Espionage Changes

[Gearsnughunter]

The current espionage system lends itself to being very unfun and very unfair. Espionage ideas are essentially never taken in single player and only taken in multiplayer in order to see enemy movement and just screw with opponents. It can be painful to be on the receiving end of espionage ideas and the only way to counteract it is to get espionage ideas yourself and pray to RNGesus. So here are my proposed change to espionage as a system and as an idea group.

System Changes

• Give every espionage action a new slider. On the lowest end, detection is 0 but the damage/effect is much lower and then as you move the slider up all of those values increase. This could also apply to things like claim fabrication with undetectable claims taking more time. This way you can chose for yourself whether you want the safety or the increased effect with the risk that entails.
• Create a new espionage action that uses a diplomat to detect enemy agents in your country. This would significantly increase detection chance for enemies and make it impossible for an enemy action to be undetectable.
• Allow most espionage actions to unlock with diplomatic technology as opposed to needing the idea group.

Idea Changes

• Have an idea that increases the range of all espionage actions so that someone with this idea group can deal more damage with these actions. The level at which the action is undetectable also raises so that you can deal more damage with 0% detection chance.
• The Spy Defense idea now improvises passive as well as the active detection mentioned in the system changes. Someone with espionage ideas should also be able to use a diplomat to actively detect other countries with espionage ideas similar to if neither of them had the idea.
• Keep infiltrate administration as idea specific and also add a siphon trade power/tax/income option in another idea.

With all these changes you feel better about taking Espionage ideas as well as feeling like you can actually fight against them.

 

[Voldurak78]

I always thought that spying should be improved, add another agent type (colonists, diplomats, merchants, monks) the spy who can as you said see the diplomacy of other factions and ,in addition to the allready existing actions, can intervene in provinces by sabotage or to remove war fog. We can also imagine that a spy can assassinate a ruler or a member of his family if a family tree is added to the game. I think that the following spying actions in provinces must be added:
-Sabotage : A negative taxes and manpower modifier
-Support rebels : A positive unrest modifier (in additon to the diplomatic action)
-Army support : Less sieges time
-Core-creation fight : Less speed of core creation
-Conversion fight : Less speed of core creation
We can also imagine that the spy type agent is for "terrain" mission and that you have a general spying power (like the offensive spying modifier or defensive one) wich will influence what you see of the diplomacy of the other factions and determine if your informations are 100% true depending on the power of it.

 

[MWSampson]

Allow spies to take control of allied rebels. It might not seem like much, but those 3 10-stacks would certainly improve being 2 15-stacks and I hate how you can't actually do that.

 

[Alpacayak]

It's probably a stupid idea, but may I? How about adding the possibility using spies to reduce unrest for a group of domestic rebels? As in infiltrate the group and try to foil their plans, assassinate their leader or what gives. Essentially the inverse of support rebels.
Also, maybe specific actions/events for different government types? eg. I'd love to keep my current republican leader without taking a RT hit by, say, a little bit of intimidation and bribery, maybe a stab hit( ) in the other candidates. Ofc, there needs to be a tradeoff, like events where someone finds out about your treachery and you have to dish out some additional money to keep their mouth shut and if the information leaks to the general public you take a big RR + stab hit(maybe instant rebel stacks asking you to step away from the... throne? Idk, I'm not well versed in republican history so this might not be very historical)

 

[SilasW]

I think the big problem with espionage is that it's been crippled to stop it being OP. Espionage has to be locked behind an idea group and limited in scope otherwise you'll see it doing loads with no risk attached to it.

That's the big problem, as something that you can do without any real risk espionage has to be kept weak.

So I say add some risk, open up all espionage actions from the beginning (or maybe via diplo tech), make them stronger and more varied. But attach an AE hit every time you get caught. That way instead if espionage simply being a fire and forget weapon of "I have spare cash, let's cause problems for my enemy" you have to make a risk v reward choice of if it's worth supporting rebels when getting caught might bump your AE up and limit your actions elsewhere.

 

[Ilightmaster]

I've played recently with espionnage in a multiplayer game. I assure you that right now in 1.13 it's working just fine BUT :
-once a player took we all had to take it because it can be pretty powerful combine with 1.13 coalitions mecanics. ( still fun )
-i would clearly love those kinds of changes because it's limited. I would like to see those revamp espacially now that we have gouvernment rank and development

 

[Gearsnughunter]

I've played recently with espionnage in a multiplayer game. I assure you that right now in 1.13 it's working just fine BUT :
-once a player took we all had to take it because it can be pretty powerful combine with 1.13 coalitions mecanics. ( still fun )
-i would clearly love those kinds of changes because it's limited. I would like to see those revamp espacially now that we have gouvernment rank and development

I know that espionage is powerful but I'm trying to change it to be a bit more fair and interactive. Right now someone gets espionage and they can more or less sabotage rep, and sow discontent to their hearts content while giving the other country serious problems. This way in order to really hurt a country you would run a much higher risk of detection and thus a higher chance of an ae hit. Defending countries would also be able to make a conscious choice to defend themselves from covert actions instead of praying on just dice rolls. It also gives the espionage country more things to do with it.