Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Been reading about MoO's spies and it occured to me that SE's intel system is not half as bad. There is a downside though, once THEY get counterintel 3 you're hopeless.

Wouldnt it be a good idea to give them flat percentage of success in case of counterintel?

"General" espionage with say 30% success would be good enough. "General" sabotage would do with 15%.
Blueprints & Planet Date should go higher - those are harmless and quite useful. Say, 65%.
And so on, categorizing the intel projects and giving them percentages would be a good idea. wouldnt it?

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

I think intel should be more like money. If you want the blueprints for one of your enemies ships, you should put a certain amount of intel points into the project (up to a maximum, of course). The more points you put in, the greater the chance of success( again up to a maximum). The cost would be modified by your level of intel (there should be a lot more than three levels), the target's level of intel, and how much the target empire was spending on counter-intel. There should always be a chance for success (however small), and there should always be a chance for failure.

Also, I think the puppet political parties and the ship mutiny projects should be eliminated. They are just too far-fetched. A whole planet switching sides? I just can't see it.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

And here I thought this would be a thread about chip makers and the direction of the PC industry... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

There is something to be said for 'characters' in the Intel system like MOO 3 uses instead of just generic 'spy projects'. But there are many 'projects' that could not possibly be the work of one or even a handful of individuals. Puppet Political Parties, for example, represents an entire political movement. That would take thousands or tens of thousands of 'operatives' to create and manipulate. A 'hybrid' system using both 'characters' and generalized projects would be kinda messy and difficult to code. I think the style of the Intel system in SE IV is the best way to go for a game on its scale.

There are still many problems with balance, yes. I'd like to see PPP give some sort of warning as the political movement builds towards declaring independence. Surely you would notice the political movement even if there is a 'hidden hand' guiding it that you cannot see? Also, it should be possible to leave troops on a planet an dhave them remain loyal, actually fighting to keep control of the planet if it tries to break away.

Lots of other intel projects need similar fleshing out into more logical detail of 'cause and effect', including other counter measures than just pouring huge amounts of points into counter-intel projects. Boarding parties should be able to act like troops on ships that are subject to 'crew insurrection' for example.

All intel projects need to be affected by the context in which they occur. It should be much harder to carry out intel projects on a homeworld, but much easier to carry out projects on an occupied world inhabited by an 'alien' species, and FAR easier on an occupied world inhabited by the species of the empire originating the intel project. Other factors like proximity of the world to the 'borders' of the empire, presence of troops, and other things should also have an effect.

[ March 19, 2003, 05:07: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

I would like to break a lance for the "personalized" intel system. I just like the romantic feeling of "cloak and dagger" operatives with specific advantages and skills instead of just calculating abstract numbers and intel points. Maybe the latter is more realistic (whatever this reality in a space strategy is) at this scale of game, but nontheless I like the first better.

The problem with MOO3 is that it has some good ideas but the implementation if these ideas is in most cases fundamentally broken. So it is with the spy subsystem too.

But in SEV such a system could be introduced and implemented in a better and more tested way.

Now the idea.
Each spy has certain %skills ranging from 0% to xxx% and a race which is part of the SEV empire.

Like "infiltration" (the ability to infiltrate a social, economical and political community)

Other skills could be "diplomacy" (the skill for destabilization missions) or "cleaning" (finding and terminating enemy operatives). Further skills could be "intelligence" (collecting informations)and so on.

First step for operatives are the training. There could be intelligence training centers as facilities which can train operatives similar to ship yards which are building ships.

Second step is gaining Skill% (see above) in a random manner. Its important to gain skill AFTER training, so the owner dont know of the qualities of his operative in advance and thus preventing the player stopping its training program.

Third step is assigning a mission. Default mission could be the "defensive mission" which is just cleaning the own empire from enemy activities. If not on defensive mission, the operative could be assigned to a specific planet or a specific enemy empire. This depends on the type of missions.

The Missions type and effects could be similar to the current intel projects. (puppet party etc.)

If a mission is successful each other turn (not necessarly every) after infiltrating the enemy, a random "%dice" is rolled. If the roll is under the operatives Skill% it is a success. Modifiers could be - the race (if the operative has the same race this is positive), mission difficulty, enemy empire defensive intelligence etc.

thats it
KlausD

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

What about a hybrid system, where you could have a relatively detailed leader, and statistics on the agents in the leader's group?

