Would like a new intelligence model

[Commander G2]

Does anyone really like the way Intelligence works? The model is terrible in my opinion.

I am glad to see the next patch will fix the Intelligence bug for those who want to use Intelligence, but I would like to see SEIV use a new intelligence model where every operation has a percentage chance to suceed, modified by the racial attributes. This would allow a country with an inferior points or even no points to still survive. Right now it works such that the side with the most points pretty much wins. Give different items different chances to suceed.

Counter Intelligence projects would have a chance to take out the targets projects. Counter Intelligence should not be something you can save up.

I would also like to see a diminishing returns principle if the same attack is used multiple times in one turn. For example stealthing resource might take 10% on the first attack. The second attack would take 10% of the remaining 90%, etc.

Also add something like Loyalty to a race to determine how easy it is to get them to defect. A Ferengi can pretty much be bought, whereas a Vulcan would be very harder to get them to defect. Loyalty would be a modifier to some intelligence operations. Intercepting Messages to other players would be something that would not be modified by a loyalty factor.

Xenophobic races or collective conciousness races should be very hard to infilitrate and conduct intelligence. About all you can do is send some sort of cloaked probes into their empire to gather information.

The more an operation is performed against an advesary, the cheaper the cost. If you stop performing the operation, you gradually lose the discount. I understand this suggestion would be hard to implement as a history would need to be maintained in the turn data to figure the discounts.

I would also like to see a time delay in intelligence projects based on how far the opponent is from the attacker. Just because you have the points should not mean you can start and conclude an operation in one turn. As it stands now, you can launch an intelligence attack clear across the map in one turn, but you cannot move colonists clear across the map in one turn.

My next game will most likely be with Intelligence turned off, even with the next project. There are no tactics to Int combat. It is purely my points against your points. If my attack points exceed your C.I project, my attacks succeed. If I have 200K points and you have 100K points. I get 100K worth of successful attacks that happen instantaneously. If I store up attacks worth 1M and you store up defense worth 500K, I can execute 500K worth of attacks on you in one turn.

The current Intelligence system is like having a combat system where you take the fleet with the least hit points and destroy it. Then the attacker loses ships of equal hit points. It would be a combat system where fleets are combat points: No components, not racial modifers, no weapon trade offs, etc. What you would have would pretty much be the combat system used in the game Risk. We play SEIV because we want more detail, more options, more strategies. The current Intelligence system gives you limited choices: 1) Get the most points, 2) Get enough points to limit what your opponent can do and win with fleets. If your opponent out numbers you in points, there is not really that much you can do as there is no inate defense. The purpose of fleets is to hold off the enemy while you out point him with Intelligence.

In one game, I was up against an empire that took away all my resource every turn. I could not build intelligence facilities to stop him. Forunately, that was back when no maintenance races were possible (which I had), so I did not lose all my fleets for failure to maintain them. My only option in that games was to give my empire to another player who had enough counter intelligence to oppose tht player. It made for a very dissatisying game.

There should be some sort of limit to how much damage an intelligence operation can do. People have comment on the fact that the cheapest way to get a Ring World is to let your opponent create one and take it over using Intelligence. No player should ever build a ring world unless he has equal or greater Intelligence points than his opponent. Maybe the troops on a planet could modify the chances of subverting such a planet into a riot.

I would propose intelligence operations be much more limited in scope:
1) Steal Technology
2) Disrupt resource production (small percentage limit per turn) in a planet or system.
3) Hinder movement (-1 movement point to a fleet)
4) Coup Attempt (create a small force of troops suddenly on a planet to try to take it over)
5) Intercept player Messages
6) Fake player Messages
7) Decrease happiness on a planet, system, or empire wide (limited amount per turn so that this would only add to unhappiness brought by other means).
8) Steal ship designs
9) Report fleet composition.
10) Report population, happiness level, troops, Weapons Platforms, Grounded Fighters, Facilities, etc on a planet.
11) Sabatoge a facility or component on a ship.

The purpose of Intellignece in the game should be to gain information to defeat an opponent militarily and to harass his empire. Intelligence should be a factor to enhance military operations. Intelligence itself would not be a means to victory in itself as it is in the current model.

[Baron Munchausen]

It is probably much too late to make most of the major changes you are suggesting here. Save this for when SE V suggestions are compiled.

I would like to see the race of the population of a given planet taken into account for the effectiveness of intelligece operations. If you are attempting an operation on a planet consisting of your own race in another empire, it ought to have an enhanced chance of success. And of course any planets in your own empire that are populated with something other than your original race ought to be more vulnerable to intelligence operations by whatever empire that race originally came from.

Resistance to intelligence infiltration could be a special racial trait. It wouldn't hurt to have some new racial traits to choose from.

I would really like to see a way to store intelligence points. The realistic way to do this is to setup "infrastructure" inside the enemy empire. This corresponds to sending "moles" into the enemy territory, hiding Caches of materials, etc. You ought to be able to do this and then use the points to enhance the chance of success for a later operation.

BTW, you can limit available intelligence operations any time you like by editing the text file and removing the ones you don't want. I am considering the removal of PPP, for example. It's far too over-simplified and I don't expect a more elaborate model anytime in the near future. Maybe in SE V...



[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 19 September 2001).]

