Evolving Intelligence

[Darwin420]

I just had a brainstorm of random thought that led me to this. Sorry that it's not fully fleshed out.

How cool would it be if when you established an embassy (and later planted a spy) that you didn't get all the information about a civ at once. I think there should be something like sliders to split 100% of the resources at your embassy to gathering information on TECHNOLOGY, MILITARY, CULTURE/SOCIETY

Depending how much you throw into a particular field, you gain information about your enemies quicker. This expands with Espionage, and you have more things to do. Imagine slowing crippling an enemy's science program, or over time subverting their military.

I really don't have any specific numbers, or anything like that, to use, but I'm hoping the community can help flesh this out if the interest is there.

So, with that, I leave it up to the community!

 

[Commander Bello]

I would think this is a good idea, and it seems to be manageable without too much effort. Even the AI should be able to deal with it, which is the most important thing.

Of course, it would require a concept of counter-espionage brought into the game.

 

[Hyronymus]

This is a good point, Darwin! Seems there will be enough ways to account for development of your intelligence skills.

 

[Pentium]

I like your idea, it's closer to reality.

 

[dh_epic]

I think the intelligence part of the game is grossly under-represented in the game.

I was always kind of disappointed by espionage. I remember the first few times I'd play, I'd make huge power moves to get the espionage tech, only to find that the options were kind of limited. And the choices you could pick were less cost/time effective than just killing everyone.

They should not only add more intelligence options, but make intelligence more important.

In fact, I think they should make espionage there right from the start of the game. You have an intelligence advisor. But their function, at that time, is very limited. New functions are gradually added with new techs / small wonders...

 

[Darwin420]

@all: Thank you! Glad to know others like my idea!

-----

I fleshed this out a little more in my head. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and Firaxis will like the idea, too!

Evolving Intelligence for cIV

Only basic diplomatic actions should be available at the start of the game, as it is now. Writing should again allow you to establish embassies. I think embassies should not only cost gold to establish, but have a low maintenance cost, as well. And you should not only have the capital appear on the map, but the fastest route from your capital to their's should appear on the map.

Once the embassy is established, you should be able to get a free glimpse at the capital whenever you want, but you should not be able to see more than one garrisoned unit there (to see them all requires digging around, and should cost gold).

Depending on what important factors cIV incorporates, you would have an Intelligence Slider that allows to to gather information. Of course, until the discovery of Espionage, the effectiveness of your intelligence gathering would not be that great, although perhaps government could modify this.

The sliders would be (hypothetically):

TECHNOLOGY 0-100%: Allows you to gain information on the latest and greatest technological innovation of your rival. Unless you have visibly seen a unit on the map that relates to a specific technology, you would not immediately know if the civ had it (ie, until you see a legion, you would not definitively know Rome had Iron Working). Over time, the Diplomats in the Embassy will uncover what techs the civ has, and you should be able to call this up on a list. You could also potentially find out how much of their economy goes into research. Again, this depends on how research and technology will work in cIV, so the specifics would need to be adjusted to reflect that.

MILITARY 0-100%: Over time, your diplomats will learn what units are in that civ's military, how many there are, and even last known location (though this will stagnate until your diplomat can update that information, based upon how much priority you're putting on this aspect of intelligence). Eventually, with Espionage, you'll be able to sabatoge an opponents military units, too (for a price, of course)

CULTURE/SOCIETY 0-100%: Depending on how the new Civics and Religion and Culture models work, you would gain information on the set-up of your rival's society. Can't offer too many specifics here, since it's new territory. With the advent of Espionage, one would be able to incite unrest, or maybe 'poison' religious thought (Heaven's Gate Cult, anyone? :smile: ), and a variety of other things.

ECONOMICS 0-100%: Again, information gained is dependent on whatever the new economic model will be, but I think this is self-explanatory. You should be able to disrupt trade routes, throw loops into a rival's market (if they have a capilatist or free market society). Even try to 'embezzle' some of your rival's treasury.

These are just ideas off the top of my head, but I think I'm making my point more clearly than my original post.

I also think there should be more Espionage options. I'd like to be able to poison water supplies (thereby creating a plague), or attempt an assassination of my opponent (creating temporary anarchy for a few turns, depending on gov't style), or entice my opponent's armies to desert their posts, or detonate a nuclear bomb inside a rival's city, or enable a 'smuggled migration' of expatriats out of the country and into mine, or sabatoge scientific progress (or steal techs!)... the list goes on.

I also think that there should be some sort of counter-espionage function that needs to be paid for and maintained through gold costs. The more counter-espionage your rival invests in, the higher the cost and lower the success at anything you try to do to them.

The Civ diplomatic/spy model has a lot of potential. Come on, Firaxis, give us what we're due!!

 

[dh_epic]

The key to making intelligence important is making it important to KNOW. But if the game's choices are predictable, then "knowing" doesn't help you.

Take Commander Bello's thread on choosing military tactics. As it stands now, who cares what tactic they're using? Hell, you don't even care what unit they're bringing. You just need to know that you should have the best units available to you, and lots of them. But if there's an underlying variable that the enemy hides from you, then knowing it becomes KEY to defeating them.