The leaders could gain experience as they complete missions with their agents (start them out small, doing easy missions) and if they are caught of killed, they get replaced by a fresh recruit. (To match SE4, you'd have 12 leaders at any one time)

The intel points generated by your facilities could be used to train (and maintain) the agents and leaders.

You could hire basic agents pretty cheaply, but they would have a low success rate....
Agents could be upgraded to specialists (demolition, surveillance, infiltration experts, sleepers, etc) by spending more intel points on them.

You'd assign a set of agents to each leader, depending on the mission at hand and the skill of the leader.
The leader's skill could multiply the effectiveness of each agent.

Success would then depend on the effective skill rating VS the mission parameters, plus a bit of luck.

EG:
- The farther the target is and the more agents going on the mission, the more infiltration skillpoints required.
- Sabotage missions would require demolitions skillpoints, the more you have, the more damage you do if successful.
- Surveillance skillpoints would be required for defense projects (requirements multiplied by the area to be protected (planet, system, empire-wide, etc) as well as information stealing projects.
- Sleepers would provide a bonus to your success chance, but would be used up in the process, and have to be placed on a specific enemy planet. They would also have a small chance of being discovered by ongoing defense operations. Placing sleeper agents on your own planets (expecting invasion for example) would be free.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Well, 'leaders' like in MOO 2 (and MOO 3 for that matter) would be a decent addition to all parts of the game. Let's just ask for leaders with various abilities like in the MOO series. Some can be great Intelligence managers, some can be great production managers, and some can be great warriors.

[ March 19, 2003, 15:50: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

I would like to see the spying and intelligence gathering separated from the sabotage and espionage projects. Or maybe to move those type projects to a zero level intell that all players get at game start. All countries practice spying on a regular basis as a defensive measure and it is tolerated to some level. This is especially important in games where "view scores" is turned off. With view scores turned off a "fog of war" effect occurrs that could only be penetrated using spying projects. Right now if you tried to just gather info in a SE4 game using intell it would be treated as an act of agression.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I suggested it for SE4... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
Hope Se5 will have more RPG elements.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Actually, good ideas here. In a way, I do agree that a combination of the two would work well here. The separation of espionage and sabotage from intel that requires big teams of people would be an interesting thing to do. Take note, that Imperium Galactica also used individualized spies, though oddly limited it seemed. Still individual spies gained exp and stats very much like ships do in SEIV. That kind of personal touch somehow adds quite a bit to your attachment to any particular unit. Especially for one you named and recorded multiple successes from.

I can see the idea of trying to bring this level of attachment from ships to spies. I also agree that SEIV does do certain things with intel that I would rather have that way. For instance, things inciting planet revolts or other major event-causing intel that could not be done by a single person. Of course, then it brings in a bit of questioning on whether it brings an unwanted level of management into the game.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Actually a very intell friendly game in which spying is a fact of life and occurs frequently could be modded right now. Remove mutiny, PPP, commo mimic and reduce the effects of other attacks. Remove defensive projects from the game and radically reduce the cost of intelligence sabotage. Counter intelligence in the form of intell sabotage will become your only defense. The only flaw here is that it must be directed vs a certain opponent. Perhaps reorder the intell level at which certain projects occur to move all the information gathering ones to the lower levels or create another required tech called Espionage that some projects or levels of intell require to research.

Does anyone know if intell is hard coded to 12 projects max or there a setting somewhere?

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hard-coded, same as research.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Umm... spying and intelligence gathering is what espionage is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Espionage being defined as stealing tech or something vs raw knowledge gathering of spying.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

But espionage is defined as:

the practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities especially of a foreign government or a competing company

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Spy empires IV: Spy it Out.

The big mod that makes Spying the ONLY part of the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Military Power? nah. Planets with people who perform research for the main purpose of it being leaked by someone is the big part of the population. Ships can destroy ships, but the only way to attack a planet is to "spy it out".

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Ok, you win on espionage, but sabotage is all about shoes!

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That would be the etymology, sure. But, there are many more things that qualify as sabotage than just shoes being thrown into gears. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Actually, having Intel be more like the current ship-building system could be a viable alternative. Maybe even making research similar could be interesting (but that's another subject for another pondering).

