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Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/5/2011 12:36:11 AM

feygan

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Quick question regarding character recruitment in the latest expansion.

Are intelligence agents now only recruited at random through the character method as opposed to original and ROTS method where you could manually employ them?

Post #: 1

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/5/2011 1:02:36 AM

Erik Rutins

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That's correct, but intelligence missions and related events will increase the likelihood of generating new agents and if you are ever completely without an agent (or a character of any type), the likelihood of generating a new one is significantly increased.

Regards,

- Erik

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RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/5/2011 2:21:14 AM

jpwrunyan

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I played the Ketaros last night. I lost all four of my agents over 10 years game time doing continuous 80+ success rate missions. I did not get any new agents after the last one was captured. Then the game ended. I lost. I suggest that the replacement rate for lost agents needs some adjustments.

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Post #: 3

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/5/2011 3:14:23 AM

Erik Rutins

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Hi jpwrunyan,

Which version of the game was this with? Could you upload a late game save file for us please?

Regards,

- Erik

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Post #: 4

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/5/2011 4:14:08 AM

jpwrunyan

Posts: 558
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From: Uranus
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Are you saying this is a potential bug? I dont have a save cause it was a straight two hour 2x speed play. But if it happens again I will be sure to save. I have a few bug saves already to submit. I just dont know the proc for bug reporting.

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Post #: 5

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/5/2011 4:18:12 AM

jpwrunyan

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Oh and I dont know the ver at the moment. I got the game 10 days ago off matrix site's download. So i assume it is latest ver vanilla.
About to go on a trip so apologies for not being of much help.

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Post #: 6

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/5/2011 6:41:34 PM

ASHBERY76

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It there an issue with the mission risk calculation.It seems when I try an 86% risk mission it is more like 50% in reality because of the amount of spy's I lose.

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Post #: 7

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 3:50:40 AM

jpwrunyan

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Mission risk assessment does not account for enemy counter intelligence. Because your spy ops dont know how good their counter ops are. That is not a problem with game. Its supposed to be that way. And if your spies are detected (but not caught) you might assume that the other empire will put its own spies on counter-ops if they werent there already. The issue is spy recruitment/replacement. I havent gone back to the Ketaros, but I have yet to play a game where I got even one new spy. I did have a spy get replaced for being a traitor but I have had that happen with all leader types. How long should it take for me to get a new agent when I have zero agents??? I checked updates and I have the latest version of the game.

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Post #: 8

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 4:25:28 AM

rtrapasso

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i lost my only agent early in the game, and it was never replaced, much to my annoyance since the enemy picked off several installations by sabotage, and i couldn't order a counterespionage mission... i have saves, i think (stll do not have any agents many dozens of years on.)

Please let me know where to upload if you want it... this was under 1.700, but just now upgraded to 1.704 (but i haven't played under 1.704 yet).

The intel agent stuff seems weak (under 1.700).

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Post #: 9

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 4:27:22 AM

Erik Rutins

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Hi rtrapasso,

Please follow the instructions here to upload a save file for us.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2415085

Regards,

- Erik

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Post #: 10

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 4:36:24 AM

jpwrunyan

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Thanks for following up on this Erik and all. I like the spy system a lot so it makes me sad when I lose my last spy. Hope you are reading this with a sad face because I am writing it with one.

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Post #: 11

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 5:37:53 AM

Malevolence

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

in terms of spy missions you have the CI mission which is totally passive.

the rest of the missions are basically high payoff/high risk. some of the map theft missions are 85% chance of success at one year. at face value that would seem like low risk since a high probability of success. actually, because the spies are such rare assets it's not. it's high risk--risk is measured by probability and magnitude.

now how many missions do I need to accomplish to get my spy to a 70% chance of success for a sabotage or assassination... lets say it's 5 missions for example.

that means if every map theft was 85% --- .85^5 = 44.4% chance of success to reach the ability to try a 70% sabotage... now you have a 31% chance of survival if you're planning to attempt the sabotage too.

my point is in one way or another you need many more missions with a low payoff and low/medium risk or bite the bullet and have spys grow automatically.

< Message edited by Malevolence -- 12/6/2011 5:51:40 AM >

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Post #: 12

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 7:43:52 AM

jpwrunyan

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I appreciate the effort but the information in that quote does not indicate how long one will wait to get a new/replacement spy. Or maybe you werent intending to reply to me?

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Post #: 13

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 9:46:03 AM

Malevolence

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan

I appreciate the effort but the information in that quote does not indicate how long one will wait to get a new/replacement spy. Or maybe you werent intending to reply to me?

Per Erik above, if you have no spies you are more likely to have one spawn for you, otherwise events (like a successful offensive mission or a successful counterintelligence case) may cause a new spy to spawn (a kind of critical success bonus).

