Can I Get Tech Through Conquest?

Harry Seldon · March 12, 2003, 12:36

I've conquered numerous planets in the hope of obtaining some new tech that I seem to be unable to trade for but all I get is a world full of angry, gun-toting creatures. The last planet I attacked I didn't use NBCs and kept collateral damage set to Low to kept as much infrastructure intact as possible but I still didn't capture any tech. Can I only get tech with spies? How can I get an Antaran X if another race has it?

Proteus_MST · March 12, 2003, 13:39

I never got Tech throught COnquest.

The only way seems to be Tach-Trade via Diplomacy or Tech-Stealing through Spies

Cymrean · March 12, 2003, 13:41

I haven't aquired any techs by conquest

((( (and i captured tachidi, ithkul, nommo and psilon worlds...)
Getting X's from another civ should be accomplished by destroying them totally.

Harry Seldon · March 12, 2003, 14:26

That's killing me. I'm missing some good research oriented tech like labs and the research pod for antaran expeditions. No one will trade with me unless they initiate it and that does me no good because they never give me anything worthwhile.

Proteus_MST · March 12, 2003, 15:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Harry Seldon
That's killing me. I'm missing some good research oriented tech like labs and the research pod for antaran expeditions. No one will trade with me unless they initiate it and that does me no good because they never give me anything worthwhile.

Depends very much on how the other Races like you.

In one Game I was also missing the Research Lab.

Tried to get it from the Imsaeis.
No matter how much I wanted to trade for it,
they always refused.
I had a relation of under 100 with them, myaybe 90.

But then I discovered that my long time Freinds the Nommo whit whom I had a relation of 150 also had the technology.
I made an offer to trade 2 technologies from me for their Research Lab. The next turn they accepted (and it was much less than the last offer I made to the Nommos).

So it may sometimes be important to keep good relations with his neighbours

Harry Seldon · March 12, 2003, 16:09

I have a 190 relation with one of the gas bags and they won't give me squat. I'll get offers occasionally that go something like this:

" We'd like to trade technology with you. You give us dark matter beams, neutrinium armor, and interphased drives, and we'll give you autofire lasers."

I always counter every tech offer like this with advanced research labs and they always refuse. I can't afford to give them high level tech because I'll have to eliminate them after I finish off the Senate races and don't want to waltz into an even tech fight.

bakalov · March 13, 2003, 03:49

That's why I think that pumping up the cunning to dangerous is a must :-) And I am building only scientific spies .... They fill up the missing techs quite well. Late in the game I even succeed in stealing from the New Orions - they have all the techs from the start if you play on impossible. I am stealing from them only what I cant get from elsewhere, though ....

vmxa1 · March 13, 2003, 04:08

bakalov, how do you increase the pace of making spies? I mean even if you get the tech that does speed it up, it is not much. It takes 4 or 5 tuns to make one and it is all I can do to keep some for defense. I managed to insert a few, but I can not make them even steal. I gave up trying to steal tech and just do with out it. I suppose there is a way to up the amount of spending to maybe speed them up, but I am not sure it is worth the trouble.

bakalov · March 13, 2003, 04:40

I am not leaving my spies for defence; opresometer is much better for this; and as I said - i am building only scientific; they are built slowly, indeed. I have cunning --> dangerous.

I havent found a way to speed up the spy production till now except those techs. May be the pace is correlated with the population of your homeworld (or imperial seat ov govt?), but this is only speculation ... I havent checked for such dependencies (yet). I am thinking of such possibility, because in the beta versions there have been a circle from which you was able to recruit spies - the pace depended on this, and also the spies loyalty. I think they cut it in the final only to the (empire center?) - this explains the high loyalty of all your spies.
Anyway the pace DOES increase in the late game somehow. The previous is just a speculation.

I am always trying to get spy-enchansing techs.

And then there are some tactics for using the spies :
- insert them to empires with representative governments (check this from the victory screen) or with these that does not allow high opresometer.
Collect several spies:
Insert them by one at a turn. If they seem to die find another target, or return here later. If you somehow can induce unrest in the enemy empire then it will not be able to push the opresometer very high. May be with a combination with a social spy? If you see that your spies are staying alive, then insert several more at once.

If you are going against an empire with high opression possibilities, better insert several spies from the start before the enemy can react. Try to surprise him. You can lose a lot this way though - it is risky ....

And of course it is worth it :-) when you see a blue popup at the top of your sitrep :-)

AntaranX · March 13, 2003, 05:06

Oppressometer is a great tool unless your race selection for the goverment allows it. If you are colonizing planets rapidly (especially in the beginning of the game) the oppressometer value can't be set to high on most of the races. Later on with Recreational/Goverment DEAs/other planetary buildings it's nice to pump up the oppressometer to higher values and put up the counter-spying spys on real work against other races.

bakalov · March 13, 2003, 05:15

ok, we know this :-) here we try to talk about the spying offence as a tool to get the missing techs. Any ideas or strats about it?

Harry Seldon · March 13, 2003, 11:33

I can't get any spies to last more than a couple of turns in enemy territory at this point. If they do, my sitrep is constantly popping up with "X has been captured! He won't talk" and "X is being interrogated." Plus, I have four empires flooding me with spies so I need a lot of devensive to keep my empire afloat. Oh, I'm playing with the Evons this game so I think cunning isn't the issue here. That's why I was hoping to capture tech through conquest.

bakalov · March 13, 2003, 11:51

In my game I succeeded in dealing with 12 emires' spies and robbing them at the same time :-)

vmxa1 · March 13, 2003, 14:37

I am not having problems with them spying as I set the O to 9 and have 2 each type on hand most of the time (as fast as the build can replace them). They have stolen nothing.
Maybe I will take another shot as stealing.

Jamski · March 17, 2003, 04:13

I don't see the defensive spies making a blind bit of difference. I crank up the opressometer and only build scientific spies. When I have about 4-5 I shove them at the Humans, Psilons or Evon. These guys have crummy opressometer and rubbish Representative govs. If my spies don't rob them blind, then I'm surprised. And I always pick slow cunning. The trick is not to try to spy on the Harvesters or the Fishies. They always have high o-meter levels

-Jam

bakalov · March 17, 2003, 04:49

Of course this trick is valid if you are using the slow cunning :-) I am robbing everyone - when I get enough spying tech I can even rob the New Orions who does have ALL of the techs. This way I am getting ALL of the techs too :P

The humans with their democracy are pathetic indeed. Once I inserted a political spy into their empire. He lived there until he retired after many turns, killing every new leader they got, and blowing up a lots of (governmental?) buildings.

Jamski · March 17, 2003, 04:57

The Humans are just pathetic generally (aren't we?).

BTW Bakalov, I compared your custom Cynoids with my custom Eoladi. You do get a few picks more, I have to cut cunning and creativity a bit to keep the rest the same. I suppose that makes up for not getting any good planets as the Cynoids.

-Jam

Prothero · March 17, 2003, 05:24

I allways send 3 or 4 scientific spies when the enemy is down to 1 solar system, just before thay vanish (ok, i conquer them). It seems that my spies have better chances than. Probably the enemy can't risk to rise the o-metter, he needs production, not unrest or even revolt.

Proteus_MST · March 17, 2003, 06:37

I have set my O to 3 or 4,
but my defensive Spies do a great job.

Of my last 2 Leaders one died of age and the other in an accident not connected to Spying.

It really help that I (playing the Psilons) am the Leader in Technology (My Level 34-37 Techs to their mostly Level 24-25-Techs, there is only one other Race aside from the NO, which has at least one Tech Level at 30).

Normally I try to have at least 2 Spies in every field, but I set my Priority to Social, (Political (if Leaders present) OR Economic (if I currently have no Leaders)) and Diplomatic, i.e. I try to keep those three fields always at 2 Spies even if it means, that the other fields will have only one defensive Spy for a short time.

Spies which are low on Luck (5-8) I usually send on Missions into other Empires (where they, which is interesting, last longer than defensive Spies. Where Defensive Spies have their Luck going down by one every turn, the offensive spies seem to have their Luck going down just every couple of turns, so a Spy with a Luck of 5 can without Problems last 10 truns or more in an offensive role).

Harry Seldon · March 17, 2003, 09:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Prothero
I allways send 3 or 4 scientific spies when the enemy is down to 1 solar system, just before thay vanish (ok, i conquer them). It seems that my spies have better chances than. Probably the enemy can't risk to rise the o-metter, he needs production, not unrest or even revolt.

I've cordoned off a system or two and started flooding them with spies. Stealing goes much better when they can barely survive.

Stuie · March 19, 2003, 10:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Harry Seldon
I've conquered numerous planets in the hope of obtaining some new tech that I seem to be unable to trade for but all I get is a world full of angry, gun-toting creatures.....

It's going to be in the patch:

Quote:

Modified ground combat results so that capturing a planet also gives you a random tech from the other empire.

Harry Seldon · March 19, 2003, 10:37

Where did you see that? Do they give a list of fixes and is this from QS or just someone "in the know?"

Jamski · March 19, 2003, 10:54

There's a thread here where they're posting each thing they fix, as they do it :

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/...hreadid=277756

Enjoy.

-Jam

Harry Seldon · March 19, 2003, 15:31

Ooooooooo! I noticed the thread was closed after three posts. I wonder if it's only open to QS?

I'm glad they're fixing that. Now if we can get them to add that when you acquire a tech outside the realm of what you have researched it opens up new avenues of technology.

Of course, that's on the wishlist.

Crostoneman · March 19, 2003, 15:39

Can you copy and paste that fix list, please. They never responded to my requests to fix my #$&*##$*$& account for last 3 months. No, I wasn't banned because I haven't made a post yet.

Stuie · March 19, 2003, 16:24

@Crostoneman: Check out this apolyton thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=80657