The dreaded intelligence and counterintelligence service

[UesugiKenshin]

If you think about it, when an English speaking player consults the forum by reading through 8 year old German posts to glean tactics and strategy advice, that is a form of espionage as he or she is trying to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the major and minor races and the ships and troops they can create. The same is true for the BotE wiki.

Espionage is the same as doing long range scans to ascertain the information dynamically in game. I have nothing against intelligence gathering as an aspect of nations and especially to determine diplomatic policy and adjust negotiations, as well as military use.

Sabotage missions are horribly misrepresented. They also delay when effective, not end wars. They inflame the military as if terrorism is being used, then all civilians are the enemy. See? Most sabotage is doomed to failure as too many things can go wrong and even sleeper agents can't maintain the plausible facade of being just ordinary people but get caught.

Watch the original Red Dawn.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Bx9nyw35w
Guerilla warfare is a desperate ploy that always fails and gets civilians massacered. Then prison labor reeducation camps like the Ugyurs in China.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6qWnmb_22s

Think of the larger than life French resistance who in actuality were not effective and France got divided by the real French and the Vichy collaborators. And the French were crushed and liberated, not on their own, but by another nation. But as configured now, sabotage is not a desperate tactics, but wholesale embraced because it's wildly effective and ultimately and mathematically impossible to defeat in pure numbers.

[UesugiKenshin]

Massive sabotage missions ends up as if the entire world embraced the tactics of the IRA, PLO, the Taliban, and so forth. All empires would come to a standstill. And then the only way to win is pure genocide that no one wants in a game. Which is why the USA cannot win in Afghanistan without using a nuclear bomb. It's pure barbarism.

Empires would have to abandon their core values (morality in the game), and so honorable Klingons become essentially Cardassians. If so, then just play as the Cardassians.

[UesugiKenshin]

At best the Klingons making lots of security buildings to try in vain to cope had 2500 intelligence points. That was knowing that they would suffer sabotage attacks by turn #300 after several tests.

I just hit turn 298 and the Romulans without even trying...have over 7630!There is no mathematical way to fight their sabotage if they use that superpower. It's like a man wrestling a kitten. The kitten can't win but may scratch the human.

Screenshot_2020-04-11-22-40-22.png

It has to be unofficially lowered by modding the security buildings to require a LOT of extremely high tech levels to cope with it as an end game superweapon, or nerfed at the lower levels officially in a new version.

Pretty much everything else is great but some tweaking would make it marvelous.

It's my understanding the AI doesn't do a great job invading which is fairly representative of AI across all 4X strategy games. So playing as the Romulans, you could be very defensive, use sabotage after turn #300 as your intel points come online and you meet at least one major race by then. By turn #340, you meet more major races, probably all of them.

Then sabotage every turn so all the opponents ships are smoking ruins, destroy their economy, interrupt all their research, cause diplomatic chaos among all their minor race relationships, and so forth. Then go in and invade as your ships and troops are no match fighting the Klingons head on. They probably fall apart as they make great ships and troops but thenRomulans easily blow them up. It's dastardly.

And it wouldn't be difficult as I leisurely made some security buildings. If I was a real jerk, I would make lots of security buildings and do it to every opponent, but then they would likely ally and maybe defeat the Romulans.

And then look at the internal security! Wow! 73,421! Astounding. Would any sabotage against the Romulans be effective by anyone?

One creepy thing the Ferengi did, is offer the Klingons a gift, and then I think it was them that launched six sabotage missions while the Cardassians did the rest. What duplicity. I also met the Federation but I doubt it was them.

Not a game I would enjoy, but some would. This is fixable as it's just tweaking it in to great espionage if a modder hits a sweet spot, and a lethal Weapon of Mass Destruction through Sabotage unseen in human history.

[UesugiKenshin]

I half heartedly played the Omega Alliance for several turns. It stands to reason they have great ships and incredible levels of security. They probably are an unstoppable lethal combination.

[UesugiKenshin]

So the slightest security buildings now result in huge jumps in intelligence points for the Romulans. I'm not even bothering to do espionage and sabtage for awhile. I'll do a test later so I understand the mechanics and see what happens on the other end when causing sabotage to happen so I can see the intel reports.

And probaby do so after meeting the Federation so I can blame the sabotage on the Federation. That is part of it that you can leave misleading evidece behind. Maybe the Klingons fight the Federation too? Then the Romulans mop up the exhausted winner of that debacle.

It'sgrossly unfair so if you like that, then play the Cardassians, Dominion, or Romulans. If that'syou play, then you are sure to win as it's xompletely unbalanced. As the Klingons you just about have to start attacking by turn #200 to cope.

