Feedback Requested: Espionage

[verybad]

Maybe have Intel workers that increase Espionage and can go up in levels to do so, but also have those Intel workers (007s so to speak) be buyable for other nations sometimes, but not easy to tell if they're easy to buy (have that be a tech that you can get better as well as a being a tech that some intel workers can work on as well as being a tech that some buildings can help with)

Basically, get espionage being something that players can invest in and make work for them so they can win using it, have it make notice when it's in use so players playing against it can also use it against other players. Have it cause effects so using it can be interesting, have 007s in government/facilities so it's interesting to use and not considered a 3nd or 4rd level technology (seriously, who uses it currently?)

Sometimes I want to be able to make my friends think that my other friends made a terrorist attack on their base you know, but if my other friend discovers that, they might want to be able to get a bonus in gas from my friend or tell (however I could then tell my other friends that the bomb was from the third friend)

I want links to grow and expand not just buy a boop and over.

 

[qwary]

Addition i'd love to see is expanding espionage to include propaganda, as in spying on your own empire, tihtening the control you have on your own people (where appropriate). Spying doesn't have to exlusively be just another way of "attacking" xeno empires.

 

[Karysu]

Hello Stellaris Community!

We hope you’ve all had a great holiday season so far! We’ve collected some excellent feedback so far, with over 8000 responses to the two feedback forms to date.

If you want to leave some feedback on Pirates and Crime, there’s still time! The form will be active until next Monday, after which we will close responses.

The topic for this week’s feedback form is Espionage. We’ve often talked about an espionage rework, and know that many of you find espionage rather lackluster outside of certain circumstances. So here’s your chance to let us know what you think!

Here’s what Eladrin said in Dev Diary #364:

So, do you think espionage is deserving of a rework? What would you like to see in a reworked espionage system? What do you like about the current Espionage system?

Answer all these questions and more on this week’s Feedback Form: Espionage!

We hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday season, and we’ll be back with our last feedback form next week, after which we will return to our regular Dev Diary schedule.

Hello Stellaris Team,

Thank you for allowing us to share feedback on the espionage system. I’d like to propose an expanded and dynamic approach to espionage that incorporates specialized espionage officers and their integration with dedicated espionage ships.

Key Features of the Reworked Espionage System

1. Specialized Spy Officers:

Spy officers would be assigned to espionage ships, similar to how scientists are assigned to science vessels.

These officers could have a skill level up to 4, with higher levels unlocking advanced espionage capabilities such as:

Stealing technology

Sabotaging planetary infrastructure

Inciting crime to reduce stability




2. Infiltration Focused on Leaders:

Instead of assigning spies to entire empires, they would infiltrate specific planets or target individual enemy leaders.

This could allow for operations such as:

Gaining intelligence on enemy fleet movements.

Undermining enemy leaders’ effectiveness (e.g., reducing bonuses provided by governors, scientists, or generals).




3. Espionage Ships:

Dedicated espionage ships would be equipped with advanced cloaking systems to infiltrate deep into enemy territory.

These ships would perform actions like placing sleeper agents, deploying propaganda, or sabotaging starbases.



4. Defensive Countermeasures:

Espionage would prompt empires to invest in defensive measures, such as:

Cloaking detection modules for starbases.

Patrol fleets tasked with scanning for cloaked ships.



Gameplay Depth

This system would make espionage more interactive and immersive, as players could directly influence enemy planets and leaders while actively defending their own space from similar intrusions. It also aligns espionage more closely with other core mechanics, such as fleet and leader management.

Thank you for considering this suggestion! I believe it would add a compelling layer of strategic depth to the game, enhancing both offensive and defensive playstyles.

Best regards,
Karysu

Ps: yes this post has been written with Ai, but mostly there are my own thoughts, but I'm bad on writing what I mean

 

[Cabiell]

Here is my suggestion: what are the two things we should prioritize if we would like to support the fantasy of sci-fi/space opera espionage stories?

1. less micromanagement
2. more impactful and unique story experience

In order to achieve this, I would implement espionage similar to the warfare system. As long as we are at peace, we do not engage much with the warfare system of the game, mainly we design ships and bases and build them, and try to harmonize it with our economy and tech. But as soon as we are at war, we need to engage a lot af things, controlling ships, winning battles, conquering systems, gathering points, until someone gets the necessary points and can get his claims and war targets.

