The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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UesugiKenshin
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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Imagine the Star Trek Enterprise piloted by Kirk is warping around Federation space. How long until the next turn? A month maybe...not even a quarter. 340 turns divided by 12 month turns is equal to 28.3 years. That might be right.

It's really about balancing warp speed versus the technology and preseting it so the ships can travel far enough and have appropriate offensive and defensive values at the correct time. So maybe the terraforming requires far more tech points, and the warp speed, phasers, shields, and torpedoes are lower in the early stages. It's not linear but becomes exponential in cost.

Then all intelligence agencies are unlocked at dramatically higher amounts and maybe do a tenth of the sabotage. So maybe two sabotage missions at near targets on the borderlands only.

Since the tech progerssion is purely balanced minus some for special technology, and it's at a level 8 across the board, and about 25% fulfilled, then maybe that seems right for the 2nd year of TOS. See STTNG is a hundred years away so maybe with exponential techtree progression that works out.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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The game breaks at turn#349 due to sabotage in excess of 36+ instances and since I've met the Ferengi, the Federation, the Cardassians, it's sabotage from two directions and diplomatically and militarily. So there is no way to save and then reset the intelligence points to cope.

And that is on the easy level too. It's egregiously imbalanced.

See the modding section. I have a plan. The intelligence buildings by the major and minor races need far more requirements and then it won't happen until way late in the game say 900+ turns.

What is genuinely needed is a program change, but a building reconfiguration will fix most of this as few people will play until acquiring six technologies at level 14. With a balanced across the board techtree, I am at level 8 in all of them. That sounds about right for Star Trek The Original Series era. It would end up with Dominion War level tech at level 14 across the board. Then lots of battles as everythings has been researched.

The way it is now, level 4 security buildings only need Computer11 and Weapon11 or something like that. A building change requiring 8 hours plus the rest of the day to scruitinize the text file as maybe 20 buildings are affected.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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To make it even less likely to show up, these buildings should have huge power requirements. The NSA is not just a building but enormous resources straight forward budgets and black budgets, contractors as wetboys (contract assassins for plausible deniability recruited from Spec Ops), and massive supercomputers, field personnel, turned spies, ECHELON, etc. It would be colossally expensive.

Snowden went public with Echelon.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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I had 2500+ intelligence points in turn#340 and so as long as the Cardassians were only sabotaging one area, then I had a chance to repel them as they can sabotage
1. Diplomacy
2. Militarily
3. Economically
4. Scientifically
So I could throw 100% in one focus and repel them as there was a 25% chance they would pick that focus. And save the turn.

And if I put in in the military, and they attacked the economy, I could reload, and put it in the economy, and their sabotage would be stymied.

But then I met the Ferengi and the Federation too. I would have to do the same thing with them as well.

And that is what happened. And so there were two attacks against diplomatic and military targets.ARGH

This is not fun. I even tried this out of desperation. I turned off the manager in every system. Then ensured everyone was maximizing effort in the security buildings, yet saw no increase in intelligence points???? I had hoped then that with more intelligence points, that I could raise the points on sabotage against multiple empires and against multiple areas of focus,but that did nothing to increase intelligent points. What's worse, it meant far less research, energy generation, and food production.

The security buildings and sabotage are outrageous aspects of the game because how many attacks can take place, how easily the buildings can be acquired, how much strength of attacks can occur,etc.

The only way to play is to turn off every major race which makes the game about building an empire and picking off minor races and subjugating them, or using diplomacy. That is not a compelling game.

It was a relatively fun 340 turns...and now it's over.

If you had the windows version, you would edit the buildings file and if you knew what you were doing, edit the major race file to try to remedy this. It's both a programming issue and a configuration issue.

If I were modding the configuration of the buildings, I would literally make it so six areas of research had to be accomplished with five being at level 14, and the six at level 11 just to make the first intelligence building, level 12 for the 2nd, level 13 for the 3rd, and level 14 for the 4th. The Cardassians, the Dominion, and the Romulans get special buildings and so that and all six areas of research at level 14 would allow those overpowered buildings.

That way, it's unlikely this crippling sabotage even happens until turn 900+.

Sabotage is ruinous in BotE. Imagine 36+ sabotage attacks by every major race (Ferengi, Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Dominion, and Cardassians every turn so 216 sabotage attacks per turn. And that would grow as they grew even more powerful. And this is the easy setting???
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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You cannot mod the Android version easily as:
1. There are no editors so you would have to know which attributes govern the buildings regarding effects and techlevel needed.
2. So using deduction and luck, find all the intelligence buildings including the ones by minor races...
3. So unpack the apk file. Edit the buildings text file. Then repack the apk...
4. But Google Play has a security feature it uses to check corruption. So the file size has to match exactly so this requires hex editting.
5. Then the modded version would have the new intelligence buildings that would not even be an aspect of the game until after turn 900+ as the tech would be so dramatically high that it takes forever to get them. That is how I could configure it.
6. But just to be sure, every one of those buildings should have huge energy requirements too. That way, it's effectively taking them offline until the very best energy generation is available as well.