I also suggest looking in the Colony Governors thread for information. All characters are basically handled the same way.

as Ashbery76 adeptly pointed out... the race text file can give you an idea of the appearance chance. Each race has its own set of values.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
'random character appearance chance: Minimum=0, Normal=1.0, Maximum=3.0
CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceLeader ;1.0
CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceAmbassador ;1.3
CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceGovernor ;1.3
CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceAdmiral ;0.8
CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceGeneral ;0.8
CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceScientist ;1.15
CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceIntelligenceAgent ;1.3

My above quote above (from elsewhere) was to address folks losing spies and then not having any available. Just because a mission looks promising at an 85% probability of success (not counting enemy CI capability?) still leaves you very vulnerable to losing spies; particularly if you plan to use them for anything above basic map theft and long-term (1 year) missions.

< Message edited by Malevolence -- 12/6/2011 9:52:49 AM >

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Post #: 14

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 10:12:52 AM

adamsolo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

It there an issue with the mission risk calculation.It seems when I try an 86% risk mission it is more like 50% in reality because of the amount of spy's I lose.

Same feeling here. But I think I had that impression more on RotS. In Legends normally I do well with >85% (as expected ok, but in RotS 85% did felt like 50%)

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Post #: 15

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 3:18:17 PM

jpwrunyan

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Malevolence
Per Erik above, if you have no spies you are more likely to have one spawn for you, otherwise events (like a successful offensive mission or a successful counterintelligence case) may cause a new spy to spawn (a kind of critical success bonus).

Right, I know. I read that thread as well. What I really would like to know is what that likelyhood translates to in terms of actual game time.

I don't think anyone actually knows. But regardless, I think it should be changed for agents since they are so vital. The other leaders are more of a bonus if you get them. But no spies means you are cut off entirely from one dimension of the game. Not saying you should just instantly get a replacement either... just, it seems like a long time as it is. Put it another way, how long should an empire go without agents once they have lost their last one? My opinion is one year. Particularly for a race like the Ketarov where (correct me if I am wrong) their main focus is spying.

Anyway, I really don't think this is a bug, even though Erik asked for save games. I got my first new recruit ever tonight! The game was 3/4 over but still... I got a new spy! So I think the recruitment is working... just very, very, slowly.

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Post #: 16

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/6/2011 9:49:00 PM

ASHBERY76

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan

Mission risk assessment does not account for enemy counter intelligence. Because your spy ops dont know how good their counter ops are. That is not a problem with game. Its supposed to be that way.

Excuse me I played the game before legends and the 86 mission risk assessmenk would hardly ever fail.Now it is 50/50.

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Post #: 17

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/27/2011 9:18:53 PM

Florestan

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IMO, characters should be less powerful, hired like in real life with a delay between the time you order one and the time it becomes active, and then chosen in a list of a few choices. Very occasional but exceptionally good bonus character could appear in the list after special events. Only one character hiring at a time to balance things. Maybe increase the hiring time for every owned character of that type, and automatically ask for next hiring when one is finished.
Spies should be instructors instead, that send their people on mission and should not die from it, but should be susceptible to assassination.
Edit: Oops, wrong reply button.

< Message edited by Florestan -- 12/27/2011 9:20:47 PM >

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Post #: 18

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/28/2011 7:41:38 PM

currierm

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Florestan

Spies should be instructors instead, that send their people on mission and should not die from it, but should be susceptible to assassination.
Edit: Oops, wrong reply button.

I haven't done much with espionage in Legends yet, so maybe the changes are for the better. But I do like that idea. Make them a "spy master" character that gives bonuses to things like: mission completion time, success chance, starting skill level and the like.

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Post #: 19

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/29/2011 4:18:37 AM

the1sean

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Here's my take on current spying under the latest patch:

Right now it's almost completely unfeasible that you will ever hit your empire's spy cap (wherever that's listed now, I can't find it BTW). As has been stated by Asherby and Malevolence, their attrition rate is actually very high considering the fact that you have to do dozens of (successful) missions to get an awesome spy trained. In addition counter-intel agents level up WAAAY too slowly. I think CI agents should slowly level up CI regardless of whether they are actively countering enemy missions or not, but of course still give them a big boost if they capture an enemy agent.

Newby spies should be a dime a dozen, if he is captured the main worry for a player shouldn't be replacing him, it should be more about the possible reputation and relations hit. Spies should repopulate up to your maximum fairly quickly. Why? Cuz they suck, a newb spy will take a YEAR to steal a TERRITORY MAP with any reliable chance of success. Yes, if spies are replaced much more regularly then you will over time be able to develop one or two truly useful spies that you can take the chance of losing to pull off really big missions. That's the point though, high risk/reward. Currently its much too static.

As the

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Post #: 20

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/29/2011 9:01:55 AM

sbach2o

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi jpwrunyan,

Which version of the game was this with? Could you upload a late game save file for us please?

If you are still interested in a save for a game where no spy character appears although the last one was lost/dismissed, you could have a look at one of my uploads: sbach2o-CrippledRetrofit.zip on your ftp server.

As the file name suggests, I put it there for another reason. But in the same game I dismissed my starting spy when his attributes became known, he was so bad. I did this about a game year after start (right after his first mission), hoping this would speed up the appearance of a better one, but no one ever appeared afterwards.

