Dev Diary #22 - Contacts & Targets 2.0 🤝
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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Jason Schreier in "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels" wrote:
People often wondered how CD Projekt Red sharpened the writing in Witcher games so well, especially when there was so much of it. The answer was simple. "I don’t think there is a single quest in The Witcher 3 which was written once, accepted, and then recorded," Szamałek said. "Everything was rewritten dozens of times"
Iteration is central for Espiocracy as well. Some mechanics went through 20+ cycles of implementation, playtesting, and redesign. One of them is core loop of the game, "contacts and targets", eight months ago described as an interface between player and actors (characters, organizations, populations). True to the usual disclaimer "subject to change" found at the end of dev diaries, today we will explore a new version of this system and swing by a few other changes. (Don't worry about reading the outdated 7th diary, the following description will be largely universal.)
Subject to change! Transcript: Screenshot of current main & empty view in the game with some agencies visible on the map.
[h2]Quintessential Why[/h2]
Core loop was italicized above for a reason. It's easy to define a core loop for entire genres - shooting or collecting experience points - but it gets tricky with 4X and grand strategy games. Which one of the ten concurrent loops is most important? Is there a unifying pattern? What should be the core loop of Espiocracy, if anything at all?
Perhaps one of the most universal suggestions was eloquently proposed by Troy Costisick. In an article for eXplorminate, he tried to stray away from the traditional definition of 4X games (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) and focused instead on the motivation: at the heart of these games, player unlocks hidden tools for victory. When you research technology, build a city, or create a unit, you get new tools to achieve your goals, which are, then, used to acquire even more new tools, and so on in the loop. This point of view is obviously not new, there are even entire books* which argue that game designers sculpt mainly in the medium of player agency (agency understood as the ability to do things, not an intelligence agency). Troy's observation, however, goes a step further: enjoyable strategy games put the player in the sculpting seat. You're not just reliving agency planned by the game developer, you're designing your own agency during a campaign.
This is the real core loop of Espiocracy: expansion of player's agency.
Following this perspective, contacts and targets evolved from the primary mode of interaction with actors into an intricate first half of interaction which can open up the second half, full of new strategic possibilities.
[h2]RICSE[/h2]
Transcript: Visible some actors in Poland, player selects recruitment option, after selection actors with impossible actions are greyed out, player clicks one of the recruitable actors, and then a context menu popups with four options: ego, money, coercion, and custom.
Now, the first half of interaction with actors relies on intelligence operations divided into five categories:
These are further fleshed out by methods, customization, and progress that roughly follows 12th dev diary. In this iteration, operations - by blending them with contacts and targets - become a key to continuous interaction instead of a one-off affair (with the honorable exception of spectacular murders, a.k.a. elimination). How exactly?
[h2]Agency of Actors[/h2]
Transcript: Widget with an actor in the USSR which has the following available actions: meeting, support, subvert, change, write a book, tour the country, create private art piece for an actor.
Using operations, players expand their agency by tapping into the agency of actors. In less convoluted description, after recruiting a writer, you will have the ability to nudge them to write a specific book, abandon the manuscript of a book that would be detrimental to your ideology, develop a relationship using their reputation to spy on your behalf, and so on. Extrapolate that to all actors, types, situations, countries...
Actors become a battlefield. Intelligence agencies compete for control over pawns, attack assets known to be controlled by other players, generously support their favorites, create an environment in which some actors succeed whereas others fail, put the right pieces on the chessboard, sometimes to execute a machiavellian plan, and sometimes just to have backup options.
This is where differences between operations create emergent strategies far beyond original contacts and targets. Subversion includes also deception and threats that can push actors into different actions. Cooperation features plethora of deals, either with strings attached to particular decisions of the actor, or as a method to gain trust before future operations. Infiltration is an exciting case in which spies can become members of an organization or get closer to a character, and influence some of the decisions. Finally, recruitment is the pinnacle of control, where via a combination of MICE (money, ideology, coercion, ego) actor's decisions can be more or less fully controlled. Note that the same actor can face attempts at cooperation, infiltration, or even recruitment from multiple intelligence agencies, naturally allowing, i.a., double or even triple agents.
If you think hard about it, it's really "Inception" of agencies of agencies of agencies. What's the better place to pursue that kind of gameplay if not a game where you play as an intelligence agency?
[h2]Preparation[/h2]
If you are familiar with the original system of contacts and targets, it all should map fairly well except for the big-picture focus of espionage. Previously, you could target not only actors but also entire countries. Now, this part of preparation is integrated regular espionage: if player wants to expand in particular countries, they simply establish stations, covert cells, and purpose-specific structures (like smuggling lines and SIGINT arrays). This is also a partial answer to mistakes detected in playtests with old contacts and targets, where the optimal strategy was to contact everyone and to constantly shuffle targets. Currently, the simulationist principle takes over the wheel, and your operatives autonomously develop relationships with everyone and spy on all the actors likewise (with the ability to strategically nudge them, e.g. focus on terrorists).
