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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.



Welcome to the second nuclear diary of Espiocracy. Once again, to quote the first installment from late 2022, we meet at a very strange time in world history.

DD#30 told the story of nuclear conflicts from a psychological perspective. Today, in DD#60, we'll look at more physical, down-to-earth aspects of the nuclear world in the game.

Quick recap of the key term from DD#30, central to everything nuclear in Espiocracy: escalation ladder defines possible nuclear positions for all countries in the game world.

The ladder has slightly evolved since 2022.

Every nation has a public and a real position on the ladder. Anything we do within the nuclear program or with nuclear forces can lead to changes in these positions, that is escalation or de-escalation, which can trigger fundamental reactions globally ("fundamental" meaning even up to the ignition of nuclear war!).

"Anything we do" is not a figure of speech - as the player (an intelligence community), you are fully in charge of your nation's nuclear interests. Let's dive straight into step one.

[h2]Pre-Nuclear States[/h2]

At the most basic level, any country in the game can invest in nuclear proofing: building blast shelters, fallout shelters, stockpiling strategic reserves, and securing government continuity. These structures can partially weather the effects of nuclear war. In some cases, other countries may interpret this buildup as a slight but meaningful escalation - a sign that we have plans known to us but hidden from other actors. This is particularly relevant for superpowers and their allies (historically, intense civil defense programs in the USA during the 1950s instilled fear in the Soviet Politburo, who suspected that the Americans might be preparing a first strike).



For actual nuclearization, its feasibility in non-nuclear nations is measured by atomic ambition:



Once it reaches 100, the local player can launch the nuclear program.

This parameter is primarily influenced by the State Power Index (DD#16) and can thus be mainly increased by improving the country's general position. Additionally, it can be directly influenced by (relatively slow) propaganda operations, either pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear - for instance, in a typical game campaign, both superpowers will conduct anti-proliferation campaigns to subvert the atomic ambitions of key opposing countries.

Atomic ambition, along with nuclear position and eventual nuclear programs, is also a diplomatic playfield. Countries with sufficiently high atomic ambition can engage in diplomatic cooperation or conflicts over nuclear proliferation. These enable international actions such as supporting or subverting ambitions, constructing nuclear plants, imposing nuclear sanctions, and even declaring a nuclear casus belli. On a wider scale, usually facilitated by the UN, governments worldwide may agree to international treaties banning atmospheric nuclear tests, prohibiting nuclear weapons in space, and curtailing proliferation (which then establishes the International Atomic Energy Agency as a global actor and reduces atomic ambition of all the remaining non-nuclear states).

The final stretch toward 100 can be achieved by convincing the government to declare interest in nuclear power. Such a decision, however, also increases the ambition of neighboring countries (eg. the nuclear race between Brazil and Argentina in the late 1970s), is perceived as significant escalation (intended essentially to hasten the launch of a nuclear program), can lead to diplomatic discord, and might even contribute to military conflict.

[h2]Going Nuclear[/h2]



A nuclear program begins with a budget, initially assigned ad hoc (proportional to the entire government budget and to the month of fiscal year), and then using the same framework as other national expenditures.



The player fully controls this budget, allocating it to monthly progress and discrete actions: procuring uranium ore, exploiting uranium deposits, building nuclear power reactors, and establishing enrichment facilities.

Work in progress. Program management is highly contextual. For instance, nuclear power options are absent above since it's 1946. Note the icons in the Maginot Line which was partially repurposed by the French player for nuclear civil defense.

Progress within the nuclear program relies on science and technology pursued through various mechanics (DD#20: governmental contracts, scitech actors, reverse engineering, big science projects, technology transfer, scitech espionage). Five primary paradigms influence nuclear programs: nuclear fission, nuclear reactors, centrifuge enrichment, quantum mechanics, and digital computers - plus four paradigms specific to nuclear weapons: neutron initiators, high-explosive lenses, atomic bombs, and hydrogen bombs.



These paradigms enable relevant actions and define the efficiency of nuclear efforts. Additionally, there are optional/specialized scientific and technological paradigms within nuclear physics.



