Dev Diary #64 - American AAR
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.
Secondary what's happening: This is a small AAR, "after action report", where "action" means gameplay. Based on 30 minutes of recorded gameplay. All screenshots are full-screen frames from the recording (which means that, while it's fully authentic, I apologize for not-the-best visual quality and for placeholders/bugs in various places). As always, certain features are disabled (notably, there is no Operation Paperclip).
Welcome to the USA, anno domini 1946.
We begin as an unequivocal powerhouse of the world, with top GDP, diplomatic weight, number of influential actors, international airports, leading intelligence community, and many other parameters. Among them, we should wisely use scientific and technological prowess (of 208) to widen the gap between us and other countries. As the key next paradigm, we - as the intelligence community - recommend inventing a transistor.
From our headquarters on E Street in Washington DC, we can venture out to conquer (intelligence-wise!) all the continents. We'll need more well trained officers - that calls for spy school.
Thanks to the size of our intelligence community, we can pursue two intelligence programs simultaneously. Second choice is a psychological division. If there are areas in which Soviets and potentially even other nations are more proficient than us in 1946, top candidate is the craft of shaping hearts and minds. The best vantage point to begin this operation is East Asia, where we occupy Japan, and where we already control narrative around one major event (allied liberation of Asia in WW2). A sizeable CIA station, crewed by a branch of 36 officers, will be a good first step.
At the same time, we should consolidate our control over Latin America. Recent tumult in the world may destabilize the continent and open the doors for the Reds. There is a number of coup plots active - any of them may fish towards communist support. To secure our interests, we'll send officers to Bogota and then link them up to a smuggling network to facilitate larger movement of weapons and money.
(Note that this is an FBI section. In 1946, Hoover's agency was still responsible for Latin America.)
What about our interests in the wider world? Let's take a look at battleground of decolonization:
Thanks to firm control of our allies (post-WW2 military deployment, ideological fervor, and whatnot), most colonies in the world lean either towards non-alignment or towards western bloc. They are still far away from decolonization waves, except for India, but India shines with strong blue color, which means that new independent India won't be communist.
So far, so good. We can go back to the standard craft. A few nice intelligence operations...
...and expansion of intelligence structures. A new station, in Rome, that sends back this:
(The game has, indeed, a database of contemporary political jokes.) Our Tokyo station is now well immersed, and we can use it to weave a propaganda network in East Asia.
Back in Latin America, our smuggling network also slowly comes to life.
It's time to dabble a little bit in diplomacy. First things first, it's always good to limit Soviet bearers of diplomatic passports (and therefore using diplomatic immunity for spying) in the USA.
Alignment parameter between the USA and the USSR is round -100 so it won't be worse. What about other countries?
There are a few worrying red stains. We have to engage Peru in Latin America. And Europe is surprisingly cold towards us, especially the UK. Our politicians certainly had a few severe failures in British-American relations. Let's jump straight in and recommend providing our best technology that is also most desired by the UK, let's assist their nuclear research.
In the meanwhile, Chinese civil war has been resolved rather quickly. It's now People's Republic of China. While establishing relations with the new country may not be easy (may be viewed negatively in many places in the world), it will be critical to our efforts in East Asia.
In the meanwhile, we finished first year of the campaign, which is marked by a State Power Index report. Notably, many countries demobilize troops after WW2, which can be observed by large decrease of military subindex.
One year, and a number of operations/expansions/decisions, later, we see presidential election on the horizon in the homeland. At the moment, it's in exploratory phase, with candidates competing for nominations. We'll come back to it soon.
In East Asia, our propaganda network is solid, and now it needs some events to propagate. Let's resolve medical emergency in Japan by sending aid and then organizing propaganda campaign about it. While at first glance it looks like a finicky operation (resolved medical emergency after... what?), in practice we will probably fully control narrative, and use it exactly to minimize the perception of atomic bombings.
Back at home, two nominees emerged:
That's a large gap and it's further widening. It looks like we'll have a new commander in chief in 1949.
In the meanwhile, we were just notified about changes in West Asia. Certainly there are new opportunities to pursue here.
In the USA, less than two months to the election.
And indeed, Wallace H. White won the election.
The transition period is active. This is the last moment to try something interesting with Truman. For the sake checking out that alternate history, using sandbox save feature (quick save-reload)...
...we'll suggest launching a nuclear strike on the USSR, since this is the last moment to do so before they acquire retaliatory capabilities - and we certainly won't be able to do so with isolationist White. The war begins.
Our two bomber bases and many bombers vs many targets in the USSR. Minute by minute, many hours later (initial nuclear procedures were rather slow), our bombers arrive, mostly unopposed and mostly on target:
Now, with one click, we can reload back to normal gameplay...
The next dev diary will be posted on the first Friday of the next month: August 1st.
