An idea to balance out tech

[Krsqk]

Intel sabotage can be useful, if you use espionage to pick and choose your targets. The biggest problem, as I see it is the simplistic nature of the system. Ships/fleets can do most of the same jobs more easily and with more precision. At the same time, the simplicity prevents intel from being used effectively in specialty situations ships can't accomplish.

RE: the high cost of Tech Espionage, I believe it's to make it more likely to succeed (more points=harder to block).

[DavidG]

Baron if I understand you post you are saying an intell project will either fail or succeed based soley on the number of defensive points? So if a race has 0 defense the projects will always succeed and this cannot be modded?

[Baron Munchausen]

Depending on the intel project there may be a 'base' chance for it to succeed or fail, like Puppet Political parties, for example. But as far as intel defenses go, yes, it's simply a matter of spending more points to win the contest. Higher level counter-intel helps a little bit by multiplying your points. That's it.

[dogscoff]

There should be a special 'Build Intel Network' project that you have to use on each and every target empire in order to even have the ability to stage intel projects within them.

It could be called [racename]embasssy or [racename]intel control centre or something, and you have to build one for each player that you want to infiltrate. It could also generate intel points. This facility would be hard for MM to add into the game (I expect) but would solve the "infiltration" question and mean that certain planets become significant targets for certain empires...

Anyway, things which I think ought to modify intel op success probabilities:

*Distance of target from your territory or (in the case of ships) from any colonised planet.

*Whether you have any population in your empire from the target species. (You could recruit and/or brainwash them to infiltrate the enemy=-)

*Whether any of your population is on the target planet/ ship.

*The happiness rating of target planets (ie discontented citizens helping enemy agents.)

*The experience rating of the target ship. (more experienced = more loyal/ more able to prevent sabotage.)

Just patching these few things in as percentage modifiers would greatly increase the (perceived) randomness and complexity of intel. I imagine it would be relatively simple for MM to implement. Also, these changes would attach added importance to things like population happiness, enemy population distribution & crew training, which can only be a good thing. You'd find yourself running one project (ie induce rioting) to increase the chances of another project working...

Also, when a planet is captured by PPP, any native troops on that planet should get the chance to retake it. This is important, IMHO.

[ August 13, 2002, 13:17: Message edited by: dogscoff ]