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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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klc123 said:
Getting really excited for this expansion. I do hope they address some of the current problems in the game though. For example peace conferences and how allies allocate troops to shared fronts are two extremely important things I would like to see fixed.
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It is planned. For this expansion or not idk, but it is coming regarding the peace conferences.
 
JosipBTito1892 said:
Cos how would the boost ideology and stage coup work with non dlc owners
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AFAIK, if the host has a DLC, all players get to play with said DLC as if they owned it themselves.
 
Riftwalker said:
could just work as it does now.
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No.
As far as I know, all shady stuff formerly part of the techtree or diplo tree have been moved to the Intel Agency.
I would still argue that some part of the old espionage is still being kept free but the interesting stuff is behind the DLC
 
NFZed said:
No.
As far as I know, all shady stuff formerly part of the techtree or diplo tree have been moved to the Intel Agency.
I would still argue that some part of the old espionage is still being kept free but the interesting stuff is behind the DLC
Click to expand...

sure and if you don't have the DLC then either you have the agency or don't, so it'll either be under the agency or done like it is now. this is how most other things that got changed work fi you don't have the DLC they changed in.
 
General Von Trapp said:
Building your Intelligence Agency WILL be part of the DLC as will be using spies.
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But what about the intel you previously gathered through code cracking tech, is this intel gone or will it be still available for non DLC user.
Not that I particular care, as soon as they start the presale on their shopsite this thing will be mine :)
 
I wonder if when building an agency you should get 2 operatives instead of 1. Or Agency upgrades would give you a total 2 additional operatives instead of one. But you would rather early be able to make a few missions like collaboration govement.
Then atleast you can possibly do something as a minor. Getting 3 operatives you can use 2 for many missions and have one for sustaining network or home defence. I find 3 operatives is the minimun number of operatives to be useful, but for most nations it's just to much of an investment to achive.
 
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Dr.Stjärtlukt said:
I wonder if when building an agency you should get 2 operatives instead of 1. Or Agency upgrades would give you a total 2 additional operatives instead of one. But you would rather early be able to make a few missions like collaboration govement.
Then atleast you can possibly do something as a minor. Getting 3 operatives you can use 2 for many missions and have one for sustaining network or home defence. I find 3 operatives is the minimun number of operatives to be useful, but for most nations it's just to much of an investment to achive.
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Yesss pls, we need more operatives.
 
We need:

  • 1 more Operative for nation at least.
  • Control Trade and Diplomatic Pressure moved to Diplomats or general diplomacy screen.
  • 96 more Historical Missions sold as $10-$15 DLC. Current only sad 4. :( (there so many cool WW2 missions I want 100 lol)
 
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