Thoughts on future of Intel

[Taera]

Been reading about MoO's spies and it occured to me that SE's intel system is not half as bad. There is a downside though, once THEY get counterintel 3 you're hopeless.

Wouldnt it be a good idea to give them flat percentage of success in case of counterintel?

"General" espionage with say 30% success would be good enough. "General" sabotage would do with 15%.
Blueprints & Planet Date should go higher - those are harmless and quite useful. Say, 65%.
And so on, categorizing the intel projects and giving them percentages would be a good idea. wouldnt it?

[Chronon]

I think intel should be more like money. If you want the blueprints for one of your enemies ships, you should put a certain amount of intel points into the project (up to a maximum, of course). The more points you put in, the greater the chance of success( again up to a maximum). The cost would be modified by your level of intel (there should be a lot more than three levels), the target's level of intel, and how much the target empire was spending on counter-intel. There should always be a chance for success (however small), and there should always be a chance for failure.

Also, I think the puppet political parties and the ship mutiny projects should be eliminated. They are just too far-fetched. A whole planet switching sides? I just can't see it.

[Baron Munchausen]

And here I thought this would be a thread about chip makers and the direction of the PC industry...

There is something to be said for 'characters' in the Intel system like MOO 3 uses instead of just generic 'spy projects'. But there are many 'projects' that could not possibly be the work of one or even a handful of individuals. Puppet Political Parties, for example, represents an entire political movement. That would take thousands or tens of thousands of 'operatives' to create and manipulate. A 'hybrid' system using both 'characters' and generalized projects would be kinda messy and difficult to code. I think the style of the Intel system in SE IV is the best way to go for a game on its scale.

There are still many problems with balance, yes. I'd like to see PPP give some sort of warning as the political movement builds towards declaring independence. Surely you would notice the political movement even if there is a 'hidden hand' guiding it that you cannot see? Also, it should be possible to leave troops on a planet an dhave them remain loyal, actually fighting to keep control of the planet if it tries to break away.

Lots of other intel projects need similar fleshing out into more logical detail of 'cause and effect', including other counter measures than just pouring huge amounts of points into counter-intel projects. Boarding parties should be able to act like troops on ships that are subject to 'crew insurrection' for example.

All intel projects need to be affected by the context in which they occur. It should be much harder to carry out intel projects on a homeworld, but much easier to carry out projects on an occupied world inhabited by an 'alien' species, and FAR easier on an occupied world inhabited by the species of the empire originating the intel project. Other factors like proximity of the world to the 'borders' of the empire, presence of troops, and other things should also have an effect.

[ March 19, 2003, 05:07: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[klausD]

I would like to break a lance for the "personalized" intel system. I just like the romantic feeling of "cloak and dagger" operatives with specific advantages and skills instead of just calculating abstract numbers and intel points. Maybe the latter is more realistic (whatever this reality in a space strategy is) at this scale of game, but nontheless I like the first better.

The problem with MOO3 is that it has some good ideas but the implementation if these ideas is in most cases fundamentally broken. So it is with the spy subsystem too.

But in SEV such a system could be introduced and implemented in a better and more tested way.

Now the idea.
Each spy has certain %skills ranging from 0% to xxx% and a race which is part of the SEV empire.

Like "infiltration" (the ability to infiltrate a social, economical and political community)

Other skills could be "diplomacy" (the skill for destabilization missions) or "cleaning" (finding and terminating enemy operatives). Further skills could be "intelligence" (collecting informations)and so on.

First step for operatives are the training. There could be intelligence training centers as facilities which can train operatives similar to ship yards which are building ships.

Second step is gaining Skill% (see above) in a random manner. Its important to gain skill AFTER training, so the owner dont know of the qualities of his operative in advance and thus preventing the player stopping its training program.

Third step is assigning a mission. Default mission could be the "defensive mission" which is just cleaning the own empire from enemy activities. If not on defensive mission, the operative could be assigned to a specific planet or a specific enemy empire. This depends on the type of missions.

The Missions type and effects could be similar to the current intel projects. (puppet party etc.)