Once humanity achieves viable nuclear power plant technology (a paradigm shift), nuclear programs can be directed exclusively or additionally toward peaceful electrification. However, during the early Cold War or by explicit player choice, nuclear programs can aim for weaponization through the concert of scientific and technological progress, securing uranium (including special operations like Mossad's Plumbat), and enriching enough high-grade fissile material.

[h2]Nuclear Weapons[/h2]

Developing the first nuclear bomb is non-trivial - especially during the early Cold War without extensive test knowledge, nuclear physics experience, and advanced computing - but the main historical obstacle is producing enough enriched fissile material, which may require years of costly facility operations. Once sufficient material is available (currently the game assumes 30 kg of highly enriched uranium), the first nuclear detonation of a test device can be prepared.

Preparation includes selecting a test site and ensuring its secrecy. This is straightforward for large countries (eg. China or Russia) or colonial empires (eg. French nuclear tests in Algeria), but can be more challenging for smaller nations. They may rely on international cooperation (eg. alleged Israeli test near South African territories, Vela incident) or build costly underground facilities (eg. late nuclear states such as North Korea).

No test remains perfectly clandestine. Even secluded tests within police states were detectable in the early Cold War by air sampling aircraft (as with Joe-1/RDS-1). Players can initiate nuclear detection programs (intelligence programs, DD#41) to acquire real and useful data on foreign tests.

After the first successful detonation (not guaranteed, as devices can fizzle), the nuclear program advances to the next phase: developing nuclear forces. Players can establish production lines for cyclically design improved nuclear device types (or use historical templates), balancing tactical and strategic trade-offs, fissile material usage, yield, weight, and delivery feasibility.

Early work in progress

[h2]Delivery[/h2]

Nuclear forces require not only warheads but also delivery methods:

• Bombers - default delivery method during the Cold War, medium or strategic range, superseded by missiles in late-game
  
• Missiles - medium-range/intercontinental, ballistic/cruise, stationary (silos)/transportable (TEL)/submarine-based, single warhead/MIRVed
  
• Stationary - doomsday devices (eg. cobalt bombs), atomic bomb ships (a surprisingly common fear of the early 1950s, Eastern bloc ships were inspected for atom bombs before docking to American ports), mines (eg. in the Fulda Gap).
  
• Tactical - rockets, artillery, depth charges, backpacks, briefcases
  

Much like bombs, these delivery methods rely on specific scitech paradigms, consume nuclear budget, and affect nuclear ladder positions. Paradoxically, intelligence assessments of their existence, quantity, and deployment are more challenging than with nuclear weapons themselves, leading to historical misjudgments like the bomber or missile gaps. We'll explore these topics in greater depth in future nuclear diaries.

[h2]Final Remarks[/h2]

The next dev diary will be posted on the first Friday of the next month: April 4th.



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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1670650/Espiocracy/

There is also a small community around Espiocracy:



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"In March 1950, an official from the Atomic Energy Commission — then the guardian of US nuclear secrets — oversaw the burning of thousands of copies of the magazine Scientific American. The contention? They contained information so secret that its publication could jeopardize the free world" - Alex Wellerstein

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.

(Disclaimer: Naturally, the topic, and therefore this diary, is controversial. Do note that it's all about a game, not the real world. Interpret every sentence as if it ended with "in the game". Minor second disclaimer: Since this is a game and not a historical treatise, events that happened "arguably" and "allegedly" are good enough to inspire a part of game world.)

There are more than 250 academic definitions of terrorism (according to Wikipedia). Espiocracy, rather than inventing the 251st or choosing one in particular, tries to capture this variety and uncertainty in its quest to fit the complexities of real world onto your screen.

The boundary between "savage terrorists and freedom fighters" fluctuates, nations and intelligence agencies become both state sponsors of terrorism and counterterrorist combatants, and terrorist methods significantly evolve over time. After decades of such evolution, terrorists in the game world usually converge on highly organized, suicidal, serial campaigns that pose...


(Chart by Phoenix7777)

...the late-game challenge, to which players can respond by launching the war on terror - and gain a second (post-Cold-War) life for their intelligence agencies.

