Espionage Megathread: The good, the bad and the review

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A2ch0n

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May 30, 2018
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So, first things first, we have a lot of threads about espionage and intel (with primary espionage focus topics), codebreaking/encrypten and so on since Nemesis release. I would suggest to collect everything in one place because it’s all about the same primary topic. And the Stellaris forum know a good way to do so: A Megathread.

Most of us would like to see some improvements or at least changes (in the one or other direction) for the espionage system, so maybe this could help the devs to read opinions and experiences as well as suggestions more easy.


To the topic:

The ones of you that read my posts in the past know, that i'm a huge fan of espionage mechanics and that is why i've used the time since release to make a lot of tests with the system as a whole and each operation in particular. I've testet all of them against ai and players. And my conclusion is despite of the mechanic for the base system a kind of mediocre... I know from the other espionage threads in this forum that i'm not alone with my opinion.

What i want to do first is a review about the things that are actualy existing in the game. A later part is about some improvements for operations.


Warning: Textwall Incoming!

Passive Espionage and Intel

I'll start with a look on the intel system as a transition to espionage. Since 3.0 intel is a part oft he base game and can be collected in multiple ways ranging from base intel coming from embassies, techs, psi-ascension, edicts, megastructures and galactic Custodian/Emperor . With all of them you know already a lot about other empires without doing anything else.

Another big part of intel does come from all kind agreements. And more important: Trust! I don’t want to go to deep into diplomacy but it’s sometimes quite hard to find a friendly ai since the hard nerf of envoys in case of relation improvement and the refusal of unfriendly ai‘s to accept embassys. Especially in the early game this is a pain in the ***. So getting intel by deals and trust is of course only possible with empires you have a good relation with.

The final option for collecting intel is the core topic: Espionage. It is a safe option to gain intel over time and since intel is this important for the game and how the galaxy look to you it‘s part of the free patch.

It has a lot of advantages but it stands out that it isn't neccessary to use Espionage for intel. In fact, it's completely optional if you don't want to use it!

Establishing a spy network is very usefull on the other hand. It passively generates intel and is especially good against more unfriendly empires like xenophobes or militarist.

In my opinion the passive intel part of espionage is quite good and don’t need much changes. And most likely it's the least controversal one too. Some of you think that espionage should only be used to collect intel and and hiding/faking your own. I don't blame anyone for that, but of course i disagree.


Now to the basic espionage mechanic. Establishing spy networks by using envoys was a good decision. It give envoys a lot of value and that boost in addition the civic „Diplomatic Corps“ and of course all degrees of xenophiles. The changed Ascension Perk „Shared Destiny“ now give two envoys in additon and for that, the AP is sometimes worth it. The limitation of spy networks is quite welcome, so the ability to focus on that still exists in a way.

After establishing a spy network you infiltration level and with it the intel starting to increase. At first quite fast, later on more slowly. But this is a fitting and welcome mechanic.

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It’s harder to get informations about the more secret parts of an empire, so more knowledge need time.

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The seperation of intel in cathegories (Government, Diplomacy, Military, Technology, Economy) and the different knowledge levels of them is another cool aspect of he mechanic. The more vital the information, the harder is it to get. This is another point i for myself really like.

A side not to this: It is not possible to establish a spy network in a fallen empire. That is a real shame. Even if the lore would be, that an espionage team would be immediately uncovered inside their borders, that could change with advanced Espionage technologys. Even awakened empires are still no legit targets.

So, this is it about the intel part of espionage and the passive aspect of the mechanic.



Active Espionage

The active part is much more…delicate i would say. The espionage system has undergone some changes during the development process. It removed spy power and counter espionage as well as bandwidth.

Those who remember, i was fighting claw and tooth to get bandwith back before the release. After playing with the system for some time, i don’t think it’s that is neccessary anymore, but not because of mental burden. I just don’t think it wouldn't actually make a difference.

Counter espionage and spy power are integrated in the two remaining stats, Encryption and Codebreaking. Both of them where passive stats and after testing, it really doesn’t make a difference if there are four stats or two, the result is still the same.

1618847409867.png


Codebreaking and encryption determine the difficulty of an operation. For each point difference, the complexity changes in a range from -40% to +40%. A bigger difference isn’t counted anymore even if the range from Codebreaking to Encryption is higher.

