Intelligence bug?

[MagisterMundi]

Okay, so I'm playing Ireland, and am trying to send an additional spy to the UK (this would bring my total up to five). It says that the chance for success is 30%... problem is, I've now attempted this 32 times, and every time it has ended in failure. Is it just REALLY, REALLY bad luck, or could this be a bug?

 

[Red Boxer]

Bad luck.

Do you realized that it is theoretically possible to flip a coin, and have it land on the same from the beginning of time and into all eternity?

You're just hitting the RNG the wrong way, give her a little lovin' she'll reward you nicely.

 

[Kami888]

There must be something about your spies that makes the British recognize them immidiately. Are you sure they aren't wearing big Irish flags on their shirts?

London news: With the arrival and immidiate capture of 238094th Irish spy, the British government decided to order the construction of special "Irish spy" prison in Belfast. The city authorities report that the city population had trippled through the last 5 years. However it seems likely that all our attempts to convince the Irish government to stop sending us their spies will end in inevitable failure.

 

[unmerged(54421)]

Red Boxer is correct that it is theoretically possible to achieve the results you have without a bug, but let me assure that the chances of that being true are statistically insignificant. In short - yes, it's a bug of some kind.

 

[unmerged(2037)]

Okay, so I'm playing Ireland, and am trying to send an additional spy to the UK (this would bring my total up to five). It says that the chance for success is 30%... problem is, I've now attempted this 32 times, and every time it has ended in failure. Is it just REALLY, REALLY bad luck, or could this be a bug?

Do you mean 32 unique attempts or 32 reloads? The later will never work unless you let pass some time after reload before trying AFAIK.

 

[MagisterMundi]

Perhaps they actually wired it into the game so that the UK automatically spots Irish spies, maybe to reflect the UK's concern about having a vengeful formerly conquered nation within rocket artillery range west of them. Given the damage the IRA managed to do, I don't blame the UK for their paranoia...

 

[MagisterMundi]

Do you mean 32 unique attempts or 32 reloads? The later will never work unless you let pass some time after reload before trying AFAIK.

32 unique attempts - fail, repair diplomatic ties, try again... fail, repair diplomatic ties, try again... rinse and repeat.

 

[MagisterMundi]

While we're at it, what advantages are there to having mutliple spies in a country? I mean, I have a general idea, but specifically?...

 

[NikkTheTrick]

1. You get better intelligence (more accurate # of divisions, etc)
2. Chances of ALL intelligence operations (steal blueprint, coup, etc.) are higher.

 

[unmerged(54421)]

Generally, it's a waste of time to even attempt an intelligence mission unless you have 10 spies in a country.

 

[The Dogmeat]

But isent there eny other factor to????
What about tech? What tech improves the hance of success? I mean dont the methods of training evolve or something?

 

[MagisterMundi]

But isent there eny other factor to????
What about tech? What tech improves the hance of success? I mean dont the methods of training evolve or something?

I seem to remember Crypt. and Decrypt. somehow modify it, but I don't really know how...

 

[unmerged(11202)]

I seem to remember Crypt. and Decrypt. somehow modify it, but I don't really know how...

Sofar I haven't seen the Encryption/Decryption techs having any effects, at least not when it concerns the odds of succes, which sofar are only affected AFAIK by the number of spies and you intelligence minister.

Besides that I have in my own DD games had whole strings of failures despite for example having 40% succes odds. It appears the RNG is still broken, it has been that way since Europa Universalis.

 

[Kanitatlan]

If this was a true failure then the probability of the sequence would be 0.7^32. This is a 1 in 90545 chance of occuring. This isn't quite as vanishingly small as you might expect but it is quite implausible under the circumstances.

I ran a test game playing the US on normal to experiment with the intelligence capability. The US generates so much money that you can just sit there clicking in spies and intelligence missions. the sequence of events that results is definitely not properly random as the pattern of success and failure is really quite strange. Unfortunately I didn't collect detailed statistics and it is very difficult to accurately appraise without total analysis.

