Balancing Intel

[spoon]

I play with a group of people at work, and we greatly enjoy the game, though there seem to be some fairly horrific balancing issues. I'm considering making a Balanced Mod, and seek your input on a few topics. Who knows - if there is a general concensus (haha), these changes might make it into the upcoming patch (I man can dream, can't he?).

I'll start with everyone's favorite -- Intel.

Problem 1: Spying for fun and profit
Intel is so broken that most games don't use it. Here are the main culprits:

- Resource Procurement. Bankrupt an empire by stealing 10k of each resource. Cost: 15k intel points
- Food Contamination: Kills 100M citizens on a colony. Cost: 15k
- Communications Mimic: Makes one empire declare war on another empire. That's right. Even if they were partners. Cost: 20k
- Trade Disruption: Drops the trade level between two empires to 1%. Cost: 20k
- Crew Insurrection: Steals a ship. Cost:50k
- Puppet Political Parties: Removes a planet from enemy control. Planet either becomes a new ai, or you gain control of it.

Suggestion: The actual system is pretty good, but many of the projects are unbalancing. I'd recommend the following changes:
General Espionage
Force Concentrations: Lower cost -- 2,000
Queue Concentrations Lower cost -- 2,000
Ship Blueprints Lower cost -- 5,000
Covert Recon Lower cost -- 2,000
Census Thefts Lower cost -- 2,000
Technological Espionage no change (150k)
Embassy Taps Lower cost -- 2,000
Empire Star Charts Lower cost -- 5,000
Empire Archives Lower cost -- 10,000
Unit Blueprints Lower cost -- 5,000
Tech Reports no change (20,000)

General Sabotage
Economic Disruption Increase cost -- 30,000
Resource Procurment Increase cost -- 30,000; Decrease effect 5000 of each resource (instead of 10k)
Technological Sabotage Increase cost -- 50,000
Intelligence Sabotage Lower Cost -- 15,000

Planet Sabotage
Weather Disruptions Increase Cost -- 30,000
Ground Contamination no change (20,000)
Food Contamination Decrease effect to killing 5M population (instead of 100M). Or increase cost: 100,000.
Anarchy Groups Increase Cost -- 20,000
Puppet Political Parties Remove
Cargo Maint. Trouble (does this one even work?)
Industrial Sabotage no change (25,000)

Political Disruption
Trade Distruption Decrease effect to -5% trade, or remove
Comm Taps no change (15,000)
Comm Mimic Remove. (or make it so you can only send General Messages (but you get to write the message))
Comm Interceptors no change (10,000)

Ship Sabotage
Ship Bomb no change (10,000)
Engine Damage Lower cost -- 5000
Fuel Leak no change (10,000)
Crew Insurrection Remove, or give it a chance of failure (50%)
Crew Rotation no change (5,000)
Cargo Bomb Increase cost -- 7,500
Order Snafu Lower Cost -- 5,000