I know too much (FOW question)

[Spaced Cowboy]

One thing has been bugging me.

I can't see any planets until I send out a scout and chart the area. This is understandable, but why can I see whatever I want including current planet population and ships in orbit (including the loadouts) of my enemies without having a ship in sensor range)???

This is not true for fleets out patroling as those need to be found. Am I just imagining this?

[Shadowlord]

Do you have anything in your espionage budget, perhaps?

[Gufnork]

You're not imagining things. In fact, pretty much all information can be gained about other civs with no espionage spent whatsoever, it's just harder to find.

[Spaced Cowboy]

No budget for espionage, not do I have any techs for that.

I'm talking about being able to look anywhere where I've already explored and being able to get a current snapshot of the planet's population as well as the ships in orbit (even the weapon/shield) load-out of said ships.

However, if there was a huge fleet in space near the planet, I can't see it.

I'm saying the planets are broke.

[yin26]

Also, it took me a few plays on the strategic (zoomed out) view to see that the density of the grey border around the planet ALSO tells you how habitable it is!

[oldstatesman]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
No budget for espionage, not do I have any techs for that.

You don't need any techs for espionage - just go into the foriegn Relations screen and on the bottom right of the first Tab you will see a slider where you can allocate funds to it. The funds accumulate over time - and as they do you gain more skill - eventually you will start to get higher levels of knowledge and things like the occasioanl stolen tech.

[Hansolo88]

Well, I just want to say, in a true Galactic economy there would be a lot of civilian and neutral traffic around planets so it would probably not be that hard at all to determine both population and fleets in orbit around planets. Some things are just too hard to hide. On the other hand, fleets in deep space would be truly hidden unless located by enemy sensors. Think of it in terms of back in the earlier 1900s era, fleets in port were easy to spy on so sending your fleet to sea was the best way to keep it from prying eyes.

Not trying to defend the game too much, its all an abstraction after all and not that realistic. Still, its not that hard to imagine an empire having basic information like this without really spending anything on espionage.

[oldstatesman]

Thing is that you don't have to spend a whole lot to get this info - I put the slider at the lowest setting - starts at 2bc per turn per civ and slowly goes up as your economy and empire expand - right now I am spending about 9bc per week per civ- and I was at low level knowledge 6-9 months into the game, medium after about a year/year and a half, and advanced after about 3+ years. All for between 18 and 54 credits a week - (6 other civs) - of coarse if you want it more quickly you can boost up your spending and get to the level very quickly.

As far as relying on civilian ship captains or 'regular' military types without some specialized intelligence training for info about the enemy - well, in reality reliable strategic intelligence evaluation from those types has been spotty, as history shows in most instances. George McClellan in the American Civil War comes to mind - he could have ended that War in about a year, but continually overestimated the intelligence he had about the size of Lee's Army. Pearl Harbor was the result of regular military types not evaluating the info they had correctly... I'm sure there are plenty more examples in History...

[Hansolo88]

Yes, relying on Civilian intelligence sources has led many commanders in history to make poor decisions in many situations, but it has also turned the tide in others. The Doolittle raid was almost scratched after the USS Hornet was spotted by a Japanese fishing trawler, for example off the top of my head, leading to the loss of all the bombers (though the raid is still considered a success today, obviously).

Regardless, the original author's main complaint was that he has this information without spending anything on espionage, and I was trying to point out why I don't think it is unreasonable for the game to work this way.

[oldstatesman]

My bad - I misread the op - I'm an ... thought he was saying the opposite.

I agree 100% - You are very right about the flip side of the coin too...that is why I mentioned it was spotty....

[Spaced Cowboy]

Hmm...

Point taken, in that case, why don't I know everything about the uni when I start the game?

I'm saying that the reliability of the info should be solid if it is within my sensor range and somewhat spotty if not.

I seem to remember games like this (but not of the top of my head), where you info on a planet or fleet position was only as good as your last scan.

Think of the FOW in Civ4, it does not work like that, hence, in this game, I know exactly what to bring and exactly what to build to counter the AIs defenses.

[Sokar20002001]

You looking at their defense don't really give you an advantage because the AI knows what you build too, so it all evens out in the end. If you want some sort of logical reasoning then the above reasons are good enough. If things like FOW are applied then the game will be completely different. If you really want a reason for as to why you don't know everything at the start, it's because you haven't meet anyone yet and you need to make contact with alient planets and then you can establish links like tourism and stuff that will give basic info on each planet.

[Hansolo88]

Civ 4 is always a good comparison, and its worth noting that in that game once you have discovered a city, you will always know the population of that city, even when it is covered by FOW, similar to how Galciv 2 works.

Of course, on the other hand, you won't always know how well defended the city is unless you spy on it or it is within your LOS. So its a slightly different way of doing things. I wouldn't mind if Galciv worked this way, but I don't think its that incredibly important; as has been pointed out, it doesn't take much intel spending to gain a huge amount of information.

[Spaced Cowboy]

True but in Civ4 population isn't army size, while in GC2, it is.

Also, new ships even though in orbit might be known, but the weapon loadout should not be known.