Transcript: Fragment of country widget, with local intelligence value, parameters of local network, and buttons for establishing new structures.
Furthermore, regular espionage now also features literal spy networks, where operatives acquire assets in a particular country, and follow fairly realistic intelligence ladder: spotting candidates -> developing relationships with them -> getting them to divulge random intelligence (a.k.a. sources / informants) -> recruiting them for cooperation that can be directed or even used in operations (a.k.a. agents).
[h2]Other Significant Updates[/h2]
The following paragraphs are far from dev diary patch notes, just a few - in my opinion - interesting changes.
DD#6: ethnic groups are now represented as special population actors and the role of previous sectors is distributed between these special actors and SPI parameters. On the one hand, it frees up countries from boring repeatable actors (e.g. academia or industry in every country) and solves awkward detachment of propaganda from other operations, on the other hand it extends mechanics such as influence or actions to ethnic groups, facilitating for instance different levels of discrimination and the ability to create new actors.
Transcript: Small widget with summary of funding sources and ability to change spending.
DD#8: player's resources were spiced up and adjusted to different levels of gameplay, from a small organization to a governmental juggernaut. Money can be flexibly procured from many sources, not only from the national budget, but also from cooperation, actors who will attempt to control you with strings attached, or even illegal means. This is, then, translated to staff and special budget. Staff is the main currency that the player spends on spying, networks, and structures. It is now divided into three tiers: amateur, professional, and elite, providing classic strategic trade-off between 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck. Operational budget - as not exciting enough - was abstracted away. Black budget - as too gamey - was replaced partially by special budget (millions of dollars to be spent on propaganda radio stations, large bribes, and so on) and partially by opportunities (which will receive dev diary on their own).
DD#12: speaking of which, operations now have procedurally simulated endings, to be explored in a separate dev diary. Just to hint at a general idea and reasoning behind it, five rigid outcomes for operations turned out to be a little bit too stale for espionage-based gameplay, so now they can result in different details, consequences, fallout, evidence, counterintelligence possibilities, depending on the details of a simulated car chase, murder in the train, or a particularly heated... recruitment conversation.
[h2]Final Remarks[/h2]
With this dev diary, we return for a while to everything espionage-related in Espiocracy. The next diary will be posted on June 10th: Spy Gear.
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:
---
* See for instance, C. Thi Nguyen (2020) "Games: Agency As Art"
---
"We provide for their needs, they provide for ours, it's the way of the world" - John le Carré
---
Jason Schreier in "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels" wrote:
People often wondered how CD Projekt Red sharpened the writing in Witcher games so well, especially when there was so much of it. The answer was simple. "I don’t think there is a single quest in The Witcher 3 which was written once, accepted, and then recorded," Szamałek said. "Everything was rewritten dozens of times"
Iteration is central for Espiocracy as well. Some mechanics went through 20+ cycles of implementation, playtesting, and redesign. One of them is core loop of the game, "contacts and targets", eight months ago described as an interface between player and actors (characters, organizations, populations). True to the usual disclaimer "subject to change" found at the end of dev diaries, today we will explore a new version of this system and swing by a few other changes. (Don't worry about reading the outdated 7th diary, the following description will be largely universal.)
Subject to change! Transcript: Screenshot of current main & empty view in the game with some agencies visible on the map.[h2]Quintessential Why[/h2]
Core loop was italicized above for a reason. It's easy to define a core loop for entire genres - shooting or collecting experience points - but it gets tricky with 4X and grand strategy games. Which one of the ten concurrent loops is most important? Is there a unifying pattern? What should be the core loop of Espiocracy, if anything at all?
Perhaps one of the most universal suggestions was eloquently proposed by Troy Costisick. In an article for eXplorminate, he tried to stray away from the traditional definition of 4X games (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) and focused instead on the motivation: at the heart of these games, player unlocks hidden tools for victory. When you research technology, build a city, or create a unit, you get new tools to achieve your goals, which are, then, used to acquire even more new tools, and so on in the loop. This point of view is obviously not new, there are even entire books* which argue that game designers sculpt mainly in the medium of player agency (agency understood as the ability to do things, not an intelligence agency). Troy's observation, however, goes a step further: enjoyable strategy games put the player in the sculpting seat. You're not just reliving agency planned by the game developer, you're designing your own agency during a campaign.
This is the real core loop of Espiocracy: expansion of player's agency.
Following this perspective, contacts and targets evolved from the primary mode of interaction with actors into an intricate first half of interaction which can open up the second half, full of new strategic possibilities.
[h2]RICSE[/h2]
Transcript: Visible some actors in Poland, player selects recruitment option, after selection actors with impossible actions are greyed out, player clicks one of the recruitable actors, and then a context menu popups with four options: ego, money, coercion, and custom.Now, the first half of interaction with actors relies on intelligence operations divided into five categories:
- Recruitment
- Infiltration
- Cooperation
- Subversion
- Elimination
These are further fleshed out by methods, customization, and progress that roughly follows 12th dev diary. In this iteration, operations - by blending them with contacts and targets - become a key to continuous interaction instead of a one-off affair (with the honorable exception of spectacular murders, a.k.a. elimination). How exactly?
