How do I unlock more espionage operations?

[rikkitikki]

Is anyone else as confused by the espionage gameplay as I am?

First of all, the only operation I ever get offered is Gather Information. Which I launch constantly (with meager results). Yet all the tutorials show a whole list of ops to choose from. Mousing over it says the operations are determined by the "infiltration number" but it doesn't say how to raise this number. Any help here?

Which leads me to another question: the infiltration number at the top of one of my espionage reports says 47 but there is another "infiltration number" next to Gather Information which only says 10. Why are these numbers different? Are the tasks I need to raise each of these numbers different, too?

Any enlightenment would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

[IPWIW]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1522090/Stellaris_Nemesis/

[Captain Conundrum]

Nemesis unlocks more operations. One number is how much passive intel you have on them and the other is how strong your spy network is. You can use up some of that spy network on running operations. Passive intel reveals things about them like relative strength, number of planets/pops, detailed diplomatic information, and some other stuff. "Gather Information" increases that passive intel a bit for a little while.

Nemesis operations include things like stealing a tech boost, causing a minor diplomatic incident, destroying a starbase building, or even creating some pirates. I personally find the operations available a little underwhelming but the overall system is pretty cool.

Would like to see options for something like launching a coup which could end in total success (sudden change of government type), partial success (civil war), or failure (operation exposed/likely declaration of war).

[rikkitikki]

Ahh. I see. Funny, I was beginning to ponder which DLC should I buy. Now I know. :/

[SoloQuieroJugarDeChill]

Don't get Nemesis only for the espionage. It has mixed reviews and and bit of backlash.

[Dave]

Espionage isn't very interesting with the exception of Arm Privateers. Maybe the Crisis Beacon and Imperium stuff too but I haven't tried any of them yet.

[rikkitikki]

Originally posted by LegateLanius™:

Don't get Nemesis only for the espionage. It has mixed reviews and and bit of backlash.

Warning noted.

Originally posted by Dave:

Espionage isn't very interesting with the exception of Arm Privateers. Maybe the Crisis Beacon and Imperium stuff too but I haven't tried any of them yet.

Yeah, I'm getting that. It's hard to see how they could **** up espionage in a game where any intel at all has true usefulness as well as the opportunity for some glamorous intrigue (roleplay storylines, counterintelligence efforts, etc.) Oh well, maybe in the next patch... :/

[Dave]

Originally posted by rikkitikki:

Originally posted by LegateLanius™:

Don't get Nemesis only for the espionage. It has mixed reviews and and bit of backlash.

Warning noted.

Originally posted by Dave:

Espionage isn't very interesting with the exception of Arm Privateers. Maybe the Crisis Beacon and Imperium stuff too but I haven't tried any of them yet.

Yeah, I'm getting that. It's hard to see how they could **** up espionage in a game where any intel at all has true usefulness as well as the opportunity for some glamorous intrigue (roleplay storylines, counterintelligence efforts, etc.) Oh well, maybe in the next patch... :/

I should clarify that Arm Privateers isn't necessarily interesting either. But it will spawn a large fleet in the AI empire's territory which will then take over and just sit in a system until destroyed by anyone.

[Spirit]

Originally posted by rikkitikki:

Ahh. I see. Funny, I was beginning to ponder which DLC should I buy. Now I know. :/

a bit ? its a buggy mess when multiple crisis aspirants pop up , not all of them are at war with the community , sometimes no war is declared even when they build a aetherophasic engine and pop stars left and right

[Wokelander]

Unfortunately the Espionage stuff is pretty bland and the UI for it is also kinda terrible

[Rialm]

Nemesis is good if you are planning to become the emperor or the crisis. if your idea is to take "advantage" of espionage... in my opinion it's not worth it. It gives you a bit more to do. But it's not interesting, not worth it. Becoming the emperor or the crisis is fun.

I even just prefer to have only gather information. The others options are a bit underwhelming.

[Oakshadow]

Using espionage effectively is hard. And it's only useful if you're playing an aggressive diplomatic empire.

It's also difficult for most people to really understand as you have to lean REALLY hard into it to see it be effective.

I find using it really fun and interesting. But As others have noted some operations are more useful than others. With most of them being pretty situational. They're best used as a way to influence fights you're NOT a part of in my experience. Which requires a lot of foresight and gambling. Since operations typically take longer to pan out than it takes ships to fly from point A to point B.

First check out here: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Intelligence
As that will give you a breakdown of how the system generally works. As for how to use the operations see below.