However, far from being limited to the 21st century, terrorism is present and relevant for the entire period of the gameplay. Even the first year in Espiocracy, 1946, has historically seen a series of bombings - as Irgun bombed British targets in Rome and Jerusalem - that usually happen also in the game. In fact, terrorists start to plot their attacks even before the player unpauses for the first time. Why do they begin their plots? What makes one pursue terrorism? How does terrorism arise in the game?

[h2]Motivation[/h2]

Actors pursue - or create other entities to pursue - terrorist methods in association with severe religious conflicts, some ideological conflicts, and/or extreme views. These are enablers of terrorism, which on their own do not lead to terrorism. The final motivational spark comes from the inherently political (and rather desperate) desire to influence decisions of opponents, their supporters, and relevant population groups.

A common example of such internal logic in the game is an attempt to instigate casualties so shocking and hopeless that the event leads the opponent to cut losses and to back away. Even the very first example mentioned in this diary, Irgun, partially (arguably) achieved this goal and caused the British to leave Mandatory Palestine faster than they planned.



Terrorists may aim to influence decisions also in more subtle ways. The intended result may be mental departure (for instance giving up on pro-X activities), causing outrage back home (which then pressures the opponent not necessarily in decision-making process but for instance by contributing to their loss in the next election), polarizing factions and groups, turning world's attention towards relevant cause, or simply wasting resources of opponents who now have to retaliate, increase security, and chase down involved individuals.

On the opposite side of the motivational spectrum, there are significant inhibitors that stop most entities from ever using terrorist methods. Some entities in the game unconditionally reject terrorism, most notably Vatican and associated actors. For others, there are grades of rejection among local populations:



This parameter influences the difficulty of pursuing terrorist methods, how much of a taboo (a secret, DD#23) it would be for an actor to become a terrorist, and how outraged the population will be after a terrorist attack. Its value evolves over time, affected by local situation, events, views, and propaganda. Standard examples of such changes in most campaigns are radicalization under occupation (eg. Afghan mujahideen) and deradicalization during prosperity (eg. Ireland in 21st century).

[h2]Terrorist Plots[/h2]

Once the decision to launch an attack has been made, the plot begins. Perpetrators prepare an attack in stages:

• Gathering funding
  
• Planning
  
• Recruitment
  
• Training
  
• Positioning
  

Every stage is executed in the game world, often internationally (for instance: recruiting volunteers from other countries), and leaves numerous intelligence traces that can be discovered by intelligence agencies.



The quality and number of such traces depend on the perpetrators' countercounterintelligence efforts, which include isolated cells, intelligence tradecraft, redundant plans, coordination, saturation, and in some cases even direct countercounter protection by another intelligence agency.

The plot is essentially a race between the executing organization and intelligence agencies determined to disrupt it. An intercepting player - usually local to the location of the planned attack - struggles to gather just enough intelligence to dismantle the plot before it concludes, all without knowing exactly when that conclusion will occur. Often, this means following the classic advice of Robert Watson-Watt: "Give them the third-best to go on with; the second-best comes too late; the best never comes."

Conclusion of the plot, the day of a terrorist attack, is simulated step by step. Simulation defines plot's success, the extent, collateral damage, escape of perpetrators (if attempted), and the evidence left on the scene. In later decades, it also includes the reaction of counterterrorist units.



Initially, an attack is often anonymous (with obvious exceptions, eg. kidnappers reveal their affiliation). It sparks outrage among actors, alters views of affected population groups (including introduction/increase of fear, after which terrorism bears the name), and changes the calculus for local intelligence agency (lowers trust after the failure to prevent the attack, and increases the need to mobilize against future attacks).



Next, authors of the attack may claim the responsibility and/or local player may blame an entity. The former depends on methods, goals, and results of the attack (for instance, IRA won't claim attacks that collaterally killed catholics). The latter is a useful tool in hands of an intelligence agency - though false accusations may be quickly exposed by the perpetrators and sometimes even by other intelligence agencies that have been following the plot.

Either way, connecting the attack and the attacker opens a new set of reactions: directed outrage, anti-attacker views, retaliations, counterterrorist campaigns. At the same time, however, this also may influence decision-making processes in the way that terrorists originally aimed for (eg. Mumbai attacks, where attribution to Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba halted the recovery of Pakistani-Indian diplomacy and increased anti-Pakistan views).

