Is there any point in spy missions other than Steal Blueprints?
- Thread starter Major Malfunction
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As Germany the collaboration government missions are vital if you are going to invest in the agency. You take over all nearby countries usually and the bonus to factory and resource availability more than pays for the mission costs.
Cryptology on the other hand is nearly impossible. I find I can decrypt perhaps 2 major powers before the decryption time gets insanely high. As Germany I do the UK first followed by the USSR. I usually just keep the decryption for long term information and only use the USSR bonus when I need a punch to knock them out of a dug in position. Haven't got decryption on a third major power yet... My first few games I wasted my decryption on Poland and France thinking I could do it to a lot of countires... I found out different. I would recommend doing it only on countries that you are in a long term struggle with.
Cryptology on the other hand is nearly impossible. I find I can decrypt perhaps 2 major powers before the decryption time gets insanely high. As Germany I do the UK first followed by the USSR. I usually just keep the decryption for long term information and only use the USSR bonus when I need a punch to knock them out of a dug in position. Haven't got decryption on a third major power yet... My first few games I wasted my decryption on Poland and France thinking I could do it to a lot of countires... I found out different. I would recommend doing it only on countries that you are in a long term struggle with.
Are you investing in all the decryption stuff?
I can usually keep tabs on 3-4 majors most of the war. I lose ground when they change ciphers on me, but with all decryption stuff unlocked for the agency, it's not that hard to keep countries decrypted. (Against the AI at least.)
In Waltzing Matilda I use a much simpler mechanism and just take the +20% slots per industry tech away. You run out of slots to use and have to find other ways to increase effective production, including the 50 PP industrial policy decision and such like. It's not as good as the system I would ideally like to be able to construct (manpower sequestration), but it works OK and it's simple.
Are you investing in all the decryption stuff?
I can usually keep tabs on 3-4 majors most of the war. I lose ground when they change ciphers on me, but with all decryption stuff unlocked for the agency, it's not that hard to keep countries decrypted. (Against the AI at least.)
I do the first two upgrades as I attempt to get to 5 upgrades for the second agent. After that I don't get around to doing more decryption upgrades until the war breaks out. I am playing at a very high level of difficulty though so the AI has huge bonuses to everything. I sometimes forget not everyone is playing like I do. by the time I get to 80% decryption on my second target the time skyrockets. I imagine the AI has invested in encryption at this point.
I agree, you have to spend on machine decryption but if you do 3-4 keeping 3 or 4 countries' codes cracked is simple. One question if anyone has run into this: If you crack a country's code and they are later puppeted, do you still have their codes decrypted?
Are you investing in all the decryption stuff?
I can usually keep tabs on 3-4 majors most of the war. I lose ground when they change ciphers on me, but with all decryption stuff unlocked for the agency, it's not that hard to keep countries decrypted. (Against the AI at least.)
I don't recall having difficulty with decryption on higher difficulty settings or when Germany was boosted to the maximum.
Do difficulty settings even impact decryption directly?
There's always a chance to get this bonus. 39 days to research 1943 industry tech in 1941. Same goes for electronics - you can research research bonus 2 years ahead of time tech in 39 days. There may be a bug here but currently it works like that.
If +10 or +15% of produced equipment 2 years before war is "the most useless action" then I don't know what could be useful.
Assuning that your intel target actually has that technology, of course. To find out which nation already has that technology would require...?
I don't think that's needed. To have the 1943 Concentrated Industry in 1941 you would have to to rush the whole tree. (Always immediately research next, used bonuses in a clever fashion.)
The AI never does that.
I think with stealing blueprints you can get bonuses for tech the "victim" doesn't have.
I only used steal blueprints a couple of times early after release. I didn't get anything that useful so I tried other strategies.
Now I find out you can steal blueprints to a tech that the enemy doesn't even have yet... WTF? Who's idea was that?
Getting an industrial tech like that over 2 years ahead of time is overpowered. It is good to know it is possible, but I will still not be using that system in the game. I didn't need an easier time beating the garbage AI?
I think I will stick with collaboration governments and intel as it is just negating the malus you get to production from captured countries in LaR.
Now I find out you can steal blueprints to a tech that the enemy doesn't even have yet... WTF? Who's idea was that?
Getting an industrial tech like that over 2 years ahead of time is overpowered. It is good to know it is possible, but I will still not be using that system in the game. I didn't need an easier time beating the garbage AI?
I think I will stick with collaboration governments and intel as it is just negating the malus you get to production from captured countries in LaR.
If that is indeed so then (a) it isn't really "stealing" tech any more, since you can't steal something your victim doesn't have and (b) I think that is a serious problem in the game...
Perhaps it is the Expert AI mod I have no idea but...
In my current game is in December 1938 as Germany. I invested in the first 3 decryption techs right away. I invested in the second 3 decrytion techs in early 1938. I had decrypted the UK in 1937 completely but something changed... They changed their cypher I guess? And now I am only at 50% and need another 596 days to get decryption on them again. Well that sucks. But what is worse is my second decryption target was Russia. I started as soon as I was done with the UK. As of now after working on them for over a year I am at 11% and it is going to take another 1615 days to decrypt them. So I will have the UK in late 1940 for the second time and the USSR in early 1943 and that is only if they don't change cyphers again? I have all 6 decryption upgrades completed in my agency. WTF is this bullshit????
Maybe it is expert AI making this harder? If not, the result of the war with the USSR will be over by the time I get decryption on them and I am only trying to get information on two countries. How the hell anyone is keeping up on 4 countries through the war is beyond me?
Like I said in my original post investing in decryption is a total waste of IC.
If you only can steal tech the enemy already has the feature is useless. As a major you are ahead in tech and as a minor you can hardly afford the mission.
Well, not only does that sound like a true picture of what is generally the case IRL, I don't think it's entirely accurate in all cases. Even as a major, you can't be at the cutting edge in ALL techs. The ones that are key to you, sure, but not all of the areas that might be useful and certainly not simultaneously. One of the biggest uses of technology espionage, thinking about it, should be to boost counters to what the enemy is concocting.
Did you put any investment into encryption yourself? I don't know, because I haven't checked, but my base assumption would be that the relative encryption level between you and the target would be relevant to the difficulty of the decryption task.