Intel useless?

[gwichman]

Am i wrong in assuming intelligence is useless? Initialy it was very effective when nobody had counter intel. But ever since i got my intel up to about 10-15k production, and started doing counter intel 3 exclusively (no other intel), there hasn't been a single intel op that's been successful.

Furthermore now that everyone has that level of intel, it seems like intel orders always fail.

I'd be interested in hearing other's opinions or exprience regarding intel as i'm thinking of scaling back dramatically on intel and building something else. Is it as worthless as i think? Seems like once you got enuf to contribute a little to counter, nobody can hurt you with it anymore.

[ 07 January 2002: Message edited by: gwichman ]

[Egregius]

If two guys are pushing against a wooden pallisade with equal strength, the pallisade will not budge.

However if you stop pushing it will fall on your head.

[Eric Bamberg]

I've had the same experience late in games, but I have to admit it does make sense. Unless you have enough intelligence points to overwhelm your opponent's defenses, you're not going to succeed. And, of course, the same applies in reverse. You can neglect your own counter-intelligence in order to spare more points for offensive intelligence projects, but you risk being victimized by your enemies.

Eric

[gwichman]

while i agree it "makes sense" to think of it working that way, in my experience it does not.

My current intel output is maybe 25k.. The guy attacking me constantly has 58k output according to the scores. I block him *every* time and have since about 10k. Sometimes i even have an offensive project going but it simply gets blocked.

I'm just looking for some real world practical experience. Does it ever work? AM i correct in assuming it's only neccessary to build intel up to about 15k and then stop?

[Slaughtermeyer]

You're basically correct, counterintel level 2 doubles the effectiveness of intel points assigned to it, and counterintel level 3 triples the point value assigned to it.

[Undertakr]

Then the question is this:

Intel must work in 1 of 2 ways:

1) The attacks must take more points than the counter being used.

IE: If I have 20,000 Intel points and I'm running Intel III, that's 60,000 defense points. Someone would have to do 60,001 point worth of an attack on me in one turn to get an attack through.

or

2) The attacker must have an Intelligence number higher than my Intelligence adjusted with defense.

IE: If I have 20,000 Intel points and I'm running INtel III, that's 60,000 defense points. If the person attacking me has 60,001 Intell points, his attack gets through.

Option 2 I question because it makes it so whoever has the most Intel can't be stopped ever. If have 60,000 defense points and can't expand my realm and my opponent can expand to 100,000 Intel points or something sick, I could never stop his intel attacks, which seems quite unfair.

Opinions?

- Takr