jmas's now-shadow game

[jmas]

@RefSteel: I see your point about "Advanced Propulsion Tech 0" ! That's too bad. Interesting that StarLydon has seen some effectiveness when AIs DO have the Interdictor!

And welcome, StarLydon!

Thank you Sargon for your efforts. Looks like you've uncovered a lot of information!

Sabotage is always considered an act of war; it is always visible when successful.

Except in the case of "incite rebellion", which is always invisible, until the planet rebels ( which still leaves open the question of whether it was the random rebellion event (the truly random one, i.e. "equal opportunity" for player & AI), which can occur once per game (I'm assuming that it can occur to the player as well as to the AIs; the guide does say that the AIs have a special capability to suffer "random" rebellions on a special check, which the player is not subject to, but I'm assuming that the player could still suffer 1 random rebellion per game, let me know if you think that's not correct)). Anyway, if one of the player's planets rebels, you don't know (without checking the save file) whether it was the random event or sabotage, and if it was sabotage, you wouldn't necessarily know who's doing it ( though it's lot more likely that our race with spy wars level 3 against you would be responsible since they are three times as likely to choose sabotage as a race with spy wars level 2 against you according to the guide)

I take this to mean spy expenditure and use is possible under a peace treaty.

It looks like you are probably right.

Why did Silicoids spy investment on you appear to drop to zero in 2321?

Good question, I don't know. I thought maybe they could have discovered a low-level tech that they could have researched in the few turns since discovering BC 4 and and then reallocated, but it sounds like you think that they've been steadily researching BC 5 since then.

Did the Silicoids capture of your Hidden spies in 2420-1 or 2421-2 have any effect (they have 2.4% Security Spending and Comp. level 16 to your 8 so hiding is not foolproof)?

Maybe my spy confessed (not sure if that is the only way there would be an effect (since spy is hiding))?

By the way, since the only negative modifier on the spy fate roll as explained in table 12-1 in the guide is the -30 for hiding, I don't see how a net roll of zero or less is possible with an actual mission. I'm just pointing this out, it seems to be a flaw (or insufficient explanation) in the guide rather than any fault of yours.

[sargon0]

Except in the case of "incite rebellion", which is always invisible

Good point about rebellion being invisible sabotage. As you say, even after it is announced you are unsure of the cause but might guess. Even in the save file I can see a planet in rebellion but, if the event is listed as having happened, I would probably need the previous year savefile to see if the event had just happened or whether the planet already had some rebels. It is possible enough information is in one savefile but I think it just retains events you are informed of. I do not believe a human player's planet will randomly rebel and it seems very rare, if at all, for computer players. Just my opinion on evidence at the moment.

I thought maybe they could have discovered a low-level tech that they could have researched in the few turns since discovering BC 4 and and then reallocated, but it sounds like you think that they've been steadily researching BC 5 since then.

As usual the AI has 75% in favoured field and 5% in every other. The other fields were too well advanced to suggest recent discovery and too little time to squeeze in an additional computer tech, as you guessed.

Maybe my spy confessed (not sure if that is the only way there would be an effect (since spy is hiding))?

As you say, hide bonus does not really allow for your spy to hit 100+ and confess which is the only level hidden spies are supposed to cause negative diplomatic impact. I was more along the lines that perhaps any spy capture may have an impact on AI behaviour, rather than losing diplomatic points. Just a guess to try to fit the circumstances with little evidence to support it since AI espionage happened on my repeats without capture of your spy. You certainly did not take any diplo point hit for your spy capture implying not confessed. However I have just tried placing 5 spies at espionage against Darlok (+20) who is 40 levels higher in Computer tech. This is literally asking for retribution and he caught all 5 of my spies every time but he never imposed a penalty on diplo points. Confession may exist to cancel other spies efforts but the negative diplo is starting to look a myth.
You are right about the 0- Fate roll being impossible for a mission unless other modifiers have not been explained.

By the way, I wouldn't exclude possibilities of my faults. About the only certain thing in my analysis and conclusions is that sometimes, somewhere it will be wrong. Glad to hear any alternative views or direct criticism. A healthy debate can only increase the chance of advancing our understanding.

[sargon0]

I have now managed to guess likely explanations for most of the AI espionage/sabotage fields in the savefile after a reported incident and have concluded that when jmas got the report of the Silicoids stealing Hyper-X Missiles, the spy was actually undiscovered! How can you be told of an undiscovered spy? Well let me explain my theory.

There are 3 fields in the savefile for a reported AI espionage, 5 fields for a reported AI sabotage. I recognised quickly the first 2 AI steal fields regarding the tech stolen but the third was not clear. So I 'encouraged' AI sabotage to see what it would reveal. Well the first 3 fields for reported AI sabotage show the planet and what was destroyed ie. how many missile bases or factories. The interesting bit was the fourth field. After a few efforts this could be seen to be the player blamed in the message for the sabotage rather than the player actually conducting the sabotage. Even when sabotage was reported as by an unknown spy this was shown, as -1.

Well this 'who got blame' field for sabotage uses the same values as that third espionage field, so how come I did not recognise it before. Well espionage cannot be discovered by an unknown spy but -1 was present on occassion. Also I was unsure of the player numbers in the save since they did not match the message. Either the message is wrong, the data is wrong or I am wrong - probably even chance for each of them! My theory is that sometimes undiscovered AI espionage is reported to you and sometimes framed AI espionage is reported to you as the actual race responsible. Why? Well it could be a bug, it could be the designers helping the player avoid too much frustration with undiscovered or wrongly accused espionage.

Checking the actual game, the Silicoids steal of Hyper-X was undiscovered so lucky to get report. My repeats reporting Darlok steals show they actually framed the Meklars and Mrrshan but player was told the actual race responsible. My last repeat did report Silicoids stealing tech but savefile show this was actually Darloks framing Silicoids. So you can get a real frame job but often player gets correct info. I have no doubt some AI steals can escape being reported but these are the hardest to track since you do not know exactly when they occur and they do not update this message data.

So if I am right (big if!) then reports of AI espionage are usually accurate (even when they shouldn't be) but reports of actual race on AI sabotage could always be frames.

[jmas]

Thank you for reporting on that Sargon. It'll be even more interesting if we can get more (or clearer?) information.