Consequences may be more complex than any side imagined. A terrorist attack is a match that can ignite various fires: launch or contribute to a wave of local terror (eg. years of lead in Italy), cause opposite reactions instead of one that was intended by terrorists (eg. the opponent launches an invasion instead of backing down), change popular views in unusual ways (eg. after Red Army Faction attacks, the public became more sceptical towards counterculture), or even inspire opposite terrorist attacks (eg. IRA and UVF).

[h2]Evolution of Terrorism[/h2]

Terrorist methods evolve over time:



Methods fluctuate roughly along historical lines. In addition, their global prevalence may be partially influenced by intelligence agencies - usually subverting them, for instance, by pushing for stricter airport security (although support for particular methods is also possible, as the history of Iranian intelligence services suggests).

As mentioned in the introduction, methods typically combine into the most dangerous set by the end of the 20th century, capable of changing the course of superpower history (for example, September 11th: hijacking airplanes + suicide attacks + highly coordinated attacks + mass attacks on civilians), with the potential to overwhelm any intelligence agency (eg. ISIS plotted 8 attacks in France in 2015, of which local services managed to stop 6).

This, as is usually the case in the intelligence world, is not only a huge danger but also a huge opportunity. Nations suffering from the most severe, complex attacks can launch the war on terror - a special international decision (a policy, DD#51) that grants intelligence agencies much larger funds, enables projects such as a drone assassination program, and leads to advanced deployments near the perpetrators (all the way to establishing a casus belli and a full invasion).

[h2]Shades of Gray[/h2]

Paramilitary organizations that use terrorist methods - as the Irgun screenshot above suggests - can be perceived globally on a spectrum ranging from "terrorists" to "guerrillas". Their position is affected by their own actions, by players controlling the narrative (through propaganda, DD#56), and by operations that directly frame the target as belonging to one side or the other. This perception, naturally, influences local population support, the ease of operations, and how severely the organization is hunted worldwide.

To make matters even more ambiguous, not all terrorist attacks are real terrorist attacks. Intelligence agencies can carry out false flag operations, in which an event is manufactured (even if real casualties occur) and then used to pin the blame on a chosen target. Obviously, such operations are prone to backfiring and require highly skilled officers, but the CIA in the game can usually execute an equivalent of Operation Northwoods (false flag attacks that would have been pinned on Cubans, as historically proposed in 1962).

Staying in the realm of direct player involvement, intelligence agencies can become state sponsors, control, or even establish paramilitary organizations. Attacks can be fueled with all the tools of espionage - especially smuggling and financial networks. Depending on the local rejection of terrorism as well as the local political system (eg. authoritarian vs. democratic), this may be a tool that is either rejected or encouraged (for example, agencies of communist satellite states commonly supported terrorist organizations around the world). However, for most players in the world, it will remain a grave secret, and working against terrorists is usually much more profitable (for instance, some of the aforementioned communist agencies immediately turned against terrorists after the fall of the USSR).

Last but not least, the player can also find themselves on the receiving end of terrorism. High-profile agencies can be directly targeted by terrorist attacks, with embassies and officers taken hostage, bombings affecting agents in the field, kidnappings of station chiefs, and even attacks on headquarters (eg. the 1993 attack in Langley).

[h2]Final Remarks[/h2]

The next dev diary will be posted on the first Friday of the next month: March 7th.

---

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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"International Counter-Terrorism: 64%, Northern Ireland-related terrorism: 18%" - Top two budget items of MI5 in 2016

What's happening / TLDR: This is a small developer diary, a teaser, about 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.

Short intro: after 58 developer diaries (longer than an average book!), standard format of mechanics-describing posts got a little bit stale. We already started experimenting with other approaches such as AARs. Today, on Christmas Eve, we'll try another approach: a teaser - quick look into gameplay through a few never-seen-before detailed screenshots, nothing more, nothing less. In a way, it's a polar opposite of thousand-word dev diaries with almost no visuals. Do not be deceived by the shortness of the diary, however, as screenshots tell the story and reveal new details about the game and its gameplay.