Gather Information : This costs you network, which early on = your intel. However intel degrades relatively slowly. So it increases your intel substantially in exchange for network. Use this when you're at network cap, to boost your intel when you need more information. Using an agent with a specialty will increase intel on that specific area too. Military assets are pretty useful for this operation.

Spark diplomatic incident: This should mostly be used defensively. What it does is force one of the target empire's envoys to be unusable for X amount of time. Typically a few years. This is extremely useful at halting an empire from hurting your relationship, or by crippling any spy network you think they might be building in your empire. Conversely this can also pull envoys assigned to federations or the galactic council. Which can damage cohesion or lower diplomatic points during a vote. You don't get to pick though, so make sure to try and keep track of where your targeted empire is most likely to be placing their envoys.

Prepare Sleeper Cells: Not really all that important. It just temporarily halts Network degradation when an envoy is unassigned. The time it takes to set up isn't worth stalling an envoy move for.

Acquire Asset: Use this every spare chance you get. On EVERY empire you can. Assets increase max network capacity and therefore your max Intel. Allowing you to see and do more to enemy empires.

Extort Favors: Favors can be really easy to get among friends. But sometimes hard for enemy empires. Especially if you don't want to feed their economy to acquire them. Situational but useful should an enemy empire be equal or stronger than you at any point. As favors are what win you power in the galactic council.

Smear Campaign: This costs a lot for very little gain. Use it enough times and it can eventually hurt another empire's diplomatic relations with everyone else. However your network growth has to be fairly high otherwise you won't be able to use it often enough to isolate the target empire.

Steal technology: Again only use if you're avoiding wars. It lets peaceful empires nick tech from other empires. Has a 10 year cooldown once successful. Works similarly to researching debris. Debris is more efficient, though. So don't bother using it on an empire you're planning to go to war with.

Sabotage Starbase: This can be really effective if you can time it right. But realistically you probably won't use it. It's expensive, and random. Meaning you're only going to get a mild leg up against something you probably have no trouble defeating anyways. More useful when you have the advantage over another player than against the AI.

Arm Privateers: It's only a distraction and won't do much unless the AI or player is busy trying to fight something else at the same time.

Crisis Beacon: Situational, but incredibly destructive. Probably the only operation capable of messing up an enemy militarily. But you're only replacing one enemy in the area for another. So make sure you're not using this against a neighbor.

[alangriffith]

Originally posted by Jay:

First check out here: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Intelligence
As that will give you a breakdown of how the system generally works. As for how to use the operations see below.

<snip>

Neither you nor the wiki talk about assigning asserts to missions. I'm still amazed nobody knows about this, but I run with no mods and it happens reliably for me, so it must be a feature.

Assets (from acquire asset) make most operations much more effective, if you assign the asset when setting up the operation ( + symbol in square). Not just the skill bonus the wiki mentions, but if the asset matches the type of job (as shown by the symbol next to the asset and the job matching), then on success you get an extra option to sacrifice the asset for a *big* bonus, in addition to the normal result.

The two I've reliably used multiple times (as two different governments types):

1) info gathering asset on steal tech = +10% research (for ten years I think).

2) sabotage asset on sabotage starbase = use 2 volatile motes to destroy 2 defence platforms (a big difference in early war as the AI loves to build defence platforms, and this always hits defence platforms whether the module sabotaged was military or not).

I'm sure there are others but I've basically stopped playing until they patch the vanilla AI (since AI mods are too hardcore for me yet the vanilla AI has become a boring idiot since the patch).

Seriously, could someone else with the DLC confirm this happens? Because with it not being in the wiki months later, I'm kinda wondering if my game is somehow different to everyone else. I'm on steam, latest version, never had any mods (so no chance of old mods failnig to revert), so its either in vanilla Nemesis DLC or comes from some interplay of another DLC and it (I do have most of the DLCs).
I brought it up in a few previous threads about Intel shortly after the patch came out, and nobody ever confirmed it or said it didn't happen for them.

[Oakshadow]

Neither you nor the wiki talk about assigning asserts to missions. I'm still amazed nobody knows about this, but I run with no mods and it happens reliably for me, so it must be a feature.

Assets (from acquire asset) make most operations much more effective, if you assign the asset when setting up the operation ( + symbol in square). Not just the skill bonus the wiki mentions, but if the asset matches the type of job (as shown by the symbol next to the asset and the job matching), then on success you get an extra option to sacrifice the asset for a *big* bonus, in addition to the normal result.

The two I've reliably used multiple times (as two different governments types):

1) info gathering asset on steal tech = +10% research (for ten years I think).

