Puppet Political Parties
 

I recall reading somewhere that puppet political parties always have 50% of success. Counter-intelligence does not stop them.
However in one of my multiplayer games I have launched ~15 PPP attacks and none of them was successful. According to the intelligence minister, 'we could not breach their defences, sire'.
So I have spent 800.000 research points just for nothing? Or am I very very very unlucky?

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Counter-Intelligence *should* stop PPP, or otherwise this project would be definitively too powerful. Do you imagine taking one of your opponent planet without any defence after two of these projects are completed? Unless there is quite a big bug of course, but given the message you received your projects were countered by the enemy Counter-Intelligence. (I am not sure what message you receive if PPP fails though)

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In other words, CI doesn't stop PPP, right?

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Wrong! CI will most certainly stop a PPP project from ever getting off the ground, if you have the points. The PPP has a 50% chance to fail after it is past CI (so half the PPP project that get past the enemy's CI will fail anyways).

[ December 18, 2003, 08:58: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In other words, CI doesn't stop PPP, right? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Um, you're reading that wrong. It means that all other projects will succeed so long as they can overcome CI. PPP is the only project that can fail even if it overcomes CI.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Thanks you all, I understand it now.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

I'll clear that up in the next revision (coming soon). It could be worded better. CI will stop all projects until it runs out of stored points. If a PPP gets through, it still has a 50% (reported) chance to fail.

Slick.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

And it doesn't work on homeworlds, I think. Though that might be an old wives tale.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

I've used PPP on homeworlds. Not sure if it works on the homeworld, but it definitely works on "homeworlds" in a multi-planet start.

Nice how 2 people repeated exactly what I said. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Related question: I just got a "war breaks out" log event. "civil war has erupted across planet X..."

Is this a PPP or a random event? And, is there anything I can do beside dump lots of troops on it?

thanks,

Alarik

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

It sounds like it could be the 'Anarchy Groups' Intelligence Operation.

Was the message "Anarchy Groups on planet [%PlanetName] have risen up and caused civil unrest. They may be backed by foreign powers"?

You need to increase the planets happiness from Rioting, and Yes, dropping troops should do this.

[ December 18, 2003, 21:35: Message edited by: Baron Grazic ]

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

I have now hit a weak AI player twice with about 10 PPP Projects each. Both times one (and only one) project was successful, all the rest failed.

I have started splitting the projects up so I hit him every turn with 3-4 PPPs and hope to get one planet each time.

I have heard of the 50% rule, but is there something else that lets only ONE be successful per turn? Is it one per empire attacked? Did I just get unlucky (twice)?

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Are the PPPs targeting specific planets, or random planets? It is possible, though I am not sure how likely, that SE4 decided to target them all against the same planet, so all projects after the one that succeeded would naturally fail, as you already own the planet... I would hope that this does not happen, but it is a possible explanation other than the unlucky one. Or maybe some had targeted planets that you conquered with troops on that turn? There is no other factor besides the 50% rule that will cause a completed PPP to fail (other than the usual CI issue).

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

I'm currently in a game where all (8-10) of my puppet political parties intel projects have failed. The target has no counterintelligence and all of my mutiny projects succeed.

The target empire is being run by the AI. Does this make a difference? I was hoping that at least some of the attacks would succeed. Seems odd that so many would be unsuccessful if 50% should succeed.

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks...Greybeard

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Each project's success is determined individually. It is not, 50% of PPP will always succeed, it is, each project has a 50% chance of success. It is entirlely possible that all of them will fail or that all of them will succeed in a given turn.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

The first ten projects were targeted to different planets. I am not sure if I targeted his homeworld, but I think I did. The one that succeded was not the homeworld though. The secound group were randomly targeted though. I have not had a problem randomly targeting ships, I had hoped PPP would be the same.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Let's look at the contra position; can anyone out there say they've had MORE than 50% of their PPP projects be sucessful (take into account the ones blocked by CI). If no one can say that (I know I can't), then we can "predict" there may be a bug or problem somewhere.

Yes a coin always has a 50/50 chance either way. Yes, sometimes you will get heads 9 out of 10 times, but statistics dictate they should go the other way as well.

[ January 23, 2004, 18:47: Message edited by: rdouglass ]

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

for me on average it is 30% or something. I just know it is low enough to release that it is not worth it in relation to other intel attacks such as fake communications, steal resources , plague, etc.... also over looked is the ship bomb... which later in a game when people forget about it... Which is a mistake. Not only does it destroy something on the ship... but it gives you the ship name and location.... So you get a few extra intels right there... But the cost is low so you gotta spend some high point ones in front of it ( if you have lots of intel points...) ( be cool for next game if you could scale how many more points you want to spend to make it really really succeed...)

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

That said more weak planets (outer empire low pops) tend to rebel a lot easier than core planets that are big in terms of population - i think weakly defended planets are a lot more likley to rebel and those that are unhappy (so cause economic and specific planetary intel attacks first make the pops unhappy then they will be easier attacked by PPP

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So, my luck must be really bad...
I thought that might be the problem...Greybeard =|%^)>

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Try targeting individual planets instead with the PPPs

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Rebelling and PPP are two wholely separate affairs. PPP does not change the planet's happiness levels at all, and as far as I know is not dependant on happiness levels. Rebelling can happen naturally when you leave a planet at rioting happiness for a long enough period, but then it forms its own empire.

With PPP, don't planets have a 50/50 chance of joining you or forming their own empire? Are you seeing the PPPs fail outright, or maybe some of them are causing the planets to form their own empires? I am pretty sure it tells you if the planet formed its own empire, rather than reporting it as a failed project.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

In my specific case, all the planets he has are in the homeworld system (FQM Thanks Fyron ) The first one I got with PPP had troops on it, but no WPs or satellites. The one from the second try I am not sure about. They haven't rebelled yet, just come over to my side.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

PPP does not cause rebellion, the targeted planet just joins you. Rebellion does not have anything to do with PPP (though there are other intel projects that may cause it). Whatever is on the planet - troops, WPs, facilities - does not make any difference for the chance to succeed once counterintel is passed.

50% failure despite counterintel is documented, I also had more like 30% success, so it may be a bug in program or documentation. There are two different sets of Messages, one for the 50% (?) failure, one for projects stopped by counterintel.

Also, counterintel stops projects in the order they are entered, so if you have a successful project, and then a stopped project, it was NOT the counterintel. They are also listed in the turn results in that order, though inverse, with the projects stopped by CI listed Last.

Re: Puppet Political Parties
 

Wow! Both of my PPP intel projects were successful this turn. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
That makes 2 sucessful and 11 unsuccessful so far in this game. Also, none were stopped by counter-intel....Greybeard