Is the intelligence in SE(?) ok?

[se5a]

what if the size of the empire made a diference to how well intell worked, ie if an empire is small it would be harder to sabotage and spy on.
if it is larger it would be easyer.

also makeing repeted operations get more and more expencive agansed an empire (ie the other empire finds ways to prevent water contamination after it happens a copple of times, therefore makeing it a lot harder to acomplish)

[AMF]

Well, even if empires were ripping each other's throats out, they would still have rogue amd lawless elements running guns, info, trade goods between them. Most wars throguhout human history, even the nastiest ones, have still involved trade on these levels.

And, from what I know of intel, having projects as its unit of measure/unit of analysis is the way to go...it's more a matter of how to model those projects, I would think...

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
I don’t mean to say that I don’t like the intelligence projects, just not all of them as they are. You know if we joined up and developed a more (or less) realistic (game wise speaking) set of intelligence projects I am sure Aaron would give them consideration. As for StarFury it assumes that the empires in question are not ripping each others throats out, at least I think so. I have not had the chance to play it as of yet because it will not run on my computer, but I am working with Aaron to solve the problem so maybe soon…

[President_Elect_Shang]

Right, my point also, they should be modeled better. The flaw in your logic about the smugglers etc is that you are using our history. As we are one planet and it is not possible for a country to defend every inch of its borders, and I do mean every inch [Edited in for clarity: By every inch I also mean above and below ground.], smuggling can take place. Also don’t forget that you are speaking of one human dealing with another. Still I have to agree it is really a good point. In the case of SE(?) we are dealing with only a few points of entry (Warp Points) and another species, not even bipedal in some cases. These limited points of entry into your empire can be well defended and even the dumbest guard is not likely to wave in an assassin from the Green Slimy Amorphous Empire.

As far as SEx goes man did I make a typo or what, let me change the title of this thread!

[ December 16, 2003, 18:03: Message edited by: President Elect Shang ]

[Alneyan]

And even without consider trade with this Dishonourable Foe, you will need freighters within your own systems, if only to bring food to this industrial world of yours. Humans being what they are, the Dishonourable Foe might try to corrupt a captain or three of such ships, thus allowing for potential spies to make it to your planets.

And then I do like Scout's suggestion: it should be harder to strike a race with a mere planet and two ships than an Empire ruling over a thousand worlds. And the more attacks you launch, the more prepared your opponents would be, especially against the same planet. You would expect a planet who has just suffered from a catastrophic plague because of some operative to be much more cautious, wouldn't you?

What I would like as well would be to have actual operatives to perform these projects. You might try to have a few, very talented agents, able to succeed much more easily than your average Joe, or a lot of beginner agents, or an elite team dedicated to Counter-Intelligence, or some Jack-of-all-trades and so on. Something along these lines was done for Imperium Galactica, and was probably one of the few good ideas in this game.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Right the freighters, true. But I still don’t think my point is made clearly. How did the spy get into my system to bribe the captain in the first place? Also lets consider a race with a hive mind, how do you bribe one of their captains to dump radioactive waste on the nearest colony?

[Parasite]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
How did the spy get into my system to bribe the captain in the first place?

How can you talk with ships in different systems, even when possibly cloaked and separated by enemies? IMHO, Once you have communication, you can have lies, hypnotism, greed, promises made and kept or made and broken. If you are talking a billion people, there are bound to be some that are dissatisfied, mutated, dumb, or something. In fact you could be talking to me

[Alneyan]

I didn't answer to your post in particular, as I was writing my own answer when you have posted your point. It gets somewhat complicated.

Contacting a captain can be done, or cannot, depending on how you think communications is handled within the game. And likewise, you may consider there are a lot of ships going in and out, or merely a few, making travel much easier or harder. So on this peculiar area, your mileage may vary. However, it does raise a problem when dealing with Psychic races, Hive races or something along these lines. That I will leave to the attention of someone roleplaying one such race.

I admit the fact that a few spies can make it behind your lines doesn't bother me too much, but I gather we have quite different conceptions of how a stellar society would be built, and so it would be much easier to be a spy in my own Empires than in yours. Or perhaps I am not yet cautious enough...

What does annoy me is that you will *always* know who performed an Intelligence action against you when it fails. Is Counter-Intelligence so efficient all spies are caught red-handed alive? (It might be hard to know who was trying to assassinate your ruler if the ship ferrying this spy was blown out "just in case" by planetary defences) I am also wondering if you could recruit spies from another race to confuse things all the more. If you happen to play the EEE, your spies might be quite easily identified.