I don't get espionage

[sillyrobot]

Add thought... If I were building espionage (or an espionage mod) I think my overall philosophy would be "seizing opportunities," not "dirty tricks." I think I would focus on three areas:

- Intelligence: Build the game mechanics so that players can use better information to make better decisions, then use espionage to give them that information.

For example, making it possible to give someone a better offer than their current trade deals so that you can steal commercial/research/defensive pacts from other empires. Or making movement somewhat easier so that you can capitalize on learning the hidden locations of their shipyards, trade ports and anchorages.

Or, right now a balanced fleet generally beats all others. Tweak ships so that there really is no such thing as a balanced fleet, so that by learning the enemy's ship schematics I can crush them with a fleet half their size.

- Attacker benefits. Strategically, getting a benefit is the same as causing equivalent amount of harm without the trolling feel.

Let me siphon trade, research and production so that my espionage empire grows and thrives by stealing the work of others. Instead of sabotaging things, give me an entire set of operations that let me target specific planets and star bases for infiltration, boosting my income by X% of the target's production. Co-Opt Labs might give me a percentage of a planet's research, while Cut A Deal might give me a percentage of all trade passing through a starbase.

This could even add room for some more sophisticated defense gameplay. Players could get leaders that are better at counterintelligence, or some planetary decisions on the subject, so they can decide which parts of their empire make for the most tempting targets.

- Mistakes. Build the few negative operations around capitalizing on an opponent's mistakes, so that espionage attacks still connect with strategic decisions.

I'd keep some offensive-style operations, but I would design them around taking advantage of an opponent's mistakes or giving already-failing systems a nudge over the edge. The ideal operation would be largely meaningless in most contexts, but potentially critical when used exactly right.

For example, like we mentioned above, maybe an operation that lets you flip on an enemy's FTL inhibitor for 10 critical days. Or another that lets you shave 5 points off a planet's stability. These are meaningless on their own, but if I make the mistake of stacking all my ships in one system or letting a planet get too close to rebellion these operations could be devastating.

As the attacker it would give you a powerful tool, because everybody makes mistakes. The key is just being patient and observant enough to seize the opportunity when it arises (which is where good intelligence comes in). As the defender, I would still be able to see the strategic decisions I made which left me vulnerable to that attack.

Idk... I think that's where I would take it, personally. But again, this is all just speculation. If it was that easy to do I suspect someone would have already done this right in at least one 4X game somewhere.

I would be tempted to have players invest in pools for "raw espionage" that can be allocated/spent sort-of like poker bets / silent auctions to affect situations and have the game provide a post-hoc narrative that fits the circumstance and result.

Invading a colony? How much intelligence are you investing? How much is the defender investing? If you outspend him significantly, you cut-off armies in the field (forcing them into disengagement) or getting a few rounds of attacks without counter fire. If he outspends you, he can do the same or lay the groundwork for a long term guerilla engagement.

Attacking a station? If you outbid your opponent, one or more systems may fail to function because of covert ops against them. If your opponent outbids you, he knew you were coming and all systems are hot and get to fire extra-early.

The system prevents passivity on defenders and those that get slammed know why they got slammed.

The way to avoid pile-ons wiping someone out is to make stockpiles affect a single nation only (so you need a lot of different stockpiles) while at the same time making adding to a stockpile non-linear in cost so a big stockpile costs an awful lot more than one half its size. Or have a single stockpile but have individual bets become non-linear in cost.

 

[Tamwin5]

This, right here. Espionage never, ever works in 4X games for exactly this reason.

Personally, I wish they had emphasized positive effects more than negative ones.

An espionage system that let you boost your own economy, for example, or that helped you make deals with AI empires would have been far easier to build up than the usual bag of dirty tricks system that 4X games always reach for. I've seen a few board games that take that approach, where the espionage-oriented factions get powers like copying special powers from other factions or boosting their own income by a percentage of a targeted player's.

Something like that might work. I target an enemy empire for "Steal Technology" and boost my own research by a percentage of theirs. Or "Industrial Espionage" boosts my own alloy production as I use their trade secrets in my factories. Or "Bribe Leaders" could let me duplicate a civic or ethic bonus for a while. It would give you a way of stealing strength from another player without the infuriating cycle of "Sabotage-Rebuild," "Assassinate-Rehire," "Steal Tech-Ignore."

Although that said, I'm actually here for the intelligence part of espionage. I think the reason that struggles has more to do with the weakness of some of Stellaris' other mechanics.

Knowing the layout of an enemy's defenses should be a big deal, but the game's geography largely pre-defines where you have to fight anyway. It's not like finding their key anchorages or shipyards will let me reach those systems any faster, and knowing that there's a citadel at that chokepoint doesn't change the fact that I have to go through it. Knowing how they've built their ships could be useful, but a balanced fleet is almost always the right choice for any battle anyway. Knowing their diplomatic ties could be essential to geopolitics, but there's no way to interfere with other empires' diplomacy and little to bargain over even if there were.

