quote:
Originally posted by Commander G2:
Make all intelligence operations target ships or planets. Resource stealling would apply to a particular planet and the extent of the damage would be limited to:
Max( Planetary Queue Limit X 1.5,
Resource Production on Planet + Stored Resource * Planetary Storage Capacity / (Global Storage Capacity-50K+1) + Min(Global Stored, 50K)/ Number of Colonies
)
To make this universal would involve the player in too much micro management, imo, but perhaps a balance could be struck.
quote:
Modify success defending intelligence against planets based on troops present and to a lessor extent security components or troops on ships in orbit.
Modify success defending against intelligence against ships based on security components on a ship. This would make this component much more valuable. To a lessor extent add troops in a cargo hold as well.
This is an excellent idea and should definitely be implemented in some form.
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Failing at an intelligence operations should jeoprodise your intelligence network in someway (lose of points from outstanding projects or other operations against the same target). Security forces should have a chance each turn to foil a developing intelligence attack.
Another good idea. An example of how to implement this well would be MOO II. In MOO II one simply had agents killed off by enemy counter intelligence at a greater or lesser pace all the time. Sometimes an enemy would launch a serious crackdown, at which point you risked getting all of your expensive agents killed and were forced to send them into hiding to maximize their chances for survival.
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Uncompleted projects should loose a percentage of their points every turn (prevent building up counter intelligence stockpiles).
This is another great idea, another must. Intelligence projects are typically time sensitive, preparations for their execution not being a matter of public record. Therefor the situation should decay rapidly once the agent no longer has things personally in hand.
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Consider removing counter intelligence all together and rely completely on troops and security components. Or allow counter intelligence to be allocated to fleets and planets (big change). I do not oppose the counter intelligence operation itself as long as you implement some sort of decay value to prevent saving up points. Counter Intelligence could be viewed as blanket protection divided by the number of defending ships or number of defending planets. If you do this division, you might consider dividing by the square root of the number of ships or planets, otherwise the division would kill the effectiveness too much. Blanket protection for a large empire would be very costly (just as it would cost the USA much more than Isreal to achieve the same amount of coverage).
I would not get rid of Counter Intelligence altogether. This said, however, I do think it is a good idea to have it modified by various other factors and potentially keyed to empire size.
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Stealing Technology would work on any planet or ship and be limited to technology employed in units and facilities or on the ship itself. Exception: Shipyards would have available any technology for all designs.
Using security and troops to prevent intelligence will allow small empires to defend themselves better against juggernauts who can rip them apart quickly using intelligence. It even gives a race an option of conducting no intelligence and purely defending against it with security forces.
Security stations on ships and garrisons (possibly a new facility) of troops stationed locally should certainly affect the chances of an Op to succeed, but should not be the sole determinant. Again, I think CI cannot be dispensed with.
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Finally, add Advanced traits that affect Intelligence:
Collective Conciousness - near immunity to most intelligence operations, side affect: magnify happiness shifts by a factor and magnify the limit by how much they can change in one turn. Or instead, treat every system where they have a colony as one big system for figuring out the modifiers.
Absolute Loyalty - near immunity to most intelligence operations (especially sabatoge and puppet political parties).
This is a big one and would add immensely to the existing system. Using MOOII as an example again, its' forms of government had a huge impact on both the economy and intelligence. A good example was Democracy (other choices were Dictatorship, Unification, etc.) which offered great economic incentives while leaving the society all the more vulnerable to intelligence attack. To a degree the "Culture" modifier accomplishes this now and could be tweaked to provide more of an effect.
All in all, there are some good well considered ideas here. Let's take the author's advice and debate them.
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Going along with the conditions of the world, without hindrance. Conditions of the world going along with conditions of the world, going along is a condition of the world when going along - this is called without hindrance."
[This message has been edited by Magus38 (edited 02 November 2001).]
Suggested Improvement to Intelligence Ops
Linear Mode
