Espionage questions

[21oliver]

I haven't done much but dabble in the usual things since TFH and i have some questions... In FTM you used to be able to see what spies you captured, is that no longer the case in TFH? Mouseover doesn't seem to show it. Anyway of knowing how successful any of your espionage is against other nations? or do we have to tag switch? and even then thinks like military/industrial espionage etc... how/where does that show up? :blink:

 

[Pro_Consul]

You get a running count of how many spies you have taken out domestically in the current calendar month, but that's all. There is no way to know how many of your enemy's domestic spies you have taken out with your operations in his country; you can only guess based on his current domestic spy count as to how well your efforts are going. As for pure espionage, you have to judge the success of that by how much information you are seeing about the state of the country in question. If you are not doing well at all, you won't see much; if you are doing very well indeed you will such things as the current contents of his production queue and such. I personally don't use those pure spy missions any more (by which I mean information gathering only), so I cannot give much more detail than that. Hopefully someone else can chime in there, because frankly I am a bit curious about that myself.

In short, though, for most spy missions you are meant to judge their success over time by seeing the effects, not by any metrics the game will show you. E.g. supporting your party will slowly raise the organization of your party in that other nation, but you will only have a vague reading on that by viewing the intel screen for the nation in question. And that reading may fluctuate, since presumably your spies are not able to give you completely accurate data at all times. So yes, if you want to see completely accurate data, you would need to tag switch. And even then, there are you things you won't be able to see. I mean, you cannot see how well other countries are doing at gathering political intel on you, after all, so tag switching will still leave with those kinds of handicaps when it comes to measuring success.

 

[misterbean]

The only way to see how successsful you are at capturing spies is by looking at the log.

Military Espionage will show you the approximate location of enemy units on the main map. I'm not sure if it's more efficient than radar, but it does work.
I have never used Industrial or Political Espionage, so I can't help you there.
Scientific Espionage, or however it's called, steals enemy blueprints. Those will always be ahead of your own tech, but you have no control over what they uncover. In one game, as Germany, I uncovered the carrier tech in 1936. In another, I don't remember what nation I was playing, I uncovered 1938 mil small arms. It's a bit of a lottery, but IF you get something useful, it's great fun.

The rest? Let's see. Supporting party works the same as ever. So does lowering unity and increasing threat.

One of the most interesting spy missions is "covert action". You slowly gain "covert" points over time. The rate by which this happens depends on the priority you have assigned to the mission. The maximum is 50 points. These can be used to increase you movement speed, lower the enemy's movement or to help locate enemy ground units. It is also used to mount a coup, but you need a strong enough party to do it. Each of these costs between 10 and 30 covert points. You can have covert points in several nations, and they only work for that specific nation.

If there's anything else, just ask.

 

[21oliver]

Thx guys, btw im sick as a puppy and posted in the middle of the night half asleep, i totally forgot about the intel you do see in the spy section... Ive never thought to use covert pts for anything other then coups to be honest. Thx for the replies and info!

 

[misterbean]

Thx guys, btw im sick as a puppy and posted in the middle of the night half asleep, i totally forgot about the intel you do see in the spy section... Ive never thought to use covert pts for anything other then coups to be honest. Thx for the replies and info!

You could see it as a simulation of what the Germans did to the Dutch border patrols in 1940, or the US getting to Remagen before the Germans could blow the bridge. Just to name 2 real world examples.

 

[21oliver]

The Germans also sent in Officers to buy maps and take tours of the Netherlands, the Japanese also did the same on the Hawaiian isles. They picked up the "Invade our nation for dummies guide"!

 

[misterbean]

Exactly. Suddenly, there is an influx of enemy citizens taking a peaceful camping trip just across the border into neutral Luxemburg in the fall of 1939. All those things could be simulated with Covert Actions.

 

[21oliver]

Amazing it could be that simple lol, I mean the Japanese took tourist flights above the Pacific Isles...I remember seeing stuff about German Officers touring the Netherlands with their guide books checking out the bridges and what not...

 

[misterbean]

Speaking of espionage: have you ever heard of this one: a German plane crashes in Belgium, somewhere around Maasmechelen, during the Sitzkrieg. On board is an officer with the detailed plans to an early version of Fall Gelb. Belgian army intelligence or whatever was in charge of those things back then didn't buy it. They were convinced that the Germans were trying to trick the Allies with a false plan.

 

[21oliver]

Yeah i have seen that before, well the Germans i believe had a history of disinformation dating back that made the west skeptical. Sort of like the boy who cried wolf story.

 

[george697]

People Ive played with haven't really used espionage that much. I find it to be immensely useful. Playing as Germany I managed to stage a coup in both the US and USSR. Needless to say it was the easiest campaign I ever played.

 

[21oliver]

Its fun to dabble in different areas to mix things up.

 

[gunstickuncle]

Playing as Germany I managed to stage a coup in both the US and USSR.

I have been told that action leaders cannot be couped. The USSR is a faction leader. This is new to me....so else managed to stage a coup in SOV?

 

[21oliver]

Ive never heard of the USSR being couped...

 

[misterbean]

All I know is that in HOI2, Hitler and Stalin shared a trait that made them impervious. As a result, it has never dawned on me to try it in HOI 3.

 

[21oliver]

Ive always been told you couldnt coup faction leaders...

 

[george697]

I mean it happened so Im not sure? It was back when TFH first came out. That's interesting though. Maybe a bug in my specific game?

 

[Kovax]

Using a combination of "Support our Party" and "Lower National Unity", I've rendered countries helpless to mobilize until they're actually under attack. By having your party rival theirs in popularity, they get a penalty to National Unity for "fractured government", and then your subsequent efforts to reduce Unity directly have that as a bonus. Once you've reduced their domestic spies a bit, you can set 2 "pips" on "Counterespionage" and 1 "pip" on either "Support our Party" or "Lower National Unity", which is enough to slowly erode their government over time while keeping their own spies from fixing the problem.

In one game, I had FRA down to about 23% NU at the start of hostilities, and had SU down around 55-58% at the start of Barbarossa in the same game. That restricted what laws they could implement before actually being at war, and also meant that I didn't have to trek halfway across Siberia to get the last VPs for Bitter Peace.

Supporting your government in a country that's potentially going to become hostile, and using Influence and Relations (through Trade) to keep them out of a rival faction until their next election, means that they should start to drift in your political direction. Either the rival factions have to spend Influence to keep them from joining you, or else you end up with a lot of allies. A few countries with valuable resources can be turned friendly by the election of officials sympathetic to your cause, and even if they don't join you, you can trade with them for what you can't get elsewhere (a neutral NET is more valuable to GER than having them in the Axis).

Best part is, once you make the initial heavy expenditure (5-10 Leadership points for a month) at the start of '36 to dump 10 spies at once in a couple of countries, and drive out their existing spies before they really get firmly established, it's often fairly "cheap" to maintain that superiority. Playing GER, I had 10 spies making an internal mess of FRA, UK, SU, and US, plus 3-7 in a bunch of smaller countries, and was only pumping about 1.2 Leadership into maintaining ALL of them, with enough spies to spare to place occasional agents in about a dozen others. Compare that to the hefty price of direct Influence (2 Leadership per country), and it's a bargain.

 

[21oliver]

Ive played many a game with the majority of my leadership as Germany going into Espionage and reaped alot from it. Kovax is on the money!