The save on the upload server is from a much earlier time, but that same game has now been running more then 15 years of game time without giving me another spy.

Note, that I was at 20 leaders total for a significant portion of this time (several game years, but probably no more than five). I mention this, because I think there may be a hard limit of 20 leaders per empire in the game. While I had that many, nothing I did caused another one to emerge (like colonizing may produce colony leaders, diplomatic treaties may create ambassadors or space combat admirals). When I didmissed a bad colony leader, however, it took only a few colonization events to get a new one.

Oh, yes: the usual blurb: The game in question was started around version 1.7.0.3 (I am not rexactly sure, which version) and went through all beta updates until 1.7.0.7. I am not sure about this, but I think the beta had already been released where the patch notes mentioned that the chance to get a leader of a given type (especially spies) had been increased when your empire has none. The game version for the upload was probably 1.7.0.4 or .5, but further updating the game didn't change the situation.

< Message edited by sbach2o -- 12/29/2011 12:12:56 PM >

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Post #: 21

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/29/2011 10:54:37 AM

martok

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quote:

ORIGINAL: the1sean

Here's my take on current spying under the latest patch:

Right now it's almost completely unfeasible that you will ever hit your empire's spy cap (wherever that's listed now, I can't find it BTW). As has been stated by Asherby and Malevolence, their attrition rate is actually very high considering the fact that you have to do dozens of (successful) missions to get an awesome spy trained. In addition counter-intel agents level up WAAAY too slowly. I think CI agents should slowly level up CI regardless of whether they are actively countering enemy missions or not, but of course still give them a big boost if they capture an enemy agent.

Newby spies should be a dime a dozen, if he is captured the main worry for a player shouldn't be replacing him, it should be more about the possible reputation and relations hit. Spies should repopulate up to your maximum fairly quickly. Why? Cuz they suck, a newb spy will take a YEAR to steal a TERRITORY MAP with any reliable chance of success. Yes, if spies are replaced much more regularly then you will over time be able to develop one or two truly useful spies that you can take the chance of losing to pull off really big missions. That's the point though, high risk/reward. Currently its much too static.

As the

I too would like to see the intel/agent system much like what you've outlined here. As it is currently, spies are too rare and have too high a chance of dying for it to be worth sending them on missions (at least on a regular basis).

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Post #: 22

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/29/2011 6:11:07 PM

ASHBERY76

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In the latest patch spies do not die so easy and it is much better balanced.

My view is that Legends has kinda killed the spying game a bit because of lack of agents showing up..

This can be improved quite easy as the modding guide shows.Double each of these values on every race.txt.

AdditionalIntelligenceAgent

CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceIntelligenceAgent
Random appearance chance for Intelligence Agent characters: Minimum=0, Normal=1.0, Maximum=5.0

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Post #: 23

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/31/2011 12:22:14 AM

jpwrunyan

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Yeah, I don't mind spies dying... but they should get replaced quickly (insert my standard rant).

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Post #: 24

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/31/2011 4:46:55 PM

Shark7

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You can also edit the amount of spies a race starts with in the race text file. There is a tag line "additional intelligence agents' lets you add up to 5 additional spies to the starting empire.

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Post #: 25

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/31/2011 10:32:41 PM

jpwrunyan

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7

You can also edit the amount of spies a race starts with in the race text file. There is a tag line "additional intelligence agents' lets you add up to 5 additional spies to the starting empire.

This to me is like going to a restaurant and cooking your own food. Some people like it, but it is not my thing.

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Post #: 26

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 12/31/2011 11:35:48 PM

adecoy95

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i only got two intelligence agents, one of them died during the course of the game, currently playing latest beta patch. game went to the year #805 (is it in the 2thousand? cant remember off the top of my head)

only ever got one ambassador, don't know if that's intended or not tho.

can i upload the save here? its 55 megs

< Message edited by adecoy95 -- 12/31/2011 11:36:28 PM >

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Post #: 27

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 5/24/2015 5:06:06 PM

fruitgnome

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I understood that character recruiting is not possible since Legends.

So this is a left-over.

Galactopedia
Alternative playstyles

quote:

Spy master
Turn on all empire automation activities except for !!!Agent Recruitment!!! and Agent Missions. You will control these two activities yourself as you oversee your team of intelligence agents. Secretly influence events throughout the galaxy as you steal and subvert.

Edit: It's wayne but I thought I post it here.

< Message edited by fruitgnome -- 5/24/2015 6:07:19 PM >

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Post #: 28

RE: Intelligence agents & Legends - 5/28/2015 7:19:19 PM

Twigster

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I remember reading a post where someone related why they liked letting AI design their ships, saying that it was like 'going to war with the army you have rather than with the army you want'. In that vein, I like playing with the intelligence system the way it is for that very reason. I always imagine that intelligence operations against interstellar empires would be enormously difficult to carry out.

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Post #: 29