PBW Star Trek Game

[Fyron]

Intel is still horribly broken in SE4.

[Atrocities]

The game is posted at the PBW site.

[Fyron]

The Intel system of SE4 is horribly, horribly broken, as following:

Intel attacks are either horribly overwhelming, or impossible to get anything through the CI of the targets. A situation in which both sides can get some projects through, but some others are blocked, is almost never a possibility.

If a mission is not blocked by CI, it succeeds 100% (except for PPP, but that is only 1 mission). This is wholely unrealistic, and only compounds the all or nothing problems of SE4 Intel.

You have absolutely no possibility of defense unless you research Intel and devote huge amounts of facility slots to it. There should be some minimum generation per planet or something for intel that can only be used for CI, so you are not completely vulnerable. Even the Intel you can get from Partnerships is nowhere near enough to provide effective defense from a dedicated attacker.

All of this stems from a poorly designed system. Some would argue that removing Intel removes some possible strategic actions. This would be a good argument, if the system was not horribly horribly bad.

These problems (except the low level of Intel generation, maybe add 50 or so Intel Point Generation to Research Centers) can not be fixed by mods; they require hard code changes to fix.

So, I still would prefer that Intel be disabled for this game. I welcome all arguments, criticisms etc. I am sure I can come up with more reasons why Intel should be disabled if you want me to.

[Atrocities]

I would say that if intel is going to become a problem, we should exclude it from this game.

[geoschmo]

Fyron, I wont try to convince you, I know that once you make up your mind there's no hope of that.

The problems with the intel system are well known and documented and have been since the begining of SE4. This is really nothing new. Personally I have no problem using it or not for this game.

We are the Borg. Intel is irrelevant. You will adapt to service us.

For those races that would tend to use it, disallowing it would, I think, take a lot of the richness of the RP out of it. Dominion, Romulan, and to a lesser extent the Ferengi and Federation all have active spy networks in Trek.

For a more competative game your point about disallowing intel taking away a piece of the strategy of the game is valid. People complain already that empire setup is too formulaic. Taking Intel out of the game makes it even more so. That argument doesn't really apply that much to a role play game like this though.

Geoschmo

[Atrocities]

I have asked CNC if he cares about having intel since he is playing as the Cardassians. He said that he wanted it. I talked to him about what Fyron has said, and he agreed to think it over. I think he too will agree that Intel, if it is going to cause problems, is not needed this time out.

So we have 3 for no intel, 1 on the fence. Any others?

[Fyron]

I think Sparhawk and Tesco both said they wanted intel on, but that was before my big post...

[ March 05, 2003, 04:44: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]