However, you can use them to increase the chance an operations succeed. The asset is potentially lost only if the operation fails. I was using my assets extensively to harvest favors and ensure those ops succeeded.
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What are you using Espionage for?
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However, you can use them to increase the chance an operations succeed. The asset is potentially lost only if the operation fails. I was using my assets extensively to harvest favors and ensure those ops succeeded.
Like.. going to war. Of course everything you do, they can do too. It's why you should have a whole espionage system, defenses, as well.
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But... Thats the point? I dont want Espionage to be a one-way-street, i want to get my leaders killed if my counterintelligence is lacking?
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Remember that theres generally only one players and many, many AIs. AIs can't get annoyed, humans can.
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Also why you (and real world governments) should invest in counterespionage to prevent that from happening. However, that is the cool thing about espionage. Who is secretly trying to undermine your glorious empire through subterfuge rather than just going toe-to-toe with your military?
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Ok, i would get annoyed when the AI would launch an operation ever minute, but why not limiting it with a cooldown? Maybe 10 years for killing a leader. Lets say you need a lvl 90 network to even try a assassination and after you tried you will have to wait 10 years, that would limit the potential uses quite drasticly, even with a lot of AI empires?
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Which we don't. And there are up to 30x the number of AI who can target you than you can target.
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There's still up to 30 of them doing it. Assume maybe half randomly decide to. So 3 attempts every 2 years. Good luck keeping a leader.
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It should depend on how aggressive the AI is and their diplomatic opinion. An AI empire with positive relations to your empire probably should not be running ops to undermine your empire. However, your rival empires CERTAINLY should be doing this.
Also, keep in mind that investing in boosting your encryption ranks should protect you from enemy operations. Even if multiple AI empires target you with operations then it should not be a threat if their espionage is significantly weaker than your own.
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With 10 AI empires, that would still means that at worst you could lose a leader once per year. Which is nothing to say about other operations. Like, the old AI rebellion was replaced with the Contingency because in the end it turned the game into a spaceport rebuilding simulator. And then they literally introduce an option to sabotage starbases through espionage.
The problem is that if the player could build strong spy defence, so could the AI - turning the entire espionage system toothless despite having powerful effects.
Which is why I can't think of a single strategy game were espionage hasnn't been either a) an afterthough or b) game-breakingly infuriating
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For a couple of reasons. First, the player tends to make enemies or at least lose a lot of friends especially by mid-game. There are a few playstyles where everyone loves the player, but they are limited. Second, the player tends to reach the top of the leaderboard. This further exacerbates the relationship troubles and AI often will give more weight to affecting larger rivals.
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Why should all 30 of them have a lvl 90 network on me? My neighbors? Maybe, if they are hostile towards me. An empire on the other end of the galaxy would surely have better targets than me. In EU IV for example, every empire could theoreticly smear my merchants but only those hostile to me do it. There are hundreds of nations in EU IV but i never got annoyed by an operations spam.
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Birth of the Federation had 2 empires with very strong espionage capability, but the other two could still get by. It became infuriating only if you ignored your defences and pissed off both the Cardassians and Romulans at the same time.
The original MOO. Espionage isn't particularly strong, but it works and works pretty well. I tend to use steal tech a lot.
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This is what I do: Getting assets to get more passive intel to get more information.
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There needs to be an operation that attacks an empire's espionage ranks and lowers them. There are edicts that I can pass to protect against espionage but nothing I, other players, or the AI can do to temporarily weaken my espionage to make me more vulnerable to attack, at least temporarily.
However, the same can be said with your military. If you use chokepoints, build up bastion stations with defense stations and one or more fleets docking there permanently, you can make yourself nearly impenetrable from attack outside of overwhelmingly powerful enemies.
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Steal tech is good, especially if you get that backdoor hax for a longterm bonus.
Farming favors might be nice if you want to play politics but only if you have energy towaste spare.
Having an op action that gives you claims (or makes claims cheaper) might be useful.
Farming favors might be nice if you want to play politics but only if you have energy to
Having an op action that gives you claims (or makes claims cheaper) might be useful.
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I just can't believe there is a line of thinking of "the system should be toothless, otherwise the AI might use it against the player!"
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