Merry Christmas! The next dev diary will be posted after winter break, on February 7th!

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.

Between two parts of Vietnam after-action-report, we'll make a small detour. As I reviewed the previous diary and prepared the next part, I realized that we mostly skipped management and expansion - which influences significant parts of the hot civil war in Vietnam. Additionally, as Espiocracy's core management & expansion substantially evolved during development (and even since the last dev diary), it will be useful to explore its current shape before continuing the campaign. This dev diary could be named "Agencies 4.0" but, as always, it's not a new version with patch notes, just a full independent diary. Welcome and enjoy!



In the intimidating world of espionage and the Cold War - which the game tries to recreate in the full possible complexity - the main tool is simple: you can order units to conduct activities around the world.







Usually, these orders establish (build) intelligence structures, such as:

• Cells (visible in the example above) - which can for instance roam a warzone to collect military intelligence
  
• Stations - which organize and conduct a full suite of espionage activities in their range
  
• Nodes of smuggling, propaganda, financial networks - which are used in all kinds of operations and activities
  
• Special structures - black sites, radars, export companies, stay-behinds, illegals, and so on
  

This is where it gets more complex: orders depend on player's units, intelligence community, resources, and local environment (including counterintelligence efforts of other players).

[h2]Officers[/h2]

Officers in the game are now organized into three kinds of units:

• Elite Officer - a single officer with relatively high skills
  
• Section - a group of usually 8 officers divided into analysis, operations, and technical roles
  
• Branch - a few dozen or more officers, encompassing a wider range of roles and experts
  

The main intuitive difference is the size. In principle, any unit can be downscaled or enlarged. Then, the size influences how it can implement orders, with a plethora of associated trade-offs. On the most basic level, a cell can be formed only by smaller units (an elite officer or a section), while a station can be manned only by larger units (a section or a branch). Differences compound in more advanced orders. For instance, an elite officer can execute an assassination but cannot handle a large propaganda campaign - while a branch can be active in the entire continent but spies from this continent will have a much easier time penetrating it. Sections, the middle universal ground, can implement most tasks with average efficiency but they are most valuable when specialized - into special, counterterrorist, paramilitary, and other kinds of forces.

To enlarge or create a new unit, you can tap into precious talent pool...



...by launching hiring campaigns:



Every campaign differs in features (mainly sources of new officers). Their availability depends on the local environment and intelligence community. Decisions here influence the new unit, spending, and even tertiary effects - for instance, hiring from diasporas brings in local intelligence on countries from which new hires came in. In the example above, we focused on hiring a mix of young and highly skilled candidates, which costs a lot and quickly depletes the talent pool. In contrast, focusing for instance only on police officers and soldiers is much cheaper but the new unit will be substantially weaker:



[h2]Tradecraft[/h2]

General prowess in intelligence activities - tradecraft (also known as the craft) - permeates many levels of the game. Every officer, every unit, and then the entire intelligence community has a tradecraft level from 0 to 100. These values define the availability and value of all espionage tools.



On the most general level (intelligence community, player-wide), the game introduces tradecraft schools - not literal school buildings but instead schools of thought. Every player pursues one or more schools (they can be mixed). In 1946, the world begins with the following schools:

• Amateur
  
• Police
  
• Guerrilla
  
• War Veteran
  
• Cabinet Noir
  
• Commonwealth
  
• Cheka
  

They influence almost all angles of expansion in the game: possible max tradecraft, contributions to operation types and specialization, availability of intelligence programs, hiring decisions, intelligence structures, laws, and so on. As names suggest, there are two groups - acquired environmentally (eg. war veteran, after participating in larger war) or belonging to particular countries. The latter group is much more valuable and can be acquired only by receiving training from players that mastered this school, for instance, cabinet noir school through training provided by the French player. Players can also develop new schools (you can usually expect the quick emergence of CIA or Mossad tradecraft schools in most campaigns) but it is an expensive and painful process that requires many risky activities in difficult situations.

To summarize tradecraft schools in one sentence, now progression is more varied between countries and players have one more very valuable interaction (training) with other players.

