Stellaris Dev Diary #196: [REDACTED]

[Eladrin]

Will we have a way to counter spying ? Prenvent our tech to be stealing for exemple.

Building up your Counter Espionage value and having high Encryption and Decryption will make it more difficult to run operations within your territory and give you greater chances of causing catastrophic failures for those that dare touch your research databases.

Early iterations had a more active defense, but Counter Espionage felt more like an Envoy tax than an enjoyable experience.

Can we make the leader of our rival have a tragic accident ?

No. Early on we had something like this in the list of possible operations, but part of the difficulty of espionage systems in general is that they have to still be fun when you're the one getting dogpiled by a dozen empires running them on you.

While there are some operations with (sometimes pretty big) negative effects, we were trying to be pretty careful with what they can do, while simultaneously make sure they're worth pursuing. I'll likely go into more of that next week when we talk about burning Assets.

 

[Eladrin]

How will work building spying network for FPs which don't create diplomatic relations and don't send envoys?

Fanatic Purifiers will be able to use their envoys to build spy networks. It's not exactly diplomacy.

If I beg will you give us a teaser of what you can do with a Provocation?

You need to keep building your Spy Network up, Provocations need a pretty extensive one to pull off.

 

[Eladrin]

No, a Bureau of Espionage would definitely be represented by an Edict rather than a building. Edicts in non-Gestalt Empires represent the creation (or dismantling when cancelled) of powerful bureaucracies that promote specific policies - that's why you can implement Edicts above your Edict capacity at the cost of Administrative capacity.

That's the general idea - edicts can represent additional focus on certain institutions of the empire to a degree.

Incidentally: any plans on making egalitarian rabble good at something?

Egalitarians are pretty good at accumulating Diplomatic Weight from their happy pops. Fleet power does tend to overshadow it later, however.

Are we going to be able to Arm Rebels and Pirates? cause that sounds like something that would be fun

They prefer the terms "privateer" or "freedom fighter".

So, in simple words, what's the difference between Decryption and Counter-Espionage and why are these different values?

Decryption is cracking communications and is passively compared with the other empire's Encryption. Differences in relative *cryption are used to determine magnitude of failures, for instance.

Counter Espionage is active defense within your empire, increasing the chance of that failure occuring.

So what about Criminal Syndicates? Does having illegal branch offices increase your spy network's power in some way? Throw the criminals a bone!

The Disinformation Center is changing a bit, and will have benefits to espionage. A Ruthless Competition / Public Relations / Criminal Syndicate will be very good at what you would expect them to be very good at. (Especially if they're Authoritarian Telepaths.)

Im loyal citizen, but i dont thing i would be happy knowing that someone knows my every move xD

That was the thought there.

 

[Eladrin]

And yet You made bonus to authoritarian attraction...

The people are generally unhappy at having subdermal tracking implants forced upon them recording everything they're doing, but over time may grow to start agreeing to a degree that "it's keeping us safe!" and "if you don't have anything to hide..." as they are indoctrinated by the state's propaganda.

The Thought Enforcement edict, on the other hand, is explicitly changing your mind for you.

They're both intended to be relatively sinister and dystopian institutions.

<Envoy Counts>

While the number of uses for Envoys are increasing, the number available will also increase.

And that's even before we get into the point that for the vast majority of human history, most of the straight-up unironic-black-ops spies were recruited from / placed in the diplomatic corps.

This is what we were going for here.

In an early iteration, we considered having Build Spy Network be a covert option attached to the overt Improve and Harm Relations. (Possibly with an "expel envoys" option.) We ended up going with the distinct Build Spy Network mission to keep things clearer though.

 

[glee8e]

Free heaven is already sort of a underwhelming civic. Since it will now even include a disadvantage even less people will want to choose it. Perhaps tune up the other stats up a bit or add some other positive effect, like an offensive advantage in espoinage, as a compensation?

 

[Olterin]

I'm cautiously optimistic about this - I don't like the idea of sabotage much, given past experiences with being dogpiled with similar actions ... but it seems that is being taken into account on a design level already, so here's hoping you guys manage to find the right balance for it, as not having any sabotage at all as an option would also break immersion a little.

 

[Coconut_Cookie]

Will factions be looked at in this update? Will the support and oppress faction option use your espionage capacity? Kinda like building a spy network within your empire in order to buff or nerf specific factions. Are the different strata ever going to be involved in decision making in some way? Shouldn't the political goals of different strata be different? What if a faction caters to only one specific strata?

Can pirates also get a little more substance? Like being able to strike a deal with them or link the piracy and crime mechanics in some way?

 

[LystAP]

While I understand the mallus to Counter Espionage, I think there should be advantages to Espionage for empires that take Free Haven, and Egalitarian/Xenophile empires in general. Greater willingness to know and understand other cultures can make it easier to get information, like how during WW2, the Allies had Japanese and German American spies working on cracking and infiltrating enemy networks. For Free Haven, on one hand it's easier to infiltrate your empire, on the other hand, it may be easier to recruit spies that would better fit into your opponent's culture without them being detected.

