Intel

[Raider Echo3]

Hello,

I am wondering about the Intel mechanism. For me it seems that there are some things now working as I had expected.

What I had observed lately:
- a modded building gave 10% security (once per system building, and I had 3 to 4 times more systems than any other empire). I run into Card and - oh Wunder, oh Wunder - the intel battle started. I had appr. 1000% inner security boni, but the Card destroyed a few of my buildings. 50 rounds later I had increased overall Intel by appr. 20% and the Cards sabotage was stopped. My Intel value was then about 5000 points or so. With 1000% inner security the Card would had been never able to sabotate me at all, without this special building and boni I wouldn't wonder about the Card attack.
My conclusion: the inner security buildings do not work at all.

- at the moment I am on another game at war with the Klingons with comparable modding, but without any inner security buildings. My Intel value is appr. 5000 points, 50% assigned to security, 10% on espionage and 40% on sabotage (against the Klingons, didn't meet any other race so far). I was on the way from intel fail to intel sucess, when I discreased overall intel points to 2000 and sabotage from 40% to 5%, because I decided to concer the 6 remaining Klingon systems. But the remaining points were enough to grand success on both espionage and sabotage. The klingons should had enough intel to avoid my sabotage. I just wanted them to keep busy on intel to slow down the Klingon science development, so they wont gain a higher tech level until I had enough troop transporter to conquer them.
Conclusion: intel success first is calculated overall, then it is divided between intel and sabotage on % asigned to espionage and sabotage. Sounds logical, but I was expecting otherwise.

What makes me wonder is the question how special intel buildings are working. How is a possible sabotage boni taken into calculation? Or do they do nothing at all?
What is your experience? Is the intel mgame echanism understood so far?

Life long and prosper

[thunderchero]

a modded building gave 10% security (once per system building, and I had 3 to 4 times more systems than any other empire)

the 10% bonus it it local or empire wide? if local you need to assign population to intel structures. example 0 local intel x 10% local bonus = 0 intel.

I had appr. 1000% inner security boni, but the Card destroyed a few of my buildings. 50 rounds later I had increased overall Intel by appr. 20% and the Cards sabotage was stopped.

once again if you have low base intel, 1000% has little/no effect. you must have the structures and have population assigned or a set bonus value structures.

My conclusion: the inner security buildings do not work at all.

intel does work, but cards and romulans rely on it heavily so you have to protect even more.

suggestions
1. keep intel structures running it does build a slight buffer for future use.
2. as soon as you meet a race put 1% sabotage 1% espionage this will force them to place intel points on internal security.

good luck

thunderchero

[ruthlessferengi]

pump up your morale... with fanatical you will have much better defense vs intel attacks. in general, intel can cripple your economy/blow up a few ships but it is very hard to win based on intel alone. real estate (worlds) and battles won is what counts. so you may have a few ships blown up by terrorist, some defect, as long as you are putting out ships and mannings TTs, u r ok. don't give up.

[Raider Echo3]

Hello again,

thanks for the replay.
@thunderchero: thank you for information. It was like switching on the lights Wondering how I could not find out myself.
I had some days off from BoTF, but the last two nights I did some testing.

First, I was unable to restore the old mod state with inner sec building and the related savegame, when I had intel battle with the Cards. It's simple "gone - vanished" (does anybody know Hayashi, a german card & coin magician? No? Too bad...)

So I set up a new subversion of my mod. This time I took thundercheros tips into account.

From the Preator office to our people:
At round 150 BoTF time line we run into the Klingons. At such an early state the AI had approx 10 times the number of cruisers than our empire has. Before round 200 the Klingons had declared war on us (bad news for the romulan empire, but we were on a good way on getting strong enough for striking back. Luckily the klingons encountered us at the upper left of our territory, not far from Romulus, but they did not know! The heart of our empire is out of reach and the klingon AI and our fleet battled for some far away (from Quo'nos) outposts and two little systems (only one small planets terraformed with pop around 55).
Our tactic was to place two scouts near the klingon battleships travel route, so we knew when to hit them while their impressive and superior main fleet was far enough away while the Tal Shiar kept the klingon intel busy. Most of our focus was to keep the klingons looking into the "wrong" direction while we tried successfully to develop two new promisding high pop systems in the lower part of our territory - not so far away from Quo'nos to make us feal relaxed. For the future development of our rising empire one system with max pop of 485(!) was planed to play a major role beside Romulus and Halo, the biggest of 3 additional starting systems.
The klingon took our tactic as dishonorably, we guess. But they started with trying to sabotate us (without success) and they took our offerings without respecting our orders. We had to shoot the klingon spy scouts to dust. Our people suffered from the loss of three times around 1600 (million or billion) credits for bribing or paying to the klingon empire. It slowed down the development of our new systems heavily (it is a low money mod after all). So we had all the right to strike the klingons with intel while the great Romulan fleet was developing as fast as possible.
Now we write the year "Round 225" BoTF time line and our empire is protected by a skilled fleet and three star bases (one near Romulus and the other two in the lower region of our empire, protecting the new and promising systems). The Tal Shiar had not proofen to be able to harm the klingon empire - shame on them, but at least are they protecting our empire and the leave enough ressources for science (the Preator is sure that our scientists has beaten the klingons on any field of tech by now) and production. The expansion is slowly developing while the klingon spreading is stopped and the area near the heard of the Romulan empire is now under our control.
The next strike will hit the heard of the klingon empire - as unexpected as it should be. Our destroyer wings will then damage the klingon intertraiding and the klingon economy heavily while our attack cruisers wings wil bomb the way free to Quo'nos.
Soon the Romulan empire will rule this sector of the galaxy.
Maybe we will loose one or two small systems temporary to the klingon cancer but such a shame wouldn't last for long.
And then we will discover the far areas behind the four worm holes we have discovered by now. With the ability to build powerful star bases the risk of been catched by another power while we could not protect the newly grounded systems should be banned.

The imperal news will continous to report the great rise of the romulan empire. ;-)


Conclusion: with the help from thunderchero the intended intel buildings work as original intended.