"The Spy"

Here are our house rules on espionage that we use in all of our Global games
The espionage sequence is rolled at the beginning of the turn before Germans play.
There is also an political world event sequence rolled before espionage as well.

The mechanics of this may seem clunky but it’s really fun and adds some real spice to the game.
I can answer any questions if needed. Slow day here at work due to the holiday vacations.

Roll order is same a play order. China is not permitted to conduct espionage due to lack of infrastructure and government. France, if Paris is currently Allied controlled (liberated or uncaptured) is allowed at that point to conduct espionage.

Germany USSR Japan USA England Italy ANZAC

Espionage roll 2 dice for each power in turn order.

5-9 No espionage. If a power is not at war, this phase is not conducted for that power.

2 �Military leader assassinations. Spy networks successfully infiltrate enemy military headquarters.
Result is limited combat movement. Combat can be conducted in total of 2 zones by nation .

On a successful infiltration attacker rolls 2nd dice D6 to determine targeted country.
Attacker roll one D6 for a successful assassination attempt on a 3 or less. Successful kill can be negated by defender on roll of 2 or less. Non-combat movement is unaffected.
Germany � 1/2 USSR, 3/4 United Kingdom � England only, 5/6 USA
Japan � 1/2 USSR, 3/4 United Kingdom � India only, 5/6 USA
Italy � 1/2 USSR, 3/4 United Kingdom � England only, 5/6 USA
USSR � If at war with both Germany and Japan, even roll is targeted at Germany and odd roll is at Japan.
England � If at war with both Germany and Japan, even roll is targeted at Germany and odd roll is at Japan.
Australia � Japan only.
USA � 1/2 Germany, 3/4 Italy, 5/6 Japan
3 � Technical espionage. Technology succeeds on a 5 or 6 this turn. Spy networks infiltrate and send back secrets about enemy weapons programs currently being developed.
4 � Deception � Negates movement detected. All enemy units defend at -1 this turn for the first round of combat. Does not apply to AAA or AA guns or SBR combat.
10 � Movement detected � negates deception. All units defend at +1 for the first round of combat. Does not apply to AAA or AA guns or SBR combat.
11 � Spy networks sabotage industrial facilities and rail lines. Roll one die of industrial attack for the next two turns. Roll 2nd dice to determine targeted country.
Germany � 1/2 USSR, 3/4 United Kingdom � England only, 5/6 USA
Japan � 1/2 USSR, 3/4 United Kingdom � India only, 5/6 USA
Italy � 1/2 USSR, 3/4 United Kingdom � England only, 5/6 USA
USSR � If at war with both Germany and Japan, even roll is targeted at Germany and odd roll is at Japan.
England � If at war with both Germany and Japan, even roll is targeted at Germany and odd roll is at Japan.
Australia � Japan only.
USA � 1/2 Germany, 3/4 Italy, 5/6 Japan
12 � Counter espionage. Negates all adverse espionage from any enemy spy network.

This is what we use and we like it “A LOT”!!!

we always have a pen and paper (we call it the “combat log”) ready and it is your responsibility to remember to do any sabotage or advantages on your turn. If you forget after the other player purchases or rolls its like chess, you lose it.

It’s not too hard to keep track of things.

basically 5-9 odds are highest so usually nothing happens but it gives the beginning of each turn a bit more spice as we see it. Combined with the political and world events it adds maybe 4-5 minutes to a turn to roll all the “extras” at the beginning.

Try it one time. if you PM me I will send you the full ruleset in a pdf and you can look at what we call our South Texas House Rules. They are pretty easy to play and it adds a bit of randomness to the game and we also have weather events as well.

It makes the game a bit more realistic and also can change the ebb and flow considerably but that is war.

Ichabod, the 3 tables would fit in my basement. Have 2 now. Just would need to put up  plywood walls. Ha Ha

seancb, like your post but just seems to be to much. Got to keep it KISS.

General, yes your idea is like mine. Have some kind of list of 8 things the spy can or can’t do and then have the defender roll a counter die.

