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HOI4 Dev Diary - The Intelligence Agency

Hi everyone! Today we will start going through the Espionage features announced at PdxCon in greater detail. First off is the hub of everything - Your Intelligence Agency.


The Agency
The Agency is something you need to construct on game start if you plan to involve yourself in the shadow war that will be running now. We recommend at least an investment in defence eventually to help protect yourself even if you do not plan to dedicate resources to offensive operations. Notice that I said ‘construct’? The Agency will take up several of your factories for a while to be created. Civilian factories is the closest we have to a money budget so we felt this was the most appropriate cost to use. When you decide to make the agency you are free to name it (a historical name will be suggested) and you can also pick from a mix of historical logos as well as generic made up ones (surprise - a lot of agencies did not advertise themselves to heavily).

Screenshot_1.png


In the Agency you can recruit Operatives (more about them and what they can do in a future diary), work on cryptology (also a topic of a future diary) and upgrade the different branches of the agency as well as update training or develop new gadgets to help your Operatives.


Branch Upgrades
Just like the creation of an agency it will cost you some industry time to develop its capabilities. The time is always the same, but the cost itself can vary with how powerful the option is.

Screenshot_2.png



Lets have some examples of the many options:
  • Naval Department - This is one of the basic branches that improves your intelligence gathering in that field. It will ensure that you get the most out of any naval intel you get.
  • Passive Defense - This boosts your agencies counterintelligence rating which together with Operatives help you defend against enemy Operatives.
  • Invisible Ink - Improved ways of sneaking intel back through letters or other ways through writing. It means your Operatives will be generating more intel when active somewhere.
  • Suicide Pills - Captured Operatives will now have a final way out limiting leaks of intel to the enemy
  • Diplomatic Training - Operatives learn to operate among high society and politics and would no longer dream of ordering their Martinis stirred. This one helps with missions such as diplomatic pressure and control of foreign trade (yup.. future diary)
  • Cryptology Department - this sets up a department of math wizards and crossword puzzlers. Why shall be covered in a future diary ;)

The Spy Master
If you have enough upgrades and are in a faction you can become the faction’s Spy Master.

Screenshot_3.png


This is the logical path for people who want to lean heavily into espionage to get the most of it. There can only be one spy master per faction and the main advantage of being a spy master is that it will let you run a lot more Operatives (how many depending on the size of your faction). We felt it was mostly historical that only the really big nations truly invested in this, but the most important reason was balance. A lot of spy systems in games fall down on the fact that people can spam you with agents so you either end up super annoyed or the system needs to be toned down to where it’s no longer impactful and fun. In a historical HOI game given this rule, we have then set us up with 3 potentially powerful agencies: Allies, Axis and Comintern.


See you all next week when we take a look at further espionage topics :)
Rejected Titles
  • HOI4 - Mirai Nikki
  • This dev diary will auto-destruct after being read, please stand back.
  • Popping pills & blowings stuff up with government funds!
  • Renamed to iAgency for the Mac version
  • The Department of Ungentlemanly Warfare (™)
  • There is no department called Military Intelligence because we don’t do oxymorons
  • We didn’t manage to make the icon for Commando Training be a man being hit in the nuts, but based on our research 50% of the training seems to have been this.
 
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To be perfectly honest this entire feature is just there to lay the groundwork for the Luxemburg focus tree - all about expanding underground! ;P[/QUOTE said:
So there’s going to be 4 new focus trees in this update? Also what about Belgium, there the only colonial power without a unique focus tree
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This looks super cool...

I like the idea that you can kind of ignore it depending on who you play. That way it does not overburden the player unless they actually want to invest time in it.

It’s cool we can name our agency and the spies are actual characters. I just hope it’s like XCOM in which they get better at their jobs overtime.
 
I fear that due to the huge factory costs, this is only a viable mechanic for majors in multiplayer. Because I don't see a minor investing 5 civvies or more on intel when good army composition is enough to beat the AI. We will see how this pans out, but my expectations on it's usability for singleplayer are completely non-existent. We'll see how modders implement this system on their games. Especially interested in Equestria at War, since the country with the most factories there has 33 at start. Not precisely the USA.
 
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Space Hippo said:
Will you be increasing the civilian factory base of the countries in the game?, I'm of the impression that, especially minor countries, have a hard time keeping up with so many features that require civilian factories (production licenses, buying resources, decisions, events, etc)
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I guess they would have to balance things... maybe they would not be able to have a strong intelligence agency which would be historical.

podcat said:
They are likely to get involve less. Espionage can be a force multiplier but if you are small your main objective must be to get that force first.
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Will communist focuses that give buffs towards subversive actions apply to the espionage system? It would be a welcome way of balancing the current Germany/Soviet meta, and makes a lot of sense in the historical context.
 
Well, just like MtG, i smell a very well thought and elaborated expansion here. This being said, is there any chance that we get some comfortable options that make playing a little less straining?

First things i am thinking of:
- a ledger to sort division templates
- drag and drop of division templates
- option to control which planes can be equipped within an air wing? (just like division equipment)

and finally at least three more Italian generals? As is, they feel like the grand army of Zimbabwe...
 
I hope there is a branch dedicated to Coups + Boosting + Bribes + Influencing, especially for early Cold War stuff. The US sponsoring coups in Latin America a bit earlier than scheduled would be a fun alt-history (that’s semi-plausible) and the Soviet Union funneling arms to communist groups would be pretty cool. Also Germany sending agents to the Middle East to try and stir unrest against British rule
 
Perhaps GIEs could get an off the map CIV factory (to represent the cash resources/whatever economic assets that they had access too) and be able to invest it into intelligence at a heavily delayed rate.
 
Not really anything in here that wasn't in the stage demo from two weeks ago, aside from the naming and logo-choosing stuff.

Those predicting a late February release are probably on the money at this point I'd say. If there was any doubt, it's gone now.

Edit: you guys need to add a communist octopus logo for an option.

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Sounds as if the USA are going to be the Superspies in this game. No war prior to the 40s, tons of Civil Factories, they will dominated the espionage world.
Every other country has to decide build up economy or espionage, US goes both
 
Iskulya said:
Not really anything in here that wasn't in the stage demo from two weeks ago, aside from the naming and logo-choosing stuff.

Those predicting a late February release are probably on the money at this point I'd say. If there was any doubt, it's gone now.
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I am hoping but doubting your estimate.
I'd go for march / may
 
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