Espionage Grand Strategy Espiocracy Goes Guerilla
Upcoming Cold War game talks insurgency and player agency as the plot thickens
21 September 2022 - Cold War strategy sim, Esipocracy, has released a milestone developer deep-dive as it goes behind enemy lines to shed light on its approach to player freedom. Placed in charge of an intelligence agency during the Cold War as the Iron Curtain descends across Europe, the era of the espiocrat begins. Players are free to rewrite history from the shadows as they influence ideologies, stage coups, and wage proxy wars. Subterfuge takes center stage, but defining how far players can go in their endeavors brings its own challenges.
Espiocracy’s gameplay is centered around two core concepts: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency. Each offers a unique gameplay experience that provides players with a raft of options for achieving their goals. Counterinsurgency gameplay is focused on grand strategic interventions and denial of future capabilities. Whether that’s capturing and interrogating others, recruiting and infiltrating key locations or gathering vital intelligence, the systems are all about pushing back against your opponents.
In contrast, insurgency is about nudging participants towards your objectives. This can include ambushes, attrition and contesting terrain, and conquering prisons to free up captured rebels and acquire new members. Both insurgency and counterinsurgency work side-by-side to create a tug of war style gameplay that players will need to exploit if their intelligence agency is to succeed.
As just one avenue for achieving your goals, Espiocracy’s depth for managing the strategies of war and espionage are vast. Having already laid the foundations for the overarching principles to their game design and the causes of managing direct and indirect conflict, this is just the first step in showcasing the depth on offer as players tilt world history in their favor.
Set to showcase at TactiCon from September 22, 2022, Espiocracy can be wishlisted now on Steam.
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Key Features
- Lead An Intelligence Agency - Choose one of 74 countries and lead its intelligence agency from the start of the Cold War. Whether your chosen nation loses a war, suffers a coup, or has a change of leadership due to foreign actions, your agency remains resolute, working to further your country’s interests through the twists and turns of the 20th century and beyond.
- Prepare For War - Nuclear brinkmanship, the Space Race, decolonization, and the instability and proxy wars are all on the horizon as you navigate a world balanced on a knife edge.
- Silent Warfare - Deploy foreign and domestic agents to manipulate public opinion, support and establish political factions, stoke the flames of independence, ignite proxy wars, and shatter the status quo with coups. Your country’s leader may request your input on major decisions such as invading a neighbor or forming an alliance, and you can use your influence to trigger wars or turn the tide of diplomatic negotiations.
- Primary Operatives - Make use of 34 different types of operations: install operatives in foreign agencies, use propaganda to spread ideologies, and perform assassinations. Hand-pick and develop your own cadre of top-level operatives. Some are more technologically inclined, while others are experts at manipulating people and their emotions.
- All Out Agents - Agents act with relative autonomy based on your orders, influenced by their own traits, histories, and biases. Operatives with certain skills might present you with unique opportunities, while others might fall under the influence of illicit substances to cope with their assignments, or worse — fall under the influence of a foreign power.Work Behind The Scenes - Target and manipulate geopolitically active individuals, organizations, and sectors. These “actors” have their own agendas and will seek to spread their ideologies and policies as they move among nations.
About Hooded Horse™
Hooded Horse Inc. is a publisher of strategy, simulation, and role-playing games based in Dallas, Texas with people and partners across the world. Starting in 2021 with three titles, Hooded Horse’s portfolio has grown to 16 games and counting. Our goal is to empower and support developers in doing what they love. From the distant past of Old World, to the depths of space in Falling Frontier, Hooded Horse is the new name in deep, strategic experiences.
You can find out more about us on our website, as well as our social channels; Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Discord.