I would implement a similar system, maybe also on the galaxy map. By default, you build your "general" spy network, which can have "departments", similar to fleets. So you could build the Obsidian Order or the Tal Shiar or Section 31 as part of your spy network (or maybe some of them would work as enclaves, with more autonomy). You could assign your spy networks or their departments to specific passive tasks: counter-espionage (defnsive measures), supporting ongoing war effort, gathering intel, supporting diplomacy or gathering diplomatic weight or favours, internal affairs and supressing factions, that sort of things. These would be passive modifiers, either putting on a constant modifier or gathering certain resources (influence, science, energy, unity, favors, maybe rare materials). Players could easily just set these ond only touch them once or twice when needed, similar to policies. But still, an empire can significantly boost their own capapbilities with these, and certain techs and traditions can also modify these passive bonuses.

If a player would like to actively engage with espionage system, they can start a "cold war". This is similar to the normal war, but espionage (as the actual Cold War was). When one empires declare cold war on another (maybe tied to the rivalry system), they send the departments of their spy networks to capture certain "nodes" of the rival, or defend their own nodes. These nodes might be planets or systems (and certain buildings and starbase addons may take role in it), or may be more abstract, like military, economy, science, diplomacy related nodes, whichever you see easier to implement. Capturing these nodes will get points, same as war, and when you gather enough points, you can perform actions similar to peace treaties. these actions may be assasinations, sabotage, capturing certain tech, incite rebellion or even secession of systems, or even provoking war with another empire, or forcing a white peace.

This way you can compartmentalize the micromanagement part to the cold war system, once it is done, players can return to the passive building phase. The cold war may help hindering the other empire without escalating into a war, and it requires the attention of the player for only a limited time and for a system that works very similar to another, existing system. It has clear goals and clear path on how to achieve those goals.

You can also designate leaders to the departments, similar to military leaders, maybe that should be a specific leader type, like Agent, but I can see that this could work with other leader types as well, as these secret departments often led by military, science, or diplomatic personnal in sci-fi stories.

 

[Thounotnow]

Something I don't really understand is how you get a spy network in a hive mind, they are all one, meaning it shouldn't be possible to convert them into an asset. It's even worse if your using the devouring Swarm civic, no one else but your own population is on a planet, everyone else is getting eaten. How would you get spies in an empire that eats everyone except themself? Not only that but why would anyone want to be an asset for an enemy empire if that empire is a devouvirng swarm, could be possible but doesn't really make sence.

You could have abducted a few of the drones and make them into sleepercells but other than that... I don't really know.
I also don't like that you can't find the enemies assets in your empire and that you can't eat their envoy (Kill).
Their should be more ways to protect yourself against enemy spies and also more ways to attack with your own assets.

If you don't understand that I really like playing as a devouvirng swarm, then...

Edit: Also like to be able que things.

 

[Ebrelian]

As others well explained in this thread, espionage isn't worth being used for it's lack of power and or value for cost.

Spying power (encryption to keep in-game term) should be hard capped resource built passively (think influence) (base value + inverse power projection) with way to invest resources (envoy, tech and edicts) to increase generation and cap. The accumulated encryption is used for defense without being spent, spy operation use encryption, thus lowering protection.

Being successfully targeted should give temporary encryption bonus, but effects themselves shouldn't really stack nor being show stopper so that if you get multiple operation against you, it's annoying but not an issue. With limited operation capacity, default good defence, and only your rival normally targeting you, thus successful operation should spread in time and target.

Spying should be an alternative to fleet for attacking enemies, giving smaller and pacifist empire ways to fight against empire that could swallow them.
Stall fleet operation (example later) would keep temporarily a fleet from being committed to war so it might be more of an equal fight.

A spymaster Council position that increase spying capabilities (like encryption generation and operation capability, as well as base Intel), without more council slot, so it's a trade off for civic specific, military of research bonus, with no inherent malus to not having one. The idea is that pacifist can have a spymaster instead of a war minister (and not having negatives for no war minister) while other empire make a priority choice.

Playing the spy game making you vulnerable, a two way game if you choose to engage, is a good idea that was mentioned in the thread from Civ 4, using encryption to spy reduce the amount you have to defend against operation on you.