Thats ok in my opinion, it doesn’t really matter if you’ve reached one side of this limit. You can increase both values with techs, civics, edicts and Ascension Perks. The tech is located in physics.

Now to the espionage Operation mechanic. The basic system is a extension oft he archeology mechanic. And that is maybe the coolest part of it. Each operation has a difficulty that is modified by Codebreaking, Assets and Edicts.

1618847487026.png


In addition there are a lot of side events depending on your operation difficulty and infiltration level. This can be good and bad

You even get some additional options if you still have network capacity left. Sometimes you can save an asset or get additional advantages. Locating additional resources to the operation can help too if your spymaster ask for them.

This system is at least from my point of view incredible fun to use and i thank the dev team for going this way!

The next part are Assets.That is another brilliant addition to the system. Each Asset increase the maximum infiltration Level by five. But you never can get above 100.

1618847555554.png


It’s important to note, that even civics like „Shadow Council“ that give +10 max Infiltration Level don’t extend the maximum capacity over 100. That is the first point i really dislike. The base cap should be improvable if you sacrifice a civic slot for that!

Each Asset has two Cathegories they excel, what is a good idea, so you may try to collect assets until you have one, that fits both cathegories of your planned operation. The first cathegory always come from one oft he operation types (Manipulation, Sabotage, Subterfuge and Provocation). The second is one of the intel types (Government, Diplomacy, Military, Technology, Economy). It’s notible that i never could manage to get an Asset with a specilization in „Provocations“. Maybe they don’t exist (most likely) or are very rare.

1618847615715.png


There are two ways to get an asset. The first, the main way, is to use the operation „Aquire Asset“ (more on this later on) and the second is by events during operations.

Assigning an Asset to an operation can make it significant more easy because oft he skill bonus that comes with fitting operation qualitys!

1618847651001.png


Each fitting quality increases the skill bonus by +4. So if both are correct it’s +8.

The Asset system massively spi(c)es up your Espionage operations. And it’s really fun to collect them to get each possible combination. The randomness of the Asset you get is absolut fitting and part of the fun. You want to do something exceptional and don’t get caught? Prepare it!



Operations

There are nine basic operations in the game and three special ones, that depend on the situation. Each operation require a certain infiltration level and in addition have a Difficulty attached to it. The lower the difficulty, the better the chance for a success.

Each Operation have one of the four obove named cathegories and all of them except „Gather Information“ have a second (intel) cathegorie.

Each operation has a energy cost to start it, as well an upkeep during the mission. The idea behind that is clear and logical. But the costs aren’t balanced in any way!

Especially in the early game it’s very hard to do espionage because the start cost is exceptional high compared to your energy income. And the upkeep can ruin you too if you’re not carefull. This really needs to be adjusted. The main reason is, that espionage operations with the actual system loose value the further your game advances. At the time where espionage actions are cheep compared to your income, you most likely don’t need them anymore except for some rare exceptions.



So, let’s have a look at the operations one by one. I want to seperate them in three cathegories: Good, Decent and Bad, give an conclusion fromm y point of view and a Tier rank ranging from S to F.

The good ones:

Gather Information (Subterfuge):

1618847720309.png


This operation is depending on the goal of the operation quite good! Even if you have only a low intel on the target, this operation give you some insight. It advances you intel in one or more cathegories for a cetain time. The amount and time depends on your operation difficulty and asset. The Asset can even determine what kind of intel you get (depending on it’s intel cathegory). Very nice! This is the only operation that not require Nemesis.

Conclusion: A good operation that do exactly what i expected.

Rank: A

Aquire Asset (Subterfuge, Government):

1618847813352.png


This one is huge! It’s by far the coolest and most usefull operation in the stock. An Asset is always valuable and can prepare other operations as well increasing max Infiltration level. The only operation that is worth it’s energy credits.

Conclusion: Exactly how it should be!

Rank: S



Extort Favors (Manipulation, Government):

1618847881893.png


This one is really good too! Later on, favors can get wuite expensive and whats more important you can get them from empires that really don’t like you normally. With a fitting Asset and some advantage in Codebreaking you even get more than one favor!


Conclusion: A good operation, especially later on.

Rank: A



Steal Technology (Subterfuge, Technology):

1618847933985.png


This one is quite usefull. You get progress in a tech that you actually don’t own and depending on your Codebreaking and Asset it can be a good amount! Actually i didn’t manage to get a complete tech, but i think this is maybe possible. The biggest benefit: That tech show up permanently in your research area and can be researched anytime!

