Probe action - Framing another faction

[SITS]

I'm playing a single player game and I have Morgan to my SW and he is pacted with the drones whom I am at peace with. I am at war with Morgan. The drones have a number of units in Morgans cities and I'm worried he is going to team up against me with the Morgans.

To prevent this I sent probes in with various different actions which succeeded but the second part of it - framing the drones - always seemed to fail as they were captured. For experimental purposes only I kept reloading the game and had the same outcome each time (ie them being captured, sometimes the original action would fall.)

So the question is - can you frame another faction when they have units in the other factions cities?

[Clear Skies]

Yes, it is possible, but quite difficult. Helps if you have Elite probe teams (build covert ops centres) and algorithmic enhancement if poss (SMAX only). If Domai is running Fundamentalism (which I've seen him do more than once, despite the crippling Research disadvantage it gives him), the ensuing +2 Probe will make it very very difficult (though not entirely impossible) to frame Morgan.

Why not try it the other way round? A frame works both ways - either Domai against Morgan or Morgan against Domai. I tend to find Morgan easier to frame.

[Earwicker]

The AI has a bad habit of overlooking such activities. More than once, I have sucessfully framed Lal against Domai (for instance) but their Pact stood fast. On the other hand, my submissives will turn on me in a heartbeat if Miriam frames me with her probes. Not really fair.

[mrdynamic]

I have also somtimes wondered about this. Most of the time when I go in with this action and my proes live, but the faction is never framed and they remained friends. Once I did get it to work, but in about 5 turns they became friends again

[D4everman]

Framing has only worked for me once or twice. In my last game I desperately needed to frame Yang with Dee. Yang was 'feeble' but I was at war with everyone being 'unsurpassed'. The Drones ONCE AGAIN were the catalyst for global warming and things were getting bad. Yang kept sending his skimships and troops over and destryoing enhancements. He was next to Dee so I figured if they fought each other it would give me some breathing room. Failed about six times with elite probe foils.

Global warming got so bad I just gave up. For some reason no one would agree with me to lauinch the solar shade.

D4

[Black Sunrise]

Sometimes, when you do something bad to a freind, they still forgive you. When a neighbor steals a tech for you, you do have the choice to overlook the offence. Similarly, the AI also has the choice of overlooking offences.
Have really really good probe teams. Have a very high chance of success. Have it be your first probe team action, and don't have many probe teams in your army (if you have a lot of probes, the enemy will change economic settings to make probing harder).
And the nastier thing you frame someone for, the more likely they are to go to war.
Oh, and if they are at peace with everyone, they are more likely to go to war. Being at war with you makes them less likely to turn on an ally to start a two-way war.
Similarly, that means you can steal from your allies with more chance of being forgiven if caught when you are both at war with a third faction.
Indra