Spy Mechanic Idea

[dragonknight1998]

Hello everyone, it's your favorite moderator again,

So, this has been requested for a while now, and tbf it can be a simple chance based mechanic, but simplicity, ease of use and fun aren't in my vocabulary, so you will have to endure this wall of text.

Let's start with what we currently have: a scout mechanic that costs 6 AP and acts like an ordinary dogfight, with the exception that the attacking player has the chance to see everything within a nation. This is a good starting mechanic, and there could be uses for it, but it has one major flaw: you need to declare a war to do it.

This of course limits intelligence gathering to a non-clandestine nature, and obviously there are no shenanigans you can do with it (ie sabotage). In games like PnW (and many mobile strategy games), espionage is simple, and immediate: you have X number of spies, the enemy has Y, you chose to do clandestine activity Z, and depending on a formula that ties X,Y and Z with other factors, you roll two dices that decide whether you succeed or not, and whether the enemy finds out it is you who did it or not. In either case, the enemy knows he has been spied on.

What is proposed here to be done instead, is a bit more complicated, and revolves around an Infiltration Mechanic. The mechanic itself is simple: You have X spies, the enemy has Y in his nation, you select a number of spies bellow or equal to X to enter the enemy nation. The results can be as follows:

Success: you enter the nation without alerting anyone.
Partial Success: you enter the nation, but the enemy is alerted that someone has infiltrated his nation and/or some spies are left behind
Partial Failure: you fail to enter but the enemy isn't alerted
Failure: you fail to enter and the enemy is alerted
Critical failure: you fail to enter, some of your spies are caught, and they are traced back to you.

Note that in this spy mechanic, the enemy may never notice he has been spied on. This is the first part of a hopefully long thread, and in the next part we will explain further mechanics, and how not being detected at all may impact the game.

[Caboose (THC)]

First things first, I absolutely love this system. It's simple, but it has various different outcomes, and there's not any flaws in it that I can see. Perhaps the system can be taken a step further with a Sabotage feature. Stuff like messing with rss production or disabling military equipment such as Tanks and Planes.

[dragonknight1998]

Welcome to Part 2 of the ongoing "The Spy who Nar'd me" series. Today's topic, what happens after a succesful infiltration.

Now there are two ideas for what happens next. One of them is old, tested in another game called Ikariam (from which I took inspiration for the infiltration mechanic as well), and the other one hasn't been used outside of Sid Meier's Civilizations:BE. Before we begin with either of those, let's talk about a fun-damental mechanic of the spy system: Risk.

Every operation, every endeavor made by a man with a mission runs the risk of having unintended, and possibly unwanted consequences. In the case of infiltration, detection is one of those consequences. For each covert operation commited against a nation, the risk of detection rises. Much like in the first part, we have these similar scenarios:

Success: you succesfully complete the operation, risk increases, but only temporarily
Partial Success: you succesfully complete the operation, risk increases, and part of the increase is permanent
Partial Failure: you fail to complete the operation, risk increases, and part of the increase is permanent
Failure: you fail to complete the operation, risk increases, and a significant part of the increase is permanent. The player is notified that spies are in the nation.
Critical failure: you fail to complete the operation, some of your spies are caught, and they are traced back to you.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the first idea for a spy system. This one is fairly simple. Once the spies are in, they have a set of options. Once they chose one, a set of dicerolls and variables determine the end result. There will always be some inherent risk depending on the operation, and previous partial successes and failures will increase it. The only way risk is reduced back to the original levels is if every spy leaves the nation or is eliminated.

The second idea for a spy system, is funnily enough what Burg_er ascertained in his thread as seen here: nationsatrisk.proboards.com/post/541/thread

Instead of going the simple way, we pull a trick straight from Sid Meier's book. For each region, the player must establish a Spy Network. It won't require any spies to run once set up, will provide realtime intelligence on some building levels, and it can be done with minimal risk. To balance this, Spy Network establishment operations won't provide data on every building within a region, and will require the operation to be repeated for additional buildings to be revealed, thus increasing risk. Spy Networks will be more risky to establish in the Military region of a nation.

After a network has been established, the player is given a set of options similar to the first system. Many of them depend on the region(s) he has established Spy Networks and the buildings revealed in each region. Two operations that will always be available regardless of success in establishing spy networks is the ability to infiltrate a nation further or exfiltrate from it.

