For Your Eyes Only: A Covert Ops AAR

[HansWormhat EvW-Dev]

In the spirit of learning more about this game while trying to achieve a goal, I'm going to try something a little different.  I was thrilled with the East vs West announcement years ago and desperately wanted a strong Cold War era-game akin to Paradox's quality.  One of the things I was most excited about was the espionage system.  I love Cold War spy novels and the history of CIA/MI6/KGB/GRU/Stasi/SAD/"OGA" activities during this period.

To do a little bit of tire-kicking on EvW's espionage system I wanted to start a game with a major power so I'd have enough money for a long-term campaign of covert activities.  I settled on the UK for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is Bond novels/films.  Apart from that, the UK's MI6 was one of the first and most effective espionage agencies in the West right after the war ended, and quickly became experts in tradecraft.

Because I was focusing mostly on spying, which is an expensive endeavor, I chose not to concentrate too much on military spending/research/upgrades/strategy.  So, I neglected UK's massive, global, several hundred thousand troop-strong military (apart from keeping them amply supplied - if I'm playing the long game, I need to keep those overseas possessions mine as long as possible to maximize profit).

However, I'm paying attention to my economy.  It's very good! 



A lot of profit and production for a country that was so desperate for the Marshall Plan in the late 40s.  Oh well!  What I aim to do is improve my production on the home islands (since, of the 3 revenue sectors, it earns the most income early in the game) so that when my overseas territories inevitably gain independence, I can survive off my own factories' revenue and possibly turn the young nations into valuable trading partners for my industries.



Next was tech, and as you can see I made espionage the focus.  If you want to build intelligence centers in your provinces, you need the Intelligence Academies tech.  These, as well as all the techs on the left side of the tree, increase your daily spy gain. The center column of techs improve your spy mission success chance, and the right side improves your counterintelligence.

Anyway, soon I recruited my first agent, this guy:



Anthony Blunt, Agent 006, codename Carbine.  Great, thanks.  Nice to meet you.  You're 22 years old, how are you already balding with jowls?  Or is that a disguise?  Whatever, you'll do.  His 3 potential missions, all of which could prove useful, only have a base success rate of 50%.  This isn't really great, but that's what I have to work with.  It's better than nothing, and as you can see, for each mission there's a chance his rank could increase.  I'm not sure what the highest is, but 3 seems to be about middling, so I'm guessing it's a scale from 1-5.


To be continued. 

[HansWormhat EvW-Dev]

My next job is to find a suitable target for covert action.  In keeping with history, and seeking to find somewhere to see if "Carbine" is an asset or a liability, I choose Poland.  The Polish government famously sought refuge in the UK when they were exiled by Germany in 1939, and after the war ended, they naturally assumed they would get their country back.  In one of the world's most famous instances of "LOL NOPE," the USSR installed a friendly, Communist government in Poland instead.  MI6 and the CIA tried unsuccessfully to supply a Polish resistance movement against the Soviet Union's government-in-situ, basically recruiting droves of Polish expatriates and training them in guerrilla warfare, and airdropping them into Poland where they were summarily rounded up by Soviet intelligence and executed.  The two agencies did this for the better part of a decade, sending waves of Polish exiles and embedded spies to their deaths and hiding weapons caches in Polish territory, only for them to be dug up by the Polish and Soviet forces.

So I'm going to duplicate those efforts, but this time I'm determined to succeed.  I decide to send [NAME REDACTED] to Poland and gather intelligence just to see what the lay of the land is there.



With my 50% chance of success I'm not too hopeful, but I greenlight Operation Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jungle) and Carbine goes to Warsaw.



That's what it looks like on my Intel map.  The setup time for the mission is 24 hours, strangely, so I hear back from Carbine almost instantly...



Well crap.  I check if there are any side effects of the mission failure, and I see Carbine is still alive and back at MI6.  What's more, my relations with Poland didn't drop, so fortunately the failure was not noticed by anyone.  I suppose [NAME REDACTED] is just going to have to redeem himself in the field.

