Discuss Intel Improvements

[Atrocities]

I was thinking about this today while playing, and it occured to me that as it stands, the intel in SEIV is not really that good. I know, thout shall not dis SEIV, but the plain true of the matter is that INTEL is horrible.

I mean, you can break up the points as to what project you want them to go too, and Counter intel is a joke.

You have no spies, and you can not specifically choose missions.

I mean, I would like to have spies in the enemy encampments feeding me info about what ships they are building, what systems they have found, what goodies they are collecting, etc.

Then I could use this info to plan my attacks.

Is there any way to improve the Intel for SEIV?

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[Q]

I agree with you Atrocities on the counter-intelligence: it's a mess. The offensive intel projects are quite good IMO. You can target your operations very specifically (e.g. crew conVersion of a ship you want). What is really missing is a intel project file for the AI, because now the AI spends intel points on projects that are completely useless from him.

[Andrés]

What about a concentrated counter intelligence, you can target to any of your ships or planets preventing int attacks locally

[tesco samoa]

I do not like the ship take over or the political puppet parties.

A little to powerful.

The puppet parties should take years to achieve. And you should not be able to choose planet at random.

Nor ship.

Does not make sence.

More cloak and dagger stuff. More political intel should be their.

Right now it is just to easy to criple a race with intel ( before 1.41 as well )

Intel should help achieve ones end.

Another thing. The information gathering sucks.

Ship concentrations does nothing to help you

Ohh their are 40 ships in sector _______

Get their and their mineral collectors.

Needs more detail. More realistic.



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L? GdX $ Fr C++ SdT T+ Sf* Tcp+ A M++ MpTM ROTS Pw+ Fq+ Nd Rp++ G+

[Suicide Junkie]

What would be nice is multiple levels of concentration.

-Everything
-Only sabotage (rather than non-destructive info gathering ops)
-System X
-Sector Y (to include moons)
-Op Type Z (such as "anti-PPP")

Additional dimensions:
-Every player
-Non-allied (sometimes allies spy on you, too)
-Only "AT WAR" (does not include "none", "non-aggresion", "non-intercourse", "subjugation", or "protectorate")
-Particular player

For the more finely focussed Defence, the intel point multiplier should be higher.
EG: A defensive operation protecting the Altair system from the Phong would get (1.2x5x3) or 18x the points spent on it.

This would be advantageous to smaller empires, especially against a MEE empire, since they can get 3x the effect from concentrating on the MEE player.

The MEE player cannot get the 3x bonus, since they must divide their defense among all of the smaller players. If a particular player was causing most of the trouble, then a 3x bonus concentrated defense might be effective.

Small empires with less than 5 systems would get an advantage by protecting each system individually for the 5x bonus.
When really small, a 20x bonus for protecting a single sector (planet + moons + stuff in orbit) could be even more effective.

[Taqwus]

The intelligence system could certainly use a revamp.

First, I'd advocate that there not be a separate counter-intelligence op, but that instead it'd be assigned as a separate percentage of "points".

Second, offensive operations are too quick to start, too fast to complete, and sometimes too easy.

With regards to the first aspect, perhaps a "Infiltration" level could be assigned for every (directed) empire-to-empire link. This reflects the overall amount of assets placed throughout a potential target. Infiltration would be degraded by counterintelligence (a bit randomly; sometimes a major mole might get noticed and multiple networks rolled up) and by losing contact; it could be increased over time by spending points. Not all operations make sense when infiltration is minimal, so some would have a mininum threshold (perhaps allowing below threshold, but at a severe penalty) -- why, for instance, would a nominally loyal world switch sides to somebody they just heard about? Regardless of the size of the instigator's intelligence establishment, it isn't _there_ yet.

Some operations, by there very nature, should take a significant amount of time. This reflects the need for planning, for gathering resources, and so forth -- there's only so much that you can do in parallel. I'd say that time should be affected by infiltration level, and perhaps by a maximum cap of points per turn put into an op; while once your resident geeks have broken into systems and accessed information they may be able to do this quickly until the leak is plugged, capturing a ship by infiltrating the crew should take a while (especially with an experienced crew that's unlikely to take unknowns aboard). I wouldn't mind seeing, in a sequel, say, the ability to spend *more* time than the minimum required in order to have a higher estimated (I shouldn't know *true* probability) probability of success.

Third, some of the more ambitious operations have too high a success rate. Crew insurrection is a notable example; a dreadnought, if located, can be CI'd with ease and rapidity. This should probably be rather difficult, especially when the ship isn't at a planet (IOW, nobody's sneaking aboard...).

If CI and PPP (the required groundwork for PPP should be considerable -- i.e. high infiltration threshold, long set-up time unless one doesn't mind high risk depending on counter-intel) were modified thusly, they might not be so powerful as they are now.

As for information gathering, it'd be more useful if there were a way to a) gather information about planetary facilities or defenses, and b) have the information 'stick', as if one had line-of-sight there. Basically, assets on a world that provide information until caught or withdrawn.

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