Conclusion: Good, but loosing value if you’re the most advanced empire (endgame).

Rank: A-



Prepare Sleeper Cells (Subterfuge, Government):
1618847982112.png


You’re envoys are limited and maybe you need to switch them to your federaten, the GC or another empire. Do this operation and your spy network doesn’t break down. Normaly you get 180 month before your network decays. If you sacrifice an asset, you can double that time. In addition it increases the skill level by +1. But only one sleeper cell can be established. The sleeper cell is not consumed during operations.

1618848059552.png


Conclusion: Absolutely fulfill it’s purpose. The skill bonus is quite nice too.

Rank: A+


Notably here: None of these operations up to here has any direct impact to the target empire but give you some advantages. The closest thing to harm your target is Extort Favor. All of these don’t need a change, they are good at the moment and fullfil their purpose.


The decent ones:

Smear Campaign (Manipulation, Government):

1618848145059.png


The one operation where i put all my trust in…and got heavy disapointed… Without a good advantage in Codebreaking and a fitting asset, the target of your smear campaign can’t be chosen. So it’s random. As soon you get that advantage you can choose. But only between the three targets with the best relations to that empire. And thats a real shame! Most of the time i wan’t to target a neighbour empire to spark a war. But as soon the relations aren’t the best it’s no target option anymore. So it’s hard to archieve anything. If you get the correct target, the relations can decrease by a good amout (~80). But the problem is, even if the operation is successfull, the target has still a choice! I’ve tried it against a player and the result was a screen to denounce the empire (relations -80) or keep quiet watch. In the last case, nothing happens…

Conclusion: Sometimes usefull, but far to easy to avoid and much to few targets selectable.

Rank: C


Spark Diplomatic Incident (Manipulation, Diplomacy):

1618848261134.png


This one is similar to the Smear Campaign. The difference is only in the target selection and a slightly smaller opinion loss if successfull. And it has the same problem like smear campaign, a player can choose to sacrifice 10 Influence to avoid the opinion loss. Always. The ai will most likely have a similar chance to loose opinion here (around 50%). And it doesn't seem to work against Gestalts.

1618848311913.png
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Conclusion: Good idea but far to easy to avoid…

Rank: C



Crisis Beacon (Provocation, Technology):
1618848360533.png


The idea behind this is good. It’s situational because it requires a running endgame crisis (the Khan can’t be hooked ;) ). It’s a expensive and hard operation that cost you a lot of energy and much of your spy network. That could be ok. If it would work. I activated three beacons in my last game against the unbidden. I selected different targets and even different factions (unbidden, abberant). And in all three cases, the crisis didn’t move despite the fact that i got a confirmation that it worked. I think thats a bug in the crisis and not of the operation. But not sure.

Conclusion: Good idea and quite powerfull, if it would work.

Rank: B (potentially)



Arm Privateers (Provocation, Economy):

1618848387598.png


First: Don’t know why this is a economy and not a military operation, but ok. This one could be a very good distraction if you want someone stab in the back or get the attention off from another thing. The problem: The operation don’t work! The last step is frozen. It says that the privateers are armed and ready, but they don’t appear and i don’t get an confirmation. I’ll upgrade this text as soon that bug is fixed.

Conclusion: Potentially good distraction (?)

Rank: B (potentially)



The operations in this cathegory are mediocre at best and need some upgrades to be usefull. Notably is that all these are operations that could potentially have some real impact against an empire and my fear is, that they are weakened by intent. Some are boring to use now because of the random (against ai) and worthless (against player) outcome, the others are actually bugged.



The bad one:

Sabotage Starbase (Sabotage, Military):
1618848456894.png


This one is…just bad. Yes you can select the starbase you want (from all of them, not only three)! But what is does is rediculous. I’ve tried it three times and at least for me the result was always one building. Even with an perfect asset. Maybe i had bad luck. But as long this doesn’t deactivate the entire starbase it’s never worth it’s money. On the other hand against a player this is annoying as hell. Everyone feared that something like that could happen and even me as espionage enthusiast was skeptical. If it would do something usefull, then it would be ok. I’m even willing to be target of that. At least it’s only a starbase and thats a mediocre defense in the late game at best.

Conclusion: This need a major overhaul. It’s not worth it’s credits and just annoying actually.