[HansWormhat EvW-Dev]

Agent 006 is turning into a liability after all.  2 more attempts to gather intelligence in Poland have failed, and giving him a separate assignment in Prague has done no good either.



Another mission, another failure.  I think I'll put a burn notice on Anthony Blunt.

So I recruit another agent.  Welcome to MI6, mister...



Maurice Oldfield!-wait, you were born in 1936.  You're 10 years old, dude.  You are a child.  What even the hell.

Well, you're a major step up from the last guy, which is really a tragedy when you think about it.  And you've got a license to kill!  Fantastic!...but dear God, a 10 year old assassin is a creepy, terrifying thought.  Whatever.  You're hired, just...you know, stay away from me.

Fortunately for me, Agent 005, codename "Rifle," is specialized in false flag operations AND supporting guerrillas!  I decide to take advantage of that particular skill just as the real MI6 did and send [NAME REDACTED] to Poland, this time to arm and raise rebel groups there.  Another thing to note is that [NAME REDACTED] is also Polish in nationality, a quality which I'm sure is useful but, as far as the game is concerned, I don't see how it affects anything.  Maybe there's something measurable that I missed, though.  It's at least kind of cool to think about.  



Success!  Whatever Rifle did worked and now there's 1 unit of guerrillas in Warsaw.  There's definitely no way that one unit can withstand the full force of the Soviet military already in Eastern Europe, but who knows?  The chance still exists, and maybe the USSR's war weariness is high enough for them to leave the problem to the Polish, which could be their best chance.

Unfortunately, and stupidly of me, I tried to use a cheat code to spy on Poland just so I could prove that something was happening (It's Carbine's fault, if his intelligence gathering missions had worked...).  When I opened the Intel window and looked at Poland, my game crashed.  No matter though, I'll go back to a previous save and continue.  

And then order Rifle to send Carbine to the bottom of the Thames in a weighted-down tarp.

[Tiberius - EvW-Dev]

Hahaha, this is awesome! What's the overall goal? Collapse the Soviets using spies?

[HansWormhat EvW-Dev]

My little cheat code experiment broke my save game, BUT thanks to all this lovely documentation, I was able to restart and get myself back on track to where I was before.

Anyway, I got my 2 spies again...one codenamed Pistol and the other codenamed Carbine (again...thankfully my old Carbine is long gone).  Pistol has the trait "Super Assassin" which is really nice, who can kill heads of state and government, as well as lift fog of war over a particular region (which is extremely useful); Carbine can gather intelligence, support guerrillas, and flip enemy spies.  Great!  Let's get to work.  We have much time to make up for.  

The first thing I want to do, since it's where I left off with my previous game and what eventually broke it, is get some Polish resistance units started.  I've got Carbine for that (real name Gary Droller) so I send him to Warsaw to redouble my efforts of supporting the Polish resistance.  The mission is successful, and I learn that not one, but TWO Polish units have risen up in Warsaw!  All right!  

Immediately I send Pistol to Warsaw to life fog of war over the area.  I want to see my new resistance at work.  And better news, Pistol is successful!  Fantastic!  Let's see what's going on!



oh

Well, I'm not willing to write off that mission just yet...after all the units did pop up in Warsaw, where there's already one Polish division.  It's possible they got wiped out instantly (just like the real-life ones did!) but there's no way to prove it.  

Oh by the way



Hahaha welp.

As far as I can tell the effects are non-existent, apart from this:



Which...I don't know, your guess is as good as mine.  What I know for a fact is that heads of state/government are non-changeable, unlike HoI, so whenever 1953 rolls around Nikita Kruschev will assume both positions.  I know, it's very lame, but it's the same with the World Atomic Clock.

Now that I know my spies actually are capable of doing things, I can make an honest attempt at

Hahaha, this is awesome! What's the overall goal? Collapse the Soviets using spies?

oh you guessed correctly. Yes. I'll do that.

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