Espionage Megathread: The good, the bad and the review

[Designed Ace]

The longer i play with espionage, the more i come to the conclusion that it's handed as a side feature sadly. There isn't any operation with real impact or if there is a bit more impact, then there is a far to huge cooldown on it. Actually i think that sabotage starbase is one of the better operations because it does at least SOMETHING. Arm privateers is good in some way but you destroy most of you network at once...

So i'm not sure that we will ever get real impactfull espionage operations from paradox. Most likely they fear the outrage of the community. That will start that moment the first player rage quits the game because getting destroyed by espionage. But they don't see the other side. My disappointment about the toothlessness and sometimes even wasting of time for espionage operations bring me sometimes close to ragequit...

What has to happen to fix that:
-Espionage operations need to be much more deterministic and predictive in outcome in dependence of your codebreaking vs encryption
-The network loss needs much smaller or the recover rate has to be much higher (prefer first)
-The effects of the operations need to be much more drastic in result. Examples: Sabotage starbase need to downgrade the starbase back to base level or arm privateers has to spawn stronger pirates, that raid from system to system and don't wait for their demise. And especially: Smear campaign need a full list of all empires with communications to, not only three.

These sound interesting to me, but they seem unbalanced. As things stand I don't see much benefit to specializing in espionage, while empires that are already wealthy, technologically advanced, and powerful will be able to do more espionage and get more out of it. It's extra snowball, and as a result it has to have some sort of limit on how effective it is or else dominant empires just become more dominant slightly earlier.

For espionage to be more impactful I feel like it needs to be an avenue worth developing over some other options, and for that we'd need a whole new suite of risks and rewards. The system would need to be valuable enough to be worth pursuing but not so dominant that it requires all players to leverage it in all cases. Without those meta considerations I would be concerned that the game will end up more constrained rather than more flexible for players, and that sounds like a much heavier lift than tweaking the outcomes of existing operations so that they're more effective.

Though, with that said, I would love to see espionage do at least a bit more. As it currently stands I agree that it's a feature that it seems like every empire type could ignore without much impact, and that is not ideal. What kinds of tradeoffs might people like to see with a more robust espionage system?

 

[Raihslat]

The sad truth is: People like me are putting there hopes in the modding community rather than in paradox itself.

I agree 100% with all your points @A2ch0n , thats why I dont think there will be any major updates/min-maxing/evolution to this system. Its a shame, that people at Paradox are selling DLCs overprized with so little impact/depth actually to the game. They have the audacity in there DD like nothing has happend, everything is fine and go along with that joke of a system.

Think about it for second: Sure, people are complaing about pop growth, granted. But what will happen if Paradox fix all of that issues? Right, people are playing a game where the only thing that matters is fleet power an NOTHING else, again.

So i'm not sure that we will ever get real impactfull espionage operations from paradox. Most likely they fear the outrage of the community. That will start that moment the first player rage quits the game because getting destroyed by espionage. But they don't see the other side. My disappointment about the toothlessness and sometimes even wasting of time for espionage operations bring me sometimes close to ragequit...

This so called "problem" where people are always complaining about: This is nothing new to 4X games, since MOO2 or birth of federation we had the same arguments over and over again.

The solution is very simple imo: If you are playing against the AI only, use a formula or a slider (hi Paradox ), based on the difficulty level, that only a amount of X empires can/will attack you at the same time. Easy win....

And for those who cant make anything out of espionage: toggle on off option will fix your problems as well.

After this, we can finally start having a system which is worth the name Espionage on a galactic scale. Run the schemes to have a big impact in a stage of cold war. The groundwork is there. They have to min-max it, add new meaningful operations. There a plenty of ideas, just listen to your community Paradox.

Im so sick of this one sided game where only your beloved fleet will manage all the outcome you need: win the game.

 

[A2ch0n]

These sound interesting to me, but they seem unbalanced. As things stand I don't see much benefit to specializing in espionage, while empires that are already wealthy, technologically advanced, and powerful will be able to do more espionage and get more out of it. It's extra snowball, and as a result it has to have some sort of limit on how effective it is or else dominant empires just become more dominant slightly earlier.

What is balanced actually? The empire with the biggest fleet win. End of the cycle. There is no balance in this case and stellaris was never pefectly balanced and i don't expect this! But i expect different ways to play the game and succeed with them. And one of the most effective strategies should be espionage in my opinion. You have two empires that are allies and you don't like? Disrupt there relations and make them fight (yes a operation to start a war would be a dream!). Your enemy fleet is too strong? Sabotage them and destroy a good amount (Another missing op)!
There should be a lot of options to disrupt the play of your target entirely be it a player or AI. Espionage should is a kind of "control" gameplay where you force your enemy todo what you want or stop at least your target from snowballing.
so is this balanced? Maybe not! But what balance are you looking for? Balance in kind of warfare? Maybe we have that because nothing else exist. But what i expect from a balance: Warfare -> as it is. Diplomacy -> Make all empires your frinds and mediate between other empires, even remove every casus belli against you. Espionage-> Disrupt the play of your oponents and stop them from "doing their thing". It's the same with criminal syndicates. They do exactly that, but tuned down too.