Rank: F



This operation could be a major way to interact with a target empire in preparation of a war. But it seems the more impact an operation could have, the heavier was the nerf before release. We will see if there are changes in the future.



Special operations:

There are two special operations availlable after establishing the galactic empire. The one is for spark a rebellion, the other for stop a empire to undermine the imperial authority. Both are situational and of course quite usefull. I don’t want to give them a rank or a conclusion because they do exactly what to expect.

1618848567153.png



Tip:

What some players have missed is the small menue at the right side of the espionage screen:

1618848637040.png


This one show you all your intel on other empires and you can see if there is a established spy network or not. A nice quality of life feature that anhances the intel galaxy map mode.



Question: Actually it seems that the espionage bonus on codebraking and encryption for the galactic emperor is missing. A bug or intended?



So, this was the review. Now to some small improvement ideas at the end:

Like i said, the base system is fine. Even my wish for parallel operations isn’t that present anymore. What i would like to see is an option to keep the final step of a ready to commence operation and store them up to maybe three. This would give the parallel effect without running the primary operation simultaniously and could be a kind of alpha strike for some operations. That is the only change to the base system i would make.


The rest is about the operations. Of course i have a lot lof ideas for more of them and i make a mod actually for that, but i want to focus on the existing ones.

-The operations in the „good“ cathegory don’t need any change from my point of view. They are fun to use and fit the flavor.

The Decent cathegory is a different task. The idea of these operations is really good, but most of them don’t have enough impact.
Especially the smear campaign and the diplomatic incident actions are far to weak. There should be always a opinion loss involved even if you try to mitigate this (it could halve the impact but should be modified by difficulty and asset).
The Crisis Beacon and the Arm Privateers operation are maybe good, but the actual bugs don’t let me test that completely.

And in the end there is Sabotage starbase. This one should be reworked in „Deactivate Starbase“ and shut it down similar to a destruction during a war with increased reactivation time. Normally it’s a 30 days cooldown, not enough for a good planned attack. I would set this to 300 days and we are fine! Of course not destructions of a building anymore.

Maybe a implementation of a espionage focused Ascension perk would be the right way. Gate some improved/additional operations behind this and espionage could become the system i really was looking for!


I hope you liked the review and some of my improvement ideas.

Thanks for reading!
 
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Specifically the bit about hostile AIs refusing embassies: this has not aligned with my own experiences so far (but I'm one player, so this is merely an anecdote). Only the empires that absolutely hated me the most because of polar opposite ethics (F.Materialist/Ega. vs. F.Spirtiualist/Auth.) or super xenophobes have refused me embassies. I even got embassy requests from a machine empire as a Fanatic Spiritualist because everyone was terrified of the fox purifiers.

Has anyone else been having the opposite experience though?

Overall, I like the passive espionage, intel, and first contact. Haven't bought Nemesis, and tbh the active espionage does seem bad, so thank you for the write-up.
 
Thanks for taking the time to post your observations!
At your service! Espionage is maybe the most interesting/important topic in stellaris for me. If i can do something to improve it and share some thoughts with all of you it's worth the time.
 
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I agree with your observations on the existing operations. None of them really allow you to cause real chaos among a rival empire either to tear it down from the inside or soften it up for a future war. I put a post under Suggestions with a dozen new operation recommendations such as assassinating leaders, inciting rebellions, and expelling branch offices. If I was much of a modder, I would be working on them myself right now.

I also think there needs to a more comprehensive window pane to view espionage details. A window like the Contacts screen to show where your networks are, current operations, assets, sleeper cell expiration time, and the codebreaking/encryption rankings for all the other empires. I hate having to open every empire to see if they are too challenging for me to bother with or a ripe target for some spy network chaos.

I think you idea of scaling operation costs as the empire grows is good so early game operations are more affordable but costs don't become inconsequential as you build your empire.
 
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my 2 cents on the whole ordeal:

the fact that envoys are the spies hurts everyone that inherently has less envoys for no reason but.... well, none acutally... (gestalts especially)

and 2, there need to be more ops special to certain ethics (hm, i dont know, what would be the most obvious example? oh yeah.... machine uprisings for machine empires....)

edit, oh, i forgot another thing.... operation costs are HORRIBLY overpriced for what they do

which gets especially bad when you realize... everything revolving around the spy system is decoupled from the actual gameplay... so why spend thousands of energy credits on... lofty "intel", that usually is useless anyways... instead of buying alloys and bomb rushing everyone around you that wastes energy credits on .... "intel"
 
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I agree with your observations on the existing operations. None of them really allow you to cause real chaos among a rival empire either to tear it down from the inside or soften it up for a future war. I put a post under Suggestions with a dozen new operation recommendations such as assassinating leaders, inciting rebellions, and expelling branch offices. If I was much of a modder, I would be working on them myself right now.

