Dev Diary #61 - Geopolitical Features
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.
Espiocracy is a map game: the map is the primary interface, present almost always on your screen, and in development receives a lot of care. It's also unusual in comparison to other map games (primarily grand strategy games) because it is not limited by a specific engine, and instead it can be as bespoke as we want it to be.
In DD#35 we talked about the visual approach: prerendered 2.5D relief map which hosts countries defined by flexible point-by-point borders. Today we'll explore further data layers on the map that influence gameplay.
[h2]The Grid[/h2]
Instead of dividing the world into provinces, Espiocracy uses two levels of grid-based maps. Higher-precision grid (5100x2650, 1 point equals roughly 5.8km^2) defines borders and positions of discrete objects such as cities, officers, or battles. Lower-precision grid (510x265, 1 cell equals 58km^2) is used for areas and prevalence, which is a technical trade off between good enough precision and computation/memory/data collection. While at first glance this distinction may seem unnecessary, we are primarily worried about areas. Cell grid has area of 135k while point grid has area of 13.5 million - 100x more!
Naturally, the first and foremost use of (lower-precision) cells is terrain.
Terrain cells define local kind of land or sea, from standard (eg. forests or mountains) to more unusual kinds (eg. deep sea, farmland plains, usable coast). Some of them may be slightly modified - for instance, defoliating jungle through herbicide warfare (historically: Malayan Emergency and Vietnam War) or costly projects making coastline more/less usable (the latter for defensive purposes).
Conflicts rely on cells to define areas controlled or contested by belligerents. Their display, as you could see in many previous dev diaries, is rounded on the main map to make it more palatable visually:
Other entities in the game world that use cells to define area include deposits, postnuclear fallout, populations...
...and some of the strategic locations.
[h2]Strategic Locations[/h2]
The map is enriched by:
These strategic locations can be controlled by particular nations (not necessarily by the host nation), fortified (including nuclear minefields, as was the case in the Fulda Gap), contested, and become one of the strategic targets during conventional wars (DD#29). They are also an environment for espionage, especially military espionage, where getting spies on the ground may significantly assist eventual future push to conquer the location.
[h2]Peripheries[/h2]
Islands, due to important role as intelligence outposts and military bases, are abundant in the game.
Such islands may have different size, supply lines ("remoteness"), and levels of autonomy in connection to the mainland. With high enough autonomy, they may enter the category of territories. These are not limited to islands, as they can include also enclaves and exclaves, such as Gibraltar. Note that the size of such tiny geographical features is kept fairly faithful (Gibraltar is just one point on 5100x2650 grid!) - but they are still selectable from the main map thanks to an algorithm that establishes larger hitboxes for mouse clicks.
Some territories were established through leases, for instance American base in Guantanamo Bay. New leases may be arranged during the gameplay. They may be limited in time, eg. British lease for Hong Kong will expire in the game in 1997. Leases can also cover canals.
[h2]Inner Features[/h2]
Espiocracy features province-like regions for most important subnational areas in the world: states in the USA, republics in the USSR, countries of the United Kingdom, and potentially separatist areas such as Basque Country. Regions have defined autonomy, regularly decreased or increased, in the latter case even to the point of attempting a separatist political change (eg. a referendum).
In the case of the USA, states play significant role in the election. The United States begin the game with 48 states (and 48-star flag), with potential to christen Hawaii and Alaska as 49th and 50th state in 1950s.
Every country, naturally, has cities. The game currently focuses on major cities - with population exceeding 0.5M (it's a general guideline, broken for countries without such a city or when it's useful for gameplay to feature more cities in particular place).
Cities play important role in Espiocracy. They are the primary battleground for espionage - this is where stations are located, where spies are recruited, where propaganda is distributed, and money laundered. Therefore, players can expect detailed cities: various types, traits, parameters, populations, connections, special requirements, changes in time, and so on.
