Intelligence ops

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, all intel projects should be reported to the victim because it's a major game event when millions of people are poisoned or a bomb explodes in the cargo hold of a ship. If they aren't reported, it's a bug. What is not always reported is the originator of the attack. Sometimes it says "We suspect the [empire name] of this [negative adjective] act." and other times it just baldly reports the event without telling you who did it.

[ December 10, 2003, 15:30: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Slick]

Yes, in the default game, the target gets the Messages following:

"Num Target Messages := 1"

in Intelprojects.txt

The exception is that on the Communications Mimic, only the "Target" gets the message, not the "Other" empire. The "Other" empire just gets a message about the broken treaty, but he doesn't know that it was from an intel project.


Now it is an entirely different issue if the Target empire knows who the attacker was. If the attack was successful, the attacker is only identified if the target message has the [%SourceEmpireName] identifier in it. Projects that are stopped by your CI are just indicated as "One of our intelligence projects against the [%SourceEmpireName] was defeated by counter-intelligence defenses." but it doesn't say what the exact attack (or number of points) was.

Slick.

[Asmala]

I was quite unclear. As you guessed I meant when the target empire knows who was behind the op. It seems the target gets the info about attacker every time a project fails, so it's not wise to check if your ally has CI on not.

[AMF]

Here's a related question: does an intel project (say food contamination) get a negative to its chance of success if the target is "any planet" - as compared to setting a known target?

thanks,

Alarik

[Slick]

Originally posted by alarikf:
Here's a related question: does an intel project (say food contamination) get a negative to its chance of success if the target is "any planet" - as compared to setting a known target?

thanks,

Alarik

Nope. Use of "any" or specific has no influence on the success of the attack. These just allow you to direct your attack(s) as you choose.

Slick.

[Cyrien]

That isn't always true. The "any" technology will quite often fail as it tries to steal a technology you already have. While a specific tech theft will generally work out better since you probably chose a tech they have that you don't. But if you don't then it still fails because you have the tech...

Interestinly enough this doesn't seem to affect Empire Star Chart thefts as it only steals charts to systems you don't already have a chart for and once you have all the charts they do it will always fail.

Wonder why a similiar system can't be worked out for the "any" tech theft based on the enemies known techs compared to yours.

PS: Towards the end of the game I love taking apart enemy empires with intel. 4 or 6 food contaminations and anarchy Groups a turn can be quite devestating to an enemy.

[ December 10, 2003, 15:20: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[Roanon]

Originally posted by Cyrien:
Towards the end of the game I love taking apart enemy empires with intel. 4 or 6 food contaminations and anarchy Groups a turn can be quite devestating to an enemy.

Only if playing vs. dumb AI or a vastly inferior enemy. As Counterintel requires only one third of the points to defend, you need about 4 times, if not more, the number of intel points than your enemy to do something effective. With 4 times the resources, I can crush an enemy even without intel .

I think Intel only can accelerate the inevitable downfall of an inferior enemy. Doesn't matter if at the end of the game or in the middle Therefore, usually a waste of resources, unless you have too many mineral-poor planets and already maxxed research.