I also think there needs to a more comprehensive window pane to view espionage details. A window like the Contacts screen to show where your networks are, current operations, assets, sleeper cell expiration time, and the codebreaking/encryption rankings for all the other empires. I hate having to open every empire to see if they are too challenging for me to bother with or a ripe target for some spy network chaos.

I think you idea of scaling operation costs as the empire grows is good so early game operations are more affordable but costs don't become inconsequential as you build your empire.
I actually work on a espionage mod. there will be an new Ascension perk with some advantages and at least 10 new operations. But similar to this thread it'll take some time until it's ready.
 
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my 2 cents on the whole ordeal:

the fact that envoys are the spies hurts everyone that inherently has less envoys for no reason but.... well, none acutally... (gestalts especially)

and 2, there need to be more ops special to certain ethics (hm, i dont know, what would be the most obvious example? oh yeah.... machine uprisings for machine empires....)

edit, oh, i forgot another thing.... operation costs are HORRIBLY overpriced for what they do

Agreed on more special ops. Why can't a Megacorporation scheme to shut down the branch office of a rival Megacorporation? Or an operation to completely take over a rival Megacorporation branch office?

Or a special operation for Democratic Crusaders to support Egalitarian factions and pro-democracy movements in other empires to shift faction support and maybe even governing ethics? Spiritualists supporting religious movements? Materialists undermining public support and stability of theocracies?
 
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Specifically the bit about hostile AIs refusing embassies: this has not aligned with my own experiences so far (but I'm one player, so this is merely an anecdote). Only the empires that absolutely hated me the most because of polar opposite ethics (F.Materialist/Ega. vs. F.Spirtiualist/Auth.) or super xenophobes have refused me embassies. I even got embassy requests from a machine empire as a Fanatic Spiritualist because everyone was terrified of the fox purifiers.

Has anyone else been having the opposite experience though?

Overall, I like the passive espionage, intel, and first contact. Haven't bought Nemesis, and tbh the active espionage does seem bad, so thank you for the write-up.
I never established an embassy succesfully. They always get recalled a couple of months later by the AI, even if it is at an own federation member.
 
I never established an embassy succesfully. They always get recalled a couple of months later by the AI, even if it is at an own federation member.

I wonder why different players have such different experiences. I've only had an embassy recalled once or twice, and it was for logical reasons (relations collapsed). I wonder if something is up with the code...
 
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I wonder why different players have such different experiences. I've only had an embassy recalled once or twice, and it was for logical reasons (relations collapsed). I wonder if something is up with the code...

I have also not had issues with empires recalling embassies on me. In fact, more often than not, the AI empires asked to establish an embassy in my empire before I had a chance to ask them. Even empires that I was not on great terms with. However, I could have missed an embassy recall message. I normally only pay attention to alerts that require attention or something that could mean trouble in the near future (rival or war declarations).
 
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I was very very disappointed with the espionage system just like the OP, I enjoy this a lot, and consider intelligence and covert action essential tools.
So after initial angry reaction, I now try to think about how to improve a functional but screwed up system:

1.
You could tie operation costs to empire sprawl.
Bigger empire, more cost. It would (hopefully) scale in a sensible way, and make smaller empires able to compete with larger in the espionage department. Also, make espionage affordable in the early game.

2.
Some more operations that actually matter, like:
- blackmailing foreign government officials into inproving your standing, increasing your reputation by a lot
- hack traffic identification, giving ship access to empire with closed borders
- refugee covert railroad for empire at war, to get pops into your (xenophile) empire, fleeing from occupation

(etc etc... good thing about this unfinished system is that the sky is the limit for such ideas)

3.
As your power increase, the need for and impact of espionage decrease. Problems are best solved by a fleet of batteleships, no?
So gate the most powerful of operations by either tech, or galactic milestones like formations of galactic senate, crisis or even years passed.

