Intelligence vs. Counter Intelligence

[WillyNilly]

I know I have a tremendous amount of intelligence compared to someone I'm playing, but my intelligence missions keep failing against his counter intelligence. I keep using the disrupt enemy intelligence mission, which I can finish in one turn, but it always fails.

He is too small to have that many intelligence facilities, but he has played the game more than me and knows how to use intelligence mission better than I do.

Does anyone have any advice.

[Tenryu]

Find his home world. Glass it.
LOL!

[Baron Munchausen]

Is he playing a 'Deeply Religious' race? There is a facility that would give some protection in that tech field. Also, if he's well ahead of you in Intelligence tech he counter-intel spending would be much more effective. Finally, there is one type of advantage that too many people over-look in this game. TREATIES. If he has a treaty with another empire that might give him even more intel points than you have. Are there other empires in the game that are as large or larger than you?

[WillyNilly]

I know he is not "deeply religious." It is possible that he has a large ally, I'm not sure.

I guess my concern is am I better off with multiple disrupt intelligence projects or a single project that I blow through in one turn.

I know that counter intelligence and be built up and then scale down, but how does disrupt intelligence work?

[Suicide Junkie]

I'm not too knowledgeable about the guts of intel, but from what I've read here, what matters is the total cost of the projects you attack with. One 100,000 every 5 turns should be about the same as one 20,000 every turn.

Also, If you have only recently started attacking him, he probably has a lot of stored up points that you will have to deplete before your attacks start to succeed. He could be blocking your attacks without putting points into defense, if he'd already invested some points, you see?

[Baron Munchausen]

The 'Intelligence Sabotage' project is probably what you're referring to. It's different from Counter Intelligence. While Counter-Intelligence will only stop projects that are working dirctly against your empire, Intelligence Sabotage will just destroy a random project in the enemy's current intelligence projects. These have different relative advantages and disadvantages.

Counter Intel has to outspend the attacker to work, for example, but is guaranteed to be working against projects directed against you. Intel Sabotage has to outspend any Counter-intel the enemy is putting up, but if he's spending a lot to attack you that might be very little. It can destroy anything, not just projects directed against you.

[WillyNilly]

My assumption is that he is taking all points available and applying them towards counter intelligence and I'm trying to figure out a way to bLast through it. Since I believe I have more then him, he might have a good headstart.

[Askan Nightbringer]

Its depends heavily on the level of counter intelligence being used.

If I remember correctly and ignoring "saved up" points, a player who goes 100% intelligence offence has to produce more the three times a player who is 100% intelligence defence with Counter Intelligence 3 to make anything work.

The only time I've ever managed to succeed with a sustained intelligence offensive was after blowing up lots of enemy planets with my ships and sending most of their planets into riot.
At that time the result is trivial anyway.

Askan

[Q]

Search this forum for the topic:
"(Counter-) Intel question"
You will find most of your questions answered there.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Stored counter-intelligence is really a pain to blow through. In my current game, I'm at war with an AI that finally is down to 0 intel point production each turn, and I'm hitting him with 200,000 points worth of ops each turn, but not a single success yet. It's been at 0 point production for at least the Last 5 turns, and I'd been hitting pretty hard for about 10-15 turns before that, but still it's been pretty frustrating.

Probably doesn't help that I have AI bonus on, which means the AI could have a LOT of counter-intel stored up. Plus that AI had been using intel for quite a while before I encountered it (the treaty grid implies that it used the Communication Mimic operation against all races encountered).

Anyway, intel & counter-intel have been discussed at length in this forum - like Q says, do a search and maybe you'll find an answer...