Each Intelligence project would be like a ship design, in that you would decide what resources would be used into generating it. Would it be a lone spy with a hefty amount of financial and technological support (a la James Bond), or would it be like the Soviet method of three agents, each reporting on the other to ensure loyalty (and thus a much lesser chance of the agents being subverted by enemy counter-intelligence). What special rights do they have as spies (or counter-intelligence, for that matter). Some components for a project could adversely effect planetary, system, or empire-wide happiness levels in exchange for greater security of intelligence projects and against enemy intelligence projects. Some could even have negative effects on trade relations with other empires.

Ultimately, the intelligence of the empire would be a constant drain on the resources of the empire, rather than just a one-time cost. Also, each intelligence compound could only have a limited "sphere of influence". While individual components of a project might be able to increase the operation range of any project, there would be some sort of limitation on range. Barring that, at least have reliability decrease with range, or have it increase with proximity. It will be much easier to gain reliable intelligence on something closer to you than something farther away.

Intelligence compounds could still produce intelligence points, but these could be more akin to available agency personnel, rather than an arbitrary number. You would still need to fund the costs with minerals, organics, and radioactives (though it would be nice to have a nice catch-all "credits" as well, and have each resource have various market values or something).

The only real limit to any project would be the number of personnel you could use to put it together. Each personnel "point" would be a cost in a component of the project in addition to the mineral, organic, and radioactives (and maybe credits) cost of the project. If there are multiple compounds in the same system, you could potentially "borrow" personnel in order to increase project size (say, for a system-wide counterintelligence project). Using personnel from other systems would require a reduced rate to represent the difficulties of managing an interstellar intelligence network.

As for the construction of such projects, here is how I see it potentially working:

Each project would have an objective. This would be akin to the bridge/crew quarters/life support requirement. Possible objectives would include desired result, target, and methods used to obtain the objective. For example, steal a [random] technology from the Eee by Bribery and Subterfuge. Bribery would be potentially expensive, and you could put limits on how much your spies are allowed to spend on bribes, so that they don't bankrupt your empire getting you some worthless tech.

Also, like ships, each turn they would have an upkeep cost that you would need to pay, based on the components you used to construct the project. So having monstrous intel projects would be cost-prohibative for an empire that didn't have at least a decent income, though obviously cheaper than a massive fleet of ships.

As far as counter-intelligence is concerned, the same would be applicable. Desired outcome would be to catch or thwart anyone spying on you, either by tightening your security up and/or by feeding massive amounts of false information to enemy agents. You could also conduct assassinations of enemy intelligence operatives, either "passively" against those within your own territory, or actively attempting to hunt down the agents of a specific empire (or at least locating them so that you can glass the planet that they're working on). Death of your agents will, naturally, reduce your number of intelligence points. You could construct your projects to be somewhat redundant in this regard (essentially having "armor", to continue with the ship analogy), but after a time, you will need to replace your personnel.

Now, how would one do this? Well, I'm glad that you asked. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Recruitment centers. Recruitment centers for Intelligence, Research, Military, heck, even miners, engineers, traders, and so on. I'm not suggesting that we keep track of each person in your empire, but having recruitment centers on a planet would help towards a more realistic game, and really wouldn't add a whole lot of micromanagement. Just have each recruitment center be able to recruit a certain number (or percentage) of a planet's population into one of X many job pools (Construction Worker, Miner, Trader, Farmer, Research, Teacher, Space Force, Army, Intelligence, Entertainment, etc.) Each planet would have a certain number of each type, which could be shared evenly within a system. So you could shuffle a large number of miners to a mineral rich rock you've found, and so on. As your race reproduces, the youngsters will need to decide what career they would want to have, so the recruitment centers on a planet could gradually shift the balance to what you need more of. Also, populations could change jobs, so if you ran a draft, say, you could convert X non-military population into space force and army positions. You could also offer benefits to certain job types (Researchers, Teachers), taking a financial loss and turning it into a gain elsewhere.

Of course, people tend to go where the jobs are, so it should do little good to have recruitment centers when you have a surplus of possible applicants (sort of like having a total population cap on planets). As you improve your facilities, the number of jobs they can offer (and thus the number of population working at said facilities) should increase.

