"Intrigue" is useless?

CivilizedPlayer

Warlord
Joined
Jan 26, 2012
Messages
222
So ever since I got BNW, I've noticed that the Intrigue function of spies is almost useless. Every time one of my spies claims someone's about to DoW someone else, nothing actually happens. Same goes for when other leaders tell me their intrigue. "So-and-so is about to declare war on you, blah blah blah..." and then 20 turns later, that person hasn't actually declared war.

The person who is supposedly about to DoW generally is building up an army, and maybe even moving it towards the other person's borders. But they always seem to change their mind (regardless of whether I share the intrigue or not). Anyone else had the same experience? I really think the intrigue function could be pretty cool, but as it is, its a bit useless.
 
What you are overlooking as that the game is not programmed to convey false information, but small adjustments by the AI or human player can affect whether the intrigue "comes true." The AI will react to the intrigue -- whether moving some units closer to the border with whoever is marching an army, or taking other appropriate reaction viz the "plotting" AI. Also, another AI may happen to take some action that causes the "plotting" AI to re-think its plans.

In the case of the human player, I've found that ignoring the warning altogether is a bad idea, but that small actions can affect the outcome. Had a game not long ago where two civs warned me that Attila was marching on my capital and, sure enough, there were a bunch of rams and horse archers milling around, along with a GG (a pretty strong tip-off). But, simply upgrading 3 comp bows to x-bows was enough to get Attila to change his plans and DOW someone else (which I immediately regretted, since I was interested in some "free" warfare about that point in time).
 
there are 3 levels of intrigue...
Plotting against you... you appear weak enough to attack, needs more investigation, will see a unit or two on your borders, or missionaries running around your territory.
Building up for a sneak attack... you are weak enough to attack, build that army up, does not guarantee an attack
Launched a sneak attack on city "x".... the army is marching towards your city, and will attack if you do nothing to stop it... plant some defensive units on the border, bribe them to attack someone else, or hang back, let them declare war, and pick them off with the bows you have kept in reserve.
 
Plotting against just means the AI is being deceptive, not showing all his diplo modifiers.
 
I've almost always found that intrigue other than "plotting against" (everyone always plots against everyone else - this one really is meaningless) comes to fruition - a Persian sneak attack against me, an English sneak attack (no target named, but I was the obvious target), and any number of attacks against other civs I'd learned about.

The only time I was informed of an attack that didn't happen was several games ago, when Wu (with whom I wasn't yet at war) was supposedly moving a naval force to attack my city of Lisbon. I waited about 100 turns and eventually declared war on her instead. I think what happened in that case was that she lost the fleet en route - she was at war with Rome, and I did see a couple of Chinese ships approach my borders before being sunk (in that same game I got a lot of intrigue about fleets moving on Venice, all of which came true).

What I find frustrating is that sharing intrigue appears to do nothing. I'm not sure I've yet seen a civ I've warned building up a meaningful defence to protect themselves, or going on the offensive with a pre-emptive strike.
 
There could be the psychological factor that when the AI is "sharing Intel" that you are about to be attacked, two reasons I count for that as a human player. First, they want to be your friend for doing so. Secondly, they do it as subterfuge to throw you off from thier own build up. I have ignored thier warning from time to time only to have them DOW on me. Montezuma specifically loves to do that.
 
Plotting against just means the AI is being deceptive, not showing all his diplo modifiers.

Interesting. So when an AI says "So and so is plotting against you", it really just means "He likes you less than you think"? If so, I can find that out just by trying to trade with him. If he offers me less than normal for a lux or strat resource, I know he doesn't like me as much.
 
Best intrigue is of course wonder construction intrigue. Plotting intrigues vary between thinking about it, building an army and sending it. If you hear the third intrigue, that's valuable and 100% true. I think the first intrigue is likely to be if someone is considering a denouncement or introducing a WC policy that hurts your interests, such as a luxury ban.
 
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