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:
---
"Keep hands in pockets and chew gum" - GRU manual, advice on blending into the crowd in the USA
Secondary what's happening: This is a small AAR, "after action report", where "action" means gameplay. Based on 30 minutes of recorded gameplay. All screenshots are full-screen frames from the recording (which means that, while it's fully authentic, I apologize for not-the-best visual quality and for placeholders/bugs in various places). As always, certain features are disabled (notably, there is no Operation Paperclip).
Welcome to the USA, anno domini 1946.
We begin as an unequivocal powerhouse of the world, with top GDP, diplomatic weight, number of influential actors, international airports, leading intelligence community, and many other parameters. Among them, we should wisely use scientific and technological prowess (of 208) to widen the gap between us and other countries. As the key next paradigm, we - as the intelligence community - recommend inventing a transistor.
From our headquarters on E Street in Washington DC, we can venture out to conquer (intelligence-wise!) all the continents. We'll need more well trained officers - that calls for spy school.
Thanks to the size of our intelligence community, we can pursue two intelligence programs simultaneously. Second choice is a psychological division. If there are areas in which Soviets and potentially even other nations are more proficient than us in 1946, top candidate is the craft of shaping hearts and minds. The best vantage point to begin this operation is East Asia, where we occupy Japan, and where we already control narrative around one major event (allied liberation of Asia in WW2). A sizeable CIA station, crewed by a branch of 36 officers, will be a good first step.
At the same time, we should consolidate our control over Latin America. Recent tumult in the world may destabilize the continent and open the doors for the Reds. There is a number of coup plots active - any of them may fish towards communist support. To secure our interests, we'll send officers to Bogota and then link them up to a smuggling network to facilitate larger movement of weapons and money.
(Note that this is an FBI section. In 1946, Hoover's agency was still responsible for Latin America.)
What about our interests in the wider world? Let's take a look at battleground of decolonization:
Thanks to firm control of our allies (post-WW2 military deployment, ideological fervor, and whatnot), most colonies in the world lean either towards non-alignment or towards western bloc. They are still far away from decolonization waves, except for India, but India shines with strong blue color, which means that new independent India won't be communist.
So far, so good. We can go back to the standard craft. A few nice intelligence operations...
...and expansion of intelligence structures. A new station, in Rome, that sends back this:
(The game has, indeed, a database of contemporary political jokes.) Our Tokyo station is now well immersed, and we can use it to weave a propaganda network in East Asia.
Back in Latin America, our smuggling network also slowly comes to life.
It's time to dabble a little bit in diplomacy. First things first, it's always good to limit Soviet bearers of diplomatic passports (and therefore using diplomatic immunity for spying) in the USA.
Alignment parameter between the USA and the USSR is round -100 so it won't be worse. What about other countries?
There are a few worrying red stains. We have to engage Peru in Latin America. And Europe is surprisingly cold towards us, especially the UK. Our politicians certainly had a few severe failures in British-American relations. Let's jump straight in and recommend providing our best technology that is also most desired by the UK, let's assist their nuclear research.
In the meanwhile, Chinese civil war has been resolved rather quickly. It's now People's Republic of China. While establishing relations with the new country may not be easy (may be viewed negatively in many places in the world), it will be critical to our efforts in East Asia.
In the meanwhile, we finished first year of the campaign, which is marked by a State Power Index report. Notably, many countries demobilize troops after WW2, which can be observed by large decrease of military subindex.
One year, and a number of operations/expansions/decisions, later, we see presidential election on the horizon in the homeland. At the moment, it's in exploratory phase, with candidates competing for nominations. We'll come back to it soon.
In East Asia, our propaganda network is solid, and now it needs some events to propagate. Let's resolve medical emergency in Japan by sending aid and then organizing propaganda campaign about it. While at first glance it looks like a finicky operation (resolved medical emergency after... what?), in practice we will probably fully control narrative, and use it exactly to minimize the perception of atomic bombings.
Back at home, two nominees emerged:
That's a large gap and it's further widening. It looks like we'll have a new commander in chief in 1949.
In the meanwhile, we were just notified about changes in West Asia. Certainly there are new opportunities to pursue here.
In the USA, less than two months to the election.
And indeed, Wallace H. White won the election.
The transition period is active. This is the last moment to try something interesting with Truman. For the sake checking out that alternate history, using sandbox save feature (quick save-reload)...
...we'll suggest launching a nuclear strike on the USSR, since this is the last moment to do so before they acquire retaliatory capabilities - and we certainly won't be able to do so with isolationist White. The war begins.
Our two bomber bases and many bombers vs many targets in the USSR. Minute by minute, many hours later (initial nuclear procedures were rather slow), our bombers arrive, mostly unopposed and mostly on target:
Now, with one click, we can reload back to normal gameplay...
The next dev diary will be posted on the first Friday of the next month: August 1st.
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:
---
"Keep hands in pockets and chew gum" - GRU manual, advice on blending into the crowd in the USA