Question about nukes, and one about spies.....

[wvfoos]

Ok, I'm on my first regent level game, and I'm fairly far (like 4 or so techs) behind the ai. I just entered the modern age. I posted a sav from this game like last week, but have managed to hold on for a while longer than I thought. I'm pretty much at the mercy of the aztecs who hate me, and the chinese who are polite. Although i did manage to jump in and steal a couple of cities from the worldwide war against the babylonians (it was every country against them and rome, and rome has exactly one city, size 4).

Aztecs and chinese both have MA and MI, i'm still at the tank/inf level. I'm thinking, I'm next on the list of the aztecs to get whacked, so, I thought about making a beeline to icbms (i'm only like 2 techs away) so I can have some deterrent. My question is, does the ai recognize the nuke deterrent factor? They could invade (and i know FOR SURE they would as they've already tried it twice), sure, but would they, if they knew I would nuke them? In other words, does MAD work and does the ai understand it?

Second question. I got the message that we caught a chinese spy in my capital (or that we caught them tyring to place one there). What does that do for me? Note: I DON'T have espionage. I was far enough behind, that I let it slide as its not req'd to move on to modern times.

[Solver]

IMO, the AI knows you have nukes and it should make them fear you more.

As for the spy, if you caught him, it means they can no longer spy on you, unless they plant a new one.

[planetfall]

Where's your save? What thread?

Spies are sometimes planted just before AI attacks. Watch out for the next 2-4 turns.

Sounds like you need:
1. money to bribe other civs for MPP/luxuries/techs
2. scary military. Nukes alone may not do it. Artillery are not respected. If having to choose, inf are weighted more than tanks. AI seems to calculate defensive power over offensive.

Need more details or thread link for any more ideas.

-- PF

[Strakorfsky]

Hm, the ai thinks in methods of "how well can he protect himself from me"

I woudl trying beffing up on city defence and investing in more offensive units. Just makign defence won't win the game.

If they do attack, (if you survive the intial rush) try and counter attack the AI, often they wont consider your tanks a viable threat until they are knocking on thei front door step.

Nukes and ICBMs are realy ineffective. The onyl real purpose is too weaken a city's defenders before you attack. well, that is how I use um anyways

I guess just bunker in and try not to gte into international wars like 3 v 1. Those can go off veyr badly if you don't know how to divert very larger army's with superior stratagies.

Also, air can really stop and advancing enemy, get bomber ready incase they try and hti you with modern amore, just bombard them to one hit point and they will go home, or you can finsh them off.

Also, making friends with styrong civs can really help in war, pay a s*** load of tributes to a civ, and get them polite or cautios to you, then when somone attacks, ask for them to make an alliance, then righot of passage and mutual protection. This will ussauly make them gracious, and add trade and they will suck up to you. Give you cheaper rates to exchange techs to catch up.

Just stay on top of diplomacy, and don't be afraid if you see they amde war, make allaince and they often ignore you and go for other.

Try using the mobilize for war. It can strike out units 2x faster then without. And then go to war and it will turn off, magic eh?

Also, be careful about going to war in democraccy and republic for obviouse reasons.

[Strakorfsky]

And about spies, for the most part, they are s***.

Once you can get them, conducting the mission effectivly cost so much money that it becomes useless to do so often.

And the most an AI ussualy does with them is steal techs or see where your troops are.

COnspired revolts in democracy are impossible so no need there.

COmmunist spies can cause trouble, they have a 25% more chance of carryting out a mission. And ussualy harder and mroe expensive to find.

[Patroklos]

Nukes may not be a deterent to an AI attack, but they will do the trick to blunt an offensive. A nuke does not simply reduce a population, but also destroys all improvments around a city. So if you hit the camital with a nuck, there goes all that civs trade. Also, you can design you r nuke hits to destroy resource networks, disrupting an AI ability to build new units for at least a few turns.

