I use it primarily to break up federations and defensive pacts. It's easier to conquer the galaxy if everyone is on their own~
What are you using Espionage for?
- Thread starter Porkdork
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I mean, hell, in Crusader Kings I'm the target of Murder schemes all the time. It sucks, but then my heir takes over and it's all fine.
Or, I could max out the relationship with my Spymaster and then the schemes get discovered, and fail.
In Stellaris terms, my Spy Network has high Intel.
Killing a leader, or planning to, isn't the end of the world in CK, and it's not the end of the world in Stellaris--there's always a new Leader ready to go.
I would personally make it two separate Operations:
Op 1: Manipulate Election/Line of Succession
This is your "Russia interfering with US elections" school of spycraft.
- Select an Asset from a previous Acquire Asset Operation
- Install your Asset into the enemy empire's Leader pool: bribery, coercion, torture, hacking their voting machines, whatever you gotta do to grease the wheels and get your guy on the ballot
- Kill current Leader
- as when any Leader dies, this triggers an election, or some form of succession system
- New Leader--if they are one of your Assets--then promotes an Operation-specific Agenda/Mandate that favours your own empire: go to war with your enemies, offer your empire beneficial trade deals, etc
- If you killed the Leader without having an Asset in place, it's just like when they die of old age.
To use Crusader Kings as an example again, this would be a simple "Fabricate Claim" Scheme.
Why the heck not.
- 2
- 1
it was interesting to screw with other countries by political scandals. but the base game is too tame, thankfully it has huge modding potential.
Here's something ive knocked up last night (text still highly WIP - havent even proofed it yet, and need to work out the scope-text to pull the admiral's name and rank):
Start phase
.png "Screenshot (4955).png")
.png "Screenshot (4956).png")
You can pull dynamic lists of fleets (here the condition is only military fleets with an admiral)
Phase 2 and 3
.png "Screenshot (4957).png")
.png "Screenshot (4958).png")
Admiral dead (still need to setup text)
.png "Screenshot (4959).png")
And its seriously flexible too, Ive written up different types of operations text depending on if you are non-gestalt organic/non-gestalt synth/MI/HIVE and attacking a normal/MI/HIVE ship. To show all of that would take a dozen screenshots, but heres how it looks in the compiler.
- The text just for phase 1
All the text adds up to like 3-4 A4 pages
You can also conduct false-flag operations (start an operation with country A, targeting any country B that both you and they have comms with. For example I could send agents to spark a war or trigger a terror act in country B and blame it on country A. And a ton of other things. The biggest bottleneck is how long it takes to load up and test this usually.
You can pull dynamic lists of fleets (above, the condition is only military fleets with an admiral), Megastructures, pop factions, other countries they know, and a couple other things, you can see me texting all the list-scopes below (none means no list - like most vanilla espionage ops) you can even target their spy network on you (I think, not screwed with _spynetwork one too much yet):
.png "Screenshot (4944).png")
My plan for now is to make a batch of assassination missions
Assassinate Assigned Admirals
Assassinate Assigned Generals
Assassinate Ruler (non-gestalt)
Assassinate Galactic Emperor (special ruler mission)
Assassinate Lead Scientists (the 3 you research with)
Assassinate Governor (might need to think on this as there isnt an easy list system for it - maybe just target a random governor, or create list of their top 5 ranked governors).
Assassinate Envoy (false flag operation)
But could do other interesting things after, like crippling titans or sabotaging AI/Dangerous Tech/Colossi research programs
Here's something ive knocked up last night (text still highly WIP - havent even proofed it yet, and need to work out the scope-text to pull the admiral's name and rank):
Start phase
You can pull dynamic lists of fleets (here the condition is only military fleets with an admiral)
Phase 2 and 3
Admiral dead (still need to setup text)
And its seriously flexible too, Ive written up different types of operations text depending on if you are non-gestalt organic/non-gestalt synth/MI/HIVE and attacking a normal/MI/HIVE ship. To show all of that would take a dozen screenshots, but heres how it looks in the compiler.
You can also conduct false-flag operations (start an operation with country A, targeting any country B that both you and they have comms with. For example I could send agents to spark a war or trigger a terror act in country B and blame it on country A. And a ton of other things. The biggest bottleneck is how long it takes to load up and test this usually.
You can pull dynamic lists of fleets (above, the condition is only military fleets with an admiral), Megastructures, pop factions, other countries they know, and a couple other things, you can see me texting all the list-scopes below (none means no list - like most vanilla espionage ops) you can even target their spy network on you (I think, not screwed with _spynetwork one too much yet):
My plan for now is to make a batch of assassination missions
Assassinate Assigned Admirals
Assassinate Assigned Generals
Assassinate Ruler (non-gestalt)
Assassinate Galactic Emperor (special ruler mission)
Assassinate Lead Scientists (the 3 you research with)
Assassinate Governor (might need to think on this as there isnt an easy list system for it - maybe just target a random governor, or create list of their top 5 ranked governors).
Assassinate Envoy (false flag operation)
But could do other interesting things after, like crippling titans or sabotaging AI/Dangerous Tech/Colossi research programs
Last edited:
- 10
- 4
- 1
- 1
We should have known espionage would be underpowered it is the spiritualist/psi focus. I rarely use it. I could extort a favor or two but 1 favor even with an asset is a joke. For 90% of AIs I can get 10 favors for my massive pile of rare resources that mean nothing in 3.1. extort favors is only useful on hostile AIs and most of the time the envoy would be better spent buttering up the AI so they'll sell me favors cheaply. I rammed through permanent galactic custodianship alone against the entire galaxy just buying favors for useless rare materials. It cost me a lot of influence but I was making 17 a month
- 4
Remember that espionnage is only part of the DLC, and not even the main theme. The entire "becoming the Crisis"/"becoming the Custodian or Imperium" is the meat of the content.
