[couslee]

I agree if intel is overpowered that it can ruin a game by unbalancing it. That was not the jist of my rant. My complaint was after:
One: the cost of the intel attack was met, and this is not a cheap attempt.
Two: I was able to surpass any CI that the AI race had (or human, if PBW for that matter).
Three: I was lucky enough to not have the attempt fail anyway.
Having overcome those three hurdles, the attack should net some benefit for the player. otherwise, your left with the feeling of a double penalty. Now, that as opposed to the cost of the next tech level using reasearch is less than the cost of the intel attack. I feel that the intel is underbalanced. There is a happy medium. you find it in other games of the same genre' it is missing here. I doubt it would be that hard to code the intel to be more balanced than it is. I am not a programmer, but wouldn't a simple check by the game for advanced tech (in line) after the other stops are passed be a simple matter. it already look at the tech options, if the game had human eyes, it would see the greyed out tech. The game does not need human eyes to see that. and only seeing/reading available advances is not something that would have to be shown to the player either.
is that a little more clear?

Edit in:
there are already stops in place that eliminate "who ever builds the most wins". those being the multipliers for CI, and the chance of failure built into each attempt even after passing CI.

[ January 21, 2003, 20:53: Message edited by: couslee ]