn't matter what they can see. And it could only give them ideas on exposing our spy.

DeepO

[vmxa1]

Makes sense to me.

[DeepO]

The only real advantage I see in exposing their spy is that at most, they will be blind for 1 turn for as long as we don't declare war on Vox. Vox can spy for them, but they have to realise Lego can't do it. If we expose the Lego spy at the critical moment, there is a good chance they still think they've got one, and don't ask Vox to spy on certain cities. Once their turn starts, they see their spy is gone, but it's too late to ask Vox as their turn has passed already.

Something else this consider: Lego could get an advantage if we post our battlereports too early: they could analyse them, and ask Vox to react to our screenshots, instead of what they know. Maybe we should delay the battlereports until after Vox played their turn. OTOH, Vox just seeing the map, and deciding which cities we took from Lego could be enough to have a very good guess on which cities they need to investigate. But it will be more trouble for them, instead of us just posting which cities are gone.

DeepO