Reminder that "Subersive Activities Cost" has been broken for over 2 1/2 years.

[Dsingis]

Before La Resistance, "Subversive Acitivies Cost" affected wargoal justification and the time/cost for staging a coup in another country. Some of you may remember, back when Trotzky (plus NKVD) had -100% subersive activities cost reduction and could insta-stage coups in other countries. But not only Trotzky has this, many countries have a political advisor "Backroom Backstabber" that also has this.

Ever since La Resistance boosting ideology and staging coups has been moved to operatives, leaving "Subversive Activities Cost" as only a modifier to wargoal justification. Paradox missed the chance to make this modifier somehow, anyhow, in any way whatsoever affect anything about the spy agency, spy operations etc.
And it has been like that for over 2 1/2 years.


I thought, that maybe with No Step Back, when they reworked the Soviet Union and Trotzky, they would suddenly remember "Oh right this modifier we forgot about, that was Trotzky's whole deal, let's fix this!" but no. They only slapped it onto Trotzky again, without checking what it actually does.

Let's see Trotzky's trait to make this more clear:

Triumphant Revolutionary

+15% justify war goals, −50% subversive activites upkeep, 15% drift defense

As you can see, Trotzky's whole design is *supposed* to be centered around espionage, operatives, subversive activities in other countries, like it was pre La Resistance. His whole "Permanent Revolution" ideology was centered around inciting revolutions in other countries, after all, so it makes sense.

But what does his trait actually do? Leaving the drift defense aside, all this trait does is a -35% reduction in wargoal justification time. Yes, he's a better "Socialism in one State" guy than Stalin, being able to quickly justify against other countries.

I'd like to repeat here: "Subersive Activities Cost" does NOT affect ANYTHING about spies, espionage operations, the spy agency, nothing. You can test that yourself if you don't believe me.
Set up an agency, recruit operatives, hire the "Backroom Backstabber" and see if his "subversice activities cost" reduction affects anything spy-related. Spoiler: It won't.

As you can see in the picture, neither duration nor preperation time, or anything else is affected by this. Spy operations neither. All the costs and durations and efficiencies are the same, with or without the modifier.

I have mentioned this multiple times, once after La Resistance was released as a bug report and once when No Step Back was released as a suggestion about Trotzky's leader trait. I am mentioning this again now.

Paradox, it has been 2 1/2 years since you broke "Subversive Activities Cost". Can you please come around to fixing it now? Make it affect the duration, or preperation time of espionage operations. Make it a boost to effectiveness for boosting ideology, or something, anything spy related.

 

[Corpse Fool]

Lets just shelve this beside air escort efficiency and the plane stat advisors.

 

[LordWahu]

I don't think the tooltip appears properly for the Operation times

With a high subversive cost reduction, operations that usually take a full year without end up feeling significantly quicker. I may just be misremembering the times between playthroughs (And I only ever get the modifier from spirits so I haven't properly tested it), but it feels like it does something

 

[Dsingis]

I don't think the tooltip appears properly for the Operation times

With a high subversive cost reduction, operations that usually take a full year without end up feeling significantly quicker. I may just be misremembering the times between playthroughs (And I only ever get the modifier from spirits so I haven't properly tested it), but it feels like it does something

It really doesn't. What you probably felt is the impact of counter intelligence. The only thing that affects operation times is counter intelligence(as in making them longer) and that is different from country to country.

The duration in the screenshot in my original post is 90 days, with 115% subversive activities cost.
Without any subversive activities cost it's also exactly 90 days. Same for the preperation time.

Now here is a screenshot where the target country has all 5 counter intelligence upgrades. As you can see, it affects the length as a percentage modifier.
The 115% subversive activities cost reduction (as you can see in the wargoal screenshot) neither negates this, nor affects this in any way. If it had any effect, it would negate the 115% counter intelligence and the duration would be 90 days again. But it doesn't.

 

[LordWahu]

Hmm...if there is a modifier, than it might not be impossible to find the file and mod it

Might have to try that later

 

[pheonicia]

I think the intent was to effect cost of the operation and reduce how many civs/guns you had to spend, but idk. Honestly even if it did do that I wouldn't consider it a powerful modifier.

 

[DukofDeth]

I found the most-relevent modifiers in the defines for you. I'm not sure if they do control the time and cost of operations but usually these defines have two string names. one deals in set gains and the other is usually a percentage of the base being added/subtracted ergo there should be a "DEFAULT_OPERATION_COST" varible and a "DEFAULT_OPERATION_TIME" but neither show up in the defines which means it was hard-coded.