2) sabotage asset on sabotage starbase = use 2 volatile motes to destroy 2 defence platforms (a big difference in early war as the AI loves to build defence platforms, and this always hits defence platforms whether the module sabotaged was military or not).

I'm sure there are others but I've basically stopped playing until they patch the vanilla AI (since AI mods are too hardcore for me yet the vanilla AI has become a boring idiot since the patch).

Seriously, could someone else with the DLC confirm this happens? Because with it not being in the wiki months later, I'm kinda wondering if my game is somehow different to everyone else. I'm on steam, latest version, never had any mods (so no chance of old mods failnig to revert), so its either in vanilla Nemesis DLC or comes from some interplay of another DLC and it (I do have most of the DLCs).
I brought it up in a few previous threads about Intel shortly after the patch came out, and nobody ever confirmed it or said it didn't happen for them.

The wiki is accurate to what you're seeing. Assets and asset types do not change or weight the outcomes of an operation differently (with the exception of Gather Information).

For example Steal tech will only result in three options.
Successful not advanced: +10% research
Successful advanced: +10% research and a research alternative for a tech they have but you don't.
Unsuccessful (takes enigmatic engineering): Message stating they're too advanced for you to decipher anything. AI takes this a lot now.

IF you have an asset assigned you occasionally get an additional option to sacrifice the asset for greater rewards. In the event of Steal tech, you can sack your asset to increase the duration of the buff. But that's about the only option unique to using them.

[SoloQuieroJugarDeChill]

Originally posted by Jay:

Using espionage effectively is hard. And it's only useful if you're playing an aggressive diplomatic empire.

It's also difficult for most people to really understand as you have to lean REALLY hard into it to see it be effective.

I find using it really fun and interesting. But As others have noted some operations are more useful than others. With most of them being pretty situational. They're best used as a way to influence fights you're NOT a part of in my experience. Which requires a lot of foresight and gambling. Since operations typically take longer to pan out than it takes ships to fly from point A to point B.

First check out here: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Intelligence
As that will give you a breakdown of how the system generally works. As for how to use the operations see below.

Gather Information : This costs you network, which early on = your intel. However intel degrades relatively slowly. So it increases your intel substantially in exchange for network. Use this when you're at network cap, to boost your intel when you need more information. Using an agent with a specialty will increase intel on that specific area too. Military assets are pretty useful for this operation.

Spark diplomatic incident: This should mostly be used defensively. What it does is force one of the target empire's envoys to be unusable for X amount of time. Typically a few years. This is extremely useful at halting an empire from hurting your relationship, or by crippling any spy network you think they might be building in your empire. Conversely this can also pull envoys assigned to federations or the galactic council. Which can damage cohesion or lower diplomatic points during a vote. You don't get to pick though, so make sure to try and keep track of where your targeted empire is most likely to be placing their envoys.

Prepare Sleeper Cells: Not really all that important. It just temporarily halts Network degradation when an envoy is unassigned. The time it takes to set up isn't worth stalling an envoy move for.

Acquire Asset: Use this every spare chance you get. On EVERY empire you can. Assets increase max network capacity and therefore your max Intel. Allowing you to see and do more to enemy empires.

Extort Favors: Favors can be really easy to get among friends. But sometimes hard for enemy empires. Especially if you don't want to feed their economy to acquire them. Situational but useful should an enemy empire be equal or stronger than you at any point. As favors are what win you power in the galactic council.

Smear Campaign: This costs a lot for very little gain. Use it enough times and it can eventually hurt another empire's diplomatic relations with everyone else. However your network growth has to be fairly high otherwise you won't be able to use it often enough to isolate the target empire.

Steal technology: Again only use if you're avoiding wars. It lets peaceful empires nick tech from other empires. Has a 10 year cooldown once successful. Works similarly to researching debris. Debris is more efficient, though. So don't bother using it on an empire you're planning to go to war with.

Sabotage Starbase: This can be really effective if you can time it right. But realistically you probably won't use it. It's expensive, and random. Meaning you're only going to get a mild leg up against something you probably have no trouble defeating anyways. More useful when you have the advantage over another player than against the AI.

Arm Privateers: It's only a distraction and won't do much unless the AI or player is busy trying to fight something else at the same time.

Crisis Beacon: Situational, but incredibly destructive. Probably the only operation capable of messing up an enemy militarily. But you're only replacing one enemy in the area for another. So make sure you're not using this against a neighbor.

A question for the vanilla game.. whats the relationship about network and Intel? I find it that often, if my network reached about 90 or 100, I'll have full intel without needing to do the gather inter mission.

Is it worth to do it this way?