People have complained elsewhere that Stellaris gives you lots of options but relatively few actual choices. I would argue that's what really undermines the intelligence aspect of espionage. When it comes to other empires, there are few choices beyond war and peace. So you can't use that new information no matter how much of it you get.

I mean, they did emphasize positive effects? The two most useful espionage operations are steal technology and extort favors, which both give you something without taking it away from the target.

I think the answer to "it can feel bad" is that you need to have some kind of active defense. Speifically one that isn't just "tech more" or "take this civic in particular". IMO espionage should also be linked to crime and stability, a society with lots of crime or poor stability is easier to infiltrate. Instead its related to sprawl and bureaucracy which seem weird. How are bureaucrats related to espionage?

Having envoys be spy masters was also probably not the most amazing idea ever, it limits you between espionage and diplomacy. These are two non-war activities and should not be in competition. I'd rather have us train spy teams and assign them to defense (system or sector) or offense (empire -> empire sector -> empire system). I'd like to have more non-military type units.

Having high sprawl empires be more vulnerable to espionage makes total sense. The larger an empire is, the easier it is to slip in agents or find people with loose lips. It's related to total sprawl, not the amount over capacity. Having high crime should also be something that can be exploited by espionage though.

Personally, I'm in favor of having envoys be spymasters. I don't think that you should be able to just spy on everyone, and it also means that genocidals or conquerors have something to spend diplomatic resources on. Having infiltration grow faster or making the Prepare Sleeper Cells operation easier would make it more convenient to just get some basic info on another empire though.

I don't think assigning people to defense really makes sense, since in practice it will just be a tax on whatever resource you need to spend for that. I could potentially see a policy trading off espionage offense for defense (and vice versa) though.

---

Here and here are old discussions where I talked about my hopes for espionage, but I'll summarize my relevant ideas below.

The general idea is to make it so that the defender of espionage makes the choices. So if an empire is trying to extort favors, you'd get a notification saying that someone is trying to do something related to your diplomacy. You'd then have a choice: ignore it, or take a penalty (reduced diplo weight? reduced opinion with all empires?) for a short time in exchange for making any espionage operations targeting your diplomacy MUCH harder. This both allows the defender to do something about operations (active defense) as well as giving some warning that something suspicious is going down.

There are a few problems with implementing a system like that. First, it's currently impossible for an espionage operation to fail, outside of events. Making it harder would just make it take longer, not actually stop it. Second, there are only a few operations. Sabotage Starbase is both the only sabotage AND the only military operation. Technology is only used for steal tech, crisis beacon, and the Imperium related operations. Economy only has arm privateers. For this to work, there would need to be at least 3 different operations per Intel Category, ideally one for each combination (except provocation).

 

[grommile]

Having envoys be spy masters was also probably not the most amazing idea ever,

The frequency with which "diplomatic corps" and "foreign intelligence service" are, if not the same thing, then inextricably intertwined, is sufficiently high that it's arguably more realistic than having them not be part of the espionage system.

Like, even when diplomats are completely innocent of espionage, it's the easiest misdeed to credibly accuse them of.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

This is not a good idea if espionage should have some impact. Especially if a specialization in espionage mean, that you aren't that strong in warfare (most likely you don't even want to). A agressive military player would most likely stack all envoys in counter espionage and become complete immune to espionage actions. That should never be the deal, because warfare already beat diplomacy (you can declare war even if your standing is exceptional).

So espionage should definitely be the counter part to warfare and that makes neccessary that you can't perfektly defend against it if you're a warfare player. I prefer a rock, paper scissors principal here. Warfare -> Diplo -> Espionage -> Warfare. if you do multiple things of that you can be partial good in multiple things, but not perfekt. That would be kinda fair and encuorage different playstyles for different players. Everyone they way he likes.

I don’t think this would be the case with my proposal. Bear in mind the average number of envoys without building for it is 2, so on average you’ll only increase encryption by that much if you decided to only stack your envoys for defence.

This comes with trade offs for these players - doing this means you don’t have any spare envoys for diplomacy, the GC, or to even find out where your opponent is on the map.

And as a defence, all it would do is increase operation difficulty, not make it impossible. Just riskier.

EDIT: @Tamwin5 ’s suggestion that defence could be policy based (or in fact an edict) could also work with this instead.

 

[Tamwin5]

I don’t think this would be the case with my proposal. Bear in mind the average number of envoys without building for it is 2, so on average you’ll only increase encryption by that much if you decided to only stack your envoys for defence.

This comes with trade offs for these players - doing this means you don’t have any spare envoys for diplomacy, the GC, or to even find out where your opponent is on the map.

And as a defence, all it would do is increase operation difficulty, not make it impossible. Just riskier.

EDIT: @Tamwin5 ’s suggestion that defence could be policy based (or in fact an edict) could also work with this instead.

The base number of envoys is 2. The only way to ever have less than that is to take the inward perfection civic. Through a tech and capital building, you get another 2 (techs are tier 2 and 3, so easily done by midgame). If you are gestalt, you get them straight from techs instead. Then, lategame you can get an Interstellar assembly for another 2 envoys. Diplomacy tradition also gives 2, but I suppose that counts as "building for it". Most empires who don't invest will have at least 4 envoys by the end of midgame.

The devs actually originally had the ability to assign an envoy to defense. In practice, it turned out to be more of an "envoy tax", in that you always left one on defense. So considering this was a features that was tried, tested, and then cut, I really don't see it being added back in again. Furthermore, envoys assigned to diplomacy or espionage are always actively doing things. They are interesting. An envoy just sitting around for a +1 difficulty bonus isn't. Increasing difficulty or encryption also doesn't make it riskier: it's currently impossible to fail operations, besides by event. All it does is make it slower to progress. Finally, it just doesn't really make sense that an envoy would help with counter-espionage. Who are you envoying to within your own government?

If an espionage policy were added, I'd lock it behind the Subterfuge tree. As for edicts, they already exist: Tracking Implants, Thought Enforcement, and Enhanced Surveillance. Tracking Implants is a rare tech (locked behind the Chemical Bliss tech, so you'll basically never see it), Thought Enforcement is only for Psionic Ascension (or if you get really lucky and research psionic theory and THEN get sea of consciousness to give you telepathy), and Enhanced Surveillance requires the Domination tradition. They are all absolutely horrible as edicts though, since they only give 1 encryption but also come with -10% happiness. I think they could be buffed to 3 or 4 encryption, and still be balanced. At the point you are paying an edict slot and 10 happiness, you should be able to shut down most espionage, and bring an espionage focused empire down to rough parity.

 

[klopkr]

I like how espionage works. It just feels mostly useless.

If they expanded their thinking with it like schemes in CK3 I think they could make espionage more of a 'government schemes' tab.

In certain situations or empires or civics maybe you'd use your espionage to commit market manipulation, proselytization, fraud, fabricating influence free claims, MEFO bill type schemes, propaganda campaigns, etc. Uncertain ploys that you can sink money and envois into for possible niche benefits.

 

[Franton]

Knowing the layout of an enemy's defenses should be a big deal, but the game's geography largely pre-defines where you have to fight anyway. It's not like finding their key anchorages or shipyards will let me reach those systems any faster, and knowing that there's a citadel at that chokepoint doesn't change the fact that I have to go through it.

Exactly. Static info is so uninteresting! It would be far more interesting to know where the enemy fleets are heading, rather than where they currently are. That is what I would like to be able to spy on. Even when the other empire eventually decides to change orders, knowing that it considered defending or attacking a specific position is valuable intel.

 

[Ch4rybde]

"Oh yet another game designer who doesn't understand that giving the AI a magic 'make the player eat s***' button isn't fun."

No need to be rude, you can just politily disagree you know, and I never claimed to be a game disigner. I am just a stellaris fan who shares what he thinks miss to the game, but I could be wrong of course.

And the nature of covert sabotage is that it is indistinguishable, for the victim, from a magic 'make the player eat s***' button.

I do not think, it would not be a "magic button", you have to carry on a diffcult operation, and since you cannot run more than one operation against the same target at the time, it should never happen more than one or two time per war(or your opponent past the 5 last decades to spam against you the same operation without fail). So I maintain it's could be fun to have one or two battles with altered outcome in war. I agree than more would be frustrating, but, if correctly balanced, the operation time and difficulty will make it quite rare, moreover lose a star base will never be as daming than lose a fleet.

 

[grommile]

No need to be rude, you can just politily disagree you know, and I never claimed to be a game disigner. I am just a stellaris fan who shares what he thinks miss to the game, but I could be wrong of course.

I was describing my reaction that I would display in response to the game doing what you were encouraging me to imagine.

If I was being rude to you it wouldn't have been in quotes

I do not think, it would not be a "magic button"

From the victim perspective, "magic button" is exactly what it looks like.

After all, I can't see the process, only the result.

 

[Mastikator]

Exactly. Static info is so uninteresting! It would be far more interesting to know where the enemy fleets are heading, rather than where they currently are. That is what I would like to be able to spy on. Even when the other empire eventually decides to change orders, knowing that it considered defending or attacking a specific position is valuable intel.

Not knowing ship orders while intel is really high is really weird. You acquire fleet position at 70, why not put fleet orders (and ETA) at 80 intel? And ship design at 90?

 

[Kolath]

Why not have "steal ship designs" as an operation instead of a passive intel level thing? Then you could see their designs as of X date when you last succeeded on that operation?