Kadur
13.09.12, 19:28
Hello!
We are nearing the end of development of Their Finest Hour expansion now and everyone at the team is polishing and balancing like busy little bees. This will be the last diary to cover a large new feature, so next week I'll be talking about lots of little things like AI improvement and new modding support and we might soon have one or two beta AARs to show you what the expansion is like to play! :)
Espionage is one of the systems in Hearts of Iron III that haven't seen a lot of changes since the original game came out. So we definitely felt it was time to go back and see what we could do to make it more fun and interesting!
Missions – what to keep & what to cut
We started by having a good look at what missions people were actually using and getting rid of the ones we didn’t feel fitted in anymore. Political espionage is gone, because to be frank - nobody really used that. So you now get that kind of intel by just having any spies in the target country. Supporting rebels is gone; it had no real place now that you can build underground resistance centers instead after the For the Motherland expansion which gives you a lot more control. Last we also cut Disrupt Research and Disrupt Production. These were not fun, and seldom used. They could also be exploitable in multiplayer. So they got the axe. No mercy.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63415&d=1347538113
So what about the rest? Military espionage no longer show you a list of the enemies units, instead you will be seeing the effects directly on the map where you can make use of it easily. In its place we now show information on the enemy production queue so you can see some of what they are building. Tech espionage is now a valid option as well - It lets you steal technology from other countries. Last but not least we have a new mission called "Covert Operations".
To make things easier and less micromanagement intensive you can now tell your spies what missions you think are most important. The priority spread you select will decide how efficiently the spies perform their missions and lets you do multiple espionage missions at once.
Behind Enemy Lines
The new Covert Operations mission lets you accumulate a new type of points called Covert Ops Points. These are per country and can be used for a variety of missions. They simulate the effort of smuggling commandos and such behind enemy lines for covert strikes and disruptions. Except for Coups these are done on the map from the province view as they have local effects:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63416&d=1347538155
Sabotage Strategic Resource - This mission lets you sabotage a strategic resource in a single province.
Scout/Sabotage Area - This simulates things like sending in under cover scouts, or sabotage all road signs in an area. It will slow down enemy movement, or speed up your movement.
Steal Local Battle Plans - This mission can give you a local intelligence advantage and reveal unknown units.
Attempting Coups - This mission has been rebalanced, and now requires quite a bit of covert ops points to be triggered. If successful it will overthrow the enemy government with one friendly to you.
These missions are of course completely moddable as well, don´t worry!
See you again in a week!
:prost:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?632363-Hearts-of-Iron-III-Their-Finest-Hour-Dev-Diary-7-Espionage&p=14346194#post14346194
We are nearing the end of development of Their Finest Hour expansion now and everyone at the team is polishing and balancing like busy little bees. This will be the last diary to cover a large new feature, so next week I'll be talking about lots of little things like AI improvement and new modding support and we might soon have one or two beta AARs to show you what the expansion is like to play! :)
Espionage is one of the systems in Hearts of Iron III that haven't seen a lot of changes since the original game came out. So we definitely felt it was time to go back and see what we could do to make it more fun and interesting!
Missions – what to keep & what to cut
We started by having a good look at what missions people were actually using and getting rid of the ones we didn’t feel fitted in anymore. Political espionage is gone, because to be frank - nobody really used that. So you now get that kind of intel by just having any spies in the target country. Supporting rebels is gone; it had no real place now that you can build underground resistance centers instead after the For the Motherland expansion which gives you a lot more control. Last we also cut Disrupt Research and Disrupt Production. These were not fun, and seldom used. They could also be exploitable in multiplayer. So they got the axe. No mercy.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63415&d=1347538113
So what about the rest? Military espionage no longer show you a list of the enemies units, instead you will be seeing the effects directly on the map where you can make use of it easily. In its place we now show information on the enemy production queue so you can see some of what they are building. Tech espionage is now a valid option as well - It lets you steal technology from other countries. Last but not least we have a new mission called "Covert Operations".
To make things easier and less micromanagement intensive you can now tell your spies what missions you think are most important. The priority spread you select will decide how efficiently the spies perform their missions and lets you do multiple espionage missions at once.
Behind Enemy Lines
The new Covert Operations mission lets you accumulate a new type of points called Covert Ops Points. These are per country and can be used for a variety of missions. They simulate the effort of smuggling commandos and such behind enemy lines for covert strikes and disruptions. Except for Coups these are done on the map from the province view as they have local effects:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63416&d=1347538155
Sabotage Strategic Resource - This mission lets you sabotage a strategic resource in a single province.
Scout/Sabotage Area - This simulates things like sending in under cover scouts, or sabotage all road signs in an area. It will slow down enemy movement, or speed up your movement.
Steal Local Battle Plans - This mission can give you a local intelligence advantage and reveal unknown units.
Attempting Coups - This mission has been rebalanced, and now requires quite a bit of covert ops points to be triggered. If successful it will overthrow the enemy government with one friendly to you.
These missions are of course completely moddable as well, don´t worry!
See you again in a week!
:prost:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?632363-Hearts-of-Iron-III-Their-Finest-Hour-Dev-Diary-7-Espionage&p=14346194#post14346194