Espionage algorithm same as DA?

By ghostwes on May 2, 2008 3:15:50 AM from

ghostwes

Join Date 06/2006

+16

I've just played the first two scenarios of the new TA campaign; the AI's are behaving much differently with regard to espionage than they did in DA.

The Korath in scenario 1 and the Yor in scenario 2 were both laying on the spies, despite struggling economically, which is unusal in itself -- perhaps explained by the increased AI in TA? -- but I also noticed that it was much more difficult for me to rid myself of their spies.

Previously, as you all know, the cost of getting a spy depends on how many spies one already has. If you have no spies, it shouldn't take too long to produce one. The third takes longer to produce than the second, etc.

However, in the two TA scenarios, it seemed that the amount of time I needed to get a new spy was markedly increased, and seemed to increase much more so when enemy spies were already infecting my planets, rather than being based on how many spies I have comissioned. This could be my imagination, but I've played enough DA that I definitely noticed that things were behaving much differently -- hard to say after only the two games.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is it intentional?

The cost for spies goes up by how many you've created so far, not how many you currently have...slight difference than what you have worded above.

As for the the difficulty once they have spies down...check your income before and after those spies. The slider for creating spies is % based off of your income, while spies just have a raw bc amount tagged to them. If their spies are hitting your econ buildings/farms or even unused factories, then your income is stunted thus the time until getting a spy gets stunted.

As for TA AI and spies...yes they do seem more alertly using them. I've found myself trying to bee-line to the CE tech.

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Me too, I've noticed the AI using spies much more aggressively and in far bigger numbers.
Secondly I also felt like spies were more expensive / slower to train at the start. Not sure though whether the cost still increases as rapidly as before, and I couldn't tell whether having enemy spies around increased the cost as well. Could it be that they infected your manufacturing and/or capital, indirectly influencing the cost/time it would take you to train a spy?

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Hmm, not sure. I haven't really been keeping track of the specifics... I was just wondering if things had changed, or if I was just going crazy. Looks like the former, thankfully.

I've noticed that the AI seems to be saving up spies and then dumping them all in one turn, which is annoying, but also kind of neat, as it presents more of a challenge. I'm already finding that I need to start building spies early in the game to counter the eventual espionage attacks.

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AFAIK, the espionage system hasn't changed much (if at all) since DA. It takes longer to train a spy now, because it is more difficult to generate the BC.

The AI has been taught how to use it's spies more efficiently. Not that many players paid attention to this part of the game, but evidently, Frogboy did.

I'm already finding that I need to start building spies early in the game to counter the eventual espionage attacks.

Good advice. It is advisable to build up a stock of spies as the funds become available.

You only need to be concerned about defending against the AI spies if you find yourself in a period of protracted peace. In this situation, the AI can get very passive/aggressive. If you can manipulate it into open war, then the spies will go away- the AI is much more concerned with building warships.

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