Best of all, if you know your enemy has one system which is a major source of their intelligence efforts, or maybe just one planet close to you which is pulling off a seriously damaging project, you can send it a fleet, attack the planet the project is on, and destroy the project itself (plus the people working on it). Think of it Hitler had bombed Benchley Park, and thus all the people working on decrypting engima and such. It could have been disasterous for the Allied Intelligence.

Now, as for time scale. As it is, intel projects take time to complete, based on the same idea as research. This is unrealistic. Instead, the projects would take time to be constructed. This would represent getting all the available resources into place, inserting agents, covert communication lines, and so on. Once a project is completed, it continues operation every turn until it is cancelled or destroyed. Different types of projects could potentially lose multiple personnel per turn, and thus be costly to have running constantly. Putting projects on hold would help stop the costs for a time (esentially similar to mothballing the project), but not prevent counter-intelligence retribution entirely, just as mothballed ships can still be destroyed in combat. The difference, however, would be that while on hold, the intelligence project would still tie up personnel (though you could go and "retrofit" the project dynamically so that you could regain some personnel for other projects if you so desired). The only way to completely regain all of your personell would be to scrap the project and make a whole new one.

Also, as successes increase, individual projects/personnel/facilities gain experience. Over time, there would be a gradual degradation of experience, representing older agents retiring and removing their experience from the availible pool, and new recruits joining to take their place (not the same as recruitment), or institutions losing effectiveness over time. If agents are lost, their experience is lost as well, and they would be replaced by a new recruit. The same system could be used for fleet experience, and even fighter/ground troop experience.

Anyway, that's my idea, and how I'd like to see intel, among other things, handled in SEV. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Plus, I think that it's somewhat workable even within SEIV with just a few (relatively minor in theory, but probably huge in practice) changes to the game.

Comments and/or suggestions are welcomed, of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ March 20, 2003, 02:22: Message edited by: Hotfoot ]

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

I would have to agree with pretty much everything that has been said here.

I would also like to see a major system for counter intel as well. A system that allows a player to focus on CI as equally or more than Intel.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

wow that was fast http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Klaus - in fact it is your letter to SE mailing list that inspired me for that thread.

Interesting thoughts, but i have to say that i dont see individual "leaders" coming into play at SE. And i dont realy want to. I prefer realism over eyecandy and if you think about it, what can a single operative do after all?

Espionage and sabotage should most surely be separated. Espionage is not agression and is quite difficult to stop.

I know i might regret it but what about introducing "espionage units" into the game? Not like in Sid Meier's games though - when you start a project you produce a "spy boat" with this particular mission which you then have to bring to the destination. They are invisible save for, say, 2 sector view from specialized facilities on planets and other "spy boats".

And PPP is crap, how can you run a political party on bloodthirsty anarchic machines? Or on hiveminds? and so on. Same with Crew [whatever].

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Communications mimic has to go too. A potential 20% loss of mutual trade between 2 empires that will take 20 turns to rebuild, plus any co-located ships, unit & planets suddenly all attack each other and blocade planets. All this for a single intell attack? Makes PPP and mutiny seem like baby stuff.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Glad that I could inspire you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif My post was intended to make some suggestions and inspirings before Aaron is finalizing his game concepts for SEV.

"Individual Leaders" If you mean leaders like in MOO2, then I am also against this. (I did never like them really) I am just for a modified spy system with actual spies and not only abstract intel points. Of course the term "actual spies" could also be a spy ring of hundreds of individuals (if you dont like a single person)

Sabotage and Intel dividing. Maybe, but I think its difficult. In our days with human ethic values an intel spy is not so bad like a saboteur, but who knows what Aliens think about this evaluation. Maybe the Cue Cappa like Saboteurs more and hate all those intelligence gathering spies which sit only on their arses and the whole day read cue cappain newspapers? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
IMO the complex of secret service should rather taken as one - for simplicity - and should not be divided, but if there are game concept reasons why it should be divided, I am for it.

