Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

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Species25899
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Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by Species25899 »

In the original game the secret services are very powerful. I remember playing the Cardassians with a nice fleet of stolen Romulan Warbirds and tons of money stolen from the Ferengi.

In the Galaxies Mod and UDM the secret services have almost no effect, no matter how much you invest in them. Right now I'm playing the Romulans in Galaxies.
115 systems held - all systems with maximized intel strength, meanwhile
Intel: 32,100
Security: 190%
Espionage: 175%
Sabotage: 175%
Minor races with Intel strength: El Aurians and Wadi
Intel success during 260 rounds: Zero

I wonder whether I ever will steal a Borg cube. Or, at least, 20 or 30 DT.

This weakness is especially unfair for the Romulans in the Galaxies Mod who have the weakest ships and no trans warp capabilities.
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Re: Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by thunderchero »

how is your intel distributed?

security, sabotage, espionage?

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Re: Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by Species25899 »

I've tried many distributions before posting this. Btw, I always play Advanced/Impossible/Many races/Large.
In the beginning I always have 5/5 esp/sab for each power. With growing intel strength I raise to 10/10 leaving 20 for own sec.
When I reach superpower status I might reduce sec to zero and raise esp/sab even more at powers I plan to attack next.
This was always a good strategy in original BOTF (if you have good allies like Ktarians).
Meanwhile I've tried any possible distribution, even 50/50, 20/80 and 0/100.
In the recent scenario, after reaching science level 15, almost the whole population of the empire that is not needed for energy and food is occupied with intel. What else could they do in systems that can't build ships? But the results are so poor that I must assume they are a huge army of BND agents ;) In deed, I'm getting a lot of (quite worthless) reports, but there is no sabotage.
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Re: Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by ruthlessferengi »

hm... last game Gentle and I played (dom he fed me - he almost KILLED me ... killed off my universities, stole my strikers, etc... u have to have enough intel to throw around, particularly vs ai.
Relevance is a post hoc phenomenon

На безптичье и жопа воробей...
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adi
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Re: Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by adi »

it does not work against the AI; i mean you can not sabotage them in UDML on impossible; not until they have only a hand full of worlds an you have more than 50; the only thing you can do is to stop the annoyance of you being sabotaged;
I had games playing Romulans, with 40-50k intel and 300% like bonuses and assigned >50% to sabotage against one race and still very limited success. But it does stop them from sabotaging you.
As too how i distribute the points, once i meet a major i usually do 1% espionage and 9% sabotage against it; except against the klingons; against them i do 1%-1%.

Also don't neglect intel even if you have not met a major yet. i don't know how it works but i have noticed that having good intel builds a buffer so you will be safe for a dozen or so turns once you meet a major race.
In UDML intel is my first priority for a new colony. Those are the first buildings and upgrades; i don't even build research on the new worlds; for instance for a 400 pop system, i expect to build 20 factories, another 8-10 buildings will be farms and energy so i know i will have 10 intel buildings on this system; so i start and build and upgrade those; once they are built and upgraded i start building the industries and then the bonus buildings.

Like i said it won't help you sabotage them but it will stop the intel against you or at the least minimize the damage.

If you want to be able to sabotage them i have seen it works better if you have a tech advantage; so start at the beginning so you will have time to overtake them in the tech race; or start with a tech advantage.
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Re: Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by Tvrelnec »

This topic isn't the newest one but I have a related question:
If you assign 1% for espionage and 9% or another low value for sabotage it will make the AI invest more intel into internal security and thus reduce the sabotage against you. Thats how I understand it.
But won't this also cause many failed espionage and sabotage attempts that don't make the AI happier? Isn't this quite a reason for the AI to declare war if you do this for several turns?

And maybe another question on UDM: if I build a structure that gives e.g. +5% intel, then on the intel screen I will see it added +5 percentage points to espionage and sabotage each, but not to internal security. Is this correct? Why does it not add +5% to general intel as it says for example: "Covert Sensor Array/+5% intel total"?

Thanks in advance,
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Re: Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by thunderchero »

Tvrelnec wrote:If you assign 1% for espionage and 9% or another low value for sabotage it will make the AI invest more intel into internal security and thus reduce the sabotage against you. Thats how I understand it.
But won't this also cause many failed espionage and sabotage attempts that don't make the AI happier? Isn't this quite a reason for the AI to declare war if you do this for several turns?
this tactic is not for a peaceful campaign
Tvrelnec wrote:And maybe another question on UDM: if I build a structure that gives e.g. +5% intel, then on the intel screen I will see it added +5 percentage points to espionage and sabotage each, but not to internal security. Is this correct? Why does it not add +5% to general intel as it says for example: "Covert Sensor Array/+5% intel total"?


this was done in UDM for diversity of structures and to make game more challenging.
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Re: Galaxies Mod & UDM, Intel

Post by Tvrelnec »

Ok, thank your for your efforts.

I wondered because I have rarely been in a situation where I wanted to battle two or three AI empires at the same time. Except for those cases where they are lazy, don't colonize and you gan grow much more than them and just run them over.
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