Covert Operations - General (2101 - 2124)

[Googlie]

It's fun doing it, but in reality there are some preconditions (let's s ay we ask Yang to attack Morgan):

• we need Morgan's commlink
• Yang needs land access to Morgan (or Flex - and if he lacks it, are we prepared to trade/sell him it)
• Yang needs not to be Treatied or pacted with Morgan
• The sim may not be replicated in the real game (eg Morgan is stronger militarily, so yang asks for 100 ec's, or whatever)
• If he asks for ec's, we need some in Treasury to pay the bribe

But it's maybe something to work towards for the 2145-50 time period - that'd give us time to explore with SCC Invincible and maybe pop a commlink or stumble across Morgan or whomsoever, as well as accumulating a warchest with popped ec's

[Kassiopeia]

Edit: So wait, even if the framing isn't successful, nobody finds out about the framing?

But what if it isn't successful? Is it a risk? A big one?

[Zeiter]

Yeah, if we immediately went to the Morganites and demanded some compensation for help, that would be like a bright red neon sign saying "WE'RE SCAMMING YOU!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!"

[Zeiter]

Yang needs land access to Morgan (or Flex - and if he lacks it, are we prepared to trade/sell him it)

I'm guessing the way the CMNs designed the map was to have Yang in the middle of the 4 humans with a little isthmus connecting all of the continents, as well as straits to pass through the isthmuses. So odds are, Yang has at least some land access to everyone, although if they are able to gain a foothold at the isthmus and create a chokehold or killing zone, then Yang's threat would be greatly dimished.

1. Make Yang declare vendetta on the Gaians and perhaps the Morganites too.
2. Contact the Angels, tell them that Yang is on a rampage that the two of us should join forces to shrug off the onslaught.

Between 1. and 2. we could form a pact with Yang - we'd quaintly explain to anyone interested that we did it to ensure that he won't be as trigger happy with us as with the others.

I like it! Although I could foresee some suspicion stemming from us allying with Yang. Even with the most clever propaganda, that would still seem a little...shady.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Zeiter
So wait, even if the framing isn't successful, nobody finds out about the framing?

if the framing isn't successful, then Yang knows it was us, and would prolly declare Vendetta - it'd be the same as a regular successful - or bungled - probe job

But if our probes are produced at SC2, (with +2 morale) then they prolly would be successful

(And is our first probe action going to be stealtech, or infiltrate Yang? - I suggest the latter)

[Zeiter]

As a rule, I almost always infiltrate first. Unless you can steal something like D:AP, perhaps. But infiltration is a gift that keeps on giving, and the earlier you get it, the more it pays off.

Edit: But wait, don't both parties get informed? That is, assume we probe Yang and try to frame the Data Angels. If it gets botched, won't Yang AND the Data Angels be notified? Yang will be notified of the probe activity, as usual, and the Data Angels will be notified of our attempted framing. At least that's how I thought it worked, although I could be wrong.

[Googlie]

No - that's what I was saying. It's how it works in SP games, but like the probe issue, it's all screwed up in PBEMs

(well, actually, it works as intended in PBEMs - it's the SP game that's screwed. The whole point of framing is that the probed party doesn't know it's you, so can't tell the framed party that you've framed them. That's how it should work, and - prolly by accident - the programmers got it exactly right in PBEMs)

[Zeiter]

Ah, so the only downside of trying to frame someone is that the success rate is lower? That's not too bad. But wouldn't that mean that factions will be trying to frame each other left and right? How often was it used in the last ACDG? And what will we do if someone frames us?

Edit: I must say, these are some great ideas you guys have come up with.

On a side note: The turn rates have definitely slowed down now for the Data Angels and the Morganites. All of the last 5 or so turns have been over 10 hours, with some as high as 25 hours, and of course, that one Morgan turn that was like 43 hours long. Perhaps the Morgans and Data Angels are having some heavy correspondence. Perhaps they've checked to see if Yang has anyone else's commlink, and they found that he now has ours, and they are having an ongoing debate over whether to obtain it or not. That would sure be nice, if we ended up not having to pay Yang for their commlinks because they bought it off of Yang with their money.

[Googlie]

It's actually not used a lot in PBEMs as human players tend to get probe defenses up ASAP, and in most conventional starts there's little to be gained by holding back on vendetta with AI factions.

Only where the AI has been heavily tweaked does a human player think twice about vendetta, and then framing is sometimes used.

I honestly can't remember if it was used by the PEACE in the last game - I think they talked about it but didn't follow through

[Zeiter]

Can framing be used with humans? What I mean is, could we, for instance, probe Morgan and frame the Data Angels, or does that not work?

We might want to limit Yang's enemies to only 2 factions, because if we bribe Yang into attacking the Gaians and Morganites, and then probe him and frame the Data Angels, then Yang will be facing a 3 vs. 1 battle. Yang would have to spread his forces thin, which would decrease them threat he posed to each faction, and it could even lead to his downfall and the 3 factions splitting up Yang's territory, while we get left out in the cold. So, for it to be effective, we should probably make a choice: Gaians or Morganites.

