Balancing Intel

[spoon]

I play with a group of people at work, and we greatly enjoy the game, though there seem to be some fairly horrific balancing issues. I'm considering making a Balanced Mod, and seek your input on a few topics. Who knows - if there is a general concensus (haha), these changes might make it into the upcoming patch (I man can dream, can't he?).

I'll start with everyone's favorite -- Intel.

Problem 1: Spying for fun and profit
Intel is so broken that most games don't use it. Here are the main culprits:

- Resource Procurement. Bankrupt an empire by stealing 10k of each resource. Cost: 15k intel points
- Food Contamination: Kills 100M citizens on a colony. Cost: 15k
- Communications Mimic: Makes one empire declare war on another empire. That's right. Even if they were partners. Cost: 20k
- Trade Disruption: Drops the trade level between two empires to 1%. Cost: 20k
- Crew Insurrection: Steals a ship. Cost:50k
- Puppet Political Parties: Removes a planet from enemy control. Planet either becomes a new ai, or you gain control of it.

Suggestion: The actual system is pretty good, but many of the projects are unbalancing. I'd recommend the following changes:
General Espionage
Force Concentrations: Lower cost -- 2,000
Queue Concentrations Lower cost -- 2,000
Ship Blueprints Lower cost -- 5,000
Covert Recon Lower cost -- 2,000
Census Thefts Lower cost -- 2,000
Technological Espionage no change (150k)
Embassy Taps Lower cost -- 2,000
Empire Star Charts Lower cost -- 5,000
Empire Archives Lower cost -- 10,000
Unit Blueprints Lower cost -- 5,000
Tech Reports no change (20,000)

General Sabotage
Economic Disruption Increase cost -- 30,000
Resource Procurment Increase cost -- 30,000; Decrease effect 5000 of each resource (instead of 10k)
Technological Sabotage Increase cost -- 50,000
Intelligence Sabotage Lower Cost -- 15,000

Planet Sabotage
Weather Disruptions Increase Cost -- 30,000
Ground Contamination no change (20,000)
Food Contamination Decrease effect to killing 5M population (instead of 100M). Or increase cost: 100,000.
Anarchy Groups Increase Cost -- 20,000
Puppet Political Parties Remove
Cargo Maint. Trouble (does this one even work?)
Industrial Sabotage no change (25,000)

Political Disruption
Trade Distruption Decrease effect to -5% trade, or remove
Comm Taps no change (15,000)
Comm Mimic Remove. (or make it so you can only send General Messages (but you get to write the message))
Comm Interceptors no change (10,000)

Ship Sabotage
Ship Bomb no change (10,000)
Engine Damage Lower cost -- 5000
Fuel Leak no change (10,000)
Crew Insurrection Remove, or give it a chance of failure (50%)
Crew Rotation no change (5,000)
Cargo Bomb Increase cost -- 7,500
Order Snafu Lower Cost -- 5,000

[geoschmo]

While I would haved no problem with you making these changes if you wish, for the most part they aren't that big of changes. I'm not sure you would see much differance. Also, keep in mind because of the way Counter intel works, making a project more expensive will also make it harder to defend against.

Originally posted by spoon:
Cargo Maint. Trouble (does this one even work?)

I think so. Do you have some reason to think it doesn't?

Comm Mimic Remove. (or make it so you can only send General Messages (but you get to write the message))

This would be cool. Very cool. This is really the only one of these suggested changes that you couldn't do yourself in a mod.

Geoschmo

[Graeme Dice]

Bringing the population loss down to 5 million is essentially the same things as saying "Don't bother with this, it's useless." Build population transports and move them away from your homeworld.

[Fyron]

100 million is way, way too much. That project (along with Cargo Bombs and Crew ConVersion) can be easily used to prevent large numbers of planets from ever having population.

[spoon]

Geo - the point is not to completely overhaul the system, because for the most part like it. It's the troublemaker projects I want to deal with, and I think these changes would make a significant difference:

Resource Procurment -- Increase cost -- 30,000; Decrease effect 5000 of each --> this increases cost by 50%, and halves the effect

Food Contamination -- Decrease effect to killing 5M population (instead of 100M). Or increase cost: 100,000. --> this reduces the effect by 95%

Puppet Political Parties -- Remove --> reduces effect 100% (hehe)

Trade Distruption -- Decrease effect to -5% trade, or remove --> reduces effect by (up to) 75%

Crew Insurrection -- Remove, or give it a chance of failure (50%) --> reduces effect by 50%

Graeme Dice - What level would you suggest? Note how effective it would still be against new colonies and colonies with abducted alien populations that you can't easily replenish.

[Will]

Originally posted by spoon:
Crew Insurrection Remove, or give it a chance of failure (50%)

It doesn't have a chance for failure already?

[Baron Munchausen]

You didn't even address the biggest balance problem in the intel system: You can 'attack' someone the instant you meet them. There's no need to learn the culture, establish an intelligence network, or anything like that. You just start pumping out 'intel attacks'... hrm?

After that of course,is the har dlimit of 12 projects. You can be a bigger 'intel power' than all the other players in the game combined and you are still bound to 12 projects at a time. Yech...

If these problems could be changed than many of the other 'problems' in the intel system could be balanced out.