Espionage and Sabotage

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Espionage and Sabotage - 2/20/2020 9:34:19 PM

Vonrich

Posts: 35
Joined: 11/15/2019
Status: offline

I was spitballing on another thread and thought I'd see what people think about an espionage/sabotage mechanic. One thing I think this game lacks is the unknown factor...what does the enemy know and when did they know it?

Imagine two new tech trees for espionage and sabotage.

Espionage is both your ability to conduct and thwart espionage attempts. Espionage is both an independent variable and a comparative one.
-The independent is the number of hexes you may attempt to reveal per turn, one each for each year advancement. The cost of attempting to reveal should be low but not insignificant...15 or 20?
-The comparative one checks your level to the enemy level and adjusts your chance of success based on the difference between your levels. If we are both 1940 then it's 50/50. If I'm 39 and you're 40 though, the difference being 1, then I would lose a 10% chance of success. Further, there's a chance you can be caught! This would start at a 25% chance to learn of the espionage and adjust by +/-5% per year difference. The chance to learn of the espionage could also adjust based on if it's a success or failure, perhaps lending a +5% chance if the enemy fails their mission against you and -5% if they succeed. If you learn of it then it shows up on your report "Attempted enemy espionage at [Hex]" but would not tell you if they succeeded or failed.

There could also be an option to intentionally "bungle" the espionage, giving the enemy a 90% chance of catching you because you want them to *think* you are interested in something that you're not actually interested in. In that case, there's a 0% chance of gaining intelligence.

Sabotage would work in roughly the same way with the number of hexes you can attempt to sabotage and the same opposing odds. The effects would be mild to moderate, based on a percent chance to succeed and you wouldn't know exactly how effective your sabotage was. It could range from removing 5% effectiveness on a unit to 30% effectiveness and reducing the units by 10% on a sliding scale with lots in-between.

This could also open up another command stat of "Intelligence" that would add to the chance to thwart attempts against you, but not aid in the execution of attempts. It could be as straightforward as 1% per level and would also apply to your ability to detect espionage (level / 2 rounded up).

Just some preliminary thoughts. Does anyone else think this would be a cool mechanic?