It boggles the mind how much this is noncanonical to Star Trek. The effects of sabotage exceed the power of the Borg! Not even they could remote destroy starships with 36+ sabotage missions per turn.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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Do the math. If by turn #340 it takes 2500+ intelligence points for one area of focus against one major race, then it would take 10,000+ points to likely repel sabotage per major race.

So 50,000 intelligence points as you can have up to five opponents! In turn 340! Explain how that is balanced.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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Do the math. If by turn #340 it takes 2500+ intelligence points for one area of focus against one major race, then it would take 10,000+ points to likely repel sabotage per major race. This alone means your major race is merely forestalling the inevitable and cannot do anything but run intelligence agencies. It's an empire that evolved to be solely focused on the KGB.

So 50,000 intelligence points as you can have up to five opponents! In turn 340! Explain how that is balanced. No amount of security buildings and population could ever create that many points.

You can either create a game with few minor races and one opponent and may be able to defeat or oppose them. Or entirely turn off the major races except yourself and play with 90% minor races. Either way may work,but the latter will definitely work.

Maybe the minor races can do sabotage missions, but it appears unlikely. It might be interesting to do a higher than normal rate of expansion to more approximate warp speed accurately and try the impossible setting with your major race fighting all minor races.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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The game has been around since 2011 or prior on other platforms. I'm going to hunt through transated German posts, because there has to be a solution.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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The way it's supposed to work, is if you wish to do no espionage and no sabotage, you leave the settings alone and generate lots of intelligence points and leave them unassigned. They are 100% then applied to internal security ie counterespionage and countersabotage id prevention only.

When I first read about BotE, I read some very positive comments but warning about intelligence agencies being unplayable. So that is what I initially did, and then still had lots of sabotage.

So I restarted and carefully built twice as many security buildings, in just about every case, rididulously so. So I just tried that way of configuring and still had eight sabotage missions against me.

The issue is not just building more as systems have populations based upon the class of the planets in those systems. So some are small worlds and will only grow so far and so can never generate sufficient population to run lots of buildings. There will always be a lack of workers. It maxes out early as maybe there is one class M planet and it's small with two gas giants. So building eight intelligence buildings at level 2 or more just won't work as there isn't enough population to ever run them all.

Even still, as the AI tends to focus their attacks against one segment like economy or military, in this turn the sabotage was against two areas, and since I just met two major races (the Ferengi and the Federation), then one of them is now also is sabotaging me.

It's impossible to create more than twice what the other major races have, and it is even worse as there is no way to have thrice the number of security facilities.

It's broken. In 2016, there's a post by the programmer that he was going to nerf the intelligence facilities on some difficulty levels as he knew this was a big problem.

It's an easily fixable by requiring five techs types at level 14 and the sixth one at level 11 for level 1, then 12 for level 2, then 13 for level 3, then 14 for level 4. Then the Dominion, Cardassians, and Romulans have special buildings that get unlocked by having created level 4 buildings plus resources plus whatever. And all should need very large energy amounts. This would largely negate them as it would take so much effort to accomplish them until after turn 900 or so.

You can't ever as one major race make more as even if you conquer other systems, they need other buildings just to operate, not just security buildings. You would have other priorities like farms and foundaries.

At a certain point, then you will have made enough research buildings that you already are maximized out so they are superfluous.

You need a huge amount of foundaries on the higher levelsto just make buildings in a timely fashion too, so diverting workers from research to industry until adequate energy generation for defensive systems are created for troops and ships. Plus shield generators and minefields and they need their own huge energy sources.

It's better to just turn off the security buildings. Or at least turn off sabotage. Intelligence is largely about knowing troops locations, what exists in a sector, what the weaponry on a ship might be and shield strength and hull strength, what the other empires' maps look like, etc.

Not blowing up capital ships or attacking the Tal Shiar or the Obsidian Order on their respective homesectors. These would be impossible. They violate fundamental canon.

Players want vague espionage and lots of intense ship combat and ground invasions to subjugate new worlds, not blowing up buildings, destroying the economy, blowing up the warp core on flagships, etc.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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Think of the galaxy class starship on STTNG. They are explorers and so have powerful short and long range scanners plus class one probes. These sensors sweeps are done just to know what is there and the strength of systems and ships. That is a kind of espionage but not harmful. It may be perceived as hostile but just is what the future is like.

