is there an espionage system in Hearts of Iorn 4? (ideas if not)

[Baron of Red]

hello there, I know Espionage played a huge role in ww2 and I was just wondering if there will be some sort of system that allows you to disrupt supply lines or like in Eu 4 where you can see through the fog of war. if there isn't it could be fun to try and steal or disrupt military technology. Who knows maybe they can even add imaginary troops (that can't fight but appear to be actual troops to the player and ai.) like in r.u.s.e. either way i feel that espionage should be just as important as diplomacy and technology. let me know if they do have some system or you also have cool ideas below.

 

[rogerfenwickxii]

hello there, I know Espionage played a huge role in ww2 and I was just wondering if there will be some sort of system that allows you to disrupt supply lines or like in Eu 4 where you can see through the fog of war. if there isn't it could be fun to try and steal or disrupt military technology. Who knows maybe they can even add imaginary troops (that can't fight but appear to be actual troops to the player and ai.) like in r.u.s.e. either way i feel that espionage should be just as important as diplomacy and technology. let me know if they do have some system or you also have cool ideas below.

I remember Podcat mentioning somewhere, (not sure precisely where, I think the game play debut last year) that you would be able to use espionage to steal enemy battle plans and whatnot.

The reasoning behind it is that the longer you have a battle plan laying around, ready to go, the more efficient your troops will be upon execution. However, this also gives the enemy more time to stumble across and steal your plans, so they can lay a trap for whatever it is you have in mind, and vice versa. So there is a trade-off between the element of surprise and proficiency in your armies' to fulfill your orders.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Of course espionage will be in the game. It is an crucial part in warfare and Hearts of Iron 3 had it in aswell.

It is embedded in the diplomacy screen as you can see in the screenshot below. Keep in mind that the menu most likely isnt final and some options may werent even in that built at the time or simply were deactivated since they were not finished. I would guess that military espionage and tech espionage was disabled or something like that since there is room for 2 more options without the need for scrolling.

 

[henzington]

I know you force a civil war as Quill managed to get the French Fascists to win.

 

[BBBD316]

Well I hope World Tension in part relies on you having to gain knowledge of various nations.

Germany should be able to build up huge forces as long as their local intelligence agencies can keep anyone from finding out.

 

[Baron of Red]

thank you guys so much!

 

[Klausewitz]

Well I hope World Tension in part relies on you having to gain knowledge of various nations.

Germany should be able to build up huge forces as long as their local intelligence agencies can keep anyone from finding out.

You maybe obscure how many divisions you have (Germany managed that at 1 September) but i very much doubt that you can obscure that you are in the act of drastically beefing up your military since that is something that can be picked by just reading newspapers (and i am not talking about a newspaper stating "We are just drastically beefing up our military!")

 

[aruon]

i remember back with EvW misinformation was a thing. hopefully that same concept could be part of HOI 4s espionage ayatem since germany didn't have a damn clue where anything out of eyeshot was for most of the war what with all the people and organizations feeding false information. if the AI could react to it realistically, it could defintely make things difficult for the spying country- especially if the spying is to find out if anyones in a batch of provinces behind the lines.

 

[flossy]

Espionage, shenanigans, false information and deception was important for war victory!

 

[Klausewitz]

@flossy:
Even more hilarious because that picture was staged, after the beam had been pre-sawed.

 

[flossy]

Hah even better!

 

[potski]

Of course espionage will be in the game. It is a crucial part in warfare and Hearts of Iron 3 had it in aswell.

It is embedded in the diplomacy screen as you can see in the screenshot below. Keep in mind that the menu most likely isnt final and some options may werent even in that built at the time or simply were deactivated since they were not finished. I would guess that military espionage and tech espionage was disabled or something like that since there is room for 2 more options without the need for scrolling.

There is no Intelligence in the way there was in HOI3. No spies etc. because no leadership value to divide between tech research, diplomats and spies. And no Intelligence UI.

A couple of the options that could be done from Intelligence in HOI3 can be done from Diplomacy in HOI4, agreed. But this is very much more limited, like Boost Party Popularity. And, although it doesn't show in the UI, I would imagine this costs Political Points, not spies.

There is space on the Diplomacy UI in the screenshot, but that could be because the country in question - Iran - is not a puppet/colony of Italy. I would expect some options to release/create puppets. And they may have given themselves some leeway for future expansion packs.

I don't believe that Intelligence options were removed from the menu and deactivated. The game was almost ready for Alpha to be approved when the media event in the UK happened. I don't believe they could have submitted the game in a state where one of the major interfaces was that unfinished. And with no screenshots/videos giving any hint of HOI3-like Intelligence, I believe it has been cut.

The only suggestion of "espionage" was the enemy discovering your battle plans. But I wonder now if that was wishful thinking on our part, or if confirmed by the devs, that this may have been dropped later. It is now about a year since they first announced the battle plans.

Maybe Intelligence will appear in a future expansion, but not in vanilla.

 

[GhengisKhan]

the reviewers said that some things had been deactivated in the version they were playing because they weren't ready. I assume espionage was one of those.

 

[Beagá]

It should be more about intelligence, technically speaking. Creating civil wars is a bit silly IMO.

If you are spending to make trouble why UK isn´t doing anything BTW?

 

[podcat]

The only suggestion of "espionage" was the enemy discovering your battle plans. But I wonder now if that was wishful thinking on our part, or if confirmed by the devs, that this may have been dropped later. It is now about a year since they first announced the battle plans.

This was something that was part of design very early on, but since then we have done a huge change of how espionage worked so it doesnt fit in very well anymore, and its currently cut. Its not likely to be in at release. It may be added in expansions or something if we figure out a good way of doing it.

Just figured I'd clarify (I have said it a few times), because since it was mentioned early on it keeps floating around.

 

[potski]

Thanks for confirming that.

But to be honest, it is a bit disappointing. That means there is no downside to long preparation of plans.

 

[Beagá]

This was something that was part of design very early on, but since then we have done a huge change of how espionage worked so it doesnt fit in very well anymore, and its currently cut. Its not likely to be in at release. It may be added in expansions or something if we figure out a good way of doing it.

Just figured I'd clarify (I have said it a few times), because since it was mentioned early on it keeps floating around.

Nice what you plan on doing now? I kinda liked HOI 3 system overall, but covert ops was a bit useless and technology stealing is... a complicated issue, specially now you guys streamlined research.

At least make intelligence important to know fleet locations and army strength.

 

[safe-keeper]

We don't know what espionage there will be in the game. Decoy units would be kinda cool, as would cracking enemy codes to see their units and whatnot. And supporting partisans and political movements, of course.

Part of this could be abstracted, too. For example, you could make it so that a high "espionage score" against someone gave your troops a bonus to their defensive skills against their units, or a higher chance to intercept their aircraft or find their submarines, that sort of thing. "Mein Führer, our submarine skippers are complaining that the enemy always seems to know where they are headed".

 

[BobbyDylan]

Espionage in HOI-3 was kinda pointless. Why devote the leadership to stealing tech, or seeing what they build when you could be researching more tanks?

 

[Shady Ed]

Of course espionage will be in the game. It is an crucial part in warfare and Hearts of Iron 3 had it in aswell.

It is embedded in the diplomacy screen as you can see in the screenshot below. Keep in mind that the menu most likely isnt final and some options may werent even in that built at the time or simply were deactivated since they were not finished. I would guess that military espionage and tech espionage was disabled or something like that since there is room for 2 more options without the need for scrolling.

Send Volunteers? Is that like the US Volunteer pilots in China/UK? Does anyone know if this is the case?