[h2]Specializations, Programs, Laws, Budget[/h2]

You can pursue 12 kinds of specializations. While nothing changed from their introduction in previous diaries, we can look at an example of one specialization:



You can also regularly launch intelligence programs which now take the shape of multiple small trees:



The legal environment around intelligence agencies is defined by laws and policies:



Various actions can be illegal (executing this action incurs a secret), remain in a gray legal area (not delegalized = legal, but at any point government may delegalize it, which may destroy for instance long-term investments), or be fully legal (giving strong protection from whims of changing governments and sometimes even from failures near relevant actions). By using political favors, you can move up actions to higher legal status.

Also, last but not least, budget calculations now include upkeep:





Now, armed in various units, schools, programs, we will progress to the second part of Vietnam AAR on Christmas Eve, December 24th!

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:

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.

Today, we'll dive into gameplay - in the form an AAR, after action report - of the nation chosen by votes on the Espiocracy discord server (invite link at the end).





Welcome to Hanoi, the capital of Democratic Republic of Vietnam. It's March 6th, 1946.

We are playing as the PTBQ - Military Intelligence Department within Vietnam People's Army. Years of French repressions, followed by harsh Japanese occupation, and short cooperation with American OSS, honed our intelligence community into decently sized and skilled force, ranked 28th in the world.



Initial state must be sufficient for now. In a small ravaged country, we won't be able to embark on significant recruitment campaigns. Any arrests (or worse) will be painful - and as a largely unrecognized country, we don't have diplomatic immunity to protect our officers!



This is our homeland:



Between Japanese withdrawal and return of French colonial forces, we were able to forge fragile independence, unified under the authority of Ho Chi Minh. Internally, the landscape is characteristic for new nations with guerrilla warfare and military uprising DNA: strong guerrillas-turned-politicians, famous military leader, still important guerrilla organization, and population with fairly significant influence (due to recent mass participation in warfare). Internationally, we are aligned with the communist bloc but that doesn't mean much in 1946. The USSR licks its wounds, neighboring China is buried in bloody civil war, and colonialist empires from the capitalist bloc have far too large armies to have them sit idly in Europe. Ho Chi Minh, aware of the danger, currently negotiates terms of independence in Paris. He will return either with nothing (and French invasion) or with partial loss of independence. The latter scenario, however, seems incompatible with honest belief in communism of almost all our significant actors. We can see relevant examples inside the colony that we recently separated from.



No recent activity inside Indochina is no coincidence. French administration and military controls public life, keeps actors and their influence low, with the only slightly influential actors sourcing their influence either from religion (Cao Dai and Hoa Hao), from organized crime (Binh Xuyen), or from Paris (the rest). Our entry point will be 6 million of Vietnamese waiting for liberation - but they have to wait until we solidify our existence in the north. To achieve that, we have to aim straight at France.

Naturally, it won't be easy.



Intelligence operations on this hostile ground are not possible at the moment. We lack infrastructure, local intelligence, funds, resources. Speaking of which, let's quickly review current (current for this AAR and for this game build) state of main resources visible in the top bar, which evolved since it was described in previous dev diaries.



From left to right, the player deals in:

• Intelligence Assets - small regional infrastructure established autonomously by officers, used mostly in operations
  
• Official Budget - monthly subsidies from the government, spent on legal and not-completely-secret activities, such as stations or most operations
  
• Black Budget - governmental account with money that can be transferred to other organizations
  
• Illicit Budget - acquired through various illegal means, used for bribes, extremely secret, or quasi-legal activities (and can be laundered back into official budget)
  
• Various small discrete resources, here it is 1 political connection that can be used in domestic lobbying or managing fallout from failed operations
  

In addition to resources, main parameters - measures of success - also evolved.



From left to right:

• Strategic Intelligence - quantified value derived from collected intelligence materials, relevant to national interests (our main national interest is very simple: "survival of the nation"), with higher value directly contributing to governmental decisions (their choice and success) and to State Power Index (we're currently sitting at 12.4 which is 32nd SPI in the world)
  
• Trust and Need - two critical angles through which the government views our intelligence community, affect anything from budget, operations, purges, recommendations, all the way to background control of government members (!)
  