Did you ever see the Romulans make 36 sabotage missions in a single episode? Of course not. It would be not be enjoyable. Then they have a godlike superability that makes actual ship combat irrelevent.
I'm going to try playing as the Klingons versus the Federation only on a huge dense maximally dense map with lots of minor races (at 50%) on a faster than normal rate of expansion. If the Federation ends up doing 36 sabotage missions per turn, well that ain't right and normal. That sounds 100 times worse that the Mirror Mirror episodes against the Terran Empire. That would be akin to the Sopranoes crime syndicate being a galactic empire.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5Jz-tILww
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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For testing purposes, the only way I can imagine defeating the annoying intelligence agencies is to play as the Cardassians, Romulans or Dominion versus the Federation. That way, their subterfuge bonuses should always outmatch the other.

I will try one of the three, probably the Dominion versus the Federation and Klingons, and then allow them to create an alliance to try to defeat me. Neither should get any subterfuge benefits. I don't see a Section 31 agency for the Federation in the buildings list.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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See the last three entries on the modding topic as I found the building attributes data that allows the best settings that would effectively bypass sabotage. It would happen as final tactics largely by the Caradssians, Dominion, and the Romulans. So the Ferengi, Federation, and Klingons would be scrambling to defeat those three before they had the ability to make those buildings and do sabotage.
viewtopic.php?f=107&t=7080

If you have the windows version, you can easily fix this today. Just back up the buildings data first in case you mess up on a building attribute. I envy windows users as fixing this remarkably improves the game.

Android users are kind of stuck as the change is easy, and repacking the apk is easy,but the Google Play error protection scheme is not but needs a hex edit. Certain tablets will only load directly from Google Play. That means the repacked apk won't be recognized as legitimate and won't load.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... abOff.data
This explains what kinds of sabotage may occur. I don't think it's modable but hardcoded and likely based on race modifiers and intelligence points. There is an excel format spreadsheet explaining major race variations regarding sabotage at the link.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... heimdienst
Explanations in German which when translated clear up some confusion on developing adequate intelligence agencies (called the secret service when translated which is not the same thing whatsoever in America as that is largely the president's security detail plus protects the treasury.
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Re: The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

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viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1886
This has a discussion of the game mechanics based on who has more intelligence points and regarding internal security versus doing an intensive sabotage attack.

It makes no sense in terms of Star Trek canon. It's a mythos where the best way to attack is a nearly omnipotent intelligence agency that can do impossible missions that exceed warp speed deep in your territory.

Whereas at very high levels in which you would have very fast ships with long ranges and cosmetically altered spies with plastic surgery and sleeper agents who were raised to dwell among other nations, then did long term espionage and sabotage missions.

That is the basis of Soviet sleeper agents in America as depicted in The Americans tv series, but never doing 36+ missions in a single turn (2 week periods).
https://qz.com/926553/what-happened-to- ... americans/
I think reconfiguring it as I previously discussed creates a useful long term gain after 900+ turns.

At some point, the turn is reflective of 2 weeks per turn, whereas it begins in turn #1 as two years per turn. Civ2 and maybe Civ3 played in the base game is like that (sort of).

Whereas the power of 4x strategy games is a game engine that is modable so you have a campaign editor or a scenario editor, and the time can be in months, seasons, weeks, etc. Typicallly the time scale then is constant to reflect a historical period to show a war.

900 turns sounds like a lot but if it's in two week periods, then It's 34.6 years so not really a lot of time. For a mythos, you want eras so ships are created in stages with hulls, shield strength, and weaponry and tactics to defeat and counter them. Hopefully espionage reveals clues to the player so they understand that. Espionage is not just a gimmick,but conveys a story.

Even on an impossible difficulty level with intergalactic wars, likely with the AI ganging up against the human player, does it sound fun to inflict 36+ sabotage missions per turn. Even 9 every two weeks seems absurd. Even 3 happening every 2 weeks is insane.

What that would do, even among the Federation, would cause brutal eradication tactics against their foes. See World War 2 and partisans. See the jihads versus the west versus drone attacks and carpet bombing. All semblance of rules of engagement would be erased and it would be 100% "weapons free situations". You would crush that with genocide.

If sabotage is the goal by say suicide bombers, that has successfully been created in Civ2 mods but it's horribly destructive and never ending as they are one time inexpensive weapons as long as there is no pacification of a conflict zone. Essentially the way it's configured, it's just like implausible suicide bombers with no way to neutralize them as no empire can amass enough intelligence poinst versus three empires determined to use these tactics.
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