Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

FIRST: INTELLIGENCE AS I UNDERSTAND IT:

Right now when you spend on counter intelligence, points are store in that project. If the computer is commencing an intelligence project against you, the engine checks if you are doing counter intelligence. If you are the engine checks if you are doing a high enough counter intelligence to stop that project. If you are the engine checks to see if you have spent enough points to counter that project. If you have the engine cancels the action against you and sets you back that many points in your counter intelligence project. If all the Conditions above fail, then the project just succeeds.

SECOND: THE PROBLEM

If you finish a CI (counter intelligence) operation the same turn that a project finished against you, you are helpless. This is despite far outspending that other person in Intelligence points.

To combat this people have been spending on multiple CI projects at once staggered. However sometimes they sync up and you still lose out. Or having 10 projects 7k in, won't help against a 10k intelligence operation on you.

THIRD: THE PROPOSED SOLUTION

Mod the Intelligence projects file so all the CI projects have an effective cost of infinity (cost 10,000,000,000 points) to complete. Then you should never have to have more than 1 of your most advanced CI projects running. Then CI comes down to who is spending more on intelligence. If he outspends you offsensively, he gets you. If your defense outspends his offense, then you're safe.

What do you think?


[This message has been edited by Lastseer (edited 05 March 2001).]

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

if what you propose happens, what use would there be for counter intel level 2 and 3?

how do you propose to make those usefull?

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

As I understand it certain offensive Intelligence projects require level 2 or 3 to counter, not because of their cost, but hard coded because of their required intelligence level to even commence.

However my solution has the effect of saving Intelligence up for a long time. If I build intelligence facilities early and don't encounter you until turn 200. I could already have 500,000 counter intelligence points built up.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure I like it. It could be rationalized as the result of building a strong NSA-like agency with a lot of experience before we meet. However it has the potential to create a huge hump to pass before the first intelligence project could proceed against me. (Of course when you build intelligence facilities you give up approximately an equal amount of research to do so.)

Thoughts?

[This message has been edited by Lastseer (edited 05 March 2001).]

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

From reading other topics, here is my understanding of how intel works:

It takes a certain amount of points in a counter-intel project to defend against an enemy intel project. All enemy intel projects "battle" your counter-intel projects on a one-to-one basis. So, if your enemy is running two intel projects against your one counter-intel project, one of them is possibly going to succeed.

When a counter-intel project accumulates enough points to defeat an intel project, the counter-intel project is terminated.

The higher level counter-intel projects allow a single project to accumulate more intel points and thus be capable of stopping larger intel projects.

An empire with a small amount of intel points should run a small number of counter-intel projects in order to insure that each one will accumulate enough points fast enough to stop enemy projects. An empire with a large amount of intel should run the max number of counter-intel projects to stop as many intel projects as possible.

I agree with Triumvir Emphy about the higher level CI projects. Their purpose is to counter intel projects that cost more. The premise here is that if you don't have CI 2 or CI 3, then you can't counter those higher level projects--not because you don't have that level project running but because your CI 1 project will NEVER accumulate enough points to stop it.

The main problem with spending so much on intel and accumulating a million points in a CI project is that all those points are going to be wasted when your CI project counters a tiny little 10,000 point enemy intel project.

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 05 March 2001).]

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lastseer:
Then CI comes down to who is spending more on intelligence. If he outspends you offsensively, he gets you. If your defense outspends his offense, then you're safe.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
But it ought to be based only on RECENT spending. Why should large sums of money spent on CI twenty years ago protect you now? An Intel upstart willing to pour tons of resources into his current projects should be able to beat someone who's been investing in CI for a long time at a low level. I think that is why I/CI projects cost finite amounts.

The solution, IMHO, is to have CI points "hang around" for a while after the project completes. The simplest way would be to lose a certain percent each turn before adding in the newly acquired CI points. Something like this:

CI=CI*0.9+(NewCI)

In any case, you're definitely right that CI projects shouldn't automatically synchronize over time. That's a rip-off. Could you counter that by making different CI projects (all at the same level) that take different amounts of time to complete? You might be able to get the same effect that I've proposed above, without requiring reprogramming from MM.

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

Are you sure that if you have say 40k built up in a project and someone completes a 10k project against you, the 40k you have built up goes away? Or does it go down to 30k built up?

If the former, then their really is a one to one project Int to Counter-Int. And if you are after someone you want to sync your Intelligence projects to all finish in the same turn to hit them. You also want to start a whole bunch of cheap ones projects 1-11 to finish at the same time as the important expensive project 12 to succeed.

If the later, then you don't really need more than one intelligence project if it can hold enough points.

It seems to me that the Intelligence system right now is quite broken.

[This message has been edited by Lastseer (edited 05 March 2001).]

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

My very first game was a low difficulty game where I had 100,000 intel points going into a single CI 3 project. When I became MEE, the COMBINED intel of all the other empires added up to at most 10,000 intel points, and their intel projects were getting through all the time. Then, I got on the board here and found out that I needed to have multiple projects running to counter multiple enemy intel projects.

I don't know that it is broken. But it certainly is a bit counter-intuitive. I still prefer the MOO approach where you spent production to create spies that can be devoted to either offensive projects or defensive projects. As long as you have one spy, none of the enemy projects can break through. So, a huge empire can afford to produce 100 spies and then stop spending production on spies until that number gets killed off my enemy projects.

Of course, this system has its flaws as pointed out by the other post: Is it really fair that production spent on intel 20 years ago stops a current day project? On the other hand, there should definitely be some bonus for a well-established intel network. For that reason, I prefer the MOO setup.

