Dev Diary #47 - Espionage Gameplay 🕵️
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.
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Best ideas can be conveyed in one sentence. For Espiocracy, it's roughly: play as an intelligence agency in the golden era of espionage. Such ideas, however, can pave the road to hell. There are usually multiple reasons why an exciting approach has not been implemented yet - and why it stays that way until someone stubborn (and stupid) enough executes it.
Anticipating these issues, development was preceded by a critical analysis of espionage systems in other games. Conclusions not only pointed to the long list of avoidable sins but also suggested a few significant chicken-or-egg conundrums that need direct solutions:
Core gameplay has been designed from zero to solve these fundamental problems. However, it still took countless iterations over two years to arrive at a solid implementation. It is mature enough to finally receive the big-picture view in the 47th (!) developer diary. Buckle up!
Following the formula of recent diaries, we'll explore the topic from the perspective of two different countries and times (although this time it will be much more static and text-based, as always due to construction site of a game).
[h2]West Germany and East Germany, 1960s[/h2]
There's no better place to start than a conflict between East German Stasi and West German BND. Both players come from opposite ideologies and blocs, competing over the highest stakes possible - statehood, cold war going hot, even a risk of becoming a nuclear wasteland.
This is right where the espionage angle shines. Playing as the BND, there's no single "Damage East Germany" button. There are dozens of them in the form of usable materials (intelligence assets, essentially).
Every one of them can be weaponized. This is where espionage becomes instantly palpable instead of abstract: we can mobilize East German dissidents for a propaganda campaign, publicize secrets to break promising careers of East German generals, or exploit risky opportunities to get critical insight into nuclear posture across the border. More than just dropping abstraction, this system prefers unique discrete resources over continuous numbers (such as tactical intelligence; previously seen in some dev diaries, now completely phased out from the game), helping both with intuitive immersion and with establishing more manageable decision space for players.
Over time, these assets matured like wine into five categories:
Naturally, players never acquire an abstract agent or an unknown opportunity. Assets in these categories are extensively derived from the high stakes of the Cold War. Here are sample tools that you can use as an intelligence agency to wage a war of ideologies:
Every tool has specific modes of maintenance and use, and many of them can interact with each other, some even to the point of operational combinations where through an opportunity you acquire a secret which is then used to control an actor who then provides a steady supply of agents who later...
Returning to the BND, we can try striking the heart of the East German apparatus by revealing that the party has many members with Nazi past. Potentially, it may lead to tensions inside the Warsaw Pact, political purges, and temporary paralysis in the government. On the espionage level, it will likely open many opportunities amid the chaos and disgruntlement.
From the perspective of Stasi, this would not come like a bolt from the blue. Intelligence agencies usually know secrets of domestic actors (especially Stasi) and in the scope of counterintelligence, players are also usually aware whether the knowledge about such secrets is wider or more narrow. Stasi likely knows or suspects that BND can use this secret. East German players therefore can engage BND in operational games to rob them of the secret - for instance, destroy the evidence or defuse it through diplomatic backchannels. And when the time of use comes, it can be still met with countermeasures (eg. censorship) and even counterattacks (obviously, accusing West German parties of the same sin).
Moreover, these assets are also a battleground between intelligence agencies. The secret from the East German communist party may be falsely manufactured by the Stasi, served to precisely surveilled assets, and an attempt to use it may burn West German opportunities, agents, or even controlled actors.
[h2]United Kingdom, 1950s[/h2]
Tense situation between the two Germanies resembles Carl Sagan's quote about the nuclear arms race ("two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five") but it's not the case for many other playable countries. When there's no mortal enemy at the gates, espionage gameplay can become more expansive and geographical.
Fading empire of the United Kingdom is a good example of such an angle. Instead of collecting secrets and exploits, British player in Espiocracy is usually more concerned with another set of core espionage mechanics: networks. Players build networks as a foundation for all the other activities. Their nodes (and connections in some cases) are primarily used to handle assets and conduct operations.
