Espiocracy - espionage grand strategy game

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

Espionage is always the most boring part of strategy games, so why not make a whole game about it?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Lets just hope it wont end up like That Which Sleeps - these are some extremely complex mechanics... we will see if the devs can really pull this off.

 

[Axioms]

Espionage is always the most boring part of strategy games, so why not make a whole game about it?

Well strategy games generally don't have a good mechanical/simulationist foundation to support espionage. Because in practice 95% of strategy games are just "war games with a thin economic layer on top".

 

[Galdred]

Espionage is always the most boring part of strategy games, so why not make a whole game about it?

Well strategy games generally don't have a good mechanical/simulationist foundation to support espionage. Because in practice 95% of strategy games are just "war games with a thin economic layer on top".

It is very hard to make a good strategy game about espionage, though, because it is mostly about people (ie, finding key people to target, exploiting their weaknesses to get leverage, and using this leverage to advance your agenda).

That is what seemd interesting in That Which Sleeps actually: it was more about people than large scale strategy.

It is also what Shadows of Forbidden Gods seems to focus on:

ABOUT THIS GAME​

A strategy game in which you attempt to bring about the apocalypse, by moving covert agents through a complex fantasy world to accomplish a wide range of schemes, plots and rituals. You start the game by bribing guards and infiltrating minor farming communities and slowly build up your forces until you are bringing about ice ages, eradicating entire nations with plague, summoning volcanoes and commanding city-devouring snake-gods.

You play a set of agents and corrupted heroes against the forces of good, the rulers and heroes of humanity, lead by the Chosen One. They may be stronger than you, and could eliminate your agents with ease, but you have the advantage of secrecy, and humans are easily turned one against each other. Why fight a war against a unified empire when you could shatter in into civil war and clean up the pieces with orcish hordes?

Complex AIs power the forces of good, and you can, if the mood takes you, play on their minds. Rulers can be driven to gold-obsessed lunatics, who will cause their people to rise up in anger at the insane taxations, dukes can be tricked into turning on their Kings by a carefully placed personal item which implies a court scandal, heroes can be driven insane by the maddening tales read in The Laughing King's Tome and the shadow can corrupt your enemies to the point where they start funding your agents instead of their own people.

Designed as a very flexible apocalypse simulator, Shadows of Forbidden Gods allows you to mix and match your toolsets with unique agents and varied effects, with the human forces responding dynamtically, levelling up their heroes to face what they believe to be the major threats.

 

[Axioms]

Espionage is always the most boring part of strategy games, so why not make a whole game about it?

Well strategy games generally don't have a good mechanical/simulationist foundation to support espionage. Because in practice 95% of strategy games are just "war games with a thin economic layer on top".

It is very hard to make a good strategy game about espionage, though, because it is mostly about people (ie, finding key people to target, exploiting their weaknesses to get leverage, and using this leverage to advance your agenda).

That is what seemd interesting in That Which Sleeps actually: it was more about people than large scale strategy.

It is also what Shadows of Forbidden Gods seems to focus on:

ABOUT THIS GAME​

A strategy game in which you attempt to bring about the apocalypse, by moving covert agents through a complex fantasy world to accomplish a wide range of schemes, plots and rituals. You start the game by bribing guards and infiltrating minor farming communities and slowly build up your forces until you are bringing about ice ages, eradicating entire nations with plague, summoning volcanoes and commanding city-devouring snake-gods.

You play a set of agents and corrupted heroes against the forces of good, the rulers and heroes of humanity, lead by the Chosen One. They may be stronger than you, and could eliminate your agents with ease, but you have the advantage of secrecy, and humans are easily turned one against each other. Why fight a war against a unified empire when you could shatter in into civil war and clean up the pieces with orcish hordes?

Complex AIs power the forces of good, and you can, if the mood takes you, play on their minds. Rulers can be driven to gold-obsessed lunatics, who will cause their people to rise up in anger at the insane taxations, dukes can be tricked into turning on their Kings by a carefully placed personal item which implies a court scandal, heroes can be driven insane by the maddening tales read in The Laughing King's Tome and the shadow can corrupt your enemies to the point where they start funding your agents instead of their own people.

Designed as a very flexible apocalypse simulator, Shadows of Forbidden Gods allows you to mix and match your toolsets with unique agents and varied effects, with the human forces responding dynamtically, levelling up their heroes to face what they believe to be the major threats.

I love Bobby but SoFG is very shallow. Granted it has minimal competition so it is still a top tier Character focused game. But corrupting good characters doesn't really involve much. You just hit the button and wait. Maybe in the sequel in 10 years he'll give the characters actually meaningful personalities that you have to discover and then manipulate.

 

[Galdred]

Espionage is always the most boring part of strategy games, so why not make a whole game about it?

