Beginner Observations on Economy and Espionage Question

So you want to make money fast?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I just started playing Dark Avatar, and at the risk of exposing my ignorance, I'd like to make a beginner's observation regarding the economic model. This is mainly for other beginners, because I'm sure this is old hat for the more experienced players.

When you want to increase the income on a planet, it's not a simple matter of building more markets. You need to take into account your tax rate first.

Bad Strategy 1:
I know that my tax rate affects my approval rating by planet, and my approval rating by planet affects my population growth. So my first strategy was to lower my tax rate to max out my population growth, and build markets to make up the difference.

Why this doesn't work:
The contribution markets make to my economy is based on my tax rate. As my tax rate slides into the 20's and teens, my markets have negligible effect on my income (8% of 20% doesn't amount to much in the early game).

Better Strategy 2:
Since a higher morale lets me increase my tax rate without sacrificing approval, I build entertainment networks, rather than markets. This lets me keep my tax rate in the 40's and 50's, while still keeping an 80% approval rating.

I experimented with a gigantic galaxy with only one foolish opponent, and stayed on my homeworld for the entire game. I was able to win a tech victory by keeping my approval in the 80's and my tax rate in the 40's. I ended up needing four Virtual Reality Centers (the ultra-morale structure) for a population of 16 billion, and the rest was devoted to markets, factories, and research, as needed.

Obviously, this isn't anything like an optimal strategy. Just a beginner's observation. Generally, morale is more important than markets when trying to make a planet economically profitable.

Now a question for the more experienced players:

Earlier, I made the observation that it would be nice to gather information on an enemy without sabotaging one of their tiles. That didn't get any responses, so let me phrase this in the form of a question: Is there a way to gather information on an enemy without sabotaging one of their tiles? If there is, I don't see it. I'm not talking about exploits or workarounds.

Thanks!
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There used to be in Dread lords. In that you just put money towards espionage on each race and got information coming back. Sadly that was dropped in the new spy system. (which imho is horrible)
There is now no other way except to place spies.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Earlier, I made the observation that it would be nice to gather information on an enemy without sabotaging one of their tiles. That didn't get any responses, so let me phrase this in the form of a question: Is there a way to gather information on an enemy without sabotaging one of their tiles? If there is, I don't see it. I'm not talking about exploits or workarounds.


Nope. You have to place a spy.
However, since your aquisition of levels of knowlwdge seems to be based on how many total "man weeks...er...spy weeks" you accumulate, and not on WHAT you spy on, you can minimise the impact. Also recall that as far as we know your rivals do not know who the spies on their planets are working for, so you aren't specifically ticking them off vs you. After all, you don't know (other than by leap of faith logic) who put the spies on YOU.

Try putting your spies on factories or happiness improvements on young, low pop worlds. Avoid putting them on money improvements and civ-wide bonus buildings.

To partially cripple (or at least temproarily limit) and opponent, deploy your spies the opposite of above. One thing to remember in placing spies for HIGH impact is that the AI is generally living on the edge of its means (after all, it can calculate that edge very closely. Therefore spying on a farm or an economic capital can have a real disproportionate impact, crashing populations or bank accouts.

drrider
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have a question about Espionage. So, there are four levels of spying? Low, medium, high, advanced? And each higher level increases your chance of stealing a tech? So, if you pump cash into espionage, get 16 spies, completely infiltrate three enemy planets, and get up to Advanced in ten weeks. (It may have been less than that.) I then popped my spies back into my spy-bank and began spying on all other races. Does the espionage level go down over time? If so, how fast? How does level of spy infiltration correlate to number of spies stolen?

Summary for those who hate block-text-statements:
1. Does spy infiltration go down over time if spies are removed?
2. Is there a higher level of infiltration than advanced? (The one above high)
3. How does level of infiltration correlate to number of techs stolen?
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To answer the 3 questions:

1. No

2. No

3. I've never seen a quantitative answer to this.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Is there a way to gather information on an enemy without sabotaging one of their tiles?

You can look at their area. If you send "scouts" (No weapons, no troop module)
into their area, they will not mind. You will be able to scout out their planets.
To see into planets, espionage is the only way.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can actually collect quite a lot of information about another civ without any espionage investment. (From a story point of view, this would be info from trade and diplomatic missions, and public sources.)

Most of this comes from the "Speak To" screen:
- Treasury
- Colonies (even if you can't see them on the map)
- Fleet inventory
- technologies (not precise, but at least what they have that you don't)

Info from the foreign relations screen on treaties and intentions.

Once any of their warships are within scanner range, you can see what their preferred weapon and defense are.

A review of the Population/Military/... graph can also tell you what the other guy is doing, and possibly their intentions.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
3. How does level of infiltration correlate to number of techs stolen?

To my experience it doesn't. I got a tech at the 3rd turn my spy was at on the planet. Some players also reported that when they got to the advanced level, they stole more techs. I can not confirm their finding, and can not say anything about having advanced espionage and stealing tech(s) without having a spy, like it was possible in DL.

BR, Iztok
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
While I am not a big fan of the current DA spy system, I have figured out a few tips and tricks to make it usefull. Under the Dread Lords spy system you just set your sliders on the first notch as early as possible and forgot about them.

The Dark Avatar system is obviously very different. On the other hand it is not as obvious how to use it in a efficient manner. Others have discussed what to target to use spies offensively, but I am going to concentrait on how to use them to gather info.

The first thing to note is that the magic number of spies is 3. If you have three spies or more in a given civ, you will gain information quickly. If you have 1-2 you gain info very slowly. I reccomend NOT sending any spies to any civ unless you can send 3 or more at a time.

The second thing I noted is to only keep you spies in any one civ until you have the moderate level of info on them. At this level you can get the full report of what techs they have and you can check their ships to see where they are going. In the early stages of the game this is 99% of the info that you want anyway. Getting this leve is easy and should only take you 5 turns to gain with 3 or more spies. After you have moderate info on everyone, then you can go back and shoot for higher levels where you find it necessary.

The last thing I have noted is to never hord spies for defence. I was one who was appauled at usuing my spies to cripple civs who had done nothing to me, so I just built up my spy levels to what I thought was an impenatrable defence (around 20.) This seemed to work out well as although I was being constantly attacked, no one could get through the sheer numbers I had. Then I got the 'every planet in the galaxy gets their own spy' event. I was playing in a gigantic galaxy and had over 250 worlds in my empire! Needless to say I never got rid of all of them and they were a constant thorn in my side. Because of the interactive way that mega-events work, the more spies you have, the more likely you are to get this event.

I have given up on using spies to actually steal techs. I have never found a consistant way to do this, so I have relagated it to the catagory of the occasional random bonus and not something you can work toward.

Scincerely,
Scintor
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You definitely DO steal more techs when you have the High, and especially the Advanced Intelligence levels. I have observed it in multiple games, and I generally play with a lot of spying. There is a contrast between the amount of stealing from a given civ when your espionage is still low end vs later high end, and there is also definitely a contrast between how much you steal from races you have Advanced knowledge of vs those you have minimal knowledge of.

You won't steal anything from a race you haven't spied on. It is possible to steal from a race that you only have Low knowldge of but it is quite rare.

And...sorry, guys...you do have to keep a spy on the ground of even a civ that you know extremely well in order to spirit off some tech. After awhile in the spy wars, however, some AI players seem to get tired of chasing down spies, and they don't clear you out as aggressively.

drrider