[UesugiKenshin]

As a follow up, the way you would win and keep playing BotE would be choose the Cartare. Build intel buildings, and also adjust the manager tab so even more intelligence points are being generated. There is a way in the manager that you can cause an even more outrageous amount of sabotage.

Wait it gets worse. When colonizing, the infrastructure automatically populates with four type 2 intell buildings. So even if you modded to make the construction of intelligence buildings more difficult to instruct, then whoever colonizes more, will automatically have more. See the conundrum? If the Cartare colonize more, even if modded, then they would get a colossal amount of points.

So you can't mod just when those buildings were made by extremely high levels of tech requrements, but you also must modulate what they do. Level 1 and level 2 must happen very late with tech and minimize what empires can do with them even if they had 300 of them. It's broken still because a player then would use the manager tab and increase the number of workers working in the automatically made four intel buildings made when colonizing.

I think that those buildings should not accumulate any sabotage but only do espionage and protect from intelligence attacks from others ie be a defensive ability not an offensive ability.

Why? Because even at turn 700, with the fastest ship being a 4, then on a maximum map of a galaxy with 40x40 size, then there no plausible way say the Cartare could send spies across the galaxy because that would exceed the warp speed of 4.

There is also a special research project where you can get a 20% increase beyond warp 4 and even still it's inexplicable that the fastest empire can launch hundreds of sabotage attacks faster than any starship captain even with 500 ships. That is literally how many ships the Omega have right now in a sandbox game. Even if the Omega sent a spy with every one of their 500 ships, they could not reach the opposite side of the galaxy in a single turn. You would have to presume the sent them in turn 1 and activated them and that theyhad infiltrated all empires undetected.

Trust me. I have played a thousand hours now experimenting with beta version.

A modder can negate this by totally changing the power of the intelligence buildings. That would only fix the major race intelligence buildings, but you also have to mod the minor race buildings too.

[UesugiKenshin]

I've played 690 turns in a sandbox game, and have in excess of 400 colonies on a huge map. If every colony automatically has four intelligence type 2 buildings, plus the Cartare get the best intelligence agency points of any empire,then unmodded, there would be no way to beat them at the game of sabotage even if they never built a single intelligence building by choice.

Imagine if they upgraded them or used the manager tab to send more laborers to generate more points.

It has to be modded so those buildings have a different ability or generate a fraction of points.

Espionage could be clever and help you steal technology ie it's facilitates research. Maybe it acts as homeland security and so increases morale too.

[UesugiKenshin]

I think it would almost be better to use that type of building to do something valuable and positive, then negative and destructive, right?

The buildings generally help the players. Intelligence agencies should work similarly. BotE focuses too much on a totally implausible spy not found in human history that is better than any soldier.

Maybe they then root out subversive elements among the people, so stamp out opposition, and corruption, so income is better or taxes or whatever.

The idea in the software itself is flawed about the capabilities of what can realistically be done.

[UesugiKenshin]

Then consider that intelligence agencies do not attack the minor races when they would be the easier targets as they have but a single sector. So why not do that to facilitate the major races defeating minor races?

In the current sandbox game, the minor races make up 95% of the maximum galaxy allowed(it isn't what it sounds like but there are a lot of minor races placed in sectors). I mean, they would be the plausible ones being sabotaged not another organized major race, right?

That galaxy has a physical size of 1600 sectors of spacetime.

It makes no sense to attack another major race with a spy weapon that works better than my customized Omega battleships that alone can defeat some minor races with a fleet. But in BotE a single spy can steal a battleship.

[UesugiKenshin]

