The Espionage Thread

[mostly-harmless]

We should see PAL's demographics next turn! (Or the turn after that the latest, should the cost increase again)

mh

[mostly-harmless]

If nobody has a better idea, I will direct espionage points to amass towards Templars (our likely 1st adversary) while maintaining enough points to see PAL's and Imperio's demographs.

mh

[ruff_hi]

sounds good to me.

[mostly-harmless]

Quick heads up.
The espionage spending is still closely monitored and managed.
We are currently (T67) at the following situation:
PAL (38 them - 42 us): It makes sense to assume that PAL has met all civs on the map. They have not been spending any points towards us for a while, which is fine.
Imperio (62 them - 49 us): Imperio has met us, PAL & Templars. 2 out of their 4 espionage points are directed towards us each turn.
Templars (122 them - 105 us): Templars have met us, PAL & IMperio. 2 out of their 4 espionage points are directed towards us each turn. Research is revealed at around 170points.

We are currently spending 3-4 points on Templars while keeping the other two civs above the "see demographics" level.

mh

[Zeviz]

We are 1 point from losing demographics info on PAL and 0 points from losing it on Imperio, so I've changed distribution to 1/2/1 (Templar/Imperio/PAL).

If PAL goes for CoL and builds a lot of courthouses, we might have hard time keeping up with their EP production, so perhaps we should start focusing on PAL instead of Templars. (Templars are so weak that and EP spent on them beyond bare minimum would be wasted anyway.)

[Sullla]

That sounds good, Zeviz. mostly_harmless usually runs the Espionage points, so he can comment further on the issue when he gets back.

We definitely need to make sure we can see each team's Demographics above all else.

[mostly-harmless]

@ Zeviz:
That is the "normal" situation (being just on par with Imperios & PAL).
PAL, knowing all 5 of their rivals, has only 4 ept to spent and has not spend a single one on us for ages, so the costs to see their demographs has been like this for ages.
Imperio did spend 2ept on us, so we have to invest here from time to time to keep just above the costs to see their demographics.
The remaining ept were spent on Templars, as a likely first target.

Now the situation has changed it appears.
- Not only is your point a very valid one, more ept for PAL will probably see them spending them on us again, so we have to keep up.
- Also, Imperio seems to have increased their ept towards us to 3pt out of 4ept, since a few turns (after signing OB with Templars?), so we have to increase our effort to keep up.
- And we are hoping to meet Banana and Rabbits in the new future and want to spend some ept towards them to unlock their demographics. (we might have courthouses ourselves by then).

So all things considered, I suggest to move towards a 0/2/2 (Tmp/Imp/PAL) spending for a while to build up some buffers.

EDIT: If the current situation persists, Templars and Imperio will be seeing our research in a while (~15-25 turns).

mh

[mostly-harmless]

This deserves a separate post:
If I read the foreign relation screen & the espionage point assignment correctly the following situation unravels:
PAL has not spend a single ept on either Imperio or Templars, so has no clue about their demographics and consequently no clue about Imperios GNP might power!
Also Templars seems to have not spent enough ept towads PAl to spot their demographics.
PAL focuses all their espionage towards Banana and/or Rabbits.

mh

[Sullla]

Wow. That *IS* news-worthy. Nice work!

I agree that we should try to get a buffer of Espionage points if possible, so we can slam all of them onto Rabbits/Banana when we meet them.

[Swiss Pauli]

PAL's thinking is pretty straightforward: going for broke on expansion without defence then they *had* to know as much as possible about their potential short-term threats. If their strat pays off then they'll be able to catch up ESP on the other civs later.

[mostly-harmless]

Sullla, you apparently changed our epts spending back to 3 (Imperio) & 1 (Rabbits).
Do you think seeing Rabbits demographics every turn is that important when compared to increasing Imperios costs to see our research and force them to sacrifice GNP with the slider?

mh

[Sullla]

Yes, I do. The incredibly miniscule cost of maintaining Demographics info with Rabbits (1 EP/turn currently) is far more valuable than putting all of the points against Imperio. What do we REALLY get out of that - making them run the Espionage slider at 10% one out of every four turns? I don't think that hurts Imperio all that much. Besides, by running 3/4 EPs against Imperio, they still have to run the Espionage slider at 10% one out of every five turns. The net effect of pouring everything against Imperio is that they will have to run the slider (at 10%) one extra turn out of every 20. And that's so minor, it's barely even worth considering.

Of course, we could help ameliorate this problem further by simply building some courthouses for additional EPs.

[mostly-harmless]

Well, I disagree. Every little helps. There is not much we can learn from Rabbits by looking at their demographics every turn. And we can easily catch up in 20 turns, when we have some courthouses and the Imperio threat is mitigated.
Pouring all our epts towards Imperio, sends a clear message to them and forces them to run the slider every 4-5 turns.

Anyway, I created another C&D department to look at epts spendings of our rivals.
I hope the attached schematics is clear. It shows current spending and accumulated epts.


mh

[Sullla]

All I will say is that Rabbit Demographic info is pretty useful to me - not in the GNP or Food/Production analysis, but definitely in terms of Soldier count. It allows me to get a much better estimate of what each city is building, and I believe that's the most important analysis we're doing right now. Knowing turn by turn what each city has built is pretty much the ultimate advantage in Civ!

Since we disagree on this, we should probably ask the rest of the team and see what the general consensus is.

[sunrise089]

I agree with Sullla, only because the marginal difference is so small on the Imperio end (once every 4 versus once ever 5 turns) and so large on the Rabbit end (demos every turn versus every 20).