PPP - yes this is crap. It should be replaced by better named and designed missions.

spy ships - good idea. A game system where I can assign certain special secret missions to spies and where it is necessary to lift them with special ships to enemy territory physically. I think its important that not all missions need physically lifting the spy to the enemy, because one can assume that certain missions require only the normal way with all those many tiny litte offmap freighters the game has already now. A further possiblity would be that hidden (in clouds and asteroids) spy ships are able to collect data about enemy planets and ships. I hope Aaron reads this thread.

bye
KlausD

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Dogscoff,

Assuming that someone 'trusts you' because they have a treaty with you is a bit naive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Let's just let the target's counter-intel level determine the chance of success.

Other than the modifiers I have recommended before, of the race on the planet, and their current anger level, having an effect.

It would be nice if the planetary 'covert recon' report would tell you the race of the inhabitants and the 'mood' (anger level) on the planet as well as the cargo and facilities.

I would also support the idea of being able to plant 'moles' in other empires. You could spend points on the 'mole' project and if it is successful you'd have those points stored for possible use in a future intel project in that empire.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Very good observation. I too think it is unnecessary to add complications of treaties to the calculation factor. Heck, even in one of my games I had a treaty with the Jreanor (lizard guys), but I didn't trust them any more than a true enemy. Heck, a true enemy would at least be more honest in their intentions, so my distrust of them probably goes futher than that.

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

Many good ideas here. Might as well throw my 0.02 into the bucket.

I would like to see the mechanics underlying the game strengthened, so that certain types of intel work indirectly, for example:

If we had a system where ships track not only experience but loyalty and morale, then you might find that sometimes ships switch sides on their own under certain conditions. Then, rather than have an intel project which magically switches the ship's allegiance, you'd just have a project which attacks the ship's loyalty rating, or its morale in the hopes that you'd tip the balance in your favour

Similarly, planets should have a more realistic model for rebellion based on loyalty and morale, (with loyalty to each of the in-game empires tracked), with rebellions carrying a chance of joining another empire rather than becoming independent. Then rather than a PPP project which either switches control or doesn't, you'd attack that planet's morale, incite rioting and let the game's mechanics take care of the rest.

Throw in extra complications like troops that can fight a rebelling population and you'd have an beautifully organic and realistically unpredictable system.

A few more things: I've suggested this before as being related to population management and population movement (see my various rants about having populations move autonomously), but it's relevant to intel. I'd like to be able to set the freedom level I allow my citizens. you'd be able to choose between a variety of settings (maybe a percentage scale) between the following 2 extremes :

*Completely libertarian: foreign trade and research sharing flourish. Citizens are happy, but enemy intel/ sabotage is hard to spot. Plagues spread rapidly, populations move about freely within and across national borders. Popular uprisings are harder to control.

*Totalitarian control: Foreign trade and research sharing are lowered somewhat. Populaions cannot move so freely, so plagues are easily contained. Citizens are less happy, but their uprisings are easier to suppress due to totalitarian infrastructure. Infiltration by enemy intel is very difficult.

You'd be able to move your status on this scale during the game, but anything but the most gradual changes would cause popular unrest. Suddenly switching from one extreme to the oother would cause massive rioting.

Finally, intel against friendly empires should be easier than against enemies- after all it's easier to steal from/ sabotage someone who trusts you.

[ March 20, 2003, 12:08: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

...and while were wishing here, I think a few Intel components would be kinda' neat idea. For instance, place a 'propaganda bomb' component on a drone, send it to a system, and increase the chances of PPP or Crew Ins in a system. Probably impossible 'cause of current Intel model, but I can wish can't I....

Can't you see billions of pamphlets floating down from orbit.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">OK, so you're at war with the Xi-chung but you're at peace with the Phong. You're walking down the street on your homeworld and you see a giant bug in a trenchcoat hanging around outside the Census office. You call the police and they cart him away. You probably wouldn't even notice the friendly yellow guy with the bulgy eyes stood next to him...

My point is that in an inter-species war like this, an enemy agent would stick out like a sore thumb. Sure, you could still pay locals to do your dirty work or use disguises or remote technology or something, but a "friendly" spy would be able to move about and ask questions without attracting too much attention.

[ March 21, 2003, 12:06: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Thoughts on future of Intel
 

I like the idea of individual spys that have been discussed here. Amost sounds like adding a level of role play.

If it were to get implemented I would want it as an option as it does look like more micro managment to me.