Intelligence agents & Legends

[sbach2o]

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.

[martok]

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).

[ASHBERY76]

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

[jpwrunyan]

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

[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.

[jpwrunyan]

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.

[adecoy95]

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

[fruitgnome]

I understood that character recruiting is not possible since Legends.

So this is a left-over.

Galactopedia
Alternative playstyles

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. [;)]

[Twigster]

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.