Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

I am currently in a game where the Terran's have taken a rather significant disloke to me. Fortunately they are 2 clusters away from me - limiting contact between our empires.

However, I have stumble upon Crew Insurrection as a seeminly powerful strategy. For 50,000 Intellignce points (not difficult to get) I initiate a Crew Insurrection against (which has yet to fail after 20 times):

1) Any human ship entering my space (eliminating a potential raider)
2) Baring that take a random ship and instantly go into combat taking out about 1 other ships with me.

I have also used this technique to create my "zoo" where I cause insurrection on 1 colony ship for each race.

Based off of this experience here it seems that 50k for crew insurrection is to cheap/to powerful. Thoughts on this or have I just gotten lucky?

FYI: I am playing with DevnullMod v 1.31 so the perceived problem may be there or in baseline - have yet to determine

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

That is a very powerful project and probably either too successful or too cheap IMO.
The AI doesn't use Intel as good as a human player. I usually remove it from the game if I'm playing solo.
You could change the cost if you wanted, maybe make it 200k or higher. I wouldn't make it higher than the counter-intel 4 cost though or you could not counter it at all.

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

I sorta agree here. On one hand, i like to use it sparingly, but now that you mention it, I can see how a multiplayer game could, given the right set of players, devolve into a battle of intelligence...out of the trenches and into the offices, folks.

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

Ya, taking complete control/ownership of a military ship with intel ops sounds pretty hard to me.

I would suggest that it be given a chance to fail equal to say, 10% for every control system, crew quarters, or boarding/security component, and also add in the crew experience rating. So a cruiser with bridge, two crew quarters, a security team, and +20% skill rating would have a 60% chance of blocking takeover attempts. Larger ships would be harder to take over (more crew quarters), and players wishing harder-to-conquer ships could add appropriate components to their designs.

Master-computer-only ships would be easier to take over this way, which to me makes a lot of sense. I'd also remove their skill abilities, but then, I'd remove it for all purposes, too.

PvK

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PvK:
I would suggest that it be given a chance to fail equal to say, 10% for every control system, crew quarters, or boarding/security component, and also add in the crew experience rating. So a cruiser with bridge, two crew quarters, a security team, and +20% skill rating would have a 60% chance of blocking takeover attempts. Larger ships would be harder to take over (more crew quarters), and players wishing harder-to-conquer ships could add appropriate components to their designs.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sounds good to me.

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

It would be nice if there was a way to vary the approximate success rate for the intel projects. You could create races that were good at stealing or spying or mis-information.
The way it is now it is just a numbers game, if you have enough points built up you stop a project and if enough races are intelling you so that more than 12 projects hit you at once there is no defense. I have rarely seen a project fail on it's own, one that was not defeated by counter intel.
Hopefully Intel is on the list of future things to be improved.

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

Maybe a possibility for a new facility, ability, or comp - loyalty. Maybe a facility that decreases (or makes more expensive for the enemy) to Puppet PP's, Anarchy Groups, and Crew Ins. Or part of a racial tech or a 'slider' in the race setup. I personally don't have any solid ideas 'cause I'm not real familiar with modding fac's, abilities, etc. so I'll defer to the experts in that area.

Maybe a feature for the proposed expansion pack that has been discussed recently?

I am definitely also of the opinion that those 3 Intel Ops (mentioned above) are too easy and too inexpensive. It would be nice to make it adjustable instead of what we have now - Intel 'On' or 'Off'.

EDIT: Cool! ..I just made First Louie...

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 22 May 2001).]

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

I agree with you that more counter intelligence possibilities would be good. Especially a "loyalty" component and facility, which protects ships/planets would be very nice. Unfortunately after my observations the fate shrine, which should give some protection against sabotage actions, does not do it.
At the moment the only thing we can do is to increase the costs of these intel projects.

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

Which I think would work.

