Counter Intelligence Questions

Magus38 · #1 April 4th, 2001, 10:00 PM

I am hoping you guys can answer these questions as I am getting nailed constantly by intel attacks.

1) The explanation of Counter Intelligence implies that as long as the project is running it will act as a shield against attack. Does it matter how many intel points are applied to it? If not then why make it more expensive when it goes up levels?

2) Whenever Counter Intelligence completes the turn logs mentions that it prevented attacks from ONE enemy empire. Does it protect against only one empire then? Should I have more than one Counter Intelligence project running then? Say, one per enemy?

3) This question relates to question 1 as the answer will help to determine if I should be devoting more intel points to Counter Intelligence or if that is irrelevant just as long as the project is running. If, as is implied by the log, that one instance of Counter Intelligence only protects against one empire's attacks, does it protect against all attacks from that empire for the duration of the project, or from only one attack?

4) Finally, does anyone know how the "protection" is calculated (a level two attack having only a 20% chance of success vs. Counter Intelligence III, to give a hypothetical example)?

From what I have been able to glean from the IntelProjects file I am interpreting things like this:

Line:-
Target Message 1 := One of our intelligence projects against the [%SourceEmpireName] was defeated by counter-intelligence defenses.

This might indicate that it targets the attacks of one empire, but this is ambiguous.

Line:-
Effect Amount := 3

This seems to indicate that Counter Intelligence III blocks up to three attacks. Again, whether these are the attacks of a single empire or any incoming attacks that happen to come to fruition during the Counter Intelligence project, I cannot say with any certainty.

Thoughts?

[This message has been edited by Magus38 (edited 04 April 2001).]

DirectorTsaarx · #2 April 4th, 2001, 10:31 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Magus38:
I am hoping you guys can answer these questions as I am getting nailed constantly by intel attacks.

First, this has been a much-discussed topic; sometimes fairly emotional discussions. But you're right, the manual is very thin on this point; MM has a couple Q&A's on the website about it, but they only help a little.

quote:
1) The explanation of Counter Intelligence implies that as long as the project is running it will act as a shield against attack. Does it matter how many intel points are applied to it? If not then why make it more expensive when it goes up levels?

Yes, it matters. Points spent on a project will be applied as defense against an incoming project. (see answer to number 4)

quote:
2) Whenever Counter Intelligence completes the turn logs mentions that it prevented attacks from ONE enemy empire. Does it protect against only one empire then? Should I have more than one Counter Intelligence project running then? Say, one per enemy?

Counter-Intelligence protects against ONE PROJECT. If an empire uses multiple intel projects (and they ALL do), you need multiple counter-intel projects for each empire. Fortunately, you don't have to specify a "target" for counter-intel, so as long as you have 2 or 3 for each enemy you'll block many attacks. Especially if you have more intel points to spend than they do...

quote:
3) This question relates to question 1 as the answer will help to determine if I should be devoting more intel points to Counter Intelligence or if that is irrelevant just as long as the project is running. If, as is implied by the log, that one instance of Counter Intelligence only protects against one empire's attacks, does it protect against all attacks from that empire for the duration of the project, or from only one attack?

See answer above (i.e., each Counter-Intel blocks one attack).

quote:
4) Finally, does anyone know how the "protection" is calculated (a level two attack having only a 20% chance of success vs. Counter Intelligence III, to give a hypothetical example)?

Protection is calculated purely on points. If the enemy is working on a 10,000 point project, you can counter it by spending 10,000 points on a counter-intelligence project. (The Settings.txt file implies that there's actually a bonus for counter-intel points, so you may only have to spend about 8,000 points to block a 10,000 point project, but I can't confirm that). And, BTW, the Counter-Intelligence project will "complete" at that time. So you didn't have to spend 100,000 points to complete it, you only spent 8,000 or 10,000 or something like that.

Having said that, why bother with higher-level counter-intelligence projects? Only because they take longer to complete. Which means the protection is "active" a little longer. In case you haven't noticed, if a Counter-Intelligence project completes normally (i.e., you spend all 100,000 points on level 1 CI, etc.) the operation FAILS. As in, no project was blocked because there was nothing to block. At which point (if you were smart and chose "Repeat Projects" or you just keep careful track of it), a new Counter-Intel project starts. But it takes time to build up points in that project, and until you have enough points built up to block an attack, you're vulnerable.

Hope this helps; the most important points are, 1) run multiple Counter-Intel projects (at least 2 per enemy); and 2) turn on "Repeat Projects" for Intel.

Oh, and build lots of Intel Facilities, so you can generate more Intel than the enemy. You can also try running the "Intelligence Sabotage" project to directly defeat an empire's intelligence projects without having to use a Counter-Intelligence project. But beware; the AI's use Counter-Intelligence too...

Magus38 · #3 April 4th, 2001, 10:48 PM

Thanks Director.