• Threat - incurred globally and regionally during espionage activities and decreasing over time, higher regional threat makes it more difficult to operate in the region, while higher global threat may lead to purges in the intelligence agency, interest from global press, and even terrorist attacks aimed directly at our officers
  

There are many more small resources and parameters affecting intelligence activities (for instance: relative currency strength), which will remain for you to explore further.

Back to France, one useful angle could be pushing the country over to communist bloc in the incoming elections. The name: Maurice Thorez.



Operations, as previously mentioned, are not yet possible here. We need an anchor in Europe. Due to local destruction and ongoing governmental issues, the Netherlands seems to struggle with establishing proper security services. In terms of counterintelligence environment, it's a sandbox - we can do anything we want and it will be cheap, at least right now. We send Le Dang Dung's section there.



Meanwhile, an interesting target arose in the region.



Thailand, currently, wants to keep neutral status quo. With their complex recent history, which includes Japanese-supported invasion of Indochina, population larger than Indochina, and relatively large army, they could be a very useful ally in the inevitably incoming war for survival. Hence, we send our most skilled operatives - Ho Trong Ba's section - to establish an intelligence station in Bangkok and then scramble to exploit local political environment.

A month later, we spring into action.



In the meantime, Soviet troops declare the end of occupation zone in the northern half of Korean peninsula. This is a good opportunity to seek cooperation with fellow communist intelligence agency.



It seems that the Chinese communist forces are making progress as well - approaching critical cities, controlling larger area, expanding to Manchuria. They are too far away from our border to establish direct connection on land, to provide them support or to receive support from them. Let's hope that they will close in sooner than later.

Coup operation is in progress, which is a good opportunity to take a look at refreshed operational mechanics.



An intelligence operation now is more direct race in time between attacking and defending intelligence agency (green and red pie above). Attacking player, through operatives preparing the ground and implementing simulated steps, enables better possible outcome over time (stars and "possible" label above). However, in parallel, counterintelligence service works towards achieving chosen goal against this operation (anywhere from observing to... murdering officers). Once minimal positive outcome is possible, a player can order execution of the final step of the operation (top left button). Obviously, rushing minimal outcome isn't really useful, and there are large gains with every better outcome. Many operations become micro-wars of nerves.

In this case, Thai counterintelligence was more aggressive and faster. It isn't surprising, given the grave nature of the operation, and our haste in launching it before settling properly in Thailand. A few officers from the section were arrested, relations with Thailand damaged, and now we have to negotiate way out for our valuable officers...

...and then it gets worse. We were trying to stage a coup while another plot was already in progress, executed by Seni Pramoj.



And it's disastrous news for us. Instead of turning Thailand from neutral to more supportive, we missed a plot of an anti-communist leader!



Due quickly incurred losses in Thailand, our chances of acting against him are negative. Thailand, for now, won't be useful and we will have to apply pressure through other tools to at least stop them from allying with France against communist Vietnam.

Perhaps the European angle fares better.



Indeed, station in Amsterdam continues work in the region, preparing the ground for French operations. However, it is slower than expected and we are still far from successfully approaching Maurice Thorez. Having learned from mistakes in Thailand, we shouldn't rush into this direction. After all, we are relatively safe in the Netherlands even in the case of hot war.

Returning to the homeland and preparation before the war, we'll transfer black budget to Viet Minh. After the collapse of Thai direction and slower progress in Europe, this is the best choice as we approach 1947.



In September, we can define state budget, together with other members of the government. Naturally, professionalization of the army from guerrilla to conventional force should be the priority.



On the front of spies and intelligence, our operatives recruited four agents.



One of them, agent Giap near Vietnamese politician Truong Chinh, is ready for specialized training. Since we are well aligned with Chinh and we don't need special roles inside the country (these are implemented by domestic sections), we'll just direct Giap to advance the career ladder, in anticipation of future service.

In terms of intelligence, stations, exchange with North Korean RB, various operations brought useful results but not critical for current situation.



As the year ends, we receive report about evolution of influential actors in relevant places.



And then, after a few months of further operations, expansion, and preparations...



We will continue this save in the next dev diary.



See you on December 6th!

If you're not already wishlisting Espiocracy, consider doing it

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There is also a small community around Espiocracy: