Infidel wrote:Raza wrote:Decrypting a unit is making a forceful grab at information about what Jetstone's got going on. Scouting hexes is doing the same. Both have advantages, both have flaws; it's the difference between listening at a door or peeking through the keyhole. The point is that you're doing what you can (and in that light, it might be wise to scout as well as decrypt), not that it is structurally foolish to act without having attained a specific arbitrary level of intelligence..
On the contrary, the effects of Decryption on units is now fully realized by all known forces. And one of the most basic ways to combat the intelligence exposure is to encapsulate information--and even deliberately misinform one's own troops. Since we have every indication that the coalition forces are led by intelligent individuals, there is no reason to assume they have not accounted for this in all of their planning. It is poor strategy to rely on the enemies inexperience or stupidity. Take advantage of any opportunities discovered, but don't create plans that require the enemy to be stupid to succeed.
While scouts can still be fooled, archons can pierce veils, so yes, using a specific method of intelligence gathering is hardly arbitrary. You don't just want some arbitrary intelligence, you want the BEST intelligence that you can get, even at the expense of lost units. The more critical the mission, the more critical ALL expedient means for gathering intelligence are explored.
The point is, if something is veiled or otherwise hidden, there is still at least a chance of discovering it, and there are different actions that can be done to improve those chances. But if someone doesn't know something, then no matter what the means used for the interrogation, there is no chance of getting that information from them. Interrogation is a high risk method that should be compensated with another method that minimizes the risk.
There's nothing contrary about that. All sides have been aware of the effects of scouting since forever; that doesn't mean that everything you see is a trap laid against you. Archons are good scouts, granted, but the biggest problem is still that a city can contain any number of units out of sight and if they're not coming out, you're not going to know about them. This is equivalent to your critique of interrogation.
In a battle, game or war you have limited resources; even if you are aware that there's a chance an enemy might try a specific approach to get at you, you often have to pass up on investing in a counter because it would hinder something else you want to do. Maybe hiding units will leave them with a slower response time. Maybe organising it so that your standing army doesn't know about the secret force of gwiffons guarding the city they're deployed in required that this gwiffon force be deployed a hex away, able to respond only on their own turn - or maybe they tried doing it secretively
without such measures, and an inconveniently redeployed guard here or errant-running infantry there saw them anyway, and reasonably choose to inform their commanding officer. Maybe there
is a way to guard against everything at once
and retain the resources for a plan of your own, but the leadership's just not smart, disciplined, experienced or communicative enough to pull it off. And decryption is nothing like torture and interrogation because the subject will
want to help you, and is going to volunteer every shred of potentially-useful information they have.
You cannot assume that just because your enemy is able to know that you might try a given thing, they will be fully prepared to deal with it - that sort of thinking will paralyse you.
Most warfare will be trying things you know people are expecting but that are still likely to work, because those people have a limited ability to
do anything about it - this is the defining characteristic of
force. Having something completely new and unexpected is a rare and overwhelming advantage, and they did kind of squander that on decryption, but it's still a pretty awesome and versatile tool.
epic quote- this is so true it sounds wrong 
