How to simulate Espionage correctly

[Lennartos]

This thread is for suggestions regarding the Espionage-War in the HOI2 series

According to the suggestions this first post will be edited, and linked to the Armageddon Improvemt thread.
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General discription:
First draft of improved Espionage-War
Wyk1ngs idea

gameplay and rules:
- Information obtained with espionage should be visible in the ledger
- Research progress should be much harder to obtain.
- Replace 0-10 Spies system with $ funding
- Funding increases the chance to recieve a spy in selected country.
- Spies increase the amount of Espionage gathered.
- Selecting a mission will get the spys active. The amount of time it takes to complete the mission will be dependent on the victims defence budget and the amount of Spies active.
-While performing a missions the spies are more vulnerable, so some missions will be impossible to execute without the necessary support.

Example topics:
Should spies be personal, or just a number? ( personal = information about the spies infiltration progress and skill.)

 

[hellfish6]

The best espionage system I've ever seen in a game of this scale was in Space Empires V. You had several types of offensive espionage and sabotage you could conduct, and whatever you didn't spend offensively would be used defensively. It was a very easy to use, effective and useful system, unlike what HoI has (or any other paradox game I've played).

 

[Lennartos]

The best espionage system I've ever seen in a game of this scale was in Space Empires V. You had several types of offensive espionage and sabotage you could conduct, and whatever you didn't spend offensively would be used defensively. It was a very easy to use, effective and useful system, unlike what HoI has (or any other paradox game I've played).

Please elaborate...

 

[hellfish6]

You generate intelligence points from your intel facilities and your intel tech levels.

You can allocate your intel points to offense or defense. If you do it offensively, you can direct it at specific enemy players if you want (so you could allocate more points against the bigger threat). The best part about it all was that it was largely hands off. You (or your AI minister) would simply allocate points and let the system go off on it's own. You didn't have to constantly micromanage the espionage system like in HOI. It was results-based, not process-based.

It's been a couple months since I last played it, but IIRC you had the following offensive options:

1. Espionage vs. enemy politics (you could read their communications, see their policies, etc)
2. Espionage vs. enemy ships/fleets (you'd know the status and locations of some of their forces)
3. Espionage vs. enemy planets (you could see what their planetary improvements were, as well as current stats)
4. Espionage vs. enemy (empire wide)

5. Sabotage vs. enemy politics (send false messages, change policies, etc)
6. Sabotage vs. enemy ships/fleet (place bombs on ships, send false orders, etc)
7. Sabotage vs. enemy planets (terrorism, riots, etc)
8. Sabotage vs enemy (empire wide)

It was pretty useful. When your intel service was better than the enemy's, your spies and special ops teams could seize enemy ships, make enemy colonies secede from their empire, etc.

A lot of it could be translated into HOI terms, I think.

Espionage is all about learning what the enemy is doing - using spies, informers, signal intelligence, decryption

Espionage vs enemy military - detecting previously hidden enemy units (i.e. knowing where the German U-boats are), knowing who the commander of the unit is, see what unit orders are (is the Bismark rebasing to Bremen?), what kinds of divisions are in the enemy army/corps/fleet/air wing, what their org/morale/stats are, etc.

Espionage vs. enemy politics - knowing what their relations with other countries are, who their ministers are, who they talk to, who they give/get blueprints to, who they trade with, etc.

Espionage vs. enemy territory - knowing what the provinces are doing - if AA/IC/infrastructure is being built, what resources are produced in the province, etc.

Espionage vs. enemy nation - knowing anything not already covered by the above (what are the current dissent levels, what are they researching, steal blueprints, how many raw materials do they have stockpiled, etc)

Sabotage - disrupting enemy forces, operations and plans using commandos, signal intelligence, spies, psychological operations, guerrillas,

Sabotage vs enemy military - a successful operation could involve lowering morale/org of specific units (PSYOPS), damaging enemy units strength (raids - think SAS in North Africa or destroyed shipments of tank engines), etc. Think of things that commando units would be capable of doing - sinking/capturing enemy ships (like the capture of the U-505 or planting mines on ships in harbor), redirecting enemy divisions (like the Germans dressed as US MPs in the Battle of the Bulge), slowing enemy units, etc.

Sabotage vs. enemy politics - damage relations between enemy countries, disrupt enemy trade agreements, assassinate ministers, create political scandals, etc.

Sabotage vs. enemy territory - damage province improvements, increase partisan activity, increase dissent, etc.

Sabotage vs. enemy nation - create rebellions in occupied territories (like the Warsaw Uprising, or Tito's partisans), smear campaigns, etc.

 

[Lennartos]

Ok, then i was not totally off

My idea was about giving spies funding and when you think you have a big enough propability ( increases with time if funding is > defence) you can start a mission like steal blueprint.. ( you could start right away, but without good intelligence it should not be very cost effective).

How long it takes to succeed is not known... It depends on the funding, the amount of intelligence gathered and the defence strength of the victim.
it may take 3 months before any results, and even then it may just be a 'failed' message reducing your intelligence value

 

[hito1]

Counter-espionage should also be a $ value, and it should decrease reliability of enemy spy info.

 

[Balesir]

Hmm, while I think I agree with most folk on the general operation of 'Intelligence' operations, I also think that 'Special Ops.' should be a separate category in that it should be run as 'missions' and could be done by specific teams with skills etc.

For the 'Intelligence' side, however, two factors are important to me that the current game lacks - (i) consistency and (ii) persistence. I will explain what I mean by these.

Consistency

It bugs me when my espionage screen tells me France (for example) have no Armoured Divisions - after I have just seen one on a battle screen fighting my Champagne spearhead... By 'consistency' I mean that the various sources of intelligence information should be summarised in a consistent way. Sure, in 'real life' there are inconsistent reports, but then, unlike 'real life', I don't have 'real time' to query aides and get a 'most likely' picture to work from. For a game, just jump to the bottom line, please. The details may still be wrong (heh - that's just life) but I don't want to have to check all sources to get a 'best view'.

Persistence

As soon as a unit is out of view, it disappears. The espionage screen tells what (your spies think) the other guys are researching - but not what they have researched. This is a royal pain when trying to get a good overview of the situation. Units that drop from view should be marked at their last known position in greyed-out/translucent form for a period. Intelligence reports don't suddenly become useless after they are made - their relevance fades with time and, as a player, I can only look in one place at one time.

Anyone want to comment on or add to these?

 

[hellfish6]

Good points, but they're only kind of putting a bandage on a severed arm. There are a lot of things wrong with the espionage system, and I don't know how they could be fixed without totally redoing the entire system.