1. Spy dies
2. Spy blows up ammo depot. Defenders ground troops -1 on first round of combat only in 1 territory.
3. Spy blows up Fuel depot. Defenders motorized units in 1 territory move only 1 space.
4. Spy steals tech development papers. Die break thru roll cost 8 icp’s on defenders next turn.
5. Spy blows up Fuel depot at a naval base. Ships denied the extra space movement from a naval base.
6. Spy damages a factory. Can only build 2 units at a Minor and 8 at a Major factory.
7. Spy dies.
8. Spy damages a factory. Defender pays 3 icps to bank for repairs.

Somethings like that. You could make it a 10 item Spy chart. Defender rolls a D6 die and a roll of 2 or less denies the Spy.

Keep it simple but also it can be counter every turn so it doesn’t get out of hand. Change the list around. I’m going to use this in my next  40 game that I have posted in the Others variants and games thread. I will add 2 more items to make it a 10 item Spy chart.

Attacker rolls 1 die for Spy and Defender rolls 1 die to block Spy. Simple.

I have event cards in game to so this will double spice up the game. If this is to strong (could make die counter roll 3 or less to) or I will add 2 to 4 of these items to the event cards where the defender can’t counter.

Interesting stuff here guys. Historical Board Gaming actually just released a great little “Spy” marker for their Global War game. You could easily use them for A&A:

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/HBG-Spy-Marker-Acrylic-x5-_p_2210.html

The rules are pretty good too. With some minor modifications, you could easily make them work for A&A:

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/assets/images/HBG/HBGMarkers/00Marker%20Rules/Phase%201%20Marker%20Rules.pdf

@SS:

1. Spy dies
2. Spy blows up ammo depot. Defenders ground troops -1 on first round of combat only in 1 territory.
3. Spy blows up Fuel depot. Defenders motorized units in 1 territory move only 1 space.
4. Spy steals tech development papers. Die break thru roll cost 8 icp’s on defenders next turn.
5. Spy blows up Fuel depot at a naval base. Ships denied the extra space movement from a naval base.
6. Spy damages a factory. Can only build 2 units at a Minor and 8 at a Major factory.
7. Spy dies.
8. Spy damages a factory. Defender pays 3 icps to bank for repairs.

I’m struck by the fact that the spy is acting as a spy in only one of those eight roll results (specifically, in number 4).  In the other ones, he either dies or he’s acting like a saboteur rather than an intelligence agent.  I’m also wondering: in number 4, is the spy only allowed to steal data on tech breakthroughs that have already been achieved by the enemy power from which he’s stealing them?  After all, how could power X develop breakthough Y by stealing data from power Z if power Z doesn’t yet have breakthrough Y for itself?

You could call the list Espionage Spy of our Spy Agencies.

The Spies had many jobs along with gathering secret information.

I read that Spy operations also worked to damage morale in the enemy and to disrupt supply lines and hamper the movement of enemy troops.
All of these functions were vital services for the spies working with inside intelligence
agents of the agencies.

@SS:

Spy steals tech papers. No tech roll for next turn.
Defender gets a die roll to counter.

It’s plausible that Power X would get a free tech upgrade (or perhaps a tech roll with easier odds) for a specific tech by stealing tech papers from an enemy power that already has that tech, but I don’t think it’s plausible that an enemy power that’s in the process of developing a tech would be stopped or delayed from that tech development just because a spy steals a few papers from them.  Just think of the Manhattan Project for example.  If Germany, let’s say, had wanted to seriously delay the American A-bomb project, it could not have do this by breaking into a safe somewhere and grabbing a handful of papers; it would have had to steal (or destroy) massive amounts of documentation located in multiple well-guarded locations, as well as assassinate all the scientists and engineers who were deeply involved in the project, and probably also destroy the industrial facilities that were contributing to the development effort (like the gigantic Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a building which was the size of a small town).

It was meant to be some kind of delay for getting tech.

Sorry but I removed my message and wrote a new one in the above post.

@SS:

You could call the list Espionage Spy of our Spy Agencies.

The Spies had many jobs along with gathering secret information.

