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

[Phoenix-D]

"The guy attacking me constantly has 58k output according to the scores. I block him *every* time and have since about 10k."

Well, he may not be using it all against *you*. A lot is probably going towards defense, maybe some towards other targets, etc.

Counter-Intelligence builds up I think- an almost-finshed CI project is more effective than a fresh one.

Phoenix-D

[Skulky]

Also, if you get all your allies to attack a guy with intel does that work? Or are the attacks processed seperatly? If they are processed in order you get everyone to do intel attack on one guy, then you could get way over his head wiht projects and then just share the info or the benifits of wiping out his homeworld with PPP etc.

[gwichman]

as far as i can tell it doesn't help. My allies and I had 6 crew inssurections total go off on the same turn against the guy with 58k intel output. He blocked them all..

After seeing that, i feel like cutting back my intel facilities as they dont seem that useful and going with mineral which are extrmeelly useful

[Suicide Junkie]

How long had the guy been building up his defense projects?

58K takes 85 turns to fill up to the maximum counter intel storage of over 6 MILLION defense points (including the 20% bonus for defenders)

Spend 6.5 Million points in offensive projects (combined among all your allies) in the next year (10 turns) (add 1/2 million for each additional year it takes) and you will have depleted his defense storage.

At that point, he will only block the first 70K worth of projects (20% bonus to def) that hit each turn, and all subsequent projects will succeed.

PS:
If he has any partnership treaties, his actual intel available for defense will be higher than shown for his personal score.
Add 20% of any allies' intel production to his ouput, and multiply by 1.2 for the defender bonus.

[ 08 January 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]