Cost of spying

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Jaybe

I disagree, from personal experience.

It's all a matter of that randomizer thingy. It CAN seem like it's a vinyl turntable with "the record's stuck, the record's stuck, ...".

[offtopic]

Hot potato, don't pick it up, pick it up, pick it up....

Anyone get the reference?

[/offtopic]

[Nym]

In fact, the only way I find valuable to steal a technology is when you can not buy it, because the AI absolutely refuses it. I was faced with this for a space tech and I steal it from the Greeks for about 5000 gold. That was my only chance to win the game.

Concerning planting a spy I noticed a greater success rate after the AI capitol has moved. But maybe it's only a personal impression.

[metalhead]

I have been able to work it that on the same turn, I try and fail to plant a spy in one civ, then have success planting in another civ in the same turn, and am then successful when attempting to plant a spy with the first civ.

I don't know how useful any input is on this thread - all of our evidence of how espionage works seems highly anecdotal and based on very small sample space observations. We NEED a thorough analysis of espionage, as I have no idea, either from reading the forums or my own experience, the mechanics of the espionage options. A guide to improving success of planting, the chances of success of each risk level, etc. is necessary. Does anyone know if such information is available?

[Demerzel]

Barchan, isnt that from one of the late Douglas Adams' books? 'The long, dark teatime of the soul' if I recall correctly.

[On topic]

Spying is ridiculously expensive, unless you're really raking it in it's just not worth spying which is annoying. I remember in Civ2 when you'd use spies all the time and even better was when you took an enemy city you'd get a tech off them. I used to have massive battles over an enemy's large city when they were several techs ahead of me in order to catch up some.

I've tuned the base cost from 10 -> 7 to see if that helps some in the game. Another thing that Firaxis just didn't really think through/play with enough sadly :/

[Flight]

I used it a lot in one game when i managed to piss off all the AIs so much they wouldnt trade with me for anything (i basically made loads of gpt deals for tech then attacked while in ROP ) so i had to steal tech. As someone said above it works almost every time (say 90% or something) when done safely and at the time i had lowered the corruption settings so i had >1k gpt and could get a new tech every 3 turns.

In a normal game it definitely costs too much if you can trade fairly but it doesnt cost that much more than what would be 'worth it'.

On planting spies i'd say that you definitely should wait a turn or 2 before retrying a placement. I have had it work on the second time of trying in the same turn but thats only happened once in a game where i tried it maybe 30 times or so because i had really screwed the corruption settings and had over 100k gold

I do like to know exactly what units the enemy has, though...

[Demerzel]

d'oh double post!

[Demerzel]

>1k gpt. not bad.

had to use spying myself recently as the rest of the civs ( all 5 of them ) have declared war on me thx to the joys of MPPs and alliances. been fighting them from about 1832 and its 1968 and we're still fighting. Regardless of the fact that I've reduced most of their empires to dust by the joys of ethnic cleansing, oops I mean "raze that city boys!", they all want me to donate free techs to them in return for peace. As if!

depressingly enough it all started 'cos one of the AIs declared war on me and then his buddies joined in the ruckus

[Tiberius]

they all want me to donate free techs to them in return for peace. As if!

Keep reducing thir empires to dust, they will beg for peace! In my current game the romans attacked me and I stopped only when they had only 5 cities left. They agreed to give me 2 out of their 5 cities to sign a peace treaty!
Now, probably a warmonger would have totally destoyed them, but I'm a nice guy and let them live

[Demerzel]

problem is i was only the 2nd largest civ and it's taken time to take out the largest civ. this one is finally offering peace but only at parity, it won't give me any free stuff. the other civs are all on islands and with the AI killing my elite battleships with ease with vet ironclads/destroyers it's taking time to pacify them.

as im playing on the standard earth map, imagine the fact that i've razed all of greenland, now all of asia, europe is being razed as we speak and africa is not far behind. must have razed about 60-80 cities so far, keeping only ones where luxuries are or WoWs. the thing that is taking the time is the constant counter-attack from the enemy AI's tanks, of which the strongest regardless of the number of cities it has left can always keep an army of 8 in the field each turn even tho' i kill 6 of those each go.

got all 8 luxuries now tho' which is helping even tho' due to the length of the war my civ fell out of democracy to anarchy and im holding in monarchy for the time being

tempted to just play my new game as I'm tired of being Genghis 'raze that city' Khan

[Tiberius]

Wow! I would have probably given up the whole game a lot earlier and started a new one! I don't have the pacience to fight so long-lasting wars.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Demerzel
... the AI killing my elite battleships with ease with vet ironclads/destroyers it's taking time to pacify them.

...

Battleships are defensively a little weak. I raised them to a 16 defense, giving the attacker just a small edge in a BB vs. BB fight. OTOH, I gave all the modern naval units 'blitz' capability.

[Demerzel]

yeah battleships only being able to attack once is pretty dumb, not sure why Firaxis did that apart from I guess preventing a battleship from cleaning up an enemy flotilla in one turn. but thats what the ol' bismarck & her sister ships were built to do in ww2 so why not?

the only way ive kept that game going so long is by taking regular breaks, mainly after the bloody AI has managed to resurrect all of its tanks that i killed the previous turn and outfought several MI to destroy some of my exposed and damaged elite tanks :/

in SMAC id keep it going until I'd smacked down the enemy civ, as Miriam & Lal, etc.. were something you could take real pleasure in defeating. killing a civ in Civ3 just doesnt have that same enjoyment.

[Jaybe]

Demerzel, a basic reason why I gave modern warships blitz was my frustration at not being able to knock off a galleon and its escorting frigate with a single modern unit. Blitz is used effectively by the AI, and includes multiple bombardments. Multiple bombardment capability is another reason to increase the BB defense, as I had left the bombard strengths alone.

1-page MS Word document of my mods available upon request

[Flight]

ggrrrr
in my current game i didnt research anything above currency so i was buying tech off other civs
first i attacked the french and after conquering about half their civ i asked for peace in exchange for a tech. No chance.

I proceeded to kill them and do the same with the germans. Still no tech.

I did it again to the greeks and even down to 2 cities left they refused to give me any tech but would GLADLY hand over their last city for peace, BAH!

I should have saved it when it happened but i could play up to the point from a previous save if anyone is particularly interested but im not that bothered atm

I also tried to steal tech 3 times safely and it has failed each time - that is perhaps more strange (none of the civs will deal with me... mainly cos im at war with most of them).

[stonewall]

Originally posted by Tiberius
You're right! I found it here. It says:

Updated interface improvements like auto bombard, rally points, stacked movement and a streamlined espionage interface allow for more efficient management.

I wonder what does this mean

Found this on civfanatics.com about the PTW expansion:

"Espionage works very similarly to the way it did in civ3. All the popups are compressed into a single screen in PTW, but the options remain the same."

It's too bad they are going to make any improvements in this area (assuming this statement is true).