[h2]Agency of Actors[/h2]
Transcript: Widget with an actor in the USSR which has the following available actions: meeting, support, subvert, change, write a book, tour the country, create private art piece for an actor.Using operations, players expand their agency by tapping into the agency of actors. In less convoluted description, after recruiting a writer, you will have the ability to nudge them to write a specific book, abandon the manuscript of a book that would be detrimental to your ideology, develop a relationship using their reputation to spy on your behalf, and so on. Extrapolate that to all actors, types, situations, countries...
Actors become a battlefield. Intelligence agencies compete for control over pawns, attack assets known to be controlled by other players, generously support their favorites, create an environment in which some actors succeed whereas others fail, put the right pieces on the chessboard, sometimes to execute a machiavellian plan, and sometimes just to have backup options.
This is where differences between operations create emergent strategies far beyond original contacts and targets. Subversion includes also deception and threats that can push actors into different actions. Cooperation features plethora of deals, either with strings attached to particular decisions of the actor, or as a method to gain trust before future operations. Infiltration is an exciting case in which spies can become members of an organization or get closer to a character, and influence some of the decisions. Finally, recruitment is the pinnacle of control, where via a combination of MICE (money, ideology, coercion, ego) actor's decisions can be more or less fully controlled. Note that the same actor can face attempts at cooperation, infiltration, or even recruitment from multiple intelligence agencies, naturally allowing, i.a., double or even triple agents.
If you think hard about it, it's really "Inception" of agencies of agencies of agencies. What's the better place to pursue that kind of gameplay if not a game where you play as an intelligence agency?
[h2]Preparation[/h2]
If you are familiar with the original system of contacts and targets, it all should map fairly well except for the big-picture focus of espionage. Previously, you could target not only actors but also entire countries. Now, this part of preparation is integrated regular espionage: if player wants to expand in particular countries, they simply establish stations, covert cells, and purpose-specific structures (like smuggling lines and SIGINT arrays). This is also a partial answer to mistakes detected in playtests with old contacts and targets, where the optimal strategy was to contact everyone and to constantly shuffle targets. Currently, the simulationist principle takes over the wheel, and your operatives autonomously develop relationships with everyone and spy on all the actors likewise (with the ability to strategically nudge them, e.g. focus on terrorists).
Transcript: Fragment of country widget, with local intelligence value, parameters of local network, and buttons for establishing new structures.Furthermore, regular espionage now also features literal spy networks, where operatives acquire assets in a particular country, and follow fairly realistic intelligence ladder: spotting candidates -> developing relationships with them -> getting them to divulge random intelligence (a.k.a. sources / informants) -> recruiting them for cooperation that can be directed or even used in operations (a.k.a. agents).
[h2]Other Significant Updates[/h2]
The following paragraphs are far from dev diary patch notes, just a few - in my opinion - interesting changes.
DD#6: ethnic groups are now represented as special population actors and the role of previous sectors is distributed between these special actors and SPI parameters. On the one hand, it frees up countries from boring repeatable actors (e.g. academia or industry in every country) and solves awkward detachment of propaganda from other operations, on the other hand it extends mechanics such as influence or actions to ethnic groups, facilitating for instance different levels of discrimination and the ability to create new actors.
Transcript: Small widget with summary of funding sources and ability to change spending.DD#8: player's resources were spiced up and adjusted to different levels of gameplay, from a small organization to a governmental juggernaut. Money can be flexibly procured from many sources, not only from the national budget, but also from cooperation, actors who will attempt to control you with strings attached, or even illegal means. This is, then, translated to staff and special budget. Staff is the main currency that the player spends on spying, networks, and structures. It is now divided into three tiers: amateur, professional, and elite, providing classic strategic trade-off between 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck. Operational budget - as not exciting enough - was abstracted away. Black budget - as too gamey - was replaced partially by special budget (millions of dollars to be spent on propaganda radio stations, large bribes, and so on) and partially by opportunities (which will receive dev diary on their own).
DD#12: speaking of which, operations now have procedurally simulated endings, to be explored in a separate dev diary. Just to hint at a general idea and reasoning behind it, five rigid outcomes for operations turned out to be a little bit too stale for espionage-based gameplay, so now they can result in different details, consequences, fallout, evidence, counterintelligence possibilities, depending on the details of a simulated car chase, murder in the train, or a particularly heated... recruitment conversation.
[h2]Final Remarks[/h2]
With this dev diary, we return for a while to everything espionage-related in Espiocracy. The next diary will be posted on June 10th: Spy Gear.
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:
---
* See for instance, C. Thi Nguyen (2020) "Games: Agency As Art"
---
"We provide for their needs, they provide for ours, it's the way of the world" - John le Carré