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

I have a general question about Intel and this seems to be a good topic to ask it in.
What happens to the intel points when you have an expensive project going and a few turn later you add another one? Does it store what has already been accumulated and divvy up future points? What about if you cancel a project, do the point accumulated get added to the remaining projects or are they wasted?
Thanks

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by raynor:

I don't know that it is broken. But it certainly is a bit counter-intuitive. I still prefer the MOO approach where you spent production to create spies that can be devoted to either offensive projects or defensive projects. As long as you have one spy, none of the enemy projects can break through. So, a huge empire can afford to produce 100 spies and then stop spending production on spies until that number gets killed off my enemy projects.

Of course, this system has its flaws as pointed out by the other post: Is it really fair that production spent on intel 20 years ago stops a current day project? On the other hand, there should definitely be some bonus for a well-established intel network. For that reason, I prefer the MOO setup.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are mistaken about spies in MOO. Don't assume that you are always informed when your technology is stolen in MOO. You are not. You'd better keep a 1-1 or better ratio of your defensive spies to the offensive spies from your enemies or you are losing information whether you hear about it or not.

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

I don't see a problem with points spent 20 or even30 years ago for offensive or defensive Intel projects,... It takes years to infiltrate an organization. Spies don't wake up one morning and decide to steal nuclear plans for lunch. They Spend years trying to find weaknesses etc.

I think most peoples problem with the way intel works is that they don't know how it works. Blame it on the "manual" not on how the intel is currently working.

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

I also used to think that you needed CI level 2 or 3 to counter Intel level 2 or 3; but then I checked the Q&A on the MM website and discovered that ANY CI project can indeed block any Intel project, assuming the CI project has accumulated enough points. Another interesting point is that the only Intel project that costs more than the CI level 1 (100,000 points) is "Steal Technology" (or whatever it's called) at 150,000 points.

So it seems the only real benefit to the higher-level CI projects is blocking the "Steal Technology" project (which is fairly minor in comparison to others, since you don't actually lose something, the enemy merely gains the benefit of your research). The other good thing is that the higher-level projects are less likely to complete "unsuccessfully" just because it takes longer to spend the full number of points, which makes it more likely that an enemy will finish an intel project against you before you spend the full number of points. (hope that Last sentence made sense...)

As for multiple intel projects completing at the same time, I think two things are happening:
1) the enemy's intel projects are synching up because they cost about the same amount
2) there's a "domino effect" occurring. The AI is, of course, running counter-intel ops of its own. As those counter-intel ops are completed, unspent points (if any) are used to make the following intel ops complete, and so everything completes at the same time...

[This message has been edited by DirectorTsaarx (edited 05 March 2001).]

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

The intel system is definitely broken, at least in PBEM simaltaneous games.

After reading about how it is supposed to work, I have been confounded as to what the heck is going on in my current game. I have been running intel projects against my opponent for about 12 turns:

My base intel: 45-50K
His Defense Intel: 8-12K

Not ONE operation has succeeded. I asked him how he defended my attacks, and he has been running nothing but defense (counter Intel II with repeat). He had intel tech for only an estimate of 30 turns. Let's say that according to these numbers, he should have 30 X 10K = 300,000 possible counter intel project points.

BAFFLING PART: He currently has three level II projects near completion! That's about 700,000 defense points! Not to mention the (estimated) 45,000 X 12 turns = 540,000 offensive intel operation points that should have reduced his defense. It should not even be close.

The only other thing I can think of is that he is in a partnership with another player with about a 50K intel base. I doubt this is causing this effect.

IF intel worked the way it was supposed to, it would be a HUGE factor in games against other humans. But according to our experiences, there seems to be a problem or something we could have missed... It's just lame to discover that Intel is useless after you have been playing for 80 turns.

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

By "near completion", I assume you mean ending next turn. That does NOT mean he has spent the full cost of a Counter Intel II project. It ONLY means he has spent enough to counter an Intel operation. Which could be as little as 4000 points. (Assuming that the setting in "Settings.txt" that gives Counter-Intel a 20% bonus against Intel is working). 3 * 4000 is only 12,000; his entire output at this time.

Now, Partners share Intel points. So he could be getting 20% of 50k, which is 10k; giving him 22,000 points per turn to spend on Counter-Intel. Still not quite enough (even with a bonus for CI vs. I) to negate all your attacks. Especially if you complete more than 3 ops per turn, and all are being countered. It is possible (though yet to be verified by anyone) that multiples of the same project are treated as one project; i.e., three Crew Insurrections against the same empire MIGHT be blocked by a single CI op. I forget where we discussed that idea, but you might want to pursue it; if that IS the case, MM needs to fix it.

Finally, IIRC, there's a chance for Intel projects to fail on their own. Particularly if you target a specific item (ship/planet) rather than "any ship/planet" in the target empire.

BTW - it took me a while to get Intel to work on one of the AI opponents; so it works in some cases. Just not certain how many cases or how well...

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

No, that's not what I mean... I am familiar with the bar counter for projects, and when I relayed what my friend described, I meant he had multiple projects completed or near completed(green bar filled up).

Upon further investigation (we stopped playing the game and took screen caps of his intel for the Last 7 turns) we are definitely experiencing something quite erratic. We have sent the game files and screen caps to Malfador, it certainly looks like a bug.

With repeat projects on, and devide points evenly, he is literally completing a full Level 2 CI proj a turn. Every other turn, his points are completely depleted!?! then return, with even more CI points.
More to come on this...

Re: Proposed counter intelligence fix
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
You are mistaken about spies in MOO. Don't assume that you are always informed when your technology is stolen in MOO. You are not. You'd better keep a 1-1 or better ratio of your defensive spies to the offensive spies from your enemies or you are losing information whether you hear about it or not.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the heads-up, Baron Munchausen! Maybe that's why I never beat this game on Impossible, ya think? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif