Proposed counter intelligence fix

dmm · #1 March 5th, 2001, 08:35 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Lastseer:
Then CI comes down to who is spending more on intelligence. If he outspends you offsensively, he gets you. If your defense outspends his offense, then you're safe.

But it ought to be based only on RECENT spending. Why should large sums of money spent on CI twenty years ago protect you now? An Intel upstart willing to pour tons of resources into his current projects should be able to beat someone who's been investing in CI for a long time at a low level. I think that is why I/CI projects cost finite amounts.

The solution, IMHO, is to have CI points "hang around" for a while after the project completes. The simplest way would be to lose a certain percent each turn before adding in the newly acquired CI points. Something like this:

CI=CI*0.9+(NewCI)

In any case, you're definitely right that CI projects shouldn't automatically synchronize over time. That's a rip-off. Could you counter that by making different CI projects (all at the same level) that take different amounts of time to complete? You might be able to get the same effect that I've proposed above, without requiring reprogramming from MM.

Lastseer · #2 March 5th, 2001, 08:56 PM

Are you sure that if you have say 40k built up in a project and someone completes a 10k project against you, the 40k you have built up goes away? Or does it go down to 30k built up?

If the former, then their really is a one to one project Int to Counter-Int. And if you are after someone you want to sync your Intelligence projects to all finish in the same turn to hit them. You also want to start a whole bunch of cheap ones projects 1-11 to finish at the same time as the important expensive project 12 to succeed.

If the later, then you don't really need more than one intelligence project if it can hold enough points.

It seems to me that the Intelligence system right now is quite broken.

[This message has been edited by Lastseer (edited 05 March 2001).]

raynor · #3 March 5th, 2001, 09:12 PM

My very first game was a low difficulty game where I had 100,000 intel points going into a single CI 3 project. When I became MEE, the COMBINED intel of all the other empires added up to at most 10,000 intel points, and their intel projects were getting through all the time. Then, I got on the board here and found out that I needed to have multiple projects running to counter multiple enemy intel projects.

I don't know that it is broken. But it certainly is a bit counter-intuitive. I still prefer the MOO approach where you spent production to create spies that can be devoted to either offensive projects or defensive projects. As long as you have one spy, none of the enemy projects can break through. So, a huge empire can afford to produce 100 spies and then stop spending production on spies until that number gets killed off my enemy projects.

Of course, this system has its flaws as pointed out by the other post: Is it really fair that production spent on intel 20 years ago stops a current day project? On the other hand, there should definitely be some bonus for a well-established intel network. For that reason, I prefer the MOO setup.

Nitram Draw · #4 March 5th, 2001, 09:47 PM

I have a general question about Intel and this seems to be a good topic to ask it in.
What happens to the intel points when you have an expensive project going and a few turn later you add another one? Does it store what has already been accumulated and divvy up future points? What about if you cancel a project, do the point accumulated get added to the remaining projects or are they wasted?
Thanks

Baron Munchausen · #5 March 5th, 2001, 09:48 PM

quote:
Originally posted by raynor:

I don't know that it is broken. But it certainly is a bit counter-intuitive. I still prefer the MOO approach where you spent production to create spies that can be devoted to either offensive projects or defensive projects. As long as you have one spy, none of the enemy projects can break through. So, a huge empire can afford to produce 100 spies and then stop spending production on spies until that number gets killed off my enemy projects.

Of course, this system has its flaws as pointed out by the other post: Is it really fair that production spent on intel 20 years ago stops a current day project? On the other hand, there should definitely be some bonus for a well-established intel network. For that reason, I prefer the MOO setup.

You are mistaken about spies in MOO. Don't assume that you are always informed when your technology is stolen in MOO. You are not. You'd better keep a 1-1 or better ratio of your defensive spies to the offensive spies from your enemies or you are losing information whether you hear about it or not.

Triumvir Emphy · #6 March 5th, 2001, 10:02 PM

I don't see a problem with points spent 20 or even30 years ago for offensive or defensive Intel projects,... It takes years to infiltrate an organization. Spies don't wake up one morning and decide to steal nuclear plans for lunch. They Spend years trying to find weaknesses etc.

I think most peoples problem with the way intel works is that they don't know how it works. Blame it on the "manual" not on how the intel is currently working.

DirectorTsaarx · #7 March 5th, 2001, 10:55 PM

I also used to think that you needed CI level 2 or 3 to counter Intel level 2 or 3; but then I checked the Q&A on the MM website and discovered that ANY CI project can indeed block any Intel project, assuming the CI project has accumulated enough points. Another interesting point is that the only Intel project that costs more than the CI level 1 (100,000 points) is "Steal Technology" (or whatever it's called) at 150,000 points.

So it seems the only real benefit to the higher-level CI projects is blocking the "Steal Technology" project (which is fairly minor in comparison to others, since you don't actually lose something, the enemy merely gains the benefit of your research). The other good thing is that the higher-level projects are less likely to complete "unsuccessfully" just because it takes longer to spend the full number of points, which makes it more likely that an enemy will finish an intel project against you before you spend the full number of points. (hope that Last sentence made sense...)

As for multiple intel projects completing at the same time, I think two things are happening:
1) the enemy's intel projects are synching up because they cost about the same amount
2) there's a "domino effect" occurring. The AI is, of course, running counter-intel ops of its own. As those counter-intel ops are completed, unspent points (if any) are used to make the following intel ops complete, and so everything completes at the same time...

[This message has been edited by DirectorTsaarx (edited 05 March 2001).]