Another Irony of the Crew Insurr. and it extreme power is the ability to analyze the Ship - possible getting 1-X technologies all for 50K

I would think that Crew Inssurection should be at least 300k - This forces someone with even a large investment in Intel (100k/turn) to take up to 3 turns (all the while sacrificing his on counter-intel)

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

Hmmm....Every time I try a crew In I get the slowest ships or I get a space station (sitting duck)
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

------------------
mottlee@gte.net
"Kill em all let God sort em out"

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mottlee:
Hmmm....Every time I try a crew In I get the slowest ships or I get a space station (sitting duck)
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well that's your fault http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif. You can target the crew insurrection to any ship of the enemy you know!

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

I have repeatedly, and loudly, requested counter measures for both PPP and Crew Insurrection. If your TROOPS on a planet would remain loyal and fight with the population of a PPP'd planet just as if it were an invasion then you'd have a real reason to garrison important planets with troops. It would be much more realistic and make the use of PPP much more difficult. In fact, you'd probably see people choosing to try it on 'backwater' planets where there isn't likely to be a garrison -- which would also be more realistic. Add in some sort of accounting for the happiness level of the planet in deciding the success rate and you've got a pretty decent game system. Similarly, if the marines in a boarding parties component would try to take control of a ship that mutinies, just as if they were boarding an enemy ship, you'd have a reason to use boarding parties instead of just sticking a self-destruct device on your ship. As with everything else, keep asking. It takes a lot of consistent requests to get through the noise level that MM is living with. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 24 May 2001).]

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

Now THAT would be awesome! It would certainly add more dimension and chance to takeovers! But wouldn't that be kinda tough to program? Separating, say, the planet and the troops or the boarding party and the ship? It would seem to need another module just for the internal ship combat.

zen

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
I have repeatedly, and loudly, requested counter measures for both PPP and Crew Insurrection. If your TROOPS on a planet would remain loyal and fight with the population of a PPP'd planet just as if it were an invasion then you'd have a real reason to garrison important planets with troops. It would be much more realistic and make the use of PPP much more difficult. In fact, you'd probably see people choosing to try it on 'bakwater' planets where there isn't likely to be a garrison -- which would also be more realistic. Add in some sort of accounting for the happiness level of the planet in deciding the success rate and you've got a pretty decent game system. Similarly, if the marines in a boarding parties component would try to take control of a ship that mutinies, just as if they were boarding an enemy ship, you'd have a reason to use boarding parties instead of just sticking a self-destruct device on your ship. As with everything else, keep asking. It takes a lot of consistent requests to get through the noise level that MM is living with. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I, like zenbudo + Baron, think this would be a great addition to the game. If course, you folks that don't like Intel can turn it off, but IMO Intel is a key strategy in my bag 'o tricks and countermeasures are definitely requested / wanted / desired by me.

Finally, a concise look (from the defensive side) as to what PPP / Crew Ins is - many players / forum posters seem to think it (PPP) is some kind of Anarchy Op instead of what it really is: taking over the government. If it truly is a takeover of command staff, then of course loyal troops should be able to regain control.

Some possible adjustments to your ideas, Baron:

Maybe if you have a certain level / number of troops on a planet, it would reduce happiness to Rioting or something like that. Anything below that level, the PPP / Crew Ins would be successful. (Could be a bear to code in now though...) Use similar idea with Security Stations on ships with crews - use a different Op for ships with MC's; a Takeover Virus or something.

Then, factor in a possible 'loyalty' component / facility / racial advantage (mentioned earlier in thread), and you have IMO a much better Intel system with far more posibilities and variations.

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 24 May 2001).]

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

Yes, these are good ideas, and I've been nagging MM about similar ones lately myself. As for the issue of happiness having an effect... isn't this already done in the level-3 intel project which makes planets less happy and eventually revolt - anarchy Groups? I'm not 100% sure but I think this reduces happiness, which is of course increased by troops already, so it seems similar to what's being proposed for PPP, except for the result (riot/rebellion, I think?).

