intelligence projects chances of success - Page 5

couslee · #41 January 21st, 2003, 10:51 PM

I agree if intel is overpowered that it can ruin a game by unbalancing it. That was not the jist of my rant. My complaint was after:
One: the cost of the intel attack was met, and this is not a cheap attempt.
Two: I was able to surpass any CI that the AI race had (or human, if PBW for that matter).
Three: I was lucky enough to not have the attempt fail anyway.
Having overcome those three hurdles, the attack should net some benefit for the player. otherwise, your left with the feeling of a double penalty. Now, that as opposed to the cost of the next tech level using reasearch is less than the cost of the intel attack. I feel that the intel is underbalanced. There is a happy medium. you find it in other games of the same genre' it is missing here. I doubt it would be that hard to code the intel to be more balanced than it is. I am not a programmer, but wouldn't a simple check by the game for advanced tech (in line) after the other stops are passed be a simple matter. it already look at the tech options, if the game had human eyes, it would see the greyed out tech. The game does not need human eyes to see that. and only seeing/reading available advances is not something that would have to be shown to the player either.
is that a little more clear?

Edit in:
there are already stops in place that eliminate "who ever builds the most wins". those being the multipliers for CI, and the chance of failure built into each attempt even after passing CI.

[ January 21, 2003, 20:53: Message edited by: couslee ]

tesco samoa · #42 January 21st, 2003, 10:59 PM

I know that was the way it was in 1.67

Perhaps this change came with the conVersion to seiv gold.

But counter intel has worked that way for quite a while

Wanderer · #43 January 21st, 2003, 11:00 PM

As you've discovered, never tell your intel agents to steal 'any technology' - always tell them exactly what area to go for. The random element inherent in 'any technology' is huge (and annoying), as most of the time you'll already have the techs they steal.

couslee · #44 January 21st, 2003, 11:07 PM

Lol Wanderer. excellent point, and well taken.

The reason I chose "any tech" was based on the possible assumption that it would have a greater chance of sucess with the "third hurdle".
I still think that could be programmed in as well, along with the sucessfull attack actually giving you something.
Sure, in my example, I would have loved to got the sensor advance, but any other advance would also have been fine. having a "sucessfull" attack net nothing is... poor.

couslee · #45 January 22nd, 2003, 10:35 AM

something else I noticed, I wonder what impact it has, if any.

if you have combat with another race, the tech levels for the ship you fought show up on the "tech" tab when looking at that race's info. When you have a successfull "tech report" intel attack, that information is not added to the tech tab for the race. Personally, I think it should, but whatever.

Q · #46 January 22nd, 2003, 11:33 AM

I used intel to steal technology quite frequently in my current game and if the projects were successful always got quite valuable new technology (as stellar manipulation). And I used as you the "any" option! Perhaps I was just lucky.

Wanderer · #47 January 22nd, 2003, 07:58 PM

Quote:

if you have combat with another race, the tech levels for the ship you fought show up on the "tech" tab when looking at that race's info. When you have a successfull "tech report" intel attack, that information is not added to the tech tab for the race. Personally, I think it should, but whatever.

If you click on your own race, the tech tab actually says 'technology used on our ships' not 'all the technology we know'. I guess the same applies to other races, even though it says 'known technology'. I agree with you that it would be good if was expanded to show all techs you know they've got.

Quote:

I used intel to steal technology quite frequently in my current game and if the projects were successful always got quite valuable new technology (as stellar manipulation). And I used as you the "any" option! Perhaps I was just lucky.

Lucky *******! It's not done anything like that for me! Ever.

couslee · #48 January 22nd, 2003, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Q:
I used intel to steal technology quite frequently in my current game and if the projects were successful always got quite valuable new technology (as stellar manipulation). And I used as you the "any" option! Perhaps I was just lucky.

Sounds like it. during those games, did your race setting have any "cleverness" bounses? Not that I am even going to attempt the math, but perhaps a 5% cleverness bonus also gives a hidden 10% increase in chance to snoop sucessfully... as example.
hell, even a 1% increase in the chance of passing hurdle 3 would make a big difference.

I "beta played" this for a while, since I had the game saved. and made a new save after each turn. I kinda wanted to see how the chance of sucess was. only that first time, and about the eighth time did I get a useless tech. the other 8 tries (I did it for ten turns) i recived the message "nothing valuable" found, meaning it didn't pass hurdle 3. now if that attempt only has a 20% chance of sucess, then you certainly should get a good tech when sucessfull

I realise the 10 attempts is not enough of an event base for determining chance percentages.

maybe I was just that unlucky. naw, this should be fixed imo.

Q · #49 January 22nd, 2003, 10:16 PM

Couslee, no my race has "average" cunning.
This is a strange difference I can't explain. The intel stealing of foreign technology was so effective in my game that I stopped doing it because I felt it too easy and unfair against the AI empires!
Are you absolutely sure that the target empire has technology that is useful for you (racial tech e.g. will not be useful). Probably a stupid question but I can't think of any other explanation.

couslee · #50 January 23rd, 2003, 01:09 AM

Q, that is a good question. But not the case in my game. I did a sucessfull tech report before even trying to steal anything. I knew that if they didn't have any advanced tech, I would be wasing a lot of intel for nothing. The tech report came back showing they had level 3 in scaners. I only had researched to level 1. Scanners is not a racial tech, and unless sucessfull tech reports lie (I doubt that) then they certainly had an advance.

After my 10 turns or so beta playing of it. I gave it a shot using the specific target instead of "any tech" and stole sensors 3 on the first attempt (I had since researched level 2).

It is quite possible the problem lies in the "any tech" selection. During the beta-playing, I even preceeded the steal attemt with a tech report, tho not every time. And even when the tech report showed an area more advanced, the steal attempt still would fail. Now, I don't remember if that 8th or so attempt had a tech report first. I may have stopped bothering with them at that point after getting a number of sucessfull tech reports and the steal attempt stating "we did not find anything usefull". I believe that message is the same as "our attempt failed" that you see with other intel actions. Not once did the tech steal show "attempt failed", just "we didn't find anything usefull". Hurdle 3.