Another simple thing is when your military advisor says "their army is stronger than yours!" That tells you to get your butt in gear immediately. But if you don't know, then suddenly intelligence means more. Imagine your military commander said "Build more archers! / I can't give you advice if you don't invest in better intelligence!" And the better the quality of intelligence, the more you know, and with more certainty.

Even finding a wonder in progress could be more significant. "Sire, we have found that the Egyptians are building Pyramids in Memphis and are halfway there." Right now they give that information away for free.

Consider a branching tech tree. This offers two important strategic decisions.

One is simply knowing what your worst enemy is up to. "Is he ready to jump down the military branch or the democracy branch or the religious branch?" It gives you a chance to think about the next chunk of history and how you'll handle their unique advantages. Or even so, if you should beat them at their own branch.

Two is knowing that your worst enemy might trade away the "gateway" tech of his branch to other neighbors, getting them down his path. If they're going down his path, then they will have more in common with him and be biased to him in their relations. And if they're going down his path, they can share technologies that you can't, and you have technologies that you can't trade to them.

In summary, the key to making intelligence good isn't just making more of it, but offering diverse strategic choices. There's no point to intelligence in a car race. There are no decisions, only optimizing your speed. You just know you should move as fast as you can, and you know if a guy is ahead of you.

I hate to always confound every thread with the big picture... but ... think of the big picture!

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]
In summary, the key to making intelligence good isn't just making more of it, but offering diverse strategic choices. There's no point to intelligence in a car race. There are no decisions, only optimizing your speed. You just know you should move as fast as you can, and you know if a guy is ahead of you.

I hate to always confound every thread with the big picture... but ... think of the big picture!

I couldn't agree more!

 

[Darwin420]

@dh_epic: thought I was thinking of the big picture! Everything you said fits nicely with the tentative model I'm postulating. Like I said, without knowing how the new game mechanics are going to work, it's hard to give a specific idea. I have a feeling that cIV is going to totally and utterly redefine what it means to play Civ.

 

[dh_epic]

I was definitely not talking to you but to "everyone". Your intelligence system is a streamlined and elegant one. I wanted to encourage people to see it in the context of a bigger picture.

Adding new game features are more than "if you build it, they will come". In order to make people use a feature actively, you gotta create a need or desire to.

That's part of the problem with the current intelligence system. You quickly say to yourself "well, why would I poison their water supply, when I can invest that cash into building a huge army and killing them?" Or, "why would I steal their technology if I have enough cash to trade for it, let alone develop it on my own?"

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I think one thing that needs to be avoided is having cash the primary limit on diplomacy/espionage, the idea that international/domestic opinion is the major cost of spy actions is I think necessary so that 'bigger' really makes almost no difference in espionage (most activities, some like funding rebels $ should definitely make a difference)

 

[dh_epic]

Another thing to consider is cultural similarity -- assuming they have a spreading culture model. (I hope people don't think I'm doing that for ego -- that's definitely just something that needs to happen for the sake of all other features.)

If there are large portions of the foreign population that like your culture, then it's really really easy to find spies. More people to spy, more people to crunch documents in a different language, more people to manipulate things for you.

That's actually a problem that America is encountering in the Middle East. Because of the Abu Gharib Prison Scandal and the lack of police on the ground to prevent looting of precious Iraqi artifacts, they're having a hard time finding spies who will work for them. The USSR was a different story. A lot more people sympathetic towards America, including the tenants of capitalism and religious freedom. They had thousands of spies quite easily.

In Civ terms, to even model some of that... this would give culturally developed civilizations with good reputations an advantage in intelligence. Whereas sullying your reputation and isolating your culture would mean that you'd have a hard time getting intelligence. You'd have to simply guess.

 

[Chazbagel]

Hmm i like your idea. nice

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]
In Civ terms, to even model some of that... this would give culturally developed civilizations with good reputations an advantage in intelligence. Whereas sullying your reputation and isolating your culture would mean that you'd have a hard time getting intelligence. You'd have to simply guess.

Unfortunately, in RL it seems to work just the other way around.
The more secretive a society is, the more it opens space for some poor idealistic idiots' dreams. On the other hand, the more open a society is, the more it is exposed to espionage.
Both leads to the fact, that it not only is easier to do espionage in the open society which in terms of Civ would have more culture, but additionally it is quite easy to find spies in there performing that espionage. Why? Because that secret country "behind the hills/iron curtain/whatever" just cannot be that forbidding (in mentioned idiots' dreams). We Germans have some experience with that.
Additionally, the pure fact of secretiveness makes it very dangerous to perform espionage.
I really would expect the open societies to be much more exposed to espionage than the other way around.

 

[dh_epic]

It's not a question of openness or closedness. Although I can definitely say that USSR was extremely closed, while the Middle East technically doesn't have that fine control from a state apparatus. It does apply to some degree.