Having operation require agent on target would give more direct targeting and connect to the galaxy. Cloaked vessel with leader (thus limited amount and not use somewhere else) could for example attach to a fleet to reveal it's composition and orders until you're ready to execute the operation (like stall fleet).
Official delegate and scientist explorer could be given bonus to extend their use to such Intel and operation role.

There should be a few baseline operations, with new or enhanced operations unlocked through ethics, tradition and assets (don't remember the asset list to have them in example).
Idea of operation:
Harm leader (fleet / planet): if successful, the leader is sent back to leader pool with effective level set to level 1 for a year after which it's back to it's real level.
Enhanced version, requiring spy tradition, would give a negative trait (max +1 compared to base) and the reduced level effect would be two years.
Leadership tradition would reduce effect in half and an other leader solve the issue

Stall fleet: if success, fleet speed -25% and sensor range -1 for a year.
Enhanced, require pacifist or spy tradition, effect last two years with also -25% weapon range and 10% Hull and health damage
Adaptability tradition would reduce effect in half. .A construction vessel and shipyard would speed up the recovery

Infiltrate starbase: if successful, the targeted starbase's buildings (bottom section) are disabled for a year
Enhanced, require spy tradition, disable the whole base for a year.
Unyielding tradition would keep the base operational with only platforms offline while reducing effect time in half and a construction vessel can also speed up recovery

Smear campaign (government): reduces faction approval (turning off approving factors?)
Enhanced, authoritarian vs egalitarian or spy tradition, apply the effect of diminishing factions for a year.
Promoting faction would negate the effect and harmony tradition would reduce effect in half

Sow distrust (Federation): Disable the delegate effect for one year and add -0.5 cohesion
(Federation would need need level 0 giving no bonus and disbanding on reaching level -1)
Enhanced, requires spy tradition, give -1 cohesion and the effect last two years
Diplomacy tradition would reduce effect in half

Other operation could have steal tech, reduce global opinion, GalCom delegate, support pirate (reduce trade), increase empire size, decrease planet stability, etc.

 

[Dr_Quackzalver]

Why is "intel" and "infiltration" different stats? Yes, I understand that you consume infiltration to perform operations... but do you need to? I think espionage would be much more cleanly integrated into the game if these were merged. If things that gave you passive intel would also give you passive infiltration (because they're one stat) you'd already have some options if you decide you need an operation midway into the game.

It would also be nice to have an alternate method of gaining (and keeping!) infiltration, assigning up to 50% of your "envoy" resource simply to begin infiltrating feels very punishing. Having something to click beside "send embassy", something that I can do to empires that are initially hostile - would be very nice. As an aside, if I want to mess around with my allies and friends, our close diplomatic ties would make nefarious deeds easier to complete... though there should probably be risks of counter-espionage.

You could then change the espionage screen into the intel screen and have a nice summary of what you know about the empire and how you know it. Having your information on another empire being laid out in an easy-to-see manner would really hammer home the benefit of gathering intel. Seeing stuff like, "we know they have unlocked cruisers but we need more intel to figure out their weapons" and then having a button right there to spy on their armaments... Or if you knew their preferred weapon is lasers you could have an option to steal information on them in order to tune your shields specifically against their frequency. A commercial pact would give you information on their economy, but so could an espionage-focused effort do! Then you could use that knowledge to damage their economy... or benefit your own. Another example, with enough intel/infiltration you would know that an empire has an upgraded version of a building. You should be able to see that, and pay a fee to begin an operation to steal this knowledge.

Assigning an envoy should make this cheaper/let your run multiple simultaneously as envoys are rather limited and should feel impactful. I would probably make them required for achieving higher levels of infiltration/intel as well as for conducting more impactful operations. To summarize:

1. Let me invest smaller amounts of resources than a whole envoy into intel.
2. Tie intel gained through diplomacy and espionage tighter together so espionage doesn't feel disconnected.
3. Cleaner display of what information I have gleaned through diplomacy or espionage.
4. With a better idea of what the relative situation is, let me make targeted decisions.

 

[Karlos Activia]

I always found it Intriguing how you could gain Assets, but it never felt like there was something happening when you had too much Assets, like:

Lets say you Play the Commonwealth of Man, and you Expand your Spy Network in the Roccan Resistance or however these Xenos are called, and you start to gain Assets, you do this over and over and over again.

Shouldnt there be a Rise of Corruption Event within the Roccan Resistance?

