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.
Hello there!
Espiocracy always have had stormy relation with intelligence operatives. Does a grand strategy game need such individuals at all? How should they intersect with nations and large organizations? Where is the balance between irrelevant storytelling vessels and overwhelming hero units?
Their design & implementation varied wildly over time, from detailed Football-Manager-like top operatives (DD#9) all the way to abstract resource-like pools of people (DD#32). Many iterations later, we arrive at the obvious staple of strategy games...
On-Map Units
The game gives you sections: on-map units of 8+ intelligence officers working mostly on the same task and in the same place.
Recognizing that the cliché trope of lone rockstar spy does not fit the game, Espiocracy finds inspiration in real-world teams such as GRU's Unit 29155, Mossad's Kidon, CIA's Special Activities Division, countless crews in intelligence outposts, units of special operations forces, and even police sections (since many players in Espiocracy partially control local police).
At the same time, sections retain individual personality both in identification - usually through most-skilled operative - and action.
Individual officers have different tradecraft (general 0-100 skill), roles, and can be responsible for logically solitary tasks, such as a recruitment pitch at a meeting (note, however, that the entire recruitment operation is executed by the whole section: analysis, observation, counterobservation, way out in case of an ambush, and any other step taken into account by operational simulation).
Geography
Sections are based in intelligence structures - usually the HQ or a station - from which they autonomously execute background espionage activities, such as developing low-level agents, and from which they can move to execute player's orders. In an interesting Cold War twist, as units on the map, sections usually do not traverse the world province by province and instead can just fly from one nation to another. (Naturally, there are exceptions, for instance infiltration through a green border or... insertion by a submarine.)
Traditional role of distance here is taken over by a granular intelligence environment. To fly in without falling immediately into counterintelligence observation (which would preclude doing anything of substance), a section primarily uses regional covers.
A cover is developed over time by a station working with the region (where region usually equals a continent). "With" instead of "in" is used here deliberately because geographically the game implements the intelligence/political concept of "centers of gravity" - deep connections between countries that transcend distance. France, for instance, is the center of gravity for many African countries...
...and therefore you can establish a station in Paris to work on the African direction. Returning to flights and covers, your operatives may develop African covers in Paris and have - in the faithful logic of espionage - good reasons to fly from Paris to an African country without raising much suspicion.
That is, if local counterintelligence landscape permits it.
Countries differ in terms of counterintelligence capabilities, which in turn influences what a section needs to travel. Easier landscape may require no cover at all, while more severe situations may require more than one cover, bribes, certain level nation-specific local intelligence, or even agents on the ground paving the way.
The landscape is affected both by external factors - it's easier to avoid surveillance in war-torn Europe or among late-game crowds in the air - and internal decisions - from Cold War Kenya famously having just a few MI5 officers, all the way to creating police-state like modern North Korea which is inaccessible to almost all intelligence agencies in the world.
Activities
All major espionage tasks are implemented by a section. Usually, its tradecraft directly contributes to the outcome:
In many cases abroad, activities (especially: operations) become duels between attacking and defending (counterintelligence) sections. Involved teams and officers are directly affected by any gunfight, murder, arrest, expulsion, spy swap, and so on. True to the resilience of intelligence agencies, the damage is usually temporary - any officer can be replaced and tradecraft often can be regained over time. Moreover, officers themselves undergo a standard cycle of life: move between sections, leave the intelligence community, retire, or... become a turncoat.
Moles in intelligence agencies are recruited directly inside sections. Such a spy gives direct insight into the section's orders and intelligence. This is especially useful when a mole is in a section tasked with counterintelligence against player's operations - like in the case of Kim Philby working in the Soviet department of MI5.
Behind The Scenes
► Meta-dynamics are in the works. Hiring, firing, purges, scouting, borrowing, various special types (not only special forces but also for instance a K-9 section) - all of these undergo iterations to elicit as interesting gameplay as possible.
► Comparison to units suggests a few standard questions. Can you stack sections? Partially yes, multiple sections can usually crew the same structure (with caveats such as bilateral quota on embassy staff), but also partially no, because some activities (such as an intelligence operation) are limited to a single section. Can you wipe out a section? Yes, a well-prepared ambush is enough. You can also nuke them out of this world. How many sections a player has? Roughly 1-30. How much micromanagement is there? While the design of this game does not operate on such subjective terms (micro is often just a synonym for grind; in that case, I can safely say that the game avoids grindy gameplay), sections are intended to act as an expansion of player's agency, a set of tools that before/after usage is semi-autonomous.
► Speaking of embassy staff, diplomatic covers underwent quite a few iterations in the game, and will probably evolve a little bit more. In the context of this dev diary, currently regional covers are usually non-official (= not diplomatic, arrested officers may be prosecuted) unless they are used in a country with established intelligence station and official diplomatic relations (which is not obvious in game's timeline, for instance East German player won't have diplomatic relations in many places around the world).
Final Remarks
The next dev diary will be posted on May 3rd!
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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"Cover, dear boy, next to godliness" - John le Carré