There are three main types of networks:
Once the financial market becomes globalized (usually in the 70s-80s), players can weave a fourth - financial - network to move and launder money. Potentially, later a fifth network may appear (internet/hacking, currently in early tests).
British player can, inter alia, pursue more aggressive domestic nuclear program by establishing smuggling routes from Congo and then acquiring and moving uranium ore (a strategic material). Geographically, this also may coincide with reinforcing propaganda network in Africa to limit decolonization. More intelligence stations may not be needed at the moment but some fundamental presence - larger than IRL history where MI5 staff in Kenya counted just a few officers - will be important to limit the influence of French SDECE and some of the anti-colonial players.
Networks, in principle, are one more step at making espionage more palpable. As the previous example of East vs West Germany shows, they aren't necessarily very important for medium-sized players (although there's some limited role in two Germanies, especially of smuggling routes, that was omitted for clarity). Instead, interestingly, this part of core gameplay serves both the largest global players (like the UK) and the smallest ones - like Andorra, which becomes an important node for some networks and therefore its minuscule intelligence section of local police can still tap into fascinating opportunities and other intelligence assets (not to mention later gameplay and becoming tax heaven!).
[h2]Behind The Scenes[/h2]
► If you're following this dev diaries for a long time (or worse: if you're reading them all in one shot), all the espionage mechanics in this dev diary compared to bits and bites in previous dev diaries may be rather confusing. Sorry for that! It's a low price for transparent development in the open. We made a long way from initial naive ideas such as "contacts and targets" to current comprehensive combinations of dissidents and smugglers.
► Many core improvements were driven by an unusual approach to AI, as described in 39th dev diary. Most notably, chess-like implementations, terminology, and lessons helped to shape intelligence tools by looking at some parts of player agency as pieces, movements, threats, captures, sacrifices, and so on.
► The list of sins in espionage mechanics, mentioned in the introduction, is quite long. Among the most important ones that this game attempts to avoid are: focusing on the most boring parts of the intelligence world (eg. bureaucracy, knowledge tax, corruption), prioritizing non-interactive background sections of espionage (such as signals intelligence), lack of meta-espionage balance (severely too much or not enough spy-vs-spy), lack of differences between countries and intelligence agencies (despite vast IRL gap between, say, KGB and intelligence section of Canadian police forces).
► In a few more significant core changes that didn't make it yet into this dev diary: awkward and outdated "top operatives" evolved into mechanically aligned "top sections"; abstract-ish parameters such as local intelligence evolved into meaningfully composed parameters of parameters (local intelligence now consists of familiarity with language, topography, and so on); control over actors slowly solidifies as a rich mechanic that even influences players directly, eg. Soviet player partially controls actors of satellite intelligence communities.
---
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:
---
"The Intelligence Services of East and West have given Europe over fifty years of peace - the longest the Continent has ever known. They did so by keeping their leaders from being surprised" - Markus Wolf, chief of East German HVA
---
Best ideas can be conveyed in one sentence. For Espiocracy, it's roughly: play as an intelligence agency in the golden era of espionage. Such ideas, however, can pave the road to hell. There are usually multiple reasons why an exciting approach has not been implemented yet - and why it stays that way until someone stubborn (and stupid) enough executes it.
Anticipating these issues, development was preceded by a critical analysis of espionage systems in other games. Conclusions not only pointed to the long list of avoidable sins but also suggested a few significant chicken-or-egg conundrums that need direct solutions:
- Player persona undermines political leaders or political processes or both (DD#1)
- Intelligence missions are either inconsequential or cause disruptions too frustrating for a strategy game
- Combination of many possible targets and methods creates decision space difficult to logically use or even represent in the interface
- Espionage happens in small rooms, dark alleys, bugged devices - places distant by principle - and featuring that in a strategy game leads to abstractions of abstractions of distant abstractions
Core gameplay has been designed from zero to solve these fundamental problems. However, it still took countless iterations over two years to arrive at a solid implementation. It is mature enough to finally receive the big-picture view in the 47th (!) developer diary. Buckle up!