The More Assets one has ---> the more Influence you have on the Enemy Empire ---> the more Chaos you can create.

I dont know whether I bring the matter to the table or not, because for me its hard to Articulate the Pepp, Spy Networks need.

 

[stellawhatsit]

Just completed surveys for both Pirates and Crime and Espionage. The Espionage system can be much more than it currently is and really make Stellaris stand out from the other games.

The espionage system deserves to be expanded. It is one of the most consequential systems in the game, if used correctly, to project power and contend with larger empires on equal footing. Also, this system most intrigued me when watching a player made advertisement about the game.

 

[cecla]

I actually like some of the existing espionage functions. A few that I use are:
- Gaining intel on another empire, see things like power, ship designs
- For pre-ftls, indoctrination to cause ethics shift
- Occasionally steal technology, if I happen to be floating influence and it's an available option with a rival empire

A lot of the comments made above are about the number of clicks required to manage it--improvements in this area seem like they'd be great, it's easy to forget which empires you have networks with and what actions you need to perform, and it's a lot of clicks to check. A central "spy networks" UI would be nice, and maybe the ability to specify "do X when it's available".

A capability I would like to see in espionage--I wish there was a way to interfere more in other empire's internal politics, specifically, something like "indoctrinate society" that currently exists for pre-ftls, but I'd expect it to be more expensive and difficult for other empires. Maybe there's an empire near me that's xenophobic, I'd prefer they be xenophilic. You can do a liberation war, but frequently the ethics will shift back later because the population is still mostly xenophobic. It would be cool if there was a "bottom up" approach where you could spend resources to promote an ethic you like among the population that might ultimately shift the government a certain way if it won out. However, I'd expect it to be expensive, the other government might also have means to counter it like insulating their population and in extreme cases might attack you in response, but it seems like there's potential here.

One comment I've heard a few times is that spy networks should break up federations. I don't know that I agree that espionage is the best way to do this as it seems heavy-handed and potentially lacking in counterplay. However, I agree that federations are too stable and monolithic. It seems like if my empire is more powerful than a federation, for example, I should be able to convince individual federation members to leave that federation and form a federation with my empire. Or if a federation bans commercial pacts with non-federation members, maybe there's a way to encourage them to change that policy.

 

[Archael90]

Clocked science ships should definitely trigger first contact, one sided with no establishing communication at the end, but still. Player should decide if they want to establish communication or not, but first contact should be triggered nonetheless.

Also, where is clocked start origin?

 

[xboomcazoox]

What surprises me is the lack of a cyberespionage or cyber warfare mechanic in the game. Considering how critical these forms of warfare and intelligence gathering are in modern times, it’s only logical to assume that spacefaring civilizations would develop similar capabilities.

Introducing cyber mechanics could add depth and variety to gameplay, offering players the chance to engage in or defend against cyberattacks. This could open the door to unique playstyles, such as shutting down an entire ringworld, crippling a hive mind, or disrupting enemy operations—all without ever firing a weapon.

Cyber defense could also become a compelling mechanic, introducing high-stakes decisions when systems are compromised. Players might face tough choices, such as sacrificing infrastructure, evacuating or even sacrificing populations, or destroying corrupted ships in their fleet to prevent further damage.

Additionally, this feature could create intricate, mystery-driven narratives reminiscent of Mr. Robot. Players could unravel cyber plots, deal with universally relevant triggers, or explore the interplay of different government systems and ideologies in a particular playthrough. With the right implementation, cyber warfare and defense could be a fun and challenging addition that both enhances the strategic importance of espionage and storytelling aspects of the game.

 

[Critical Ethics]

If espionage allowed you to trigger one-sided involuntary research, commercial, and migration pacts it would be infinitely more useful and less irritating to the target than sabotage starbase.

 

[Stardance]

If espionage allowed you to trigger one-sided involuntary research, commercial, and migration pacts it would be infinitely more useful and less irritating to the target than sabotage starbase.

This is actually very similar to the form response I just submitted. I think if espionage operations could be more 'net-positive' in their use instead of always causing harm, it could get around the feeling of being ganged up on with little counter recourse other than war and blowing up the galaxy. For example, launching an operation to recruit a leader from another empire (not steal or murder) as a way to get leaders with special traits, or launching an operation to siphon resources you can't access normally (not reduce actual stockpiles) like a one-sided trade deal, or launching an operation to create pops (migrate unhappy citizens or refugees) without actually lowering pop counts in the other empire, or creating a small fleet (defects or stolen ship designs) using another empire's design templates (instead of removing a fleet). I think that would be a great way to utilize espionage, and also opens up a lot of roleplay opportunities.

