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.
Biological and chemical weapons (BCW) are sometimes called poor man's atom bomb. According to a comparative analysis, BCW can inflict similar casualties as a nuclear bomb at 1/800 cost per square kilometer. This crude calculus pushed unorthodox nations - Canada, Rhodesia, Iraq - to develop their own programs and devise insane plans, such as Chile poisoning the water supply of Buenos Aires in case of an Argentinian invasion.
BCW integrate surprisingly many walks of geopolitical life - military, diplomacy, treaties, and political opinions. Usually, they are handled also more or less covertly and near intelligence agencies. Espiocracy utilizes the unusual player persona, an intelligence community, to allow direct engagement with BCW in the game world:
Their development will be one of the viable strategies for some countries and situations. Their existence, a forgotten threat that was taken seriously during the Cold War. Their cruelty, known but not condemned until treaties of the 70s and 90s arrived. Their proliferation, always problematic for both state and non-state actors up to the modern times.
Postwar Stockpiles and Progress
WW2 has seen the production of BCW in enormous quantities. The game, starting in 1946, will feature these stockpiles as standard world entities on the map - they can be found, moved, stolen, used, or destroyed.
Most of these are already protected by the military and, following the history, soon to be destroyed (by dumping them in the sea). However, their proliferation can become an issue right at the start of the game, with some players even starting the game with active counterintelligence operations. Numerous armed organizations can try to solicit BCW and use them in devastating attacks, with the prime example of Nakam's operation to poison a camp for German prisoners of war in April 1946, which can be intercepted by American intelligence community operating in the occupied zone. (Starting historical positions can be randomized in the initial configuration, allowing the player to avoid the benefit of modern hindsight. Here, gradual randomization can change positions and size of stockpiles, the timing of Nakam operation, target, extent, or even various chances of dropping it and/or replacing it with a different operation.)
In a slight stretch of history, player's intelligence agency is responsible for the further eventual development of new BCW. As suggested by the screenshot, BCW reuse spy gear mechanics (in the meantime spy gear evolved into a more general inventory-like system):
- Modeled weapons include mustard gas, tabun, sarin, novichok, ricin, botulinum, anthrax
- Availability depends on developed capabilities (skill-like parameters and specialized staff of player's intelligence community)
- Development program requires budget, staff, and time - to research, test, create strategic materials such as blueprints, and establish production lines; after the initial phase, stockpile can be produced at much lower costs
- Engagement with BCW universally constitutes a secret (breach of policies/ethics/etc by the player that has to be protected, actively solicited by other players/journalists/actors, causing backlash if revealed), more severe late in the game when counterproliferation treaties are signed
- Blueprints and stockpiles can be used not only on the ground (next section) but also as a currency, following the historical case of British services trading VX chemical weapon for US thermonuclear blueprints
Use of Biological and Chemical Weapons
BCW slightly expand player agency in intelligence operations. Minimal quantities of stockpiled agents can be used during assassinations, with the classic example of an almost perfect crime utilizing ricin-tipped umbrella. However, the cost of development is still substantial and these operations on their own would hardly justify it as a viable strategic choice.
The main potential use of BCW lies in military operations - especially in defensive plans. BCW are one more building block of the stalemate in the Cold War, prompting the other side to always take into account possible biological and chemical retaliation. Even before 1946, the UK already developed plans to "use sprayed mustard gas on the beaches" in case of an invasion The following decades have seen similar plans, even among the superpowers, with the primary example of the Soviet Union developing robust chemical and biological programs as an important part of deterrence. Actual use of BCW in the game world follows a no-nonsense approach similar to nuclear weapons, where all living entities - operatives, actors, and population - in the targeted areas are directly affected.
Cold War madness: warhead carrying 356 bomblets, each with 500g of sarin. Median lethal dose for a human being is close to 1g.
BCW can also make it to the hands of terrorists. As the staple of the late-game challenges, terrorism will be described in an extensive dev diary in the future - here, it's worth mentioning that from the diplomatic POV, significant terrorist attack utilizing BCW can push the world to rapid counterproliferation actions.
Speaking of which, game world starts with poorly enforced Geneva Protocol from 1925 - prohibition of chemical and biological warfare. The UN and politicians over decades will tend towards proposing a treaty that prohibits not only warfare but also the production of BCW (IRL 1970s), and then further extension to establishing a new special actor for proper enforcement, possibly extended also to destruction of extensive stockpiles (IRL 2000s). Players can try to evade these prohibitions by more extensive counterintelligence protection, infiltrating the actor (as did Russia a few years ago), limiting the actual use of BCW, and other tools of espionage.
Final Remarks
The next few dev diaries will revisit some of the previously described (already year old!) features near the core gameplay. We'll start with Intelligence Agencies 2.0 - to be posted on November 11th.
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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"Forms of chemical and allied warfare are more humane than existing weapons. For example, certain types of 'psychochemicals' would make it possible to paralyze temporarily entire population centers without damage to homes and other structures" - U.S. Department of Defense in the 1950s