What's happening / TLDR: Developer diaries introduce details of Espiocracy - Cold War strategy game in which you play as an intelligence agency. You can catch up with the most important dev diary (The Vision) and find out more on Steam page.
New iteration of this set of mechanics was published under: DD#34 Operations 2.0
Clandestine operations, from the Bay of Pigs invasion (codename Zapata) to the Tajbeg Palace assault (codename Storm-333), can single-handedly change history of the world. Translated to games, they are OP and require nerfing... or do they?
Espiocracy will attempt to preserve gravitas of intelligence operations. On the one hand, operations are fleshed out into 34 types, numerous tactical approaches, and many possible adjustments. On the other hand, the design consciously addresses two issues present in similar systems - lack of interaction between players and the overwhelming role of randomness.
Conflict
Operations, here, are modeled almost like battles. It is always a conflict between attacking and defending side, usually with players on both ends, which is reflected by the user interface:
In this scenario, the player attacks as Israeli Mossad. They want to sabotage Egyptian military forces, which are protected by General Intelligence Directorate (GIS). To achieve the task, the player can engage top operatives, choose tactical approaches, spend resources, employ contacts, or even invite allied intelligence agencies. These forces are met with actor’s security measures and GIS' activities - some of them might be hidden due to low tactical intelligence.
Initially, the defense is limited to passive preparation. However, at any point, the attacked player can become aware of the operation and deploy additional measures. This discovery mechanism depends on the dance of tactical intelligence levels and the nature of actual operation.
For high-stakes operations, players usually become aware of the operation before it is executed in full. Such a discovery does not imply perfect information - for instance, defending player may know attacking forces and operation type, but remain in the dark about the targeted actor. Players adjust their approaches in cycles, potentially evolving into back and forth duel, and ending up with scenarios such as forcing the opposite player to back off or spiraling into too costly conflict.
Ultimately, outcomes hinge on interactions between players.
Control
Intelligence operations known from strategy games usually have binary outcomes - either success or failure. Espiocracy iterates on that by introducing five different outcomes for every operation, from very negative to very positive, which in practice means that assassination mission can conclude with injury instead of murder. This complexity is reduced to a value from 0 to 10 (higher = better), which determines the probability distribution of 2-3 outcomes out of 5 possible. At first, it might sound intimidating:
In practice, it quickly becomes intuitive:
In addition to many shades of outcomes, there are multiple points of failure - covered by the percentage risk parameter. A common example of a risk point is border crossing. The associated danger depends on the policy towards specific nationalities and the efficiency of border control. Player can lower it by infiltrating border control, developing document forgery capabilities, using illegal operatives, or even replacing it with another risk point such as crossing the green border.
Failure at a risk point is not (always) synonymous with aborted operations. Consequences are decided by the attacked player. They can do anything within the local law, from simply aborting the operation to preparing an ambush. Again, the game takes a step back from the concept of perfect information and introduces some limited uncertainty even about the failure.
Examples
Let's explore three types of operations.
Propaganda operation increases or decreases support for selected views in the targeted population. It requires high tactical intelligence about the country (to speak the local cultural language) and can highly benefit from well-developed contacts with media. Type-specific tactical approaches include, among others, the use of forgeries. The targeted country defends itself by protecting media, detecting forgeries, or even enforcing censorship. Among risks, strong attribution of the operation - by operative's mistake or ingenious investigative reporter - can hand counterpropaganda gun to the defending side. Prospective outcomes range from the completely ignored campaign (very negative), through mildly affected support (moderate), up to a success larger than targeted (very positive).
Assassination is a typical high-risk/high-gain operation. Person of interest has to be targeted long in advance. On par with gathered intelligence, the choice of an assassin is critical. There are many possible options: domestic commando unit, trained top operative, direct action squad, external recruitment, or even remote killing. Likewise, tactics include anything from a white gun attack to the use of poison. This kind of operation is met with multiple defensive layers, such as surveillance, strong law enforcement organizations, VIP protection, package screening, or... actor's paranoia. The list of risks includes smuggling the gun, approaching the actor, gun malfunction, exfiltration afterward. The operation itself is costly in terms of resources and required time. The achieved result ranges from no harm done (very negative) to a perfect murder (very positive). Furthermore, this kind of operation can deeply impact operatives on a personal level, who risk their physical and psychological health.
Installing an operative does not immediately change the world but opens up new avenues. Its outcome depends primarily on the match between a top operative and the target - terrorist organization and research laboratory require different spies. Tactical approaches range from starting as a new inexperienced member to risky impostor-expert. Defending side can respond with, for instance, counterintelligence protection of the organization or stringent immigration laws. The risk is an aggregate of multiple possible slip-ups, with the frequency determined by the clash of offensive and defensive measures. Outcomes include outright rejection (negative) and shallow membership (moderate). The result of this operation brings a multitude of benefits, from a precise source of tactical intelligence, through the ability to use the undercover operative in other operations (for instance, in assassination of organization's close contact), or even influencing actions of the organization. Needless to say, an extremely risky but also extremely worthwhile variant of this operation can be executed against other intelligence agencies, with the potential to raise in ranks over years even to the position of top operative, who is used by the oblivious opposite player...
Final Remarks
Although the design is fairly mature, some features will evolve during the playtesting period - such as the mechanism of operation discovery, economy of operations, precise distribution of probabilities, and so on. Also, some parts of the system were not (sufficiently) described and will be explored in further dev diaries.
The next dev diary (thirteenth!) will arrive exactly for Christmas Eve. That's a good occasion to prepare something unusual. I will leave you with three letters: AAR.
If you're not already wishlisting Espiocracy, consider doing it:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670650/Espiocracy/
There is also a small community around Espiocracy:
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"There are several people in this world whom I could kill with my own hands with a feeling of pleasure and without that action in any way spoiling my appetite, but I think that it is the type of bright idea which in the end produces a good deal of trouble and does little good" - Stewart Menzies, wartime chief of MI6