 

[Kvesir]

I don't think we need a rework of the intel system actually, I think it is fundamentally fine. I have two suggestions:

- Add a tab near the contacts menu that opens an overview of all your intel networks, sorted by strength. If it's an empire that I know of and I can have a network in, it should be there. Just the ability to take a quick glance at all of them and being able to open them without going into the diplo screen every time, as well as send/recall an envoy to one of them and check on/off automatically starting an operation once ready, would already make the system much easier to navigate as a player. That menu should also show me my codebreaking and encryption in relation to all other empires. If the devs really want to go overboard with it, it would be really cool to have that accompanied with a mapmode where you can see your codebreaking advantage and also select a specific location for an operation.

- Add more operations to espionage. Honestly the current operations are very underwhelming and are not worth your time as a player, and the devs should respond to that by making them stronger, removing randomness from them and adding more. For example:

• Steal a "blueprint" (list of components, but no tech bonus) of a ship of my choice from my enemies (knowing what my enemies have ahead of time will allow me to counter it).
• Spike crime in one of their planets to harm their economy.
• Assassinate one of their leaders (even being aware of who their leaders are should be done through espionage).
• Prepare a planet for an invasion, giving it a modifier that makes attacking it easier (btw planetary invasions could use a serious rework to make them more engaging).
• See where one of their fleets are even if I have low intel overall, perhaps by having my agent plant a tracking device on a ship.
• Shift the ethics of their pops through propaganda in a specific planet of my choice, as well as causing unhappiness (good for destabilizing and causing rebellions, for "preparing" a population for living under my empire's values, and maybe even causing empires to change over a long period of time).
• Meddle in the elections of empires that have any kind of elections, giving my preferred candidate a bigger chance to win (I might want a candidate with worse buffs or one that has particular ethics) and maybe if they win I could get more intel and an opinion boost. Maybe even get a chance to meddle in their internal politics after that by event and cause them to embrace a faction or change their empire ethics, although that should be rare.
• Cause my own subjects to become more loyal by planting someone who influences their government from within. Also useful if I'm the galactic emperor.
• Unique operations regarding things like specific ascension perks or civics. For example, if both of us are doing the same kind of pop upgrade ascension (genetics/cybernetics/overtuned for biological pops, synthetics/machine for robot pops) I would sabotage and slow down the development of a new kind of pop. If we're both doing psionics I could attack them psionically to steal some unity from them. If I have the Nihilistic Acquisition perk I might want to abduct a pop using my network. If I took the Galactic Weather Control perk why not create a storm in their empire?
• Steal something from their grand archive to put in my own grand archive. Or, in a very difficult heist, steal a relic. If successful, they could even get a CB to retrieve it like in CK3.
• Lower pop growth in a particular planet by poisoning it. Useful to weaken over time an enemy that has few planets.
• Make sabotaging starbases more impactful and allow me to sabotage megastructures, colossii or juggernauts as well (with scaling difficulty ofc). Maybe even sabotaging a specific building on a planet could be useful. I should have the ability to choose what to sabotage.
• Make the harm caused from the diplomatic operations significant enough to annul pacts or destroy their diplo weight.
• Control where the Arm Privateers operation spawns a pirate fleet that distracts their fleets.
• Give me a choice over what asset I gain from the Acquire Asset operation.
• Most importantly: use my network to decimate the network they have in my own empire and kill their assets. Spy war!

Etc.
The best part would be collecting assets that have the right combination to be just right for a particular operation. Use my pop icon asset to spread propaganda, my criminal underling asset to set up a crime ring and my laborer asset to steal their relics.

P.S. we should have more ways to shorten envoy travel time (the amount of time until I can switch them to a different task). That would be really helpful for when you have few envoys that jump around a lot of tasks, which is what would happen if the espionage system was good.