And then we need to decide if we are going to side with Yang and reap the enormous tech benefits, or if we are going to act like we don't know what's going on with Yang's warpath and pact with the Gaians/Morganites/Data Angels. I would lean towards the latter. A human ally is much more useful than an AI one, even if that AI faction is much more powerful on the surface. Plus, we can always prabe away all of that tech from Yang, or pact with him briefly and backstab him.

[GeneralTacticus]

Re: the various schemes to use the Hive for our benefit - Machiavelli would be proud I think the plan would work for pretty much any of the other factions, although siding with the Hive vs. the Gaians for tech is probably not such a good idea - they go before us in the turn order, IIRC, so there'd be no way to cover up the fact that we instigated the war, and I expect we'd be made to pay for it eventually.

As for which faction to do this to, specifically - I lean towards the Morganites, because:

- It's free.
- They probably have more stuff to offer us for protection.
- They're likely to be militarily weaker, and hence feel more threatened.
- They have virtually no ability to wage war beyond their borders, thus leaving Yang's territory for us.
- If they do decide to go on the offensive, they'll still be less effective than us, and will have to either accept massive Drone Riots or else lose their main financial advantage by shifting from FM to something else.

Thus, we wind up with more gains and a likely a weakened Morgan, making a DA/Morgan axis rather less of a threat.

[Kassiopeia]

- It's free.

Only in the turn sim though. We can't verify that just yet.

- They probably have more stuff to offer us for protection.
- They're likely to be militarily weaker, and hence feel more threatened.

Quite true.

- They have virtually no ability to wage war beyond their borders, thus leaving Yang's territory for us.
- If they do decide to go on the offensive, they'll still be less effective than us, and will have to either accept massive Drone Riots or else lose their main financial advantage by shifting from FM to something else.

That's a very, very good notion. The danger in a Yang - other human conflict is that Yang starts to get pounded and the loot falls into the wrong hands. Using the Morganites would prevent this.

It does pose the problem of prominence - with a weakened Morgan, and us taking our toll on Yang and Morgan, we will rise up in the powergraph in a not too inconscpicuous way. We'll get noticed, and we'll draw attention. We could end up with a very tricky triple entente vs. us situation on our hands.

[Zeiter]

I don't think we'd rise too far up in the powergraphs, we'd just be slowing the others down a bit. And even if we did get powerful, I think how the others reacted would have a lot to do with how we handled, seemed to handle that power. Perhaps some skillful diplomacy and propaganda could keep them fragmented for just long enough until we are ready to launch some major invasions. But I agree, that risk is definitely there.

[Googlie]

Some points re: the simulation (before we get too carried away)

I'm using Maniac's sim - he had a pretty well developed Sparta (replicated our bases, etc) , but had only indicated landing sites for the others

I beefed Yang up to his 17 pops, with a guess as to # bases (I gave him 6)

Then I tried the bribe - the option never came up 'cos I didn't have anyone else's commlink.

My first try to bribe him got nowhere - he had no landmass connection, and din't have flex, so I got the "I can't as I'm nowehere near their territory" speech. So I edited the map, and gave the Gaians a couple of prebuilt bases, then took the commlink, and the bribe was 25 ec's

Gave Yang the commlink as well, and as soon as I opened the line to Yang, he gave his "ecodaft Gaians" spiel, and urged me to join him in attacking them

Knowing that I needed the commlink, I gave myself Morgan's, then set up a Morgan base but didn't put a landbridge to Yang, and then called him up. I tried to bribe, but got the "no access" speach. I then traded flex for ind base, tried the bribe, and got the "cost you 0 credits" reply

(But this might have been different from Dee in that he had only 1 base whereas I'd given the Gaians a couple with scouts in each)

Then I reloaded and this time built the landbridge between Yang and Morgan. For a bribe, now he wanted doc flex, after which he agreed to annihilate those 'bloated capitalists"

I then reloaded and edited his techs, giving him a bunch, and that's when i got all the pact goodies, tech gifts, etc.

Now, (today) as a test I gave him the Angels' commlink, then called him up, and gort the sdame result as with Dee - he wants to enlist my aid in attacking them.

Take away Angels and give him the Uni's - he wants us to join hum in Vendetta against Zak

So the fact that he didn't ask maniac to join in a war against either Morgan or the Angels suggests that they might have treatied with Yang already

EDIT: just tested as I was writing this - even although I edited him to have a treaty with the Gaians, he still immediately I contacted him asked for assistance in fighting them)

So that wouldn't be conclusive evidence

In short - beware tying diplomacy to what we get from a simulation. We know that the coding for human multiplayer games is subtly different from single-player games (from the various readme.txt files issued with the releases) And we don't know that he has all those techs that he was willing to give us (in fact, we do know that Zak has the tech lead - it could be that yang is just on a par with us (or maybe 1 or 2 techs ahead) and his powerchart standing might just be due to population and military)

I'll have a go later today to bring the sim up-to-date (edit the map to replicate what's been revealed and to follow as much as possible the zoomed-out topography for what's not, as well as to give the other factions the bases and techs that we think they have), then run some tests

G.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Googlie
*Devious*:

Borrow money from Yang

Bribe Yang to attack the Gaians

Offer to pact with the Gaians and come to their aid against Yang (who we'd eventually battle with anyway)

Earn the undying gratitude of the Gaians

I like the way you think!