I don't believe espionage mechanics have been discussed yet for ES2.

What would you like to see in terms of how the mechanic would work?

I think a lot of elements from Endless Legend can be carried over, but it would be interesting to revamp it a bit for this game. My suggestions:

-Instead of automatically being able to attach a spy to a system that you have sight of from anywhere in the map, it could be interesting to force Heroes to manually approach a system. this would dovetail nicely with any stealth mechanics so that you wouldn't be able to infiltrate a system unless you reached it without being detected.

-This could be made even more interesting if you could attach spies to enemy fleets as well as systems. While embedded in a fleet, they could either drastically reduce the combat score of the fleet (or maybe even destroy a few ships), maintain vision on the fleet, and even use it to hitch a ride back into enemy territory.

-Most of the espionage actions from Endless Legend would still be useful in Endless Space 2, but there are a few more that could be interesting:

-Influence elections: Raise or lower support for a given party in the next round of elections.

-Undermine legislature: Forcibly repeal a law that a player has passed and block them from passing it again for one political cycle

-Steal military intelligence: Gain detailed information on a player's active units (for 1 turn only), saved ship designs, and battle plan history

atejas wrote:

I don't believe espionage mechanics have been discussed yet for ES2.

What would you like to see in terms of how the mechanic would work?

I think a lot of elements from Endless Legend can be carried over, but it would be interesting to revamp it a bit for this game. My suggestions:

-Instead of automatically being able to attach a spy to a system that you have sight of from anywhere in the map, it could be interesting to force Heroes to manually approach a system. this would dovetail nicely with any stealth mechanics so that you wouldn't be able to infiltrate a system unless you reached it without being detected.

-This could be made even more interesting if you could attach spies to enemy fleets as well as systems. While embedded in a fleet, they could either drastically reduce the combat score of the fleet (or maybe even destroy a few ships), maintain vision on the fleet, and even use it to hitch a ride back into enemy territory.

-Most of the espionage actions from Endless Legend would still be useful in Endless Space 2, but there are a few more that could be interesting:

-Influence elections: Raise or lower support for a given party in the next round of elections.

-Undermine legislature: Forcibly repeal a law that a player has passed and block them from passing it again for one political cycle

-Steal military intelligence: Gain detailed information on a player's active units (for 1 turn only), saved ship designs, and battle plan history

Espionage mechanics such as these would add a great deal to the game.  In particular; Influencing elections, Fleet vision and knowledge of ship designs would be interesting.  Obviously all of these would need to be balanced.  Heroes manually approaching a system idea is odd and I am not quite sure how this could work.  That being said it adds to the brainstorming/discussion.  Counter Espionage would also need to be well thought out too.