If a mission is successful each other turn (not necessarly every) after infiltrating the enemy, a random "%dice" is rolled. If the roll is under the operatives Skill% it is a success. Modifiers could be - the race (if the operative has the same race this is positive), mission difficulty, enemy empire defensive intelligence etc.

thats it
KlausD

[Suicide Junkie]

What about a hybrid system, where you could have a relatively detailed leader, and statistics on the agents in the leader's group?

The leaders could gain experience as they complete missions with their agents (start them out small, doing easy missions) and if they are caught of killed, they get replaced by a fresh recruit. (To match SE4, you'd have 12 leaders at any one time)

The intel points generated by your facilities could be used to train (and maintain) the agents and leaders.

You could hire basic agents pretty cheaply, but they would have a low success rate....
Agents could be upgraded to specialists (demolition, surveillance, infiltration experts, sleepers, etc) by spending more intel points on them.

You'd assign a set of agents to each leader, depending on the mission at hand and the skill of the leader.
The leader's skill could multiply the effectiveness of each agent.

Success would then depend on the effective skill rating VS the mission parameters, plus a bit of luck.

EG:
- The farther the target is and the more agents going on the mission, the more infiltration skillpoints required.
- Sabotage missions would require demolitions skillpoints, the more you have, the more damage you do if successful.
- Surveillance skillpoints would be required for defense projects (requirements multiplied by the area to be protected (planet, system, empire-wide, etc) as well as information stealing projects.
- Sleepers would provide a bonus to your success chance, but would be used up in the process, and have to be placed on a specific enemy planet. They would also have a small chance of being discovered by ongoing defense operations. Placing sleeper agents on your own planets (expecting invasion for example) would be free.

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, 'leaders' like in MOO 2 (and MOO 3 for that matter) would be a decent addition to all parts of the game. Let's just ask for leaders with various abilities like in the MOO series. Some can be great Intelligence managers, some can be great production managers, and some can be great warriors.

[ March 19, 2003, 15:50: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[stecal]

I would like to see the spying and intelligence gathering separated from the sabotage and espionage projects. Or maybe to move those type projects to a zero level intell that all players get at game start. All countries practice spying on a regular basis as a defensive measure and it is tolerated to some level. This is especially important in games where "view scores" is turned off. With view scores turned off a "fog of war" effect occurrs that could only be penetrated using spying projects. Right now if you tried to just gather info in a SE4 game using intell it would be treated as an act of agression.

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Well, 'leaders' like in MOO 2 (and MOO 3 for that matter) would be a decent addition to all parts of the game. Let's just ask for leaders with various abilities like in the MOO series. Some can be great Intelligence managers, some can be great production managers, and some can be great warriors.

I suggested it for SE4...
Hope Se5 will have more RPG elements.

[Foiden]

Actually, good ideas here. In a way, I do agree that a combination of the two would work well here. The separation of espionage and sabotage from intel that requires big teams of people would be an interesting thing to do. Take note, that Imperium Galactica also used individualized spies, though oddly limited it seemed. Still individual spies gained exp and stats very much like ships do in SEIV. That kind of personal touch somehow adds quite a bit to your attachment to any particular unit. Especially for one you named and recorded multiple successes from.

I can see the idea of trying to bring this level of attachment from ships to spies. I also agree that SEIV does do certain things with intel that I would rather have that way. For instance, things inciting planet revolts or other major event-causing intel that could not be done by a single person. Of course, then it brings in a bit of questioning on whether it brings an unwanted level of management into the game.

[stecal]

Actually a very intell friendly game in which spying is a fact of life and occurs frequently could be modded right now. Remove mutiny, PPP, commo mimic and reduce the effects of other attacks. Remove defensive projects from the game and radically reduce the cost of intelligence sabotage. Counter intelligence in the form of intell sabotage will become your only defense. The only flaw here is that it must be directed vs a certain opponent. Perhaps reorder the intell level at which certain projects occur to move all the information gathering ones to the lower levels or create another required tech called Espionage that some projects or levels of intell require to research.

Does anyone know if intell is hard coded to 12 projects max or there a setting somewhere?