 

[Letharion]

I don't think we need a rework of the intel system actually, I think it is fundamentally fine. I have two suggestions:

- Add a tab near the contacts menu that opens an overview of all your intel networks, sorted by strength. If it's an empire that I know of and I can have a network in, it should be there. Just the ability to take a quick glance at all of them and being able to open them without going into the diplo screen every time, as well as send/recall an envoy to one of them and check on/off automatically starting an operation once ready, would already make the system much easier to navigate as a player. That menu should also show me my codebreaking and encryption in relation to all other empires. If the devs really want to go overboard with it, it would be really cool to have that accompanied with a mapmode where you can see your codebreaking advantage and also select a specific location for an operation.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. If the espionage part of the game becomes meaningful, there should be an appropriate overview of your intel, ongoing operations, relative codebreaking/encryption strength etc. As I believe espionage and diplomacy are two sides of a coin and the later has to be updated along the former, a separate tab on the contacts menu would be the right place. A mapmode would be cool but not strictly necessary. By the way codebreaking/encryption strength of a foreign empire should be an information you have to work for, especially if not trivial compared to yours.

- Add more operations to espionage. Honestly the current operations are very underwhelming and are not worth your time as a player, and the devs should respond to that by making them stronger and adding more. For example:

• Steal a blueprint of a ship of my choice from my enemies (knowing what my enemies have ahead of time will allow me to counter it).
• Spike crime in one of their planets to harm their economy, or destabilize it to drive it to rebel.
• Assassinate one of their leaders (even being aware of who their leaders are should be done through espionage).
• Prepare a planet for an invasion, giving it a modifier that makes attacking it easier (btw planetary invasions could use a serious rework to make them more engaging).
• See where one of their fleets are even if I have low intel overall.
• Launch a false-flag "pirate" attack somewhere inside their borders to distract their fleets.
• Make the harm caused from the diplomatic operations significant enough to annul pacts or destroy their diplo weight.
• Shift the ethics of their pops through propaganda (good for RP and for destabilizing and changing empires over a long period of time).
• Cause my own subjects to become more loyal by planting someone who influences their government from within.

I believe in stronger effects on operations as well, but only when the come with an associated risk, as the need to employ an fullfledged leader instead of a negligible envoy. This in turn requires that you have a few more leaders, but not as many as you have envoys today, and that you no longer need envoys (or leaders) for many simple tasks, like improving/harming relations or maintaining a moderate infiltration level. And those leaders (spies/diplomats) have to be active "on site", be it in the embassy for fairly general tasks or in a cloaked ship directly on the respective planet, fleet or space station.

Etc.

P.S. we should have more ways to shorten envoy travel time (the amount of time until I can switch them to a different task). That would be really helpful for when you have few envoys that jump around a lot of tasks, which is what would happen if the espionage system was good.

I strongly disagree with that. During a mission, the spy should not be able to be moved at all if he is on a ship, and this should only be possible if the mission is aborted after a phase, since more effective missions must also be able to result in the (temporary) loss (MIA/KIA) of the spy if they fail. In this respect, the spies/diplomats should not constantly switch back and forth between tasks, but should concentrate on important ones and not be needed for simple ones.

 

[jayparadoritox]

The big problem for Espionage was associating it with an even bigger problem, which is the Influence mechanic itself. Influence is not a coherent mechanic in Stellaris right now. At some point, the devs decided Inf should be the "External diplomacy" resource, but then, for some ???? reason, Influence is also used for features of your own empire, like starbases, orbital rings, habitats, hyper relays, etc.

This then causes a problem with my usual suggestion to improve espionage, which is to have it be a source of Influence - not just a way of spending it via Operations. It makes way more sense to have espionage be a source of Influence, because that's how it works in real life, too. What is spying, if not a way of gaining influence over another society?

But right now we can't have espionage generate Influence, can we? Because then the player with the most robust spy network would get... more megastructures? Influence is a broken and poorly conceived mechanic. If Influence really was Stellaris's "External diplomacy" mechanic, we'd have the perfect purpose for espionage right there, but Influence is not that resource right now. It is a mess.

That's my main rant, which just leaves a bunch of lesser evils:

1. Certain operations are just jokes and nobody uses them. "Sabotage a random module or building on a particular starbase". It's frankly insane that this has lasted as long as it has in this form. Were the Custodian team instructed to just totally avoid looking at Operations, for some reason? And the diplomatic incident/scandal ones. There's no point to them.

