Espionage
Espionage runs on a per-target infiltration level: you spend treasury and political capital to build a network, then each operation demands a minimum infiltration to attempt and risks getting caught.
How it works
Every target has an infiltration level (0–100) you raise by running Infiltrate, which costs treasury and 8 political capital and gains roughly 10 per attempt (reduced by the target's counter-intel). Counter-intel itself climbs to a cap of 80 from the target's intel policy, spy focus, tech, and a stability-minded cabinet minister.
Each operation has an infiltration threshold you must meet: gather intel needs 25, sabotage 45, disinfo 48, heist 50, steal 55, fabricate a pretext 60, foment 65, insurgency 68, separatism 70, and a full coup a steep 82. Success chance starts around 0.30, rises with your infiltration (÷160) and tech/focus bonuses, and falls with the target's counter-intel (÷110), clamped between 5% and 97%.
Getting caught is a parallel roll: about 0.28 plus the target's counter-intel (÷85) minus your infiltration (÷150), so a deep, mature network both succeeds more and gets exposed less. Operations range from quiet intel-gathering up to game-changing acts — stealing a tech node outright, looting 30% of the enemy's treasury, or fabricating a false-flag pretext that grants a casus belli.
Formulas
clamp(0.30 + infiltration/160 − counterIntel/110 + techBonus + focus×0.3, 0.05, 0.97)clamp(0.28 + counterIntel/85 − infiltration/150, 0.04, 0.85)from intel policy + spy focus + tech + minister, capped at 80Key numbers
How to play
- ▸Sink attempts into Infiltrate first — a high network both raises success and lowers your detection chance on every later op.
- ▸A coup needs infiltration 82, the highest of any op; against a well-defended target that can be practically unreachable, so plan the cheaper ops instead.
- ▸Fabricating a pretext (threshold 60) manufactures a casus belli — the espionage route to a war the world can't cleanly condemn.