Here is what buildings have the power to do in BotE

. Line 64: deuterium production
Line 65: duranium production
Line 66: crytsals production
Line 67: iridium production
Line 68: deritium production
Line 69: credits production
Line 70: moral in system
Line 71: moral empirewide
Line 72: food bonus
Line 73: industry bonus
Line 74: energy bonus
Line 75: security bonus
Line 76: research bonus
Line 77: titan bonus
Line 78: deuterium bonus
Line 79: duranium bonus
Line 80: crytsals bonus
Line 81: iridium bonus
Line 82: deritium bonus
Line 83: bonus to all resources
Line 84: credits bonus
Line 85: bio tech bonus percent
Line 86: energy tech bonus percent
Line 87: computer tech bonus percent
Line 88: propulsion tech bonus percent
Line 89: construction tech bonus percent
Line 90: weapon tech bonus percent
Line 91: inner security intelligence boni percent
Line 92: economyspy intelligence boni percent
Line 93: economysabotage intelligence boni percent
Line 94: researchspy intelligence boni percent
Line 95: researchsabotage intelligence boni percent
Line 96: militaryspy intelligence boni percent
Line 97: militarysabotage intelligence boni percent
Line 98: shipyard
Line 99: buildable shipsize
Line 100: shipyard buildspeed percent
Line 101: barracks
Line 102: barracks buildspeed percent
Line 103: hitpoints
Line 104: shield power defence
Line 105: bonus to shieldpower
Line 106: shipdefence
Line 107: bonus to shipdefence
Line 108: grounddefence
Line 109: bonus grounddefence
Line 110: scanpower
Line 111: bonus to scanpower percent
Line 112: scanrange
Line 113: bonus to scanrange percent
Line 114: shiptraining
Line 115: trooptraining
Line 116: resistance against corruption
Line 117: added traderoutes
Line 118: income on traderoutes in percent
Line 119: shiprecyling in percent
Line 120: bonus to building-buildspeed in percent
Line 121: bonus to upgrade-buildspeed in percent
Line 122: bonus to ship-buildspeed in percent
Line 123: bonus to troop-buildspeed in percent
Line 124: predecessors ID
Line 125: allways online

So you could configure them to add trade routes/resource routes as they help prevent piracy.

Or they could reduce corruption so act to oppose bribery.

You would never want to intentionally increase sabotage ability on other empires as there are all kinds of positive things they could do to help the player instead.

You might allow them "pure intelligence ability to spy on what other empires are doing" not harm.

"What are the Khaoran researching? How much money do they have? How many known troops are they and at what levels? What does their map look like? How many mines do they have?"

You could have them root out opposition groups and so when ground invasions happen, help with defense bonuses instead as opposition groups betrayed their empires as they hated them and wanted them.overthrown.

They might improve morale empirewide.

[UesugiKenshin]

Think about this logically. If every empire can have five empires doing sabotage missions against them, then there is no way to defend your empire from sabotage missions as they will gang up you and spies are not limited like soldiers waging war. Not unless some empires can generate more than five times in intelligence points.

[UesugiKenshin]

My concern is that even if the intelligence agencies were modded to be helpful, if they are hardcoded to generate points for missions in the BotE software from turn 400 on (when activated), then still some sabotage will automatically happen regardless of being modded.

Lines 93, 95, and 97 should never ever be activated.

Line 91: inner security intelligence boni percent
Line 92: economyspy intelligence boni percent
Line 93: economysabotage intelligence boni percent
Line 94: researchspy intelligence boni percent
Line 95: researchsabotage intelligence boni percent
Line 96: militaryspy intelligence boni percent
Line 97: militarysabotage intelligence boni percent

Why? There is no area of effect ie no limitation on penetration into any empire border as they can be anywhere in the galaxy on successive turns.

[UesugiKenshin]

I deleted many old screencaps as I needed the attachment space. I plan a more clear description when I start the new 2nd beta test in which the Terrans play against the Khaoran and using the beta software.

[UesugiKenshin]

http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki/ind ... dings.data
Now that I know more about BotE's gameplay and the inner workings of the building file.

My tentative plan is eliminate sabotage in the current buildings and instead those intelligence buildings for major and minor alien race buildings would be like the USA's Homeland Security. And so the current buildings would increase morale, add trade/resource routes, and deritium. Why?

These current intelligence buildings act to reduce opposition groups that harm these areas. This benefits BotE in the following ways.
1. Sabotage is still there and maybe upon completing whole levels at say research level 15 in all six areas, plus expense, plus high energy costs, you start doing sabotage missions.
2. So new intelligence buildings would activate it and way later in the game like turn 900+.
3. The current intelligence buildings would solve issues.
4. For example, many systems have no deritium but have other resources, even all the other resources, so the building means some ships can be constructed in a system that formerly couldn't .
5. Trade is hard to do as you have such limits that you require as resource routes, so these Homeland Security levels double these routes. In the first 650 turns, enormous time is spent juggling routes because there are not enough.
6. Morale takes a beating post turn 700, so these Homeland Security intelligence buildings boost morale.
7. So this simple change then eliminates a lot of issues.
8. Likely for balancing, the major races that relied on sabotage get some other benefits for their intelligence buildings ie the Rotharians and Catare and to some degree the Omega.

[UesugiKenshin]

So my next goal is to identify every building that currently allows sabotage.
Document how much they help sabotage.
Then make scaled changes and document them here.

There is not a good mechanism for loading Android mods. I'm hoping the mod can be loaded through the GooglePlay store and so anyone can play it as a parallel apk. Then anyone with questions on the intelligence mod, can get answers here.