When you run sequences humans automatically pick out patterns and will almost always see patterns in the random sequence of events. However, I was able to determine that there is some deviation from the reported probabilities with something like 80% confidence. It will take ann inordinate amount of data collection to analyse truly reliably and 80% confidence is not sufficient for any certainty. There appeared to be a pattern of deviation from reported probabilities that was dependant on the target country - e.g. it seemed inordinately difficult to steal blueprints off Germany and Soviet Union - but with persistence I have achieved all the attempted missions against all countries. (in the end it averaged out to stealing about 1 blueprint per month)

 

[mbb]

If this was a true failure then the probability of the sequence would be 0.7^32. This is a 1 in 90545 chance of occuring. This isn't quite as vanishingly small as you might expect but it is quite implausible under the circumstances.

I ran a test game playing the US on normal to experiment with the intelligence capability. The US generates so much money that you can just sit there clicking in spies and intelligence missions. the sequence of events that results is definitely not properly random as the pattern of success and failure is really quite strange. Unfortunately I didn't collect detailed statistics and it is very difficult to accurately appraise without total analysis.

When you run sequences humans automatically pick out patterns and will almost always see patterns in the random sequence of events. However, I was able to determine that there is some deviation from the reported probabilities with something like 80% confidence. It will take ann inordinate amount of data collection to analyse truly reliably and 80% confidence is not sufficient for any certainty. There appeared to be a pattern of deviation from reported probabilities that was dependant on the target country - e.g. it seemed inordinately difficult to steal blueprints off Germany and Soviet Union - but with persistence I have achieved all the attempted missions against all countries. (in the end it averaged out to stealing about 1 blueprint per month)

I agree with Kanitatlan here. It feels like the the game is not reporting the acutal chances of success, rather a base chance which is being modified by some unknown factors.

Off the top of my head, I would guess the difference between your decryption and encryption technologies, minsters and open/closed sliders are being factored in. Maybe dissent is a factor too.

It seems like I go through patches of being more successful than not, but as Kanitatlan says, it is very hard to analyse.

 

[vimhawk]

Agreed, either there are hidden factors, or the base chance of success is not as it appears to be, or the number generator is broken.

For my 'sample of one' contribution, as the UK I made perhaps 30 attempts at stealing blueprints from the Germans at 25% chance and didn't succeed once. Yes, I do accept the general human condition of seeing patterns in randomness, and not properly understanding normal distribution etc., but I'm starting to believe there is more to it...

 

[petester]

In my last '36 US game, I easily got 10 spies into Canada - while getting 1 spy in that equivalent time in the UK. Took years to build up to 10 spies in the UK. (found Australia harder to infiltrate with a spy too...)

I concentrated on Tech stealing - and didn't care about relations. (didn't matter - UK and Canada for instance would influence me back up to close to +200% every time on their own). Over the next 6-7 years, Canada succeeded IAW the approximate % chance of doing it. (until they ran out of stuff to steal...), but I NEVER was able to steal a tech from the UK. I tried at least 70+ times (and I knew they had stuff to steal...). Found Japan easy to steal from, Canada easy (would succeed 1 in 4, 1 in 5 times), Germany moderate (1 in 10), Australia never succeeded (tried +50 times without success), UK NEVER.

So my conclusion was that the %ages are base numbers and these are modifed by the ministers profile, tech, or were caused by some bug.

 

[MagisterMundi]

In my last '36 US game, I easily got 10 spies into Canada - while getting 1 spy in that equivalent time in the UK. Took years to build up to 10 spies in the UK. (found Australia harder to infiltrate with a spy too...)

I concentrated on Tech stealing - and didn't care about relations. (didn't matter - UK and Canada for instance would influence me back up to close to +200% every time on their own). Over the next 6-7 years, Canada succeeded IAW the approximate % chance of doing it. (until they ran out of stuff to steal...), but I NEVER was able to steal a tech from the UK. I tried at least 70+ times (and I knew they had stuff to steal...). Found Japan easy to steal from, Canada easy (would succeed 1 in 4, 1 in 5 times), Germany moderate (1 in 10), Australia never succeeded (tried +50 times without success), UK NEVER.

So my conclusion was that the %ages are base numbers and these are modifed by the ministers profile, tech, or were caused by some bug.

Glad to see I'm not entirely crazy...

 

[unmerged(55727)]

Okay, so I'm playing Ireland, and am trying to send an additional spy to the UK (this would bring my total up to five). It says that the chance for success is 30%... problem is, I've now attempted this 32 times, and every time it has ended in failure. Is it just REALLY, REALLY bad luck, or could this be a bug?

It's Game Realism.
The red hair and ridiculous accent gives them dead away
It's not entirely realistic, of course, as you're not paying them with spuds :rofl: