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That's normal. First we get a stationary spy discount of 50% which halves the cost to 1332. As we produce EP, the relative totals will converge to even, knocking another 30% or so off the cost to below 1000. And Nationalism means we can produce EP more efficiently than beakers. We don't have libraries everywhere, so our nationwide EP multiplier is higher than our nationwide science multiplier. Plus some production from courthouses with more coming.
Espionage economy is always cheaper than any other option if done right.
Even if we aren't going full-blown EP, we should look to cash out our existing total of EP in a steal of one of the techs. That 679 sitting idle could represent more than half of Banking.
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Why not, I've never seen an EE in MP before. Go for it.
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I also like the idea of stealing Rifling. Stealing rifling has the added advantage that we'll have City Visibility and maybe even Investigate City on Apolyton temporarily.
I guess we'll want to self-research Gunpowder, as we need to start drafting musketmen immediately, but the rest of the techs can be stolen from Apolyton. We just need to build some spies and send them and a hindu missionary to Apolyton's closest city.
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If we're playing conservatively, then an espionage economy is not the conservative play - Apolyton can shut it down with a counterespionage mission at very little cost, and then we'll be dead in the water. Interestingly enough, I suspect the first half of the timer will be the preferred position for these later wars, due to the unavoidable lapse in counterespionage missions, which the first half side will get to exploit, but not the 2nd half side.
Also, if I understood the formulas correctly, the modifier for total EP spent scales from -50% to +100%, sitting at 0% if the total EP produced is even, so that will be pushing the cost up, rather than down. Having the holy city for the religion is the other big discount that will help us if we go that route, but I fear the distance modifier will largely cancel that out.
That said, if we've already got 679 EP on Apolyton, picking up banking with it sounds like a good idea to me. We could probably get a spy into position, run a turn of 100% (or whatever we need) EP against them and steal it. Though, since they're on the first half of the timer, they'd get a chance to deny it if they have a spy running around our lands.
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(July 14th, 2013, 13:42)Zargon Wrote: If we're playing conservatively, then an espionage economy is not the conservative play - Apolyton can shut it down with a counterespionage mission at very little cost, and then we'll be dead in the water. Interestingly enough, I suspect the first half of the timer will be the preferred position for these later wars, due to the unavoidable lapse in counterespionage missions, which the first half side will get to exploit, but not the 2nd half side.
Very good point. We should very much aim to get the first half.
Quote:Also, if I understood the formulas correctly, the modifier for total EP spent scales from -50% to +100%, sitting at 0% if the total EP produced is even, so that will be pushing the cost up, rather than down.
I don't understand this. Us spending more EP on Apolyton (or generating more EPs in general) definitely reduces costs.
Quote:Having the holy city for the religion is the other big discount that will help us if we go that route, but I fear the distance modifier will largely cancel that out.
That said, if we've already got 679 EP on Apolyton, picking up banking with it sounds like a good idea to me. We could probably get a spy into position, run a turn of 100% (or whatever we need) EP against them and steal it. Though, since they're on the first half of the timer, they'd get a chance to deny it if they have a spy running around our lands.
Spies can only run missions if they haven't moved, so they would need the spy to be sitting in one of our cities to react that quickly.
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We do not have 670+ EP on Apolyton - that's our total generated for our entire game. We have circa 3 EP invested against them.
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July 14th, 2013, 14:04
(This post was last modified: July 14th, 2013, 14:06 by Ruff_Hi.)
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(July 14th, 2013, 13:42)Zargon Wrote: Also, if I understood the formulas correctly, the modifier for total EP spent scales from -50% to +100%, sitting at 0% if the total EP produced is even, so that will be pushing the cost up, rather than down.
The EP modifying formula is (our EP + 2 x their EP) / (2 x our EP + their EP) where EP is ours against them (and theirs against us) for the total history of the game (ie not the current amount). If we have 400 on them and they have 200 on us, then the modifier is 80% [(400+2x200) / (2x400+200)]. It impacts the cost of each and every espionage mission. Note that their modifier is the reciprocal of ours.
Example: Us: 3 on them. Them: 1billion on us. Their modifier is 50%, ours against them is 200%.
(July 14th, 2013, 13:42)Zargon Wrote: Having the holy city for the religion is the other big discount that will help us if we go that route, but I fear the distance modifier will largely cancel that out.
The Holy City does nothing. Zilch. Running the mission in one of their cities that has our state religion is the religious modifier that you want.
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I thought for sure I read that running in a city of our state religion was a modifier, and if you had the holy city for that religion, it was a bigger modifier. Maybe I'll look it up again later, it was quite a while ago.
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Zargon's probably right, plako was talking about holy cities in PB8.
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(July 14th, 2013, 04:41)kjn Wrote: Rifling beeline
Rifling (4320)
Replaceable Parts (3240)
Banking (1260)
Gunpowder (2160)
Communism beeline
Communism (5040)
Scientific Method (4320)
Chemistry (3240)
Gunpowder (2160)
So the Rifling beeline is 3780 beakers cheaper than the Communism beeline - that's a not insignificant difference. We also get higher multipliers on the Rifling beeline, though that probably only amount to another hundred effective beakers or so.
But the real trouble with the Communism beeline is that it doesn't help us defend ourselves. Of course, we could go towards Military Science (3600), but grenadiers aren't easily mass-produced, and doesn't receive their special bonus when defending.
What about beelining for steel, instead? That's only 3 techs instead of 4, and it allows us to draft a large number of muskets, then combine them with a few cannons to crush any invading stacks of rifles/muskets. I don't think there's enough time to tech rifling befor turn 170.
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