Intelligence BS

Armageddon · #1 February 5th, 2001, 06:26 AM

Ok, so I was enjoying a nice, relatively peaceful game. I had set up a massive alliance and trade network and was quickly rising in power. I was engaged in a war with the number one empire, but we didn't really fight at all. I was testing out my fleets on an annoying neutral, when suddenly I got hit with a faked message and had my long-term, closest ally at war with me!

I was pissed, and decided that I was enjoying the situation beforehand, so I reloaded a previous save, and it happened again. And again. And again. Every time I reloaded, It happened, even with my rather strong counter-intelligence operations going. I found this odd, so I reloaded a game from about 10 turns back and recreated the situation. This time I added even more counter-intelligence. Eventually I got back to the same point, and it happened again!

I find this odd because Last time I checked, intelligence missions are supposed to be difficult to succeed at, especially from an empire with no bonuses against a strong counter-intelligence network. Yet, the enemy got me every time. It almost seemed like it was a guaranteed success.

At what point does the game decide if the mission was a success? If it had a chance to fail, then it should have done so at least once out of all of the reloads I made. Does it decide success or failure the moment the project begins?

This just seems really shady, and I'm worried about some kind of AI cheat, when I thought there was none.

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--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

Tomgs · #2 February 5th, 2001, 07:42 AM

I don't think is on a chance basis (except perhaps the puppet political parties and that was patched to be chance). The only thing that is left to chance is which project your counter intell targets and that could be first to Last order (I don't know how that is decided). If you have 10 counterintell operations going and he has 12 operations against you 2 of his operations will succeed no matter what. The reason I don't think there is chance invloved is that I have never had an Intell operation fail that wasn't countered by AI counterintell. So I don't think chance has anything to do with it. Did you try to do some intelligence sabotage? That does probably target a random intell operation so may get the one you want sometimes. If any other AI are also targeting you with intell this also counts against the counter intell you run so if one Empire ran 10 against you and another 4 you would never be able to counter all of them.

Armageddon · #3 February 5th, 2001, 03:45 PM

Hmm...that might be it. I'll experiment with it and see. Thanks.

------------------
--Armageddon
"Ernest Hemmingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.' I agree with the later."

Morgan Freeman
Seven

rdouglass · #4 February 5th, 2001, 07:43 PM

Also, I believe it has to do with the LEVEL of Counter Intel. IOW, a Level 2 Counter Intell project does not prevent a Level 1 or a Level 3 Intel project, only a Level 2. I may be wrong, but I think it works this way. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.