I read that Spy operations also worked to damage morale in the enemy and to disrupt supply lines and hamper the movement of enemy troops.
All of these functions were vital services for the spies working with inside intelligence
agents of the agencies.

I’m going to call it the Espionage Spy Chart.

I think a distinction needs to be made between the concept of “a spy” in the singular and the much broader concept of wartime intelligence activities by entire networks and agencies.  In a strategic-level game like A&A, I don’t see any plausible way of introducing a house rule that models the activities of “a spy” in the singular because that’s not the level at which single spies operate.  The only WWII “spy in the singular” who had a major strategic impact on the entire war was Richard Sorge, Stalin’s top spy in Japan, who alerted Stalin in the fall of 1941 that Japan was planning to attack the US and the UK rather than the USSR; this allowed Stalin to transfer his crack Siberian troops westward just in time to save Moscow from the advancing Germans.  Sorge’s impact was spectacular, but it was also extremely exceptional; the vast majority of spies “in the field” simply serve to collect bits of information (often quite modest in importance), which they pass along – often by lengthy routes – to the military or civilian agencies that control their operations.  Those agencies then collate and analyze the masses of raw data that arrive from their network of field agents and try to extract useful conclusions from that data.  On top of that, these agencies not only take into account this “humint” (human intelligence), they also need to correlate it with “sigit” (signals intelligence), which brings us into the related worlds of radio signal interception and code-breaking.  Espionnage in WWII, in other words, was an extremely complex business involving vast numbers of people working in a great variety of tasks, with some of these jobs being extremely sophisticated and specialized, while others were very routine and clerical (though they were essential too).  Moreover, intelligence isn’t just a matter of learning the other side’s secrets; it’s also about counter-intelligence, which means either preventing the other side from learning your own secrets or finding a way to feed him false information that actually works to your advantage rather than the enemy’s advantage.

In other words, it would make sense to develop a house rule built around the concept of representing in a collective way these wartime intelligence activities, and of translating these activities into modest bonuses of one sort or another, but I don’t think it would fit A&A’s strategic scale to focus on something as tiny as the activities of one spy, or to allow an espionage house rule to have a strategically major impact on the course of the game.

We actually call ours and espionage chart.
If you read ours, it is very simple.
You roll 2 dice at the beginning.
if your roll results in 5-9 you have not succeeded in espionage and no further action is needed.
the odd on that are 2/3 you will miss espionage.

Its pretty simple in our version.

CWO, I here where your coming from.

I think I may just add 1 or 2 event cards to each countries deck saying something to the affect of a spy stealing tech design papers and getting a free D10 die tech roll that matches to my tech chart and/or they get to take away a tech from the enemy and keep for themselves.

Maybe a one time +1 attack or defense for all specific units of a Power winning intelligence ops,  at 4 IPCs or more, such as Artillery, MI, Tank.

@SS:

they get to take away a tech from the enemy and keep for themselves.

If by this you mean “copy an enemy’s tech, so that you both get to use it rather than just him using it”, that’s fine.  If you mean “deprive the enemy of a tech, so that it becomes yours rather than his,” that’s not believable.  Stealing technology isn’t like stealing a car; you can’t deprive an enemy of technological knowledge and tecnological manufacturing infrastructure just by grabbing a secret plan from somewhere.  When the Soviets reverse-engineered the B-29 to produce their own copy of the plane, that action didn’t suddenly cause all the B-29s in the US inventory to suddenly disappear, or cause all the US factories that built the B-29 to suddenly stop working.  If you somehow stole the famous top-secret formula for Coca-Cola syrup, which is apparently kept in a safe at Coke’s corporate headquarters and which is supposedly known in its entirety to only one or two people at any one time, this would not bring the worldwide manufacturing of Coca-Cola to an immediate halt.  The subcontractors who make the various components of the Coca-Cola syrup – each one of them knowing just part of the formula – would keep right on manufacturing the stuff as if nothing had happened.

Both sides would have same tech.

Naw. We have a rule for strict neutrals where you must roll a die and get the territories value or less on die roll. If you don’t u have to retreat and pay the bank up to the territories value.