Intel -- Do you play with it on or off?

[Artaud]

Intel has always been difficult for me to get right. I never pay much attention to it until my enemies are pounding me with sabotage, stirring unrest on my planets and stealing my resources.

I wonder if anybody out there ever plays with intel off. If so, does that make the game too easy?

Right now I'm playing the Star Trek Mod 1.97 and getting so badly handled that I might just surrender (I never just delete a game!) and start over with intel off.

I'm holding my own in the space battles, but intel attacks are ravaging my Federation. I keep building more and more security center IIs, but the Caspian Empire has 180K intel points to my 60K, and my counter-intel efforts are not going well. Things look hopeless.

EVERY other empire is at war with me, even though I'm ranked 9th. None of the AI empires is at war with any of the other AI empires, which seems very odd but...

[capnq]

I always leave it on for solo games.

Very few people use intel in multiplayer games, because it tends to be all or nothing. Either everyone has rough parity, and virtually no attacks get through defenses, or empires that have fallen behind get manhandled by the leaders in the way you describe.

Artaud said: I never pay much attention to [intel] until my enemies are pounding me with sabotage, stirring unrest on my planets and stealing my resources.

This is your first mistake. Unless you are roleplaying a race that wouldn't do so, you should start researching Applied Intelligence as soon as your first First Contact at the latest, and start building at least a few Intelligence Centers and running Counterintelligence projects as soon as possible.

EVERY other empire is at war with me, even though I'm ranked 9th. None of the AI empires is at war with any of the other AI empires, which seems very odd

If you are at war with an empire, you cannot see what treaties it has unless you have an ally who has a treaty with your opponent, or successfully run an intel op that reveals them. With every other empire at war with you, your treaty grid should be empty except for your war states.

[Artaud]

capnq said:
If you are at war with an empire, you cannot see what treaties it has unless you have an ally who has a treaty with your opponent, or successfully run an intel op that reveals them. With every other empire at war with you, your treaty grid should be empty except for your war states.

Gee whiz! I've been playing this game for years and I never knew that.

Just another example of how appallingly deep SEIV is.

I always play with "view entire tech tree" and "can see all scores" on, and assumed that the treaty grid was similarly transparent.

The bloody Caspians have 500+ ships and more than 100 planets, so I think SOMEBODY should be at war with them. They have not taken any systems from me, that's for sure.

I'm getting intel-attacked every turn by just about every multi-system empire out there. The Ferengi. The Cardassians. The Klingons. The Kazon. And of course the bloody filthy Caspians.

All of them are refusing gifts from me, ignoring my general messages and rejecting my pleas for a trade treaty.

They'd better wise up, or the Caspians are going to swallow them for sure.

[Makinus]

i always play single player with intel off, mainly because i don´t like the intel system of SEIV... but i always play with TDM AIs and medium bonus for a challenge...

Ah, i also only accept teatries proposed by the AI, never proposing one myself (except declaring War)...

[Black_Knyght]

I like to play with it, to shake things up behind the scenes from time to time

[Atrocities]

Artaud said:
Right now I'm playing the Star Trek Mod 1.97 and getting so badly handled that I might just surrender (I never just delete a game!) and start over with intel off.

When I play I normally turn off Sabotage. You can turn off the tech for that in the Game Set Up. You can leave intel on but using game set up turn off the technology tree for Sabotage.

People wanted more difficult Intel so that is what they got with the mod. If I leave it on, I always max out one planet per system with Intel savvy facilities. I also aggressively go after any enemy Intel producing planet that I can find.

I truly wish there was a real counter Intel factor to the game but there isn't. The best we can do is reduce the chances for bad intel events by shifting them to another location. Don't ask me, I don't even understand it.