[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[Qgqqqqq]

You can only steal techs you can research.

[scooter]

Good catch Q, that makes much more sense about tech stealing. That said, I’ve sort of been forced to think about Espionage a bit if we go through with allowing it. I felt I should jot down the espionage tools various techs have. I’m probably missing a couple, but here’s some quick numbers of ones I’m quickly aware of.


Constitution opens up the Jail with is +4 EPs and +50% EPs. For 120 hammers your capital can produce 12 EPs/turn prior to Courthouses being available. This is enough for “full” EP spend on 3 players early on. The total effect here is probably not huge, but it would be enough to be annoying to other players as you would basically be locked out of graphs at will from any player who chose to build this for quite awhile.


Democracy opens up the Security Bureau which provides +8EPs and +50% EPs. This one is more costly at 220h which is a genuinely large cost for the early game and is unlikely to be built super quickly, but around the time Courthouses come online it’s probably worthwhile. This would cause your capital to produce 18 EPs/turn, equivalent to a normal empire with 7 Courthouses. If the capital also had a Courthouse, this would come to 21 EPs/turn, equivalent to a normal empire with 8.5 Courthouses.


Communism unlocks the Intelligence Agency which has the same effects as the Security Bureau (minus the anti-spy effect), but it’s 180h rather than 220h. So all the above calculations apply. However, Communism also unlocks Scotland Yard which is the Great Spy building for +100% EPs. If you did pop a Spy and built this + the Intelligence Agency in your capital + a Courthouse, that would produce 35 EPs per turn from your capital as early as like T75ish when others are just finishing their first Courthouse. You could poison an enemy city every 4-5ish turns indefinitely and still keep EP parity with them. There’s an open question to be had whether this is a good use of an early great person, but it sounds ridiculous.


Yeah I’m pushed more towards team anti active missions, but if we keep them on, I think this is probably going to need to be a factor.

[Commodore]

Would EP being on make you consider Nationalism at all?

[scooter]

Would EP being on make you consider Nationalism at all?

I dunno, maybe? The +25% is sort of soft when you wouldn’t have any new tools to increase the base EPs. It would be worth just 1 EP/turn for the pre-Courthouse era which is more or less nothing. I suppose you could take Organized and get Courthouses online early OR you could take Sumeria and use Ziggurats. But it seems like a lot of effort and opportunity cost (you actually have to build the Courthouses everywhere) compared to the 3 options above that can dwarf all of that with just 1 building. And even once you have the Courthouses up, it turns them from 2 EP/turn to 2.5 EP/turn.


It might be an icing on the cake to bump Nationalism into the also-ran tier, but I struggle to imagine it being worth picking here. You almost have to pick Agg/Org to make it viable to make the Barracks happy more meaningful, and that’s a real leader opportunity cost in Vanilla BtS. I'd consider it if we were picking two techs or we had a tech ban round or something.

[Thoth]

Couple of game mechanic corrections:

Security Beureaus don't give +50% eps, just the base 8 plus espionage defence and some spy slots

Scotland Yard doesn't require tech just a Great Spy

[scooter]

Couple of game mechanic corrections:

Security Beureaus don't give +50% eps, just the base 8 plus espionage defence and some spy slots

Scotland Yard doesn't require tech just a Great Spy

This is what I get for consulting a crappy wiki rather than the in-game civilopedia.

[Thoth]

In Vanilla and Warords Scotland Yard was a national wonder available at SP, but that changed with BTS.

[scooter]

I took Civil Service for a spin tonight, and uh, let me just say it has me wondering if it should be the top choice. The early growth curve is hilariously fast, and I underrated how easy it makes early tech too. Steam Power feels good too, but even it comes out quite slow in comparison.

[Qgqqqqq]

I've some experience with Civil Service, just from playing late-era FFH2. It is pretty significant - but is it better then the other options? I guess +50% commerce is quite a bit better then +50% gold. But 5t less on a worker to start off does play well.

I'm pretty underwhelmed by State Property, actually. Seems to take a long time to bear fruit.

[Qgqqqqq]

But wait, there’s more. You could technically Oracle Superconductors or Robotics which would be hilarious. This sounds like a joke, but Superconductors is actually interesting because it unlocks the Russian UB which is essentially The Great Library. Also, Computers obsoletes some of the monk-adjacent wonders, so you have to be OK with skipping that route entirely.

Research Institutes require Observatories, so very late to become a factor.

Edit: We don't get free first-to bonuses, do we?

Banks also aren't doubled by FIN. ORG factories (or German Assembly lines) are only 84h, so basically normal forges - would be very strong in Medieval, but losing somewhat until you get there.

Aztec bio seems the most fun option to me, though who knows if its the strongest.