2*. The quest for a useful asset involves getting loads of useless assets first, and is really annoying. The only useful assets are maybe the subterfuge + government guy, sub + science, and a newscaster. The point of getting one of these specific assets is to make an operation happen faster - but if the effort to acquire that asset is random and can take years then what is the point?

* I'd like to state here, that I ENJOY the "bones" of this mechanic; the fantasy of acquiring assets inside a foreign empire... that is great. Like, slowly sending out tendrils, and collecting people... hail hydra! I just wish those assets actually had a satisfying effect on gameplay beyond that collection fantasy?

3. Steal tech needs to do something better at endgame than 1000 research points in each field, after you're done stealing actual technologies. I do think at some point making Nemesis, the devs wanted espionage to be this thing that would make endgame much more interesting, but this 1000 research points thing just kills that right there.

I mean, come on, you added pre-FTL civs, which are so different to us culturally that we advanced civs can still learn things from them. But infiltrate the laboratories of an advanced empire that is slightly less advanced than ourselves, and all we can get is... 1000 research points?

4. Inconsistent and poorly explained asset effects. I've had games that went well into the endgame years, where a single empire I was spying on for some reason retained the "Research backdoor" as a selectable choice (even though it's well after the stage where you're getting 1000 research points as the main prize). But then, I use that op on other empires - who have the exact same relative encryption, and I'm using the exact same asset-type with the operation - and I'm not offered that choice at all. And I don't mean it's there but greyed out because I've already got a backdoor buff.

 

[Kvesir]

This then causes a problem with my usual suggestion to improve espionage, which is to have it be a source of Influence - not just a way of spending it, via Operations. It makes way more sense to have espionage be a source of Influence, because that's how it works in real life, too. What is spying, if not a way of gaining influence over another society?

I fully agree. Influence should not be spent on internal development of things like megastructures, it should be a currency that reflects how much you can project foreign influence over other empires.

You should not passively gain influence at all before you even met other empires. Passive influence from power projection and other sources should be unlocked only after you met other empires. You should not have to pay influence to build outposts or megastructures. Influence would be gained from power projection, rivals and espionage networks, and it would be used on claims, proposing resolutions, leveling up federations/changing their laws, or buying favors to do things like get empires to vote like you or accept diplomatic offers. As well as the passive maintenance of treaties. (to make favors work for player diplomacy, the player could lose influence by rejecting an attempt of another empire to use a favor on them).

As going into negative influence due to your passive treaties cost would be possible, it should cause you to get a big hit to your diplomatic weight.

The rate of outpost expansion in the early game is already limited by the alloy cost, and it can be limited further by replacing the scaling influence cost with a scaling energy cost - if the scaling by range is severe enough it would have the same effect.

 

[Letharion]

I fully agree. Influence should not be spent on internal development of things like megastructures, it should be a currency that reflects how much you can project foreign influence over other empires.

You should not passively gain influence at all before you even met other empires. Passive influence from power projection and other sources should be unlocked only after you met other empires. You should not have to pay influence to build outposts or megastructures. Influence would be gained from power projection, rivals and espionage networks, and it would be used on claims, proposing resolutions, leveling up federations/changing their laws, or buying favors to do things like get empires to vote like you or accept diplomatic offers. As well as the passive maintenance of treaties. (to make favors work for player diplomacy, the player could lose influence by rejecting an attempt of another empire to use a favor on them).

As going into negative influence due to your passive treaties cost would be possible, it should cause you to get a big hit to your diplomatic weight.

The rate of outpost expansion in the early game is already limited by the alloy cost, and it can be limited further by replacing the scaling influence cost with a scaling energy cost - if the scaling by range is severe enough it would have the same effect.

On the influence matter I agree as far it should'nt be used on things like Megastructures. As far as starbases are concerned, as they are a kind of "claim", I think it's on theme. And a fundamental change in the influence system would slow down an improvement in the espionage system. With regards on operations gaining influence in some way this is represented by assets, but could certainly be expanded in a very discreet (in other words: marginal) way.

 

[adil3tr]

The only game that espionage is useful in is Europa, because it is basically automated. In Stellaris you rarely find yourself in the position that makes espionage relevant. Which is having a peer or larger competitor you cannot go to war with and want to spend a lot of micro and time on undermining in relatively minor ways. Inherently, espionage just isn't very useful as a mechanic in PDX games because it maximizes the cost and attention required and minimizes reward.