Current shape of cities, visible above, will be certainly further fleshed out in development before and after the release of the game. In a way, cities for Espiocracy could be compared to planets in space 4X games, with interesting corollaries that follow from this comparison.
[h2]Geopolitical Espionage[/h2]
Last but not least, let's look at two distinct espionage features on the geopolitical landscape of the game.
"Centers of gravity" were mentioned before (DD#52). To reiterate and expand, they represent deep connections between countries that transcend distance on the map: empires and their colonies, superpowers and their spheres of influence, long-term alliances, linguistic and cultural connections. The game starts with many of them in place but they are also subject to further changes during gameplay. Players can tap into these connections and, for instance, spy on Nigeria from London instead of flying to Lagos. A few examples below:
(Black and white circle is a universal symbol of center of gravity. In the game, large circle marks another country as a center for the selected country, while small circle under puppet control bar is displayed over countries for which selected country is a center. Note "a" instead of "the" - a country can have many centers and can be a center for many countries.)
In addition, intelligence structures on the map form now a real network where connections represent intelligence couriers, reliable routes, stable communication between stations and other nodes:
(Work in progress, we'll return to this in the future)
[h2]More Geopolitical Features[/h2]
As with most parts of data & content in the game, geopolitical features are moddable and designed to be easily extended during development. Beyond what was already shown on screenshots above, backlog of future geopolitical features is so rich that it deserves sharing an excerpt. Further future features in works: railroad junctions, entertainment centers, tripoints, artificial islands, modern fortified lines, peninsulas controlling nearby waterways, air corridor to exclaves, oil and gas pipelines...
[h2]Final Remarks[/h2]
The next dev diary will be posted on the first Friday of the next month: May 2nd.
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:
---
"OSS Map Division delivered some three thousand maps weighing more than seven hundred pounds" - Douglas Waller about American WW2 intelligence agency
Espiocracy is a map game: the map is the primary interface, present almost always on your screen, and in development receives a lot of care. It's also unusual in comparison to other map games (primarily grand strategy games) because it is not limited by a specific engine, and instead it can be as bespoke as we want it to be.
In DD#35 we talked about the visual approach: prerendered 2.5D relief map which hosts countries defined by flexible point-by-point borders. Today we'll explore further data layers on the map that influence gameplay.
[h2]The Grid[/h2]
Instead of dividing the world into provinces, Espiocracy uses two levels of grid-based maps. Higher-precision grid (5100x2650, 1 point equals roughly 5.8km^2) defines borders and positions of discrete objects such as cities, officers, or battles. Lower-precision grid (510x265, 1 cell equals 58km^2) is used for areas and prevalence, which is a technical trade off between good enough precision and computation/memory/data collection. While at first glance this distinction may seem unnecessary, we are primarily worried about areas. Cell grid has area of 135k while point grid has area of 13.5 million - 100x more!
Naturally, the first and foremost use of (lower-precision) cells is terrain.
Terrain cells define local kind of land or sea, from standard (eg. forests or mountains) to more unusual kinds (eg. deep sea, farmland plains, usable coast). Some of them may be slightly modified - for instance, defoliating jungle through herbicide warfare (historically: Malayan Emergency and Vietnam War) or costly projects making coastline more/less usable (the latter for defensive purposes).
Conflicts rely on cells to define areas controlled or contested by belligerents. Their display, as you could see in many previous dev diaries, is rounded on the main map to make it more palatable visually:
Other entities in the game world that use cells to define area include deposits, postnuclear fallout, populations...
...and some of the strategic locations.
[h2]Strategic Locations[/h2]
The map is enriched by:
- Strategic Gaps (eg. Fulda Gap in West Germany, also GIUK Gap)
- Gates (eg. Focsani Gate in Romania)
- Corridors (eg. Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan)
- Major Mountain Passes (eg. Brenner Pass in the Alps)
- Natural Harbors, Straits, Canals
These strategic locations can be controlled by particular nations (not necessarily by the host nation), fortified (including nuclear minefields, as was the case in the Fulda Gap), contested, and become one of the strategic targets during conventional wars (DD#29). They are also an environment for espionage, especially military espionage, where getting spies on the ground may significantly assist eventual future push to conquer the location.