To your point about specialization: In my opinion it doesn't matter how advanced you are. If you don't pick the espionage Civics, ascension perks and edicts you will not win against a spy focused empire that does this because you lack in speed, Codebreaking and Encryption. You have to sacreficed your advancement in other areas to get powerfull espionage. And that how it should be. You pay a price by specialize and gain certain powers. On the other hand you miss out other things. Thats why i love AP's so much. They force you to specialize and after that, there is no turning back. Actually all empires are the same and even a psi ascended empire can barely break a gestalt.

m so sick of this one sided game where only your beloved fleet will manage all the outcome you need: win the game.

Exactly this... For me there are two things that should absolutely equal in power to open warfare. And that is diplomacy and espionage. They eliminated the power of diplomacy with the start of Nemesis entirely. I even don't imropve relations anymore! There is no value in it because it's capped low, drop off quick and the worst, harm retations is far stronger actually without embassy, so you will never get one against those empires you need it. Worse, all empires try to rival you even the "friendliest" ones. My style of gameplay is actually completely ruined....And that is sad.

And for those who cant make anything out of espionage: toggle on off option will fix your problems as well.

They did this with xeno compatibility and now in the last beta DD with popgrowth. So yes, that would be a fine option if espionage in exchange get some real firepower.

 

[Raihslat]

For me there are two things that should absolutely equal in power to open warfare. And that is diplomacy and espionage. They eliminated the power of diplomacy with the start of Nemesis entirely. I even don't imropve relations anymore! There is no value in it because it's capped low, drop off quick and the worst, harm retations is far stronger actually without embassy, so you will never get one against those empires you need it. Worse, all empires try to rival you even the "friendliest" ones. My style of gameplay is actually completely ruined....And that is sad.

exactly this sir, I´m 100% with you.

 

[Raihslat]

Question

Are there any plans to add espionage operations that aren’t obviously hostile or even beneficial to the empire that the operation is being conducted on? For example, having decryption codes for a rival empire being mysteriously “found”?

Answer

We have plenty of ideas for additional Operations for future DLC, but I can't promise when that would be. Something I've wanted, as an example, would be to have an underground railroad kind of Operation that could increase the chance for you to rescue pops that are being purged, and move them to your empire.

Answered by

Daniel Moregård

Maybe this niche system will get more meaning in the future, maybe........

 

[SeraphAscending]

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?

I really do hope stuff like that is coming in the next internal politics focussed expansion.
So far the devs have agreed with people a lot that internal politics needs to be expanded on - which gives me hope it's the next one we'll see.

 

[Col.Caboom]

Hi, I want to start off by saying a big thanks for laying it all out.
Some of the actions I took make a lot of sense after reading your post, while before I just had gut feelings about it.
Warning wall of text!

After trying a variety of empire play styles I decided to try to use a pacifist trade focused empire which also has a Grasp the Void Dweller origin.
Game settings: Hyperlane Density set to full, the difficulty was scaling from Cadet early game, other than that maximum galaxy size, I think it's spiral with 4 arms but that doesn't matter much with the lane density and no advanced start empires but maximum marauders and elder empires.
So I decided because it was pacifist and being warlike was off the table then I should invest in having a ton of envoys and codebreaking/encryption.
As such I picked wherever I could ethics, ascension perks etc. for that purpose.
From Ascension perks I chose: Shared Destiny, Transcendance as well as Enigmatic Engineering (because I didn't wanna share some of my future psionic tech with the galaxy).

A2ch0n said:
Exactly this... For me there are two things that should absolutely equal in power to open warfare. And that is diplomacy and espionage. They eliminated the power of diplomacy with the start of Nemesis entirely.

All of the game above which I described happens in Nemesis 3.0.1 patch and I have all DLCs.
I am currently galactic emperor, before that I was the founding member of the strongest federation in the galaxy, defeated 2 warring factions of a War in Heaven that at their height had 40 planets and 10 or more vassals with more than 100 planets total by themselves - all of this while starting as an independent federation.
Lastly my current empire is fighting a berserk elder machine intelligence which in the ashes of the War in Heaven came into having some 100 or so planets.
Through espionage and especially Smear Campaigns I have achieved most of my aims. If you want to have someone attack that empire you can Smear Campaign them till someone does.
I agree with you that we are barred from doing the same to elder empires, I think their power should be increased to compensate but their diplomacy and espionage should be available to use to mess with.

A2ch0n said:
I even don't imropve relations anymore! There is no value in it because it's capped low, drop off quick and the worst, harm retations is far stronger actually without embassy, so you will never get one against those empires you need it. Worse, all empires try to rival you even the "friendliest" ones.

I wanted to also mention that Ethics play a huge role when it comes to getting intel as well as policies. As such pacifists seem to have an extrmely powerful hidden bonus (or at least I couldn't figure out where the bonus comes from). I suggest you play a Fanatic pacifist/Xenophile or Fanatic Xenophile/Pacifist empires and check it out for yourself. I am not kidding when I am saying that with a decent economy even as early as mid game you don't need a fleet. You can use your enemies and make them fight each other with endless espionage intreagues.
I also have to mention that I did have a defensive fleet of at least 300 ship power throughout all the War in Heaven as well as maxed starbase cap upgraded to citadel and this most likely stopped beligerent empires from invading me. Although during the War in Heaven it didn't stop them from taking the systems without starbases and more than a handful of times totally ripping my fleet to shreads with powerful elder fleets.