Better Mechanics : The Agency

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Authors: Tallcastle, Amine Alkaline

Last revision: 27 May at 13:22 UTC (17)

File size: 5.28 MB

On Steam Workshop

Description:

WIP note: Most Foreign Asset actions are playable, but naval air capacity reports, revealing the main naval base, and revealing the main airbase may still be rough when showing exact locations. The agency tree, operations, assets, resistance work, AI behavior, traits, and balance changes are intended to be playable.

Vanilla espionage has a great idea behind it, but it often feels too small, too passive, and too expensive for what it gives you.

This mod turns intelligence into a real campaign layer. Agencies grow through a much larger tree, operatives have more room to develop, operations matter more, foreign assets open new actions, resistance work has its own place, and the AI is pushed to spy, defend itself, and fight back.

Espionage should be a front of the war.

The small vanilla upgrade list has been replaced by a large department based agency tree.

• Army intelligence branch
• Navy intelligence branch
• Airforce intelligence branch
• Civilian and economic intelligence branch
• Counterintelligence and agency defense branch
• Operations department branch
• Operative management and training branch
• Cryptology branch
• Level based upgrades, dependencies, and specializations

Your agency now feels like an institution instead of a small checklist.

Successful infiltration can create foreign assets in a dedicated Foreign Assets panel.

• Civilian assets can reveal research and economic information
• Army assets can reveal doctrine, armor, piercing, traits, and military industry activity
• Air assets can reveal doctrine, air information, and air industry activity
• Navy assets can reveal doctrine, shipyard work, and naval industry activity
• Resistance assets can support resistance areas and occupied society actions

Operations are expanded, rebalanced, and tied more closely to your agency choices.

• Infiltrate civilian administration, army, air force, and navy
• Steal civilian, army, air, and naval blueprints
• Prepare collaboration governments
• Capture ciphers and rescue operatives
• Coordinate strikes
• Sabotage industry, infrastructure, resources, fuel, radar, naval bases, and synthetic refineries
• Target army leaders and attaches
• Acquire fortification plans
• Make resistance contacts, strengthen resistance, and support occupied civilians

Operation costs have been cleaned up, special equipment needs have been converted toward vanilla equipment, and repeated requirements have been merged so they are easier to read.

Intel networks are stronger and more useful in war.

• Better planning speed and recon value
• Better local operation effectiveness
• Pressure on enemy planning and entrenchment
• River crossing and invasion related effects
• Restored map overlay colors for active and quiet networks
• Quiet Intel Network kept, but balanced with stronger detection pressure

Operatives can also be deployed in any valid state of the target country, which makes large countries and occupied areas much less awkward to handle.

Resistance work is more connected to the agency.

• Make Resistance Contacts can expose resistance areas
• Resistance areas can be selected in the Foreign Assets panel
• Strengthen Resistance can use selected resistance areas
• Support Occupied Civilians can use selected resistance areas
• Resistance and compliance information is shown more clearly

Operatives can reach higher levels and gain more meaningful experience from missions, networks, counterintelligence, operations, and captured enemy agents.

New and restored traits include:

• Insurgent for resistance and sabotage work
• Revolutionary for collaboration, ideology, and destabilization work
• Spy Hunter for counterintelligence and enemy operative detection
• Web of Lies for intel network growth
• Scientist for cipher and blueprint work
• Linguist for broader operative compatibility
• Asset discovery traits for the foreign asset system

The AI has been pushed to actually use the system.

• Build agencies more often
• Upgrade agencies more often
• Value defensive upgrades and counterintelligence more
• Keep counterintelligence active at home
• Spy on enemies and strategic targets more reliably
• Run infiltration, sabotage, theft, resistance, rescue, and support operations
• Use target scoring for better operation choices

The goal is not perfect genius AI. The goal is an AI that makes offensive spying less free.

The mod also rebalances agency pacing, operative recruitment, operative XP, network growth, network decay, quiet network behavior, detection, mission XP, operation rewards, radar intel, recon intel, combat intel, captured operative intel, and information visibility.

Better Mechanics : The Agency is built to be as vanilla friendly as a large espionage overhaul can reasonably be.

• Vanilla agency upgrade IDs are kept for focus trees and scripted rewards
• Compatibility upgrades are hidden from the custom agency interface when they are only support IDs
• Vanilla operation IDs are preserved where useful
• Random agency upgrade rewards are redirected into the new system
• Special equipment requirements are converted toward vanilla equipment
• Oil sabotage targets vanilla synthetic refineries
• No dependency on another full overhaul

This may conflict with mods that fully replace the intelligence agency GUI, operations, operative missions, agency upgrades, or the same intelligence defines.

If you want the older smaller version of The Agency, you can find it here:

Old Agency Mod Download[www.swisstransfer.com]

Huge credit goes to the BlackICE Team. A major part of the foundation, agency tree concept, foreign assets concept, and overall espionage vision comes from their intelligence work. This standalone version was adapted with permission, care, and respect for the original system.

This mod is not BlackICE and does not require BlackICE.

I’m centralizing everything for my mod collection on a new Discord server. I’ll not respond to comments, bug reports, or suggestions here. Please use the Discord Server[discord.gg] for all future requests. Comments have been disabled for efficiency and compliance.

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