Then about "The more fresh tech he have - the better it works."
Sometimes I can have this impression too, but I am not convinced this is really the mechanic.
Say an opponents group of techs is 'A' and the subgroup of techs that I have is 'B'. The techs that I do not have are 'C'.
I assume that, if spy roll has succes the formula for getting a tech is 'pick random tech from C'.
However if you have more succes when there is more fresh tech, then perhaps the formula is 'pick a random tech from A'.
And thus: if you spies now uncovers the secrets of the Laser Cannon, too bad and better luck next time + you get no notification of the event.
Thats purely a statistical observation from a time, when i had a fun with spy races. You steal the fresh tech next turn it invented, but you need to spend many empty turns stealing some old Biospheres or so after. Problem is what "pick a random tech from A" explain the second, but not the first phenomena. I just suppose it have some "priority list", and chose from it, but not exactly direct from top, but with some roll. Sabotage work roughly the same, as it tend to blow the priciest buildings, not entirely random ones (while it doesnt mean you guaranteed to blow the priciest in case of success).
- Thirdly the notion that it takes time for spies to set up a network and your odds increase over time. It would mean that if I have x spies assigned to an opponent, my chance of succes current turn is X% and a next turn my chance of succes in that turn is X+(a factor times #turns passed). Sounds like a complicated formula and most likely it is just a misperception of chance. If my chance for succes at T1 is 10% then it is also 10% at T10 (all other being equal). Just the difference is that after one turn the chance that you have seen a succes is 10% and after 10 turns the chance that you have seen a succes is 1-0.9^10 = 65%.
Thats a some mish-mash from moo1 most likely. Moo1 spying mechanic could be roughly described as it (and yes, its was interesting, unlike moo2 mechanic, where they dropped everything fancy from it, leaving just some very core about dice roll. Moo1 spying also had a Computer technology levels of sides involved in a formula used. And captured spies could not only "get killed", but also "frame all the network" in case of heavy "outroll" from the defender).
- Rolls and seed number. Indeed the chance of something happening this turns is decided by a roll at 'T-1-X' and I don't know how many turns is X, never tried to test it. It works like that for many game events. But why is the RNG not be fully random but dependent on game factors, or how did you find out?
Thats very easy, because its had been proved in practice. You do another unconnected action at the Seeding turn, and get the different result of random in question as an effect. After you will be able to find that T used for the generation, you could do some actions, and compare the output. Some of the actions cannot be done the same turn, so you could use the more early turns to manipulate it. Hint - in case of random effect occuring at T1 - you know where to look for the Seed.
To clarify - i dont know what exactly used in a seed generation, maybe the general size of population is not used there as it, i just sayd what its indeed could be used in a spy mechanics such weird way. But overall empire output is used in generation of random events, so, while im not sure pop size is used as it there again - its definitely affect the "overall power" somehow, so, with "time travel back enough", and weakening empire output - you could prevent some bad, or cause some good random effect. While that certain value could be of no actual use in generating the Seed itself, and it could be something like food production of races 1&5 ^ prod production of races 2&3 * number of ships in game (just random example). Any why just not to use RNG? Because good RNG is not so easy to write (thats why they are PRNG). And if you will do it "lazy way" - you would get the constant repeating patterns, as you'd have to just pick a number from some pre-set list. Or you could
generate that PRNumber. But you need some PRData to
generate it. It could be anything, of course, but it need to have some fluctuations, to get that R part. It could be a system time, or game data, or anything else the game can have access too (say sound level settings, as HOMM3 used in some rolls). But in all those cases - player, who know what is using for the generation - can affect it, in theory (surely developers can use less affectable data in case they actually do care about security of process, say some inner CPU data values or so (that doesnt meant they cannot be affected, as its Pseudo still)). So your citizens can demand a Stadium any day you want, returning to moo2.