Proposed counter intelligence fix

Lastseer · #1 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 · #2 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 · #3 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 · #4 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 · #5 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 · #6 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).]

Stone Mill · #7 March 6th, 2001, 06:01 PM

The intel system is definitely broken, at least in PBEM simaltaneous games.

After reading about how it is supposed to work, I have been confounded as to what the heck is going on in my current game. I have been running intel projects against my opponent for about 12 turns:

My base intel: 45-50K
His Defense Intel: 8-12K

Not ONE operation has succeeded. I asked him how he defended my attacks, and he has been running nothing but defense (counter Intel II with repeat). He had intel tech for only an estimate of 30 turns. Let's say that according to these numbers, he should have 30 X 10K = 300,000 possible counter intel project points.

BAFFLING PART: He currently has three level II projects near completion! That's about 700,000 defense points! Not to mention the (estimated) 45,000 X 12 turns = 540,000 offensive intel operation points that should have reduced his defense. It should not even be close.

The only other thing I can think of is that he is in a partnership with another player with about a 50K intel base. I doubt this is causing this effect.

IF intel worked the way it was supposed to, it would be a HUGE factor in games against other humans. But according to our experiences, there seems to be a problem or something we could have missed... It's just lame to discover that Intel is useless after you have been playing for 80 turns.