[geoschmo]

If we are wishing

I would like to see intelligence projects take a fixed amount of time, and then have the success or failure of them be modified by the amount of points that you spend on them, and of course the amount of counter intell that your opponent spends to defeat them. It doesn't make sense that I can meet a new race and PPP his home planet the next turn just because I am generating a hundred thousand intel points per turn. Those kinds of things should take time to do, regardless of how much I am spending towards it. That would give the defender time to "break up the plot" so to speak. Each time their counter intel succeeds, it could set my intel project clock back. It wouldn't even have to be total failure. Say a PPP takes 2 years to do, they could have a partial victory (Safehouse discovered, etc.) that might set me back 6 months, but not scrap the whole spy organization.

The same idea would work for other intel projects, but they would have shorter times to completion of course.

I also like the racial traits giving a defensive bonus to defeat projects, beyond just the current system of adding a percentage onto intel production.

Geoschmo

[Q]

I agree with most of what you all said.
Additionally I would like to make the counter-intel easier, more or less like in SE III but with the proposed factor of loyalty as additional race modifier, that you can determine in the race setup.
I like the idea of a minumum time necessary to complete a specific intel project very much: like you can only build a ship at the construction rate of your space yard you would only be able to add a certain number of intel points to a specific intel projects per turn.
And I would really like working facilities (like the fate shrine is supposed to do, but doesn't) and may be components, that decrease the success chance of enemy intel operations in a system and/or on a planet. May be even some facility/component (expensive!) that renders a planet/ship immun against PPP or crew conVersion.

[Spoo]

quote:

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May be even some facility/component (expensive!) that renders a planet/ship immun against PPP or crew conVersion.

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How about a remote self destruct device? It would let the home empire destroy the ship whenever the crew is subverted or a crew inserection takes place.

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

[dogscoff]

QUOTE:
How about a remote self destruct device? It would let the home empire destroy the ship whenever the crew is subverted or a crew inserection takes place.
/QUOTE

Yeah, and then that gives your enemies the chance to try for the "Hack into remote destruct device" intel project. Muahahaha...

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SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M>M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Q:
I agree with most of what you all said.
Additionally I would like to make the counter-intel easier, more or less like in SE III but with the proposed factor of loyalty as additional race modifier, that you can determine in the race setup.
I like the idea of a minumum time necessary to complete a specific intel project very much: like you can only build a ship at the construction rate of your space yard you would only be able to add a certain number of intel points to a specific intel projects per turn.
And I would really like working facilities (like the fate shrine is supposed to do, but doesn't) and may be components, that decrease the success chance of enemy intel operations in a system and/or on a planet. May be even some facility/component (expensive!) that renders a planet/ship immun against PPP or crew conVersion.

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Well, I pointed out a long time ago that it makes no sense for all the units to go over with the planet. If you have troops on a planet they ought to remain loyal and fight it out with the population. That's one of the purposes of a garrison, after all. To protect from foreign invasion and to put down rebellion.

For ships, the Boarding Parties consist of space marines and ought to react against a crew insurrection just as troops ought to react against a PPP. This would result in the "use" of the Boarding parties, of course, and you'd have to get the ship repaired but this is much better than loss of a ship.

Other than these direct counter-measures, the happiness level of your empire ought to be reflected in resistance to subVersion. If all of your planets are 'jubilant' then why would people suddenly declare independence? And the same goes for ships. An empire full of angry and rioting planets would be quite different. Rebellion would be quite easy to stir up in this situation.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 20 September 2001).]

[Q]

Excellent idea Dumbluck!

[Baron Munchausen]

Actually, Dumbluck, that's what an Intelligence Facility already is. The 'location' where an intelligence project is created is in the ENEMY empire, not in yours. So, though the extra 'queues' might be handy the logic is a bit off. Maybe counter-intelligence should be tracked seperately from the main intelligence projects list. I do agree that some sort of change to the way projects are managed is needed. It's a nightmare to take on 5 or 6 or more opponents at once in intelligence conflict. There just aren't enough slots to even defend yourself, let alone conduct your own operations. Yet, logically, if you are large enough and have the intelligence points it should not be difficult. The design of the intelligence system directly restricts your abilities. This is a serious game design flaw that was not present in SE III.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 21 September 2001).]

[dumbluck]

quote:

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Originally posted by Q:
....I like the idea of a minumum time necessary to complete a specific intel project very much: like you can only build a ship at the construction rate of your space yard you would only be able to add a certain number of intel points to a specific intel projects per turn....

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How about a new Intel facility: Intelligence Operations Center. This is where you SPEND those intel points generated by all those intel compounds scattered around your empire. IOC would work just like a Space Yard: it has a Projects que,which only runs one project at a time, and it has a maximum amount of points it can spend per turn. You want to run an extra CI project? Build another IOC. Want to spend more points per turn per project? Upgrade to the next level IOC.

In summary, have 2 intel facilities: one that generates intel points, and one that spends them. One project running per IOC, spnding cap on IOC. (This also fixes the "I only have 12 CI slots" bug/design decision.)

Also, you could spead the intel tech tree out. A lot. First level would give you the basics: Intel comound 1, IOC 1, CI 1, and maybe a couple of small inelligence gathering projects. (No sabatoge!) Then gradually introduce bigger and better projects per level, with facility upgrades every 3 levels. Of coarse, costs (both tech level and project) would have to be rebalanced....

Maybe for SE 5....

[This message has been edited by dumbluck (edited 21 September 2001).]