And to make espionage end-game viable, you could go pretty wild in late operations, like:
-sabotage planet, irradiating the whole thing / blowing up habitats...
-brainwash population to instigate full-scale civil war
-establish new (friendly) queen to effectively split alien hivemind in two, in civil war
-infiltrate purifier empire with aggressive mutagen, making part of population genetiv deviants, targets for destruction
-plant beacon for leviathans. At enemy homeworld. Something shiny for Dragon, black hole opening for Horror, sun radiation for attracting Wraith/Stellar devourer etc...
-make alien empire addicted to your trade goods, making them your puppets
etc etc
 
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I liked the intel system a lot, it makes the galaxy much more mysterious.

I really liked not knowing everything about everyone, because I don't need to. In general I had passive intel from my allies, but had to keep a much more active intel(read espionage) on my enemies.

In my current game, in general I had a really good idea from my neighbors, a general idea from a bit farther, and knew almost nothing from the other side of the galaxy.

One thing I though that was rather scarce in my games were Envoys, but that is likely because I was playing as a mega corp in a Hegemony federation. So I had to devote a good number of envoys to keep the cohesion high enough. That said, I think envoys should be full leaders, they are important enough to warrant that, There is even a event that kept giving my leader the meticulous trait, which makes no sense if the have no traits.(unless they intend to give traits someday)
 
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They should ditch the starbase one, don't even bother buffing it. It's super weak because they are trying to avoid having a situation where it ends up being incredibly unfun to play against. IMO if you're thinking of starting something on the super weak sauce side of things because you're concerned people won't like playing against it. Then you might want to considering if there is any value in having it in the game because people are going to really hate it for either being useless or really, really obnoxious.

Still playing around with spy stuff. Current thoughts, I wish smear campaign would give us more of a clue to what it has achieved. Also it's seems pretty disappointed because I did back to back smears on a neighbor to try and get him to break his defensive pack, but despite all the successes, he still formed a federation with the empire that I was putting him on bad terms with. In hindsight, I would have been better off extorting him for favors, that way I could have racked up menace points and racked up a ton of stuff to use to ensure that I could be in breach of galactic law, while suffering zero consequences because I could have used the favors to maybe kill sanction bills.

Only other real critique, is that I wish asset was a tiny bit cheaper. Of the stuff, it's probably the best filler operation to prep for future stuff, but it's hard to keep it going before you have to let things build up in order to launch more operations.
 
So I am not alone in this, that "slightly inconvenience starbase" op sucks?
No, before i opened this megathread, i've read the other espionage threads carefully. Many of us think that this operation is by far the worst.


Only other real critique, is that I wish asset was a tiny bit cheaper.
All operations need to be cheaper, especially in the early game :). But the Aquire Asset operation is the only one i like to pay! It's really good and worth it's money.
 
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Extort Favors (Manipulation, Government):
You are right that this one is good, i had great fun using my great spy network to control the galactic senate, but i do think it could do with some improvement to favors themselves. They are perhaps a bit to weak individually, it takes a long time to build up enough of them to gain any significant pull, not to mention it makes them a paltry reward for the handful of events that give them since they often only give one. Maybe their effect could be doubled, so that five favors are the maximum instead.

They are also to easy to just buy, perhaps there should be some other way to gain favors from friendly empires but it it makes it to simple to force resolutions through.


And in the end there is Sabotage starbase. This one should be reworked in „Deactivate Starbase“ and shut it down similar to a destruction during a war with increased reactivation time. Normally it’s a 30 days cooldown, not enough for a good planned attack. I would set this to 300 days and we are fine! Of course not destructions of a building anymore.
This sounds like a pretty much perfect solution, it would give the operation a clear use in the scenario of leaving an enemy open to a coordinated attack, while not being frustrating otherwise since you could more or less ignore it otherwise.


Question: Actually it seems that the espionage bonus on codebraking and encryption for the galactic emperor is missing. A bug or intended?
There is an imperial resolution which increases codebreaking and encryption, it is possible it just got moved there.
 
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There is an imperial resolution which increases codebreaking and encryption, it is possible it just got moved there.
Thats the point. There was this line in the update for the patchnotes

* Imperial Security Directorate updated such that it now offers the Emperor +2 to Decryption and +4 to Encryption only.
And the imperial security directorate was definitely a resolution to pass in the GC. But in my game it didn't appear (the complete Imperial Security Directorate res is missing).
 
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