[h2]Peripheries[/h2]
Islands, due to important role as intelligence outposts and military bases, are abundant in the game.
Such islands may have different size, supply lines ("remoteness"), and levels of autonomy in connection to the mainland. With high enough autonomy, they may enter the category of territories. These are not limited to islands, as they can include also enclaves and exclaves, such as Gibraltar. Note that the size of such tiny geographical features is kept fairly faithful (Gibraltar is just one point on 5100x2650 grid!) - but they are still selectable from the main map thanks to an algorithm that establishes larger hitboxes for mouse clicks.
Some territories were established through leases, for instance American base in Guantanamo Bay. New leases may be arranged during the gameplay. They may be limited in time, eg. British lease for Hong Kong will expire in the game in 1997. Leases can also cover canals.
[h2]Inner Features[/h2]
Espiocracy features province-like regions for most important subnational areas in the world: states in the USA, republics in the USSR, countries of the United Kingdom, and potentially separatist areas such as Basque Country. Regions have defined autonomy, regularly decreased or increased, in the latter case even to the point of attempting a separatist political change (eg. a referendum).
In the case of the USA, states play significant role in the election. The United States begin the game with 48 states (and 48-star flag), with potential to christen Hawaii and Alaska as 49th and 50th state in 1950s.
Every country, naturally, has cities. The game currently focuses on major cities - with population exceeding 0.5M (it's a general guideline, broken for countries without such a city or when it's useful for gameplay to feature more cities in particular place).
Cities play important role in Espiocracy. They are the primary battleground for espionage - this is where stations are located, where spies are recruited, where propaganda is distributed, and money laundered. Therefore, players can expect detailed cities: various types, traits, parameters, populations, connections, special requirements, changes in time, and so on.
Current shape of cities, visible above, will be certainly further fleshed out in development before and after the release of the game. In a way, cities for Espiocracy could be compared to planets in space 4X games, with interesting corollaries that follow from this comparison.
[h2]Geopolitical Espionage[/h2]
Last but not least, let's look at two distinct espionage features on the geopolitical landscape of the game.
"Centers of gravity" were mentioned before (DD#52). To reiterate and expand, they represent deep connections between countries that transcend distance on the map: empires and their colonies, superpowers and their spheres of influence, long-term alliances, linguistic and cultural connections. The game starts with many of them in place but they are also subject to further changes during gameplay. Players can tap into these connections and, for instance, spy on Nigeria from London instead of flying to Lagos. A few examples below:
(Black and white circle is a universal symbol of center of gravity. In the game, large circle marks another country as a center for the selected country, while small circle under puppet control bar is displayed over countries for which selected country is a center. Note "a" instead of "the" - a country can have many centers and can be a center for many countries.)
In addition, intelligence structures on the map form now a real network where connections represent intelligence couriers, reliable routes, stable communication between stations and other nodes:
(Work in progress, we'll return to this in the future)
[h2]More Geopolitical Features[/h2]
As with most parts of data & content in the game, geopolitical features are moddable and designed to be easily extended during development. Beyond what was already shown on screenshots above, backlog of future geopolitical features is so rich that it deserves sharing an excerpt. Further future features in works: railroad junctions, entertainment centers, tripoints, artificial islands, modern fortified lines, peninsulas controlling nearby waterways, air corridor to exclaves, oil and gas pipelines...
[h2]Final Remarks[/h2]
The next dev diary will be posted on the first Friday of the next month: May 2nd.
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:
---
"OSS Map Division delivered some three thousand maps weighing more than seven hundred pounds" - Douglas Waller about American WW2 intelligence agency