Following the formula of recent diaries, we'll explore the topic from the perspective of two different countries and times (although this time it will be much more static and text-based, as always due to construction site of a game).
[h2]West Germany and East Germany, 1960s[/h2]
There's no better place to start than a conflict between East German Stasi and West German BND. Both players come from opposite ideologies and blocs, competing over the highest stakes possible - statehood, cold war going hot, even a risk of becoming a nuclear wasteland.
This is right where the espionage angle shines. Playing as the BND, there's no single "Damage East Germany" button. There are dozens of them in the form of usable materials (intelligence assets, essentially).
Every one of them can be weaponized. This is where espionage becomes instantly palpable instead of abstract: we can mobilize East German dissidents for a propaganda campaign, publicize secrets to break promising careers of East German generals, or exploit risky opportunities to get critical insight into nuclear posture across the border. More than just dropping abstraction, this system prefers unique discrete resources over continuous numbers (such as tactical intelligence; previously seen in some dev diaries, now completely phased out from the game), helping both with intuitive immersion and with establishing more manageable decision space for players.
Over time, these assets matured like wine into five categories:
- Controlled Actors (nationally significant individuals and organizations). As always in Espiocracy, a lot revolves around actors. They are by design an ideal target for intelligence operations and perhaps the most critical backbone of an interesting espionage system. Here, the battle is more precisely fought over control, a limited 0-100 parameter that can be chopped off by any number of entities (including non-player ones, eg. a political leader controlling a political party).
- Agents. Disposable people who can be used in operations and other actions, usually associated with professions, backgrounds, or indirectly with some actors.
- Strategic Materials. Documents and other materials that can influence entire populations and nations.
- Secrets. Accounts of controversial actions or traits of an actor, which can be used to blackmail, control, or eliminate.
- Opportunities. Ability to pursue an operation, use any other asset, exploit vulnerability, and so on.
Naturally, players never acquire an abstract agent or an unknown opportunity. Assets in these categories are extensively derived from the high stakes of the Cold War. Here are sample tools that you can use as an intelligence agency to wage a war of ideologies:
- Controlled Actors: political leaders, political parties, authors, celebrities, top media
- Agents: journalists, dissidents, defectors, undercover funders
- Strategic Materials: books, movies, speeches, conspiracy theories
- Secrets: actions or traits in conflict with professed ideology
- Opportunities: breaking stories potentially promoting an ideology (such as the Moon landing) or subverting an ideology (such as launching an invasion)
Every tool has specific modes of maintenance and use, and many of them can interact with each other, some even to the point of operational combinations where through an opportunity you acquire a secret which is then used to control an actor who then provides a steady supply of agents who later...
Returning to the BND, we can try striking the heart of the East German apparatus by revealing that the party has many members with Nazi past. Potentially, it may lead to tensions inside the Warsaw Pact, political purges, and temporary paralysis in the government. On the espionage level, it will likely open many opportunities amid the chaos and disgruntlement.
From the perspective of Stasi, this would not come like a bolt from the blue. Intelligence agencies usually know secrets of domestic actors (especially Stasi) and in the scope of counterintelligence, players are also usually aware whether the knowledge about such secrets is wider or more narrow. Stasi likely knows or suspects that BND can use this secret. East German players therefore can engage BND in operational games to rob them of the secret - for instance, destroy the evidence or defuse it through diplomatic backchannels. And when the time of use comes, it can be still met with countermeasures (eg. censorship) and even counterattacks (obviously, accusing West German parties of the same sin).
Moreover, these assets are also a battleground between intelligence agencies. The secret from the East German communist party may be falsely manufactured by the Stasi, served to precisely surveilled assets, and an attempt to use it may burn West German opportunities, agents, or even controlled actors.
