SEV - Intel Suggestions for MM

[Suicide Junkie]

CI subtracting directly from your offense is a bad idea.

Along the lines of what you had there already, it should be a point-dump project which randomly triggers every now and then. When triggered it would half/quarter/subtract a set amount/redirect and inflict on the enemy/etc an enemy intel project.

This would be your CI guys discovering the plot, and setting it back varying amounts, or even causing it to backfire.
(Sir, our counter-intel agents discovered a plot to bomb one of our planets, and have neutralized the threat. The bomb was detonated before it could be loaded on the final transport, and has infected Colony XYZ of the ABC empire with a class V plague!)

Note that the above situation would mean the enemy must have been trying to bomb your planet...
If they were merely trying to steal intel, the backfire could cause some of their own research to be broadcast to everybody they have met, or perhaps cause the partially completed projects to reset.

[ May 26, 2004, 02:21: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[dogscoff]

The trouble with me is, all my best ideas tie into all my other (completely unrelated) ideas. FOr example:

I think crew insurrection should be handled as a boarding combat, and PPP should be handled as planetary combat. This makes good sense: A proportion of the crew/population/local planetary troops turn on the rest and fight it out for control. The amount of crew/pop/troops that turn should be determined by the margin of success in the intel vs counter-intel calculations after taking into account the factors suggested in previous Posts to this thread (ie racial inclinations to rebel against this empire, planet's overall mood etc)

However this only really works if boarding combat is made significantly more complex than it is now, and ground combat could do with a few improvements as well. This isn't the place for suggestions on improved ground and boarding combat though, so I'll shut up now=-)

[trooper]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Do any of you recall a game where intel worked well? Perhaps if we had an example of how intel can work and work well then maybe Aaron might be able to use those concepts in SE V if applicable.

In Master of Orion II you had to build spies and assign them to an enemy empire, with a mission. Each turn, your spies have a chance of success (the more spies, the more chances) and have a risk to be captured by ennemy.
I think it's a more realistic view than building intelligence facilities on your own planets...

Maybe we can think of a "spy academy" facility which allows you to build spies on a planet (to limit the number of spies produced each turn).

[Stone Mill]

Good stuff folks- keep in coming. I figure we can ship this next week to MM.

I can see the merit in going in the spy / project direction... or augmenting the current system to somehow include it.

It is a valid idea to base our expectations on something we found that worked well. But also, the developers must be cognizant of imitating a model from another game too closely...