The high living standards of Egalitarian empires, and tolerant attitude of Xenophile empires can lead to greater incentive for unhappy or ambitious personnel to defect. In-game, we already have that Envoy event where your envoy runs off with a alien lover. Appreciating other cultures can be like appreciating their art, and having a mind open enough to understand said art and culture - enough to plan their destruction.

 

[Archon87]

So what about Criminal Syndicates? Does having illegal branch offices increase your spy network's power in some way? Throw the criminals a bone!

Also Enigmatic Engineering seems like a good perk for a rework to make it impossible or at least much more difficult for aliens to steal your tech.

Will multiple empires trying to spy on the same empire ever have their spy networks trip over each other? Perhaps engage in a bit of spy vs spy?

 

[grommile]

The only thing that upset me was that it would not be possible to sabotage the leaders of the empire.

To you, and all "sabotage should be amazing" enthusiasts:

Imagine twelve AIs all doing it to you.

 

[Pale Blue]

Will we get a tradition tree dedicated to espionage? It would be nice if we did.

Instead of just changing a few of our current traditions to benifit espionage.

A complete tradition rework is necessary. One of the reasons spiritualists are so bad is that everything new gets some new techs as requirements or techs that boost it. Traditions on the other hand are as useful or useless as they were years ago.

 

[Oscot]

This introduces a problem, envoys used as spys. From a roleplay perspective that means that a nation with diplomatic corps civic will be better at spying, which i don't see how it makes sense (functionally it works well, im only talking about roleplay).

What do you think an ambassador does? His JOB DESCRIPTION is intel-gathering. Go to this other country, learn the language, make friends, tell us how they're thinking, are they likely to sign this trade treaty or not, do their internal political discussions talk about us very much, what are their newspapers saying, maybe go for lunch with your buddy who's brother's working at the Defence Ministry, have they been ordering additional arms lately..."

And that's even before we get into the point that for the vast majority of human history, most of the straight-up unironic-black-ops spies were recruited from / placed in the diplomatic corps. Spy operations ran out of embassies as a rule rather than an exception during the Cold War - the only legitimate reason for an American to be running around Moscow in the 1960s was for him to be a diplomat, nobody else was allowed in!

TL;DR this mechanic is 100% historically accurate, you just don't know any history.

 

[FortunaDraken]

Interesting, though I admit I'm still a little worried about the whole sabotage mechanics. I really don't like things like that, it's one of my least favourite parts of Civ 6 that you can suddenly lose a bunch of funds or have stuff destroyed just because you didn't know exactly what to protect with your spies. Really hoping it won't be as bad with this, because all the other stuff looks really neat so far.

Also kinda hope that there'll be an option or slider for how often AI empires do that kind of thing, so if you aren't fond of it (like I'm not), you can stop them doing it as often. Something independent from the difficulty slider would be nice.

 

[Ragnarok Ascendant]

Okay, so.
Not really optimistic about this.
Why?
The devs say they'll try to balance it. That they'll try to make it fun.
Considering the dearth of engagement for midgame, the massive long-standing issues with Hives and Spiritualists, and the lengthy lists of civics that are useless beyond RP purposes (and not even mentioning how the AI is literally too stupid to run an economy)... I'm not sure this new system will be any different.

Anticipating the disagree horde in 5, 4, 3, 2....

 

[Daius]

Will we be able to do some form of misinformation operation? It would be cool if it could be possible to discover a spynetwork and allow it to continue but feeding it with false information. For instance a weak empire could do a counterspy mission that could exaggerate information about their fleetpower etc.

 

[Questionable]

 

[Liggi]

One of my biggest concerns with the game at the moment is that once you hit midgame, the galaxy becomes very, very static. I'm wondering... in your playtesting with the espionage features, does it tend to open up new possibilities? Is the balance of power more dynamic when the AI can run Operations against each other? Is there a bit more of a "rise and fall" feeling to things?

Also... do Fallen Empires use Espionage features, ever?

 

[Ragnarok Ascendant]

I wonder why Paradox is allergic to adding new tradition trees.

It would literally be the one thing needed to take the traditions system from shallow nothingness to meaningful choice. Add a bunch of trees but make it so you can only take a certain number of them, and boom, your empire can grow in a unique fashion.

 

[Pale Blue]

It would literally be the one thing needed to take the traditions system from shallow nothingness to meaningful choice. Add a bunch of trees but make it so you can only take a certain number of them, and boom, your empire can grow in a unique fashion.

I would like traditions being more like eu4 idea groups. You can take a limited amount, different combination effects, events can roll once a tree is finished, most of the unlocks are actually useful.