[h2]United Kingdom, 1950s[/h2]
Tense situation between the two Germanies resembles Carl Sagan's quote about the nuclear arms race ("two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five") but it's not the case for many other playable countries. When there's no mortal enemy at the gates, espionage gameplay can become more expansive and geographical.
Fading empire of the United Kingdom is a good example of such an angle. Instead of collecting secrets and exploits, British player in Espiocracy is usually more concerned with another set of core espionage mechanics: networks. Players build networks as a foundation for all the other activities. Their nodes (and connections in some cases) are primarily used to handle assets and conduct operations.
There are three main types of networks:
- Espionage. Usually intelligence stations (DD#44 although already slightly different; in one sentence, these are foreign outposts, often located in embassies, which safely host operatives on the foreign ground).
- Smuggling. Routes to covertly infiltrate and exfiltrate people or move objects (usually strategic materials, from weapons to uranium ore), usually with the use of geography such as mountains or green borders.
- Propaganda. Entities influencing particular countries (not necessarily the host, for instance a Russian language radio in allied Portugal).
Once the financial market becomes globalized (usually in the 70s-80s), players can weave a fourth - financial - network to move and launder money. Potentially, later a fifth network may appear (internet/hacking, currently in early tests).
British player can, inter alia, pursue more aggressive domestic nuclear program by establishing smuggling routes from Congo and then acquiring and moving uranium ore (a strategic material). Geographically, this also may coincide with reinforcing propaganda network in Africa to limit decolonization. More intelligence stations may not be needed at the moment but some fundamental presence - larger than IRL history where MI5 staff in Kenya counted just a few officers - will be important to limit the influence of French SDECE and some of the anti-colonial players.
Networks, in principle, are one more step at making espionage more palpable. As the previous example of East vs West Germany shows, they aren't necessarily very important for medium-sized players (although there's some limited role in two Germanies, especially of smuggling routes, that was omitted for clarity). Instead, interestingly, this part of core gameplay serves both the largest global players (like the UK) and the smallest ones - like Andorra, which becomes an important node for some networks and therefore its minuscule intelligence section of local police can still tap into fascinating opportunities and other intelligence assets (not to mention later gameplay and becoming tax heaven!).
[h2]Behind The Scenes[/h2]
► If you're following this dev diaries for a long time (or worse: if you're reading them all in one shot), all the espionage mechanics in this dev diary compared to bits and bites in previous dev diaries may be rather confusing. Sorry for that! It's a low price for transparent development in the open. We made a long way from initial naive ideas such as "contacts and targets" to current comprehensive combinations of dissidents and smugglers.
► Many core improvements were driven by an unusual approach to AI, as described in 39th dev diary. Most notably, chess-like implementations, terminology, and lessons helped to shape intelligence tools by looking at some parts of player agency as pieces, movements, threats, captures, sacrifices, and so on.
► The list of sins in espionage mechanics, mentioned in the introduction, is quite long. Among the most important ones that this game attempts to avoid are: focusing on the most boring parts of the intelligence world (eg. bureaucracy, knowledge tax, corruption), prioritizing non-interactive background sections of espionage (such as signals intelligence), lack of meta-espionage balance (severely too much or not enough spy-vs-spy), lack of differences between countries and intelligence agencies (despite vast IRL gap between, say, KGB and intelligence section of Canadian police forces).
► In a few more significant core changes that didn't make it yet into this dev diary: awkward and outdated "top operatives" evolved into mechanically aligned "top sections"; abstract-ish parameters such as local intelligence evolved into meaningfully composed parameters of parameters (local intelligence now consists of familiarity with language, topography, and so on); control over actors slowly solidifies as a rich mechanic that even influences players directly, eg. Soviet player partially controls actors of satellite intelligence communities.
---
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:
---
"The Intelligence Services of East and West have given Europe over fifty years of peace - the longest the Continent has ever known. They did so by keeping their leaders from being surprised" - Markus Wolf, chief of East German HVA