However, one thing stills puzzles me. What is the difference between Counter Intelligence I, II and III? As I mentioned the only difference is the cost and the following value taken from the properties of the projects:

CI I
Effect Amount := 1

CI II
Effect Amount := 2

CI III
Effect Amount := 3

In the light of your explanation, this seems to indicate that CI III can apply its' accumulated points against three attacks before it completes? If this is so then I am confused by the value that seems to indicate only one target message. On the other hand, if this is not the case then what does this value mean in terms of defining the superiority of CI I vs. CI III?

The plot thinkens....

P.S. I always set "Repeat Projects", but until now I have only ever run one CI at a time... I would switch to one per enemy, but at the moment I am playing in a huge quadrant with 20 races and for some crazy reason they seem to think me the Mega Evil Empire (see other post, "Diplomatic Triggers").

DirectorTsaarx · #4 April 4th, 2001, 11:04 PM

Magus: I don't know what the "Effect Value" does. I do know that, at least through 1.27, one Counter-Intelligence project (of any level) could counter only one Intel project (of any level).

The "superiority" of the levels is mainly that the higher-level projects are "active" for a longer time, so fewer counter-intelligence points are wasted on CI projects that don't counter anything. Of course, there's also one Intel project that can't be blocked by a level 1 Counter-Intel project: Research Stealing (or something like that; the one you can use to "copy" another empire's research and gain a level in some research area). It's a high-cost (like 150,000 points) project, so you need a Level 2 Counter-Intel to stop it. But it's a fairly benign project - you don't lose anything if the enemy uses it on you; he just gains a minor tech boost. Which the AI may or may not be able to use...

As for having 20 enemies: you're in trouble. Run 12 Counter-Intel projects, build LOTS of Intel Facilities (so you can pump lots of points into each project every turn) and hope for the best.

Magus38 · #5 April 4th, 2001, 11:25 PM

Here's something that supports the idea that CI III defends against up to 3 attacks from a single empire.

I am now running five repeating CI III projects, the other slots being devoted to Crew insurrections (a cheap way to totally disrupt the enemy and in some cases steal tech. Very neat combined with high level Quantum Resonators because you steal a ship somewhere, then have your stellar engineering ship open a warp point directly to its' location, then close the point again after it travels through to your territory... but I digress). What I have observed, checking the projects every turn, is that, despite my points being divided evenly, some of the CI III projects have suddenly advanced by one third and some by two thirds, while others are not moving at all. This behaviour coupled with the fact of the log message is starting to convince me.

[This message has been edited by Magus38 (edited 04 April 2001).]

Magus38 · #6 April 4th, 2001, 11:49 PM

Ok, after looking carefully at the information on the MM website I have concluded that CI works against any attack, regardless of the empire. I think that it does protect against a number of attacks consistent with "Effect Amount" of the level of CI, though how this is calculated exactly I don't know. Finally, I think the log message simply refers to the Last empire blocked. Of course all this is simply conjecture. I think I may send this whole thread to MM for arbitration.

Will · #7 April 5th, 2001, 05:39 AM

CI III does not block three operations... once one operation is attempted, it dies, I've observed this a few times in my current game. Only other explanation would be that the AI is doing three ops at a time, completing at the same time...

Baron Munchausen · #8 April 5th, 2001, 06:22 AM

Counter-intelligence operations are expensive because it is YOUR spending against the ATTACKER's spending. If the counter-intelligence operation costs less than the attacking operation, it cannot neutralize it. That's why the "Puppet Political Parties" operation is so hard to counter. You need counter-intel level three and the points to match the attackers spending.

DirectorTsaarx · #9 April 5th, 2001, 07:59 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Counter-intelligence operations are expensive because it is YOUR spending against the ATTACKER's spending. If the counter-intelligence operation costs less than the attacking operation, it cannot neutralize it.

Very good; a concise explanation that is completely correct.

quote:
That's why the "Puppet Political Parties" operation is so hard to counter. You need counter-intel level three and the points to match the attackers spending.

Well, actually, PPP costs 100,000 Intel points. Counter-Intelligence level I costs... 100,000 Intel points. So level 1 could (if you spend more points per turn on it than the opponent, and the CI doesn't block another Intel op in the meantime) block a PPP attack. Especially if the "Counter-Intel Bonus" setting in Settings.txt is working. The benefit to using a higher-level CI project is that you're more likely to have a high amount of CI points built up when an attack comes through.

As I said earlier, the only project that costs MORE than a level 1 CI project is Technological Espionage, at 150,000 points.

PsychoTechFreak · #10 April 13th, 2001, 10:34 AM

My observations to CI:

-CI points don't stack/accumulate every turn, this is not like an Intel project or research project

-so the maximum possible CI value is the same as the Intel-points you produce every turn

-I have checked this: Empire A has a CI-level III project, 25000 points, which means it can counter intel for this amount every turn (see above),
Empire B ran 4 small intel projects (5000 to 15000 points), all four projects completed in the same turn and all projects failed due to the one CI project of Empire A

I have tested this with two empires against one CI-level 3 project also, with same results, so don't waste your Intel-slots, one huge CI-level 3 project will do it, unless you produce more than 500000 points each turn, then you should divide projects. This makes sense to me.

[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 13 April 2001).]