Maybe the solution to PPP is simply to omit it from the project list, making players use anarchy Groups instead, OR perhaps better, MM could change PPP to work like anarchy Groups, but the result being a planet joining the intel-attacker when the planet gets reduced to the riot/revolt stage.

PvK


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rdouglass:
I, like zenbudo + Baron, think this would be a great addition to the game. If course, you folks that don't like Intel can turn it off, but IMO Intel is a key strategy in my bag 'o tricks and countermeasures are definitely requested / wanted / desired by me.

Finally, a concise look (from the defensive side) as to what PPP / Crew Ins is - many players / forum posters seem to think it (PPP) is some kind of Anarchy Op instead of what it really is: taking over the government. If it truly is a takeover of command staff, then of course loyal troops should be able to regain control.

Some possible adjustments to your ideas, Baron:

Maybe if you have a certain level / number of troops on a planet, it would reduce happiness to Rioting or something like that. Anything below that level, the PPP / Crew Ins would be successful. (Could be a bear to code in now though...) Use similar idea with Security Stations on ships with crews - use a different Op for ships with MC's; a Takeover Virus or something.

Then, factor in a possible 'loyalty' component / facility / racial advantage (mentioned earlier in thread), and you have IMO a much better Intel system with far more posibilities and variations.

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 24 May 2001).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

Here is the irony......

While I think that PPP are to cheap (should be 3x as much).... they are less powerful than Crew Insurection. The reason being is that Crew Insurection transfer the Ship to your control - This could be a viable strategy that you would never need to build your own ships (beyond colonizers)

PPP transfers it to 3rd party AI - sure it hurts the affected party, but you do not directly gain either.....

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

I have not used PPP. How does that generate a new player when there are already 20 ?

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Utrecht:
Here is the irony......

While I think that PPP are to cheap (should be 3x as much).... they are less powerful than Crew Insurection. The reason being is that Crew Insurection transfer the Ship to your control - This could be a viable strategy that you would never need to build your own ships (beyond colonizers)

PPP transfers it to 3rd party AI - sure it hurts the affected party, but you do not directly gain either.....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The reason Crew Insurrection is so powerful is that it transfers multiple technologies to you for much less than the cost of the Technological Espionage project. Does it make sense that you can figure out how to duplicate a technology from ONE working copy of a given component? This needs to be changed. Instead of giving you the technology outright, analyzing a working component ought to increase your research points towards that technology. But in order to do that the game would have to track all of your technologies at once like it did in SE3.

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

I agree, it is too easy to gain multiple techs this way. Maybe it could be limited to one tech advance total per turn/ship.

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Utrecht:
...PPP transfers it to 3rd party AI - sure it hurts the affected party, but you do not directly gain either.....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Misconception - PPP does NOT make the planet revolt and form a new Empire. Anarchy Groups does that. PPP installs 'a government sympathetic to your causes' (or something like that). If it (the PPP Op) is successful, YOU get the planet - it does NOT create another AI / Empire like Anarchy Groups does. That's why Anarchy Groups is a Level 2 Intel Op and PPP is a Level 4.

Don't feel bad, many people have this misunderstanding. Check the info on it closely and try it a few times. I think your observations may be in error....

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 25 May 2001).]

Re: Crew Insurrections - to powerful?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
The reason Crew Insurrection is so powerful is that it transfers multiple technologies to you for much less than the cost of the Technological Espionage project. Does it make sense that you can figure out how to duplicate a technology from ONE working copy of a given component? This needs to be changed. Instead of giving you the technology outright, analyzing a working component ought to increase your research points towards that technology. But in order to do that the game would have to track all of your technologies at once like it did in SE3.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree - you should only get 1 of the tech's you're analysing per ship. However, it's not really THAT easy - you still have to get it (the CI'd ship) out of enemy territory and into yours. That can be very difficult some times. However PPP a few SY planets in enemy territory and it becomes MUCH easier.