The issue IS finding sympathizers. You could have an incredibly closed society, but if enough people living there just happen to identify with your enemy, then they're likely to spy. If you have a really open society, it doesn't mean people would sympathize with the enemy -- if everyone in that open society hates the enemy, you won't find many spies.

A culture spreading model is a good way to model and measure just how much people in one city love the various nations around the world. That's what I was trying to get at.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Sorry to come into this thread so late, but you should have a look at my model for intelligence. In it, you can divide your Intelligence resources according to which NATION you wish to most target, what AREA of Intelligence you want to 'specialise' in-Sabotage, Espionage or Counterintelligence, and which area of Society you wish to focus on-Military, Domestic, Commercial, Foreign Relations, Industrial?? or Scientific.
How much you allocate to each area, and how many points you HAVE to allocate-versus how much the other side has allocated to ITS Intelligence, will all effect both how OFTEN you perform intelligence missions, and how likely you are to succeed. This model is based very closely on the Birth of the Federation model, and I felt that it was very immersive, whilst eliminating almost ALL micromanagement associated with Intelligence missions!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

Hey Aussie. Got a link?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey DH_Epic. I can't find the original Link, but I found the archived thread HERE:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-84754.html

Just scroll down to the appropriate posts for a description, or read this:

.....On the 'Intelligence' side of the coin, I would like to see it work like this:

1) You have a number of structures which produce 'Intelligence Points' (IPs) every turn. The IP's produced can also be boosted by assigning more money to your foreign affairs budget!

2) In your Foreign Advisor Screen, you can 'divvy up' your intelligence points into 'Domestic/Internal Security'; 'Espionage' and 'Sabotage'. You can, if you wish, further divide these points up into Economic, Military, Scientific, Civil/Cultural. If you don't, then you will get an even mix of targets for your 'undercover' activities.

3) In this same screen, you can also adjust the % of your intelligence points you wish to focus on each nation. Of course, you have to have had some prior contact with this nation in order to do so!

4) These overall % allocations determine both the FREQUENCY and the chance for success of 'undercover' missions against other nations. If you have embassies and or trade with those nations, then the chance of success against that specific nation is improved.

5) When your tech and/or your IP's reach certain thresholds, you will recieve the ability to perform additional-very nasty/subversive-activities. These include counterintelligence, assassinating Great Leaders, conducting bioterrorism, inciting civil-wars/rebellions and planting of nuclear devices. Not sure how it would work-either (a) your intelligence chief advises you of opportunities to conduct such operations or (b) you have buttons for these missions which become usable at the appropriate time. Either way, it will cost money out of your treasury, and success will STILL depend on your IP's.

6) All other covert operations attempts will occur automatically, with your intelligence chief/foreign advisor advising you of success or failure-and what repurcussions this might have on future international relations.


Oh, and this 'in-game' example:

Hey guys. Here is some 'in-game' examples to answer some of your questions regarding intelligence-especially the one about false or outdated intelligence.
Please note that all numbers are for illustrative purposes only!
Lets say that 5 IP's=a 1% chance of a successful espionage. It is the Late-Classical age, and the English have 800 IP's accumulated, of which they have allocated a final amount of 10% (or 80 IP's) to espionage against Germany. This means that they have a 16% chance of a successful espionage mission against Germany. Now, this means that Englands espionage attempts against Germany will be both (a) infrequent and (b) prone to failure-how they fail, though, will vary from attempt to attempt. Sometimes it will just be a 'couldn't find anything', othertimes it will be a 'caught in the act' and sometimes it will be 'wrong/outdated' info. Getting back to the above example, say the RNG determines that the most recent espionage attempt was a failure, but that it was an 'outdated info' failure. In your messages for that turn, your Intelligence Advisor informs you that spies have revealed that Germany is at war with France.
In an attempt to curry favour with France, therefore, England mobilises a small force to take a German city which lies on the German/French border. It will then hand the city over to France as a 'gift'. However, what the player doesn't know is that France and Germany WERE at war, around 8 turns ago, but are now in an MPP. Thus, when England attacks Germany based on this outdated intelligence, they find themselves at war with both Germany AND France!!! The dangers of false intelligence I guess!!
If England were caught spying on Germany, they could have the option of expelling said spy OR, if they have sufficient IP's devoted to Domestic Intelligence, they could feed the spy deliberately false information! The spies would still have a chance of gathering real info, but will also often get wrong info courtesy of German counterintelligence.
Of course, Germany could opt to go to war over the spying incident. Though this would still carry a strong rep-hit, said hit would not be as great as merely going to war for no reason-and would probably carry a lesser war weariness penalty in the first few turns.
Of course, if the English were caught in the act of SABOTAGE, then Germany could go to war with little or no rep-hit, and a reasonably long respite from war weariness effects!

Sorry for the overlong post guys !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, reading back over this, I remember that I went into even MORE detail, but can't remember if it was in this thread, or another. Anyways, this should give a reasonable amount of detail on my model.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Sorry for the overlong post guys !

Not a problem. I've seen--and posted!--longer.