Is the intelligence in SE(?) ok?

[Q]

Personally I don't like the idea to drop counter intel at all. And for me the ability to store counter intel points was actually an improvement of SE IV compared to SE III. However I like the idea of a racial characteristic (more than a racial trait) where you can alter the success rate of enemy intel projects in the game setup pretty much like the defensiveness characteristic works for combat. And if the ability "Change Bad Intelligence Chance - System" is fixed as promised in the next patch we will have many possibilities to modify the intel actions already in SE IV.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I didn’t mean to say that the storage of intel points should be dropped. If you drop the counter intel projects because you have different selectable levels of “counter intel defense”, for lack of a better name, than that equates to focusing on offensive intel projects. Also Q I am not sure what you mean by racial (species) characteristics as opposed to racial (species) traits, could you please expand on this concept for me?

[Q]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
Also Q I am not sure what you mean by racial (species) characteristics as opposed to racial (species) traits, could you please expand on this concept for me?

A racial trait you pick or you don't. It's all or nothing. A racial characteristic can be raised or lowered by 1% intervals and starts at 100%. This gives you much more variety than one or two fixed racial traits.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Right, I guess I had a mind blank, actually no, I was thinking of the chocolate covered cherries I was making at the time. I would prefer to see it introduced as a species trait. As the game stands now Intelligence is a species characteristic, but it is very generic. I see what you are saying though, that it should be split into categories (right) like intel-defense, intel-offense for example. I think this may (or may not) complicate things more. It is an idea worth exploring though.

Do enough of us here like both points that we can safely split into two paradigms and discuss the pros and cons?

Paradigm 1) Intelligence as a species characteristic.

Paradigm 2) Intelligence as a species trait.

[rdouglass]

How about both?

Using a model you've been discussing, maybe treat Intel like combat bonuses; each empire gets trait, characteristic, and training / experience values. Subtract total "Offensive" from "Defensive" (or vice versa) and that is the "percent chance of sucess".

Oversimplified, but sounds feasible to me....anyone else?

EDIT: Isn't that how "Chance to Hit" is calc'ed now??? Without using any Talisman-like features, that should always provide a chance to suceed AS WELL AS a chance to fail.

[ December 18, 2003, 17:50: Message edited by: rdouglass ]

[President_Elect_Shang]

I follow what you are saying and it too is a good idea. I see two problems with this though.

1) Modding: Anyone who wanted to select an intelligence trait would be doing so for not. Another player could simply select higher bonuses in the intelligence species section. Consider that you can’t guess how your opponent divided up his bonus points for characteristics, but who amongst us does not know the advantages that are provided by the traits natural merchants or lucky. Do you see what I am getting at? If you select the trait lucky your opponent can’t raise anything in the characteristics area to make you unlucky. Thus I decided to split the ideas into the two paradigms below; they really can not coexist without some major tinkering with the game mechanics.

2) The second problem I see is that it would really be redundant. If you make the intel into a characteristic and get full customization than you would not have an incentive to waste points picking a trait that provides the same or similar bonuses. Of course I need not point out that you can easily cap the amount for points that can be spent but still.

This [number 2] leads to another point. If the characteristic is customizable why have the trait which you can’t customize. I prefer the former over the latter because it will allow modders to have more [AI] control over the races they create. Also I really think that too much control, which characteristics selection could provide is a bad thing. Limiting it would be easier than having Aaron lay it in the code (un-modable) and it would help to flesh out the species identity RP wise. Not that characteristics don’t do the same thing already. Given this I will admit that there are holes in my idea. Still if you can mod in new offensive-intel projects you would not be able to mod in counter-intel projects if counter-intel is a characteristic. Man is this long.

[Cyrien]

In the mod I have been working on for oh so long I have been dividing intel into several categories based on race mental makeup. I broke it into the following categories: - players must choose one, I did something similiar with technology

Strong Individuals
Individuals
Unified Society
Unified Minds
Hive Mind
Single Mind

Then based on that you get different intel CI and intel projects with varying costs. Individuals have weaker CI as it is easier to convince one to go against the whole etc. At the same time because it is known that they will and do act in this way they are more easily able to convince other species that they are acting independent and mean no harm, also each agent can act on own initiative causing less usage of empire wide resources (intel points).

Single Mind has massive CI as everything is a single indivual. The pinky finger isn't going to betray the thumb. The Hive mind has similiar CI and both of those have very expensive non-CI projects that are limited in scope and ability as it will be harder for a race that is known to not possess indivual thought to penetrate into trusted areas of any other species, also every project requires special attention from the single mind and empire resources are more likely to be used(intel points).

The unified signify species that while they have indivual thoughts they are either joined in a greater societal goal or are somehow linked mentally with a greater cohesion. These offer a more ballanced intel package with the society link being slightly weaker CI and increased offense and the unified minds being stronger CI but weaker offense.

Seperate from those and optional picks that can compliment and offer extras to the above

Open Borders - Better offensive intel in reduced project costs but weaker CI
Default - Must pick if you don't take a different one so that normal intel is active, limitation of the SE4 mod system
Closed Borders - Stronger CI but weaker offensive intel

The system isn't perfect but it is the best I could come up with to incorporate individual alien societies/makeups/whatever into the intel system.

Ideally I would want to have each project working like PPP with it having a chance to fail and succeed regardless of CI, have CI with limited point storage to stop small one turn projects in small numbers and Intel Sabotage to stop big programs.

However SE4 doesn't allow moding of intel project success rates. PPP is 50% and everything else is 100%