Beyond that, if in your game the enemy is on your border, build some cheaper tactical nukes to hit his closer cities to save shields. destroying his border cities will also leave his transport system for his offensive in shambles, buying you more time. I am not quite sure what the exact effect of nukes on cities is on units, but it can't be good and it is a good bet most of his units will be massed on the border at the beginning of a war, when a nuclear exchange would take place.

Nukes may not prevent a war, but their judicious use may help you survive. Then again, how many nukes does he have to retaliate with?

[zorbop]

pardon me if this has already been posted (i didn't read the whole thread), but here goes

i would build up a small offensive forse of tanks, then find some little defended cities somewhere. you declare war one the civ, and blitz them with your tanks the same turn, taking at least a city or 2. then go for a peace treaty as soon as they will talk to you.
in exchange for peace, demand some techs....
btw i would declarfe war on india or france as they will talk to you the soonest after you declare war.

but make sure to get peace before they can gather up some allies.....
-----

the other thing i might try to do is to instigate a world wide conflict(best way is with mutual protection acts) and just quietly move behind your allies troops and conquer the cities they have weakened...

[wvfoos]

Well, i lost. Oh well, I played it up to like 1300 ad (accel prod), and everyone had nukes, etc.

Aztecs had MA and MI. I had MI, and was working on synthetic fibers to get MA. Out of all the hand wringing that I did, with all the wars raging on my north border that I tried desperately to stay out of, because my units sucked, i managed to take like 5 cities from the babs, and 2 or 3 from egypt. I expanded my empire quite nicely. AAMOF, no other civ was able to make much of a dent anywhere other than their starting point, except me. I probabaly increased my territory by 30 percent by taking those cities from bab and egypt. I took the nuke strategy, and built them first. What a waste. Should have gone for ma and mi first, and used them to attack with, at least on my continent.

Anyway...., I'm playing along, just about to catch up and the ^%*^%&*^&*&& chinese win a cultural victory. They had like 2500 points, aztecs had like 1500, i had about 1300. Crushed, but considering it was only like my 3rd full game of civ3, and first on regent level (and with no cheating), i think i didn't do too bad. Gotta micromanage my cities much better from the start, though.


But back to the spy question. I tried to put a spy in several times and was caught. I mean, like 10 times, and I got busted each time. Is that normal? Also, if i try, and get busted, can i try again in the same turn (paying again, of course)? Or do u only get one spy each turn for each AI civ? I know i tried 2 times in one round for the chinese, but got caught both times. Was the second time a waste?

[DanaLea]

I have the same question about the spys... does teh second try to place a spy in a single turn ever work? manual says placing a spy has a 50% chance of working - but i have never gotten one placed on a second (same turn) try.

-dana

[aaglo]

Twice I have tried to plant a spy in the same city for about 8 times/turn. No luck.

Why aren't I succesful???

[vmxa1]

Just a guess, but the form of government could be a factor. Are they democratic or what, what about yours. I would think that would have some impact after that it is just the roll of the dice. If they have a spy in your capitol, that could be another factor.

[planetfall]

Originally posted by aaglo
Twice I have tried to plant a spy in the same city for about 8 times/turn. No luck.

Why aren't I succesful???

Because you can't spell successful? ;-)

Nah, actually because the success rate in planting a spy is related to A) type of government of civ you are trying to spy on, and B) the random number.

Hardest governments to plant spies in is communist. If you go into the editor, you will see with each government an experience level for espionage. The higher the experience level the harder it is to plant a spy.

Ok, so how do you increase chances of success?

1. Try no more than 2 times a turn
2. if fail 3 turns in a row, skip a couple turns and then retry
3. vary when in turn you attempt a planting. If at start of turn fails, try end of turn. If both end fail, try in the middle of your turn.

Firaxis has not told us what events are used to modify the RNG for spying. By varying when you try, hopefully you will get a different random number and different results.

The only reason for trying to plant a spy more than 2 times is if you are trying to entice war. Failure in planting a spy will turn civ's attitude more negative, until you finally get furious.

Good luck..

-- PF