The differences of the two mechanics are that the first one is simple, and the second one requires investment for a possibly great return. Next we will discuss the types of missions available once a Spy Network has been established

[dragonknight1998]

Part 3: Operations available

Intel Gathering is fine and all, but it pales in comparison to what can be done further. Bellow are some of the operations one can do, along with the proposed number of Spy Action Points:

Infiltrate Spies: if there are not any spies in a nation, it costs nothing but a few resources. See post 1 for further details
Infiltrate More Spies (3 SAP): costs SAP, but has a slightly higher chance of success
Exfiltrate Spies (1/2/4): Depends on the exfiltration type. 1 SAP is quick, but will notify the player regardless of the result and has a higher risk of failure. 2 SAP is regular, no further drawbacks. 4 SAP has a higher chance of success. Can't be done if the player has been notified of the presence of any spies

Establish Spy Network (2 SAP): Gives realtime intel on random buildings in a specific region, allows further operations to be done. Must be done repeatedly for more buildings to be revealed.
Obtain Resource data (Needs Access to the National Treasure Vault, 4 SAP): Reveals all resources currently held by the target.
Copy Unit Placement Orders (Needs Access to Specific Military buildings depending on the unit, 6 SAP): Reveals all units deployed, fortified or in reserves, depending on the building that has been infiltrated. Has a chance to reveal if units have been moved if every building of the specific unit type has been spied on (Need both barracks and bootcamp spied to see if a unit has been moved)

Steal Industrial Points (Access to Trading Center, 5 SAP): self explanatory. Steals only a small ammount
Steal Science Points (Access to University, 5 SAP): self explanatory. Steals only a small ammount
Steal Social Points (Access to TV Station, 5 SAP): self explanatory. Steals only a small ammount. bruh who even thinks of those things
Steal Military Points (Access to Military Academy, 5 SAP): self explanatory. Steals only a small ammount
Steal Money (Access to National Treasure Vault, 5 SAP): self explanatory. Steals only a small ammount
Steal Coal/Uranium (Access to Coal/Uranium MIne, 5 SAP): self explanatory. Steals only a small ammount

Sabotage Production (X SAP, where X is the time of production sabotaged, building specific): Stops production for a certain ammount of time. Has higher risk the more time the production is sabotaged.
Destroy Building (8 SAP): Destroys a building by a level. The player is always notified, and risk increase is permanent.
Dirty Bomb (12 SAP): Kills Population. Requires all areas to have an established Spy Network.
Arson (6 SAP): Destroys Infrastructure, always notifies the player, and risk increase is permanent.

Steal Technology (or Tech resource, whatever comes first) (12 SAP): If research trees are implemented, needs to be hashed out. High Risk High Reward operation.
Recruit Defectors (10 SAP): Steals a minscule ammount of military units regardless of position. Has less inherent risk if they are in reserves.

[dragonknight1998]

Part 4: Counter Espionage/ Spy killing

This is a point that is actually hard for me to think by myself. Right now, there has only been one way hashed out above for someone to lose spies, and that is through attrition. It forces the player to balance between having enough spies to secure his nation and sending as many out as necessary to perform spy operations. What can enhance the counter espionage side of things is an option for the player to manually increase the state of alert of spies within his nation; sort of like a DEFCON system if you will, but for spying. The player presses a button, that increases the risk for an enemy spy to get caught within a limited time frame. Said state of alertness cannot be continuous, will have a cooldown, and will probably cause a marginal increase in upkeep.

Spy assassinations beyond that, aren't exactly necessary for the system, but for the sake of discussion, one can go in an enemy nation and assassinate spies, in which case the nation is automatically alerted regardless of success or failure, increasing Risk. One way that can be used is in conjunction with other nation, where a set of nations work together to do espionage operations, with one of them assassinating spies in order to reduce risks. Since that move can be overpowered, only a limited set of nations can send their spies at a hostile nation at a time, and when one is discovered, risk increases for the rest, in a reduced ammount, forcing all participants to chose their actions wisely.

Finally, it is possible that an EXTREMELY risky operation called Central Intelligence Infiltration can be added. In that case, the nation that successfully pulls off that operation, can find the location of the enemy spies (besides the enemy nation of course) in 1 or more countries, depending on the degree of success. If the enemy spies are inside the player's nation, then the nation of the player automatically enters a state of alert.

[dragonknight1998]

Part 5: Possibilities for Cards & Characters.

I am going to keep this short, since the suggestion is rather obvious. With the addition of a new card system in the game, it is possible that some of those cards can give buffs for very specific operations.

Another operation in mind that is made possible with the new card system is the assassination of High Profile Targets. You can remove an active card from your opponent through those operations, though the enemy nation will again enter a high state of alert, increasing Risk. It is unclear at this moment whether this action should be limited for active cards only or if it should work against cards in storage.

THis is the final entry in this thread as of right now. Things that should be considered are the Risk formula, the SAP required for each action, and how we can tie in this system with a (possible) research tree in the future.