-- operation cost & time are increased by default this ratios for each
-- instance of operation that were already executed against same target.
-- can be overridden using time_multiplier & cost_multiplier in operation.
DEFAULT_OPERATION_COST_MULTIPLIER = 0.15,
DEFAULT_OPERATION_TIME_MULTIPLIER = 0.0,

 

[Dsingis]

I think the intent was to effect cost of the operation and reduce how many civs/guns you had to spend, but idk. Honestly even if it did do that I wouldn't consider it a powerful modifier.

I found the most-relevent modifiers in the defines for you. I'm not sure if they do control the time and cost of operations but usually these defines have two string names. one deals in set gains and the other is usually a percentage of the base being added/subtracted ergo there should be a "DEFAULT_OPERATION_COST" varible and a "DEFAULT_OPERATION_TIME" but neither show up in the defines which means it was hard-coded.

-- operation cost & time are increased by default this ratios for each
-- instance of operation that were already executed against same target.
-- can be overridden using time_multiplier & cost_multiplier in operation.
DEFAULT_OPERATION_COST_MULTIPLIER = 0.15,
DEFAULT_OPERATION_TIME_MULTIPLIER = 0.0,

I don't know about the intent, or if these modifiers are actually used or tied to subversive activities cost (SAC). If it was the intent, and if they are bound to SAC, then there is a bug somewhere else.

I'll give a simple example, look at this operation.

I am Britain, spying on France, wanting to infiltrate their army. As you can see, 75 days duration, need 4 civ factories for 15 days. So far so normal.

Nor I hire their "Backroom Backstabber" (the advisor that gives -25% SAC) and nothing changes. (yes I let some time pass) It still takes 75 days, 4 civ factories over 15 days. You would expect, if it was a cost or time reduction of 25%, that it would only need 3 civ facroties, right? Or maybe 4 over 11 days?

But it changes nothing, it has no effect on espionage what so ever.

Maybe it's supposed to. Like you said, the modifiers are there, but maybe simply forgot to add these modifiers to SAC? I'm not a modder I don't know how this works, so I can just guess.

 

[FocusedHope]

Have you checked the effect on costs of operations that require equipment (Infantry equipment, Support equipment, etc.)? One thing I've found with operatives who reduce operation costs (e.g. for having the nationality of the target country) is, the cost reduction isn't shown until the mission starts. So if I assign Ramon Mercador (Mexican and Spanish, in addition to Soviet, nationality) to an operation in Mexico that requires 100 Infantry Equipment, it'll (a) show the cost as 100 Infantry equipment; (b) once I have Ramon Mercador assigned, if I'm in the preparation phase, it'll only reserve 90 Infantry Equipment, but show "90/100 equipment collected"; and (c) once preparation is done, it'll start the operation with only those 90 equipment consumed. Maybe the Subversive Activities Cost modifier is similar?

 

[Dsingis]

Have you checked the effect on costs of operations that require equipment (Infantry equipment, Support equipment, etc.)? One thing I've found with operatives who reduce operation costs (e.g. for having the nationality of the target country) is, the cost reduction isn't shown until the mission starts. So if I assign Ramon Mercador (Mexican and Spanish, in addition to Soviet, nationality) to an operation in Mexico that requires 100 Infantry Equipment, it'll (a) show the cost as 100 Infantry equipment; (b) once I have Ramon Mercador assigned, if I'm in the preparation phase, it'll only reserve 90 Infantry Equipment, but show "90/100 equipment collected"; and (c) once preparation is done, it'll start the operation with only those 90 equipment consumed. Maybe the Subversive Activities Cost modifier is similar?

That is also not it.

I have made another experiment. In this example I have -115% subversive activities cost reduction. (Trotzky + NKVD+ 10% advisor Karl Radek +5% advisor Ivar Smigla)

I prepare a collaboration government in Turkey. As you can see I have not exactly 200 support equipment, but only 192. This is while it still prepares, as you see by the civ factories.

Now, here is the same operation after the civ factories are done, still missing 8 sup equipment., can't commence the operation.

Now I add exactly 8 sup equipment to my stockpile through a console command, and the operation is prepared. I launch the operation and behold: They used all of the 200 sup equipment. As you can see in the stockpile below. (the negative is probably because of attrition of some divisons or something)
It also didn't get refunded after the operation was finished, in case you wonder.

As you can see, Subversive Activities cost reduction has absolutely no effect on espionage operations what so ever. Not in preperation time, not in duration, not in cost of equipment, none what so ever.

Anything I showed here can easily be reproduced by anyone.

 

[DukofDeth]

I can concur - I noted the same things last night.

 

[Simon_9732495]

Is there a bug report?

 

[Dsingis]

Is there a bug report?

I have filed the first bug report back when La Resistance was released, and another when they reworked the Soviet Union. You are free to file another bug report, if you think it helps.