Intelligence on other countries

[unmerged(80461)]

I'm making my first attempt at playing SRCW but I find it very hard to device any strategy outside of the typical "restrain the USSR from reaching freely into either the Atlantic or the mid- and south Pacific coastline".

I can't find any ingame means to acquire information on what the Eastern Bloc is doing both in its economy and military, so that I can take action.

My only sensible moves so far (March 1950) have been to offer Sweden and Greece very favorable deals on consumer goods, hoping this will somehow increase my influence there.

I also used assigning of priorities to a theater in order to help France retake North Vietnam, which they did in the course of a couple of months

It's March 1950 so I'm waiting for the Korean War to break out, while listening to the "The Good Shepherd" soundtrack. The game seems to play by itself, with the exclusion of me having to build a couple of timber mills to compensate for a timber shortage. I don't know if that helped any but the "insufficient" notifications stopped.

So, if anyone here can give me a list of in-game methods to get information on the opposing forces' actions, I'm all ears.

 

[foothill]

You can always use spies with the recon mission to gain intelligence. While they have a limited vision range, they do provide some view of troop placements. Also, if you don't mind risking outright war with the USSR, you can fly recon planes right over their territory. Just turn on "Path over neutrals" under the defense minister's panel.

As far as the game playing itself, you can give the units and ministers as little or as much control as you want (I personally give them little, or no control).

 

[unmerged(80461)]

Thanks. That's interesting, I expected the game to put more emphasis on mechanics which allow you to spy on the enemy. In reality, the CIA and State Departament were putting lots of work into supervising, calculating and predicting a great variety of actions taken by other countries in the economical and political spheres. There's a big database of declassified materials, which by the way could have served the game developers very well, I wonder if they were actually used -- http://www.foia.cia.gov

I was hoping to at least be able to monitor their economic activity, and to some extent their order of battle. This used to happen, for example look here http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000258834/DOC_0000258834.pdf (The USSR Petroleum Industry, Jan 5, 1950). There was also the daily Central Intelligence Bulletin received by the President, check out the second page here: http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0001140910/DOC_0001140910.pdf

I've started reading the supremewiki.org wiki, since I don't have experience with the supreme ruler series but am an HoI fan I guess much of the game mechanics will be the same in SRCW as in the previous SR games.

 

[foothill]

The detailed global economic information is something they removed from the game. In SR2020, you could at least see daily import/export numbers for all nations. As far as the order of battle intelligence, I haven't got a clue.

 

[unmerged(80461)]

I just put a spy in Sofia, Bulgaria (its name is misspelled in the game, the same was in most Paradox games as well...). Now I see military units maneuvering around on the roads. Is there a reference on the types of military units and their specifications available somewhere in the game? I know how to see my own units' specs (I've patiently clicked and read the tooltip for every button in the interface to see what it does ) but what about foreign units? And if I want to have visibility over a larger area, I guess I have to put a spy in every few hexes. Is there some technology resembling the U2 reconnaissance plane or spy satellites in later years?

 

[Hundane]

Now I see military units maneuvering around on the roads. Is there a reference on the types of military units and their specifications available somewhere in the game?

Click on the hex they are in, then click unit presence (lower left, top of box, middle button). That will bring up a list of units in that hex, double click them to get a Technical Readout. If its a transport unit with loaded cargo, you can hover your mouse over to see what they are carrying.

Be sure to Register your game.

 

[foothill]

If you click on one of your units, to the right side of the info panel (bottom left on screen) are selection buttons, one of those is technical specifications. Clicking that will cause a pop-up that gives more detailed unit information. There are no spy satilites but you can fly over using any type of aircraft. Be sure to turn on the fly over neutrals from the defense minister panel.

 

[unmerged(80461)]

I will (@Hundane). Thanks for the answer, it was so easy actually Do the spies stay where they were placed until they are discovered or they stay for a limited time and then return to the pool?

 

[unmerged(75285)]

I just put a spy in Sofia, Bulgaria (its name is misspelled in the game, the same was in most Paradox games as well...). Now I see military units maneuvering around on the roads. Is there a reference on the types of military units and their specifications available somewhere in the game? I know how to see my own units' specs (I've patiently clicked and read the tooltip for every button in the interface to see what it does ) but what about foreign units? And if I want to have visibility over a larger area, I guess I have to put a spy in every few hexes. Is there some technology resembling the U2 reconnaissance plane or spy satellites in later years?

Sofija is the local spelling, they actually took the effort to use local names instead of all English names for the places.