When we create a new system like Espionage, it's not enough to snap your fingers and for it to appear. Most of the time is spent actually building out the system and getting it to work, then creating the content for it, which in this case is an entirely new type of content (Operations)
You are 100% entitled to think that there could be more operations, there most certainly could be. But implying that you paid 20 Euros and only got 9 operations...kind of seems disingenuous. You paid for the full content of the DLC, not small sections of it.
Nope.
- 10
- 9
This is really neat, happy to see the effort in supporting modders creating their own operations is paying off
- 9
IMHO it's rather well implemented but it's hurt by a series of design choices:
a) The ops themselves are a bit underwhelming. Also the counter-espionage system is a bit of an afterthought. Why can't I target a rival to raise my encryption against their ops, or to find out what are their ops and their infiltration level on my territory?
b) Envoys are still an extremely rare resource. Networks should be able to perform basic tasks without an envoy.
c) Parallel ops should be a thing.
a) The ops themselves are a bit underwhelming. Also the counter-espionage system is a bit of an afterthought. Why can't I target a rival to raise my encryption against their ops, or to find out what are their ops and their infiltration level on my territory?
b) Envoys are still an extremely rare resource. Networks should be able to perform basic tasks without an envoy.
c) Parallel ops should be a thing.
- 5
Too many people (thousands. No, come again, i think actually half a dozen or so) said during development that they would rage-quit Stellaris and never play it anymore (imagine that!) If operations had that much utility. Imagine, having one of your leaders killed, or the headachenof rebuilding something destroyed by a spy! Oh the pain. So development was real smart about that and only included bland operations, you know, nothing able to hassle us much if the AI tried it on you. Good gamesmanship.
Code:
custom_tooltip = {
is_running_espionage_operation = no
fail_text = operation_one_at_a_time
}OR what I am considering doing is modding to allow 1 from each category to run concurrently (sabotage, the pink skull, fox missions and intel missions - i've forgotten the category names already).
I've tried making new primary categories too, beyond the initial 4, but it looks like it needs a UI mod as the menu exploded when i tried it, might look at that again down the line, but too much effort for now.
Last edited:
- 3
You are right, i forgot the whole "become the crisis" part of the DLC therefore my "20€ for 9 operations" was unfair. I might be in a minority but for me the Espionage system is far more interesting than the crisis part. I simply prefer not be at war all the time so its finaly something we can do during peace, beside economy.
- 2
Wait, is no one using tech stealing to get the +10% to research speed for the "backdoor" option?
The way most players value science in the game, I'd figure everyone would be spamming Steal Tech on rivals with assets that have a bonus to that operation in order to keep the backdoor modifier in place constantly even if there isn't a good tech to actually steal.
The way most players value science in the game, I'd figure everyone would be spamming Steal Tech on rivals with assets that have a bonus to that operation in order to keep the backdoor modifier in place constantly even if there isn't a good tech to actually steal.
- 2
- 1
Just wondering, if the main concern is that having impactful operations would cause players to be spammed with them and ruin their game experience, why not just lock them behind civics or ascension perks? That way, people who want to play dedicated spy empires have a way to do so, and everyone else only has to deal with one or two AI empires capable of dangerous espionage. A dozen empires assassinating your leaders is annoying, but one is interesting gameplay.
I, personally, would like more civic-specific operations; Criminal Heritage operations that as a side effect create crime on the targets worlds, Cutthroat Politics enabling leader assassination, Genocidals having access to more dangerous operations, etc.
I, personally, would like more civic-specific operations; Criminal Heritage operations that as a side effect create crime on the targets worlds, Cutthroat Politics enabling leader assassination, Genocidals having access to more dangerous operations, etc.
- 2
- 1
- 1
Yeah. I didn't have much hope for it when i heard they'd be good at it.
I'm sure in a patch or two there'll be "Nanite Infiltrators" that'll let materialists be better at it anyway.
- 6
Thread is full of people doing it wrong and then proclaiming the feature useless.
Steal Tech and Extort Favors are both good operations, and Steal Tech especially should be running very often once you've gotten enough Assets - in other words Acquire Asset is also very useful. Crisis Beacon seems very good as well if it works properly, though I haven't tested it yet.
The rest of the offensive operations are all bad but there's still enough good stuff in the system to make espionage worthwhile.
Steal Tech and Extort Favors are both good operations, and Steal Tech especially should be running very often once you've gotten enough Assets - in other words Acquire Asset is also very useful. Crisis Beacon seems very good as well if it works properly, though I haven't tested it yet.
The rest of the offensive operations are all bad but there's still enough good stuff in the system to make espionage worthwhile.
- 2
- 1
- 1
.... The problem is that if the player build strong starbase so could the AI - turning the entire military system toothless despite having powerful effects.
- 2
It does work. Mechanically it grabs a fleet from the crisis and picks a random planet in [target] and says 1 go there* 2 kill anything along the way.
Its less useful when the crisis spawns on top of you though. For those situations, it would be good if I could drop a beacon on my own worlds by decision (ideally to lead it out of my empire as quickly as I can, sacrificing some for the many).
Would be nice to have a spy mission to assasinate the Khan. Can be a hellish Difficulty, but just to have a minimum chance to curb the Marauders, would be nice.
Also maybe some equally difficult missions to aquire some tech from Fallen Empires. Would be High Risk, High Return. If it fails, you could face the wrath of the Fallen Empire.
Also maybe some equally difficult missions to aquire some tech from Fallen Empires. Would be High Risk, High Return. If it fails, you could face the wrath of the Fallen Empire.
- 2
- 2
- 1