by Taking place during the Second World War Hoi4 has the benefit of semi-modern tech being involved while also being able to draw upon the, embellished, stories to arise from that conflict.
Gameplay
After investing a resource, civilian factories, for a limited time the player has access to a spy agency.
The player then chooses from a list of agents to be their first, most of the agents have a visible trait that assists in certain mission types via a percentage bonus.
The spies themselves
Each is of a particular gender and nationality, to my knowledge this doesn't affect much gameplay wise.
There's a certain list of traits each can start with, or earn based on missions preformed.
I'll reiterate the numbers themselves don't matter since I won't be using them but instead I'm taking the idea as presented by Paradox.
Safe Cracker - Better at stealing documents and breaking Ciphers
Seducer - "Infiltration" is safer and more efficient.
Tough - Takes longer to break under interrogation.
Commando - More dramatic operations are safer and more likely to succeed
Demolition Expert - Breaks things faster and for cheaper
Escape Artist - If captured, slightly easier to rescued via other agents
Infiltrator - "Infiltration" is safer and more efficient.
Linguist - If a mission is a success they are more likely to pick up the local language.
Master Interrogator - Better at inhibiting hostile agents.
Natural Orator - Better at convincing the people of ideological change, "Coup" is easier and safer.
Well Groomed - Better at diplomatic actions/missions.
Mission types
Admittedly there's good variety here, and fortunately there's a wiki so I can just copy paste a lot of this.
Counter intelligence
Counter intelligence is the default mission of an agent not doing anything else. This boosts the Counter Intelligence value for your nation and helps counter enemy spies. There is a chance of killing or capturing enemy spies. Capturing spies yields a one-off and temporal bonus to intelligence.
Build network
The Operative will build a network of contacts in an area. Several operatives can help out either to expand the reach of the network or to build it faster. Networks have various passive effects, all for combat.
Note: One of the advantages is "improve intel advantage in combat locally" which interests me. It conjures an image of troops being unable to trust locals because a few of the locals are informants and keep leaking intel. So that creates the situation where a possible friendly populace is poorly treated by their own national troops on suspicion of all being "in on it". The player sowing chaos to their own advantage.
Quiet network
This option freezes the progress of a network and reduces the chances of it being found.
Boost ideology
Changes the political balance in a target county, slowly, I don't see this being usful during wartimes.
Propaganda
Reduces War Support(population's willingness to tolerate wartime conditions) and stability(general unrest I guess? Confidnce in the Government?) anyway is has an arbitrary limit of a 25% reduction so unless your target is messing up their own stats this is basically useless.
Root out resistance
Conquered area's populations don't like it when you conquer them, so they resist. This reduces that effect.
Control trade
It doesn't do what the name suggests, but rather it boosts the opinion of those you trade with.
Diplomatic pressure
Makes the nation pressured to be more accepting of your diplomacy while at the same making it harder for other nations to do diplomacy with the pressured nation. Affects invites to factions and non-aggression pacts. An underwhelming, small boost, useful in edge cases I suppose.
Operations
These are different to missions because you need to do some set up work at the player first.
Most operations have a "three phase" structure, and each phase needs to roll a dice to see if it gets to the next one. Each Operation also sometimes has costs associated with it, such as a certain amount of guns, factories or support equipment. Three resources that are used in the larger play area.
They are, as listed:
Rescue Captured Operative
Infiltrate Civilian Administration
Plant False Intelligence
Capture Cipher
Infiltrate Army/Navy/Airforce
Orchestrate Coup
Strengthen Resistance
Make Resistance Contacts
Prepare Collaboration Government
Coordinated Strike
Steal Industrial Blueprints
Sabotage Industry
Sabotage Infrastructure
Sabotage Resources
Steal Military Blueprints
Steal Naval Blueprints
Steal Aviation Industry Blueprints
Gameplay
After investing a resource, civilian factories, for a limited time the player has access to a spy agency.
The player then chooses from a list of agents to be their first, most of the agents have a visible trait that assists in certain mission types via a percentage bonus.
The spies themselves
Each is of a particular gender and nationality, to my knowledge this doesn't affect much gameplay wise.
There's a certain list of traits each can start with, or earn based on missions preformed.
I'll reiterate the numbers themselves don't matter since I won't be using them but instead I'm taking the idea as presented by Paradox.
Safe Cracker - Better at stealing documents and breaking Ciphers
Seducer - "Infiltration" is safer and more efficient.
Tough - Takes longer to break under interrogation.
Commando - More dramatic operations are safer and more likely to succeed
Demolition Expert - Breaks things faster and for cheaper
Escape Artist - If captured, slightly easier to rescued via other agents
Infiltrator - "Infiltration" is safer and more efficient.
Linguist - If a mission is a success they are more likely to pick up the local language.
Master Interrogator - Better at inhibiting hostile agents.
Natural Orator - Better at convincing the people of ideological change, "Coup" is easier and safer.
Well Groomed - Better at diplomatic actions/missions.
Mission types
Admittedly there's good variety here, and fortunately there's a wiki so I can just copy paste a lot of this.
Counter intelligence
Counter intelligence is the default mission of an agent not doing anything else. This boosts the Counter Intelligence value for your nation and helps counter enemy spies. There is a chance of killing or capturing enemy spies. Capturing spies yields a one-off and temporal bonus to intelligence.
Build network
The Operative will build a network of contacts in an area. Several operatives can help out either to expand the reach of the network or to build it faster. Networks have various passive effects, all for combat.
Note: One of the advantages is "improve intel advantage in combat locally" which interests me. It conjures an image of troops being unable to trust locals because a few of the locals are informants and keep leaking intel. So that creates the situation where a possible friendly populace is poorly treated by their own national troops on suspicion of all being "in on it". The player sowing chaos to their own advantage.
Quiet network
This option freezes the progress of a network and reduces the chances of it being found.
Boost ideology
Changes the political balance in a target county, slowly, I don't see this being usful during wartimes.
Propaganda
Reduces War Support(population's willingness to tolerate wartime conditions) and stability(general unrest I guess? Confidnce in the Government?) anyway is has an arbitrary limit of a 25% reduction so unless your target is messing up their own stats this is basically useless.
Root out resistance
Conquered area's populations don't like it when you conquer them, so they resist. This reduces that effect.
Control trade
It doesn't do what the name suggests, but rather it boosts the opinion of those you trade with.
Diplomatic pressure
Makes the nation pressured to be more accepting of your diplomacy while at the same making it harder for other nations to do diplomacy with the pressured nation. Affects invites to factions and non-aggression pacts. An underwhelming, small boost, useful in edge cases I suppose.
Operations
These are different to missions because you need to do some set up work at the player first.
Most operations have a "three phase" structure, and each phase needs to roll a dice to see if it gets to the next one. Each Operation also sometimes has costs associated with it, such as a certain amount of guns, factories or support equipment. Three resources that are used in the larger play area.
They are, as listed:
Rescue Captured Operative
Infiltrate Civilian Administration
Plant False Intelligence
Capture Cipher
Infiltrate Army/Navy/Airforce
Orchestrate Coup
Strengthen Resistance
Make Resistance Contacts
Prepare Collaboration Government
Coordinated Strike
Steal Industrial Blueprints
Sabotage Industry
Sabotage Infrastructure
Sabotage Resources
Steal Military Blueprints
Steal Naval Blueprints
Steal Aviation Industry Blueprints