Well strategy games generally don't have a good mechanical/simulationist foundation to support espionage. Because in practice 95% of strategy games are just "war games with a thin economic layer on top".

It is very hard to make a good strategy game about espionage, though, because it is mostly about people (ie, finding key people to target, exploiting their weaknesses to get leverage, and using this leverage to advance your agenda).

That is what seemd interesting in That Which Sleeps actually: it was more about people than large scale strategy.

It is also what Shadows of Forbidden Gods seems to focus on:

ABOUT THIS GAME​

A strategy game in which you attempt to bring about the apocalypse, by moving covert agents through a complex fantasy world to accomplish a wide range of schemes, plots and rituals. You start the game by bribing guards and infiltrating minor farming communities and slowly build up your forces until you are bringing about ice ages, eradicating entire nations with plague, summoning volcanoes and commanding city-devouring snake-gods.

You play a set of agents and corrupted heroes against the forces of good, the rulers and heroes of humanity, lead by the Chosen One. They may be stronger than you, and could eliminate your agents with ease, but you have the advantage of secrecy, and humans are easily turned one against each other. Why fight a war against a unified empire when you could shatter in into civil war and clean up the pieces with orcish hordes?

Complex AIs power the forces of good, and you can, if the mood takes you, play on their minds. Rulers can be driven to gold-obsessed lunatics, who will cause their people to rise up in anger at the insane taxations, dukes can be tricked into turning on their Kings by a carefully placed personal item which implies a court scandal, heroes can be driven insane by the maddening tales read in The Laughing King's Tome and the shadow can corrupt your enemies to the point where they start funding your agents instead of their own people.

Designed as a very flexible apocalypse simulator, Shadows of Forbidden Gods allows you to mix and match your toolsets with unique agents and varied effects, with the human forces responding dynamtically, levelling up their heroes to face what they believe to be the major threats.

I love Bobby but SoFG is very shallow. Granted it has minimal competition so it is still a top tier Character focused game. But corrupting good characters doesn't really involve much. You just hit the button and wait. Maybe in the sequel in 10 years he'll give the characters actually meaningful personalities that you have to discover and then manipulate.

That's a shame, but that also just reinforces my point that temptation/corruption is hard to do well with computer NPCs.

 

[Axioms]

Espionage is always the most boring part of strategy games, so why not make a whole game about it?

Well strategy games generally don't have a good mechanical/simulationist foundation to support espionage. Because in practice 95% of strategy games are just "war games with a thin economic layer on top".

It is very hard to make a good strategy game about espionage, though, because it is mostly about people (ie, finding key people to target, exploiting their weaknesses to get leverage, and using this leverage to advance your agenda).

That is what seemd interesting in That Which Sleeps actually: it was more about people than large scale strategy.

It is also what Shadows of Forbidden Gods seems to focus on:

ABOUT THIS GAME​

A strategy game in which you attempt to bring about the apocalypse, by moving covert agents through a complex fantasy world to accomplish a wide range of schemes, plots and rituals. You start the game by bribing guards and infiltrating minor farming communities and slowly build up your forces until you are bringing about ice ages, eradicating entire nations with plague, summoning volcanoes and commanding city-devouring snake-gods.

You play a set of agents and corrupted heroes against the forces of good, the rulers and heroes of humanity, lead by the Chosen One. They may be stronger than you, and could eliminate your agents with ease, but you have the advantage of secrecy, and humans are easily turned one against each other. Why fight a war against a unified empire when you could shatter in into civil war and clean up the pieces with orcish hordes?

Complex AIs power the forces of good, and you can, if the mood takes you, play on their minds. Rulers can be driven to gold-obsessed lunatics, who will cause their people to rise up in anger at the insane taxations, dukes can be tricked into turning on their Kings by a carefully placed personal item which implies a court scandal, heroes can be driven insane by the maddening tales read in The Laughing King's Tome and the shadow can corrupt your enemies to the point where they start funding your agents instead of their own people.

Designed as a very flexible apocalypse simulator, Shadows of Forbidden Gods allows you to mix and match your toolsets with unique agents and varied effects, with the human forces responding dynamtically, levelling up their heroes to face what they believe to be the major threats.

I love Bobby but SoFG is very shallow. Granted it has minimal competition so it is still a top tier Character focused game. But corrupting good characters doesn't really involve much. You just hit the button and wait. Maybe in the sequel in 10 years he'll give the characters actually meaningful personalities that you have to discover and then manipulate.

That's a shame, but that also just reinforces my point that temptation/corruption is hard to do well with computer NPCs.

I don't think *hard* is the right word. If you had a solid understanding of psycholoy and sociology and you understood the broad foundation you'd need for your social simulation, corruption/temptation would be relatively easy on the design level. But it is of course insanely hard to do if you *don't* understand the need for a broad social foundation.