Probe Raping anonymously

[Grail Quest]

My latest evil scheme is to swap small bases with the AI factions, and use the remote base to probe them and keep them in the "stone age" as it were.

The problem I'm having is that I can't get more than one good probe team in the early game, except against the University, which has a lousy Probe rating.
The most you can safely do is Infiltrate Datalinks, and you only get to do that once, so only one team gets the morale upgrade which is necessary to complete any other mission while framing another faction.

Is there another way to get morale upgrades after Polymorphic Software and before Covert Ops?
I don't want to run Fundamentalism because of the Research penalty.

Playing the Hive currently, with Police State Planned Wealth.

[Marid Audran]

Running Fundamentalism is your best option. You don't have to make a permanent policy out of it, just switch to Fundy for a turn before lauching a massive probe strike.

Remember to pump out probes in a base with a Command Center (and if applicable, a Bioenhancement Center) to also take advantage of the ground-based morale bonus for units produced there.

[sammy1339]

Kind of an unrelated question, but I can't help but asking: how do you stomach -4 EFFIC?
Oh - and why do you want to frame another faction anyhow? It's easier if you don't.

[Minute Mirage]

Originally posted by sammy1339
Kind of an unrelated question, but I can't help but asking: how do you stomach -4 EFFIC?

The Hive is immune to negative efficiency, meaning that the efficiency in PS/Planned is 0.

[Mongoose]

Stealing energy credits is almost always successful and frequently gives a probe morale increase. Further, the 'security interlock' thing doesn't come into play when stealing credits, so you can do it repeatedly at the same base with no additonal risk. Eventually, you'll get caught, of course, but the credits generally serve to replace losses and the survivors are high morale after a few iterations. Another benefit is that every credit you steal is one less the other faction has to use in rushing things.

[Hippi]

then there is the covert operations center which to build in your bases. or why not just play with data angels?

meh original ac rocks

[Jamski]

Build big stack of probe teams in bases with CCs and BECs.
Switch to Fundy.
Steal tech untill you only get the world map.
Steal ECs
Last probe mind-control the base.

If you swopped bases with a faction far enough away, then you can do this and not worry about being secret about it.

-Jam

[UnityScoutChopper]

However, any kind of base-swapping is generally considered an exploit, as the AI has no clue as to how to evaluate bases' strategic worth. For a long time, not even size was evaluated; eventually Firaxis did implement this...BACKWARDS, if I recall correctly. That is, the more lopsided the trade is in your favor (as far as sizes are concerned), the better, and vice versa.

USC