Http://xkcd.com/1222/

http://xkcd.com/1222/

HOI4 pulls it off in a sense? It’s functional and lends a bit of immersion, but espionage overall still feels lacking in it’s impact as more than a novelty bolt-on.The inter-op between branches is logical with intel really being carried by the air-force in support of land and naval forces (small picket/patrol tasking fleets for the navies own intra-op intel) environment factor granularity incl. Game-play wise though it comes down to dropping/maintaining (as best as you can produce) scout planes (or ships) into active regions. So a bit of risk for shoe-string powers or downturns, problem is carrying that out is just to grant modifiers and increase task efficiencies so more lacking output in the sense your asking for, but it works?

Only tab that really gives kinda what you’re asking for is the intel ledger. It’s a tack-on to the state panel and has tabs for overall info on resource input/outputs, tech, state modifiers/laws/ministers and each branches respective info. Where it meets your standard is by either not presenting any info or a range that increases in accuracy based on agency progress/tech and having agents running networks and infiltration's. In MP it shines since it does allow for guesstimating an opponents strategic intent/mindset off of their tactical/strategic considerations. Spanner in that is meta-templates/designs, makes revealing or guessing any of that kinda moot (or at least unrewarding) when it’s just an iteration off a spread sheet. Think the ideal system hinges on having an active and pragmatic participant as well or even allowing them to add or even control that distortion?

argument: strategy games like civ and eu4 and stellaris really need to not only not give players perfect information about their opponents, but should in fact actually lie to players. there should be ways of reducing the magnitude of those lies, sometimes (e.g. through espionage and scouting), but never to the degree that you can confidently get into risk-free competition with your enemy

it’s especially noticeable in historical strategy games when the AI plays, not like an AI player of a historical nation, but like a reasonably cautious human player of a video game. in eu4 for instance, this leads to a lot of the AI avoiding fights it knows it can’t win, and blobbing when it can. in stellaris, the way combat works in that game lends itself even more to a game map that tends to become pretty static around the midgame, and only occasionally gets shaken up by prescripted events like the khan or the crises

computer strategy games are oriented toward giving you maximum information by default; occasionally, as in stellaris, they will hide some of that information behind espionage mechanics, but this feels quite pro forma by the time the board state is mature. you definitely have the resources to scout out your opponents in almost all circumstances, which means that while you have to lay a bit of groundwork, there’s no actual strategic risk, unless you deliberately create it by playing badly on purpose. and making combat contingent on dice rolls or randomness can only help so much–this usually only functions to introduce ambiguity when forces are at near parity, not to create sudden dramatic reversals to simulate major tactical failures (which players would hate)

so i think strategy games–and i do mean strategy here, not RTSes, which involve a lot more tactical gameplay–should lie to the player more, to simulate the fact that not only is perfect information impossible under the normal fog of war, but that intelligence failures are a real risk when trying to engage in strategic competition. how they should lie depends on the nature of the game and the way information is presented, but information should be costly, and good information doubly so!

(From A Page)

 Jealousy

bitter for ignoramity

 Wrestle by Pandora’s side

against that self-same box

 Refuse the wrinkled thought

the pinched salt

 Scabbed knee

first fall

 But,what?

unanswered call

 Ford-way gone

o’er shoulder

 Reflection to none

weathered marker

 Causeway web spun

Let the wise men’s words ring,

 heart & mind be one

Soul ache for what aught to be

 fear not finality

(From A Page)

I thought I’d dip my quill.

I asked him what;

       had pierced his heart

That had brought him;

       wailing,

    across the many seas.

Hoped to find a glimmer;

       of that spark that feeds.

He found my question lacking

     “What should move a poet’s heart

                     that his eyes can’t see?”

   And thus the parched bard

                said to me

“What? All the sun touches

                    wasn’t enough to set you free?”

(From A Page)

The strife between the stillness

      Placid surface it presents

                Idle matters

                     Little hardship

Foundation laid

    That the maypole should spin

Come what will

  Find the lie

    Where a nation bides it’s time