As Stellaris continues to receive new mechanics and changes, Empires are being offered new avenues of dominating the galaxy, be it through warfare, economy, diplomacy and more. Now, players can potentially topple their rivals by striking from the shadows. New Intelligence and Espionage systems let you spy on and conduct operations against both allies and rivals.
Before you can spy on these aliens, you need to find them first. With the release of the 3.0 “Dick” Update and the Nemesis expansion, contacting and dealing with newly encountered Alien Empires has become much more complex and can even be lethal. As of the update, much about the galaxy is better hidden by a “fog of war,” keeping you from learning everything about new alien contacts immediately. Now when encountering a new space entity, Envoy leaders can be assigned to contact them. First contact is set into story stages similar to archeology dig sites, where Envoys hope to eventually make a breakthrough and progress to the next chapter before establishing communications. The results can vary on both yours and the target Empire’s diplomatic stance. You could have a peaceful first contact right from the start or from a deliberate or accidental event, Empires might take a hostile stance, and a first contact war is started.
When making your way to the contact page on the UI tab to the left, one of the new diplomatic options is to “Build Spy Network.” This assigns an available Envoy to infiltrate the desired Empire and gather intelligence on them. Intel is valued between 0 and 100, representing how much information one has about another Empire. Every 10 points of intel will raise at least one Intel Level, unlocking additional information about an Empire. Intel is spread across five categories consisting of Government, Diplomacy, Economy, Technology and Military. It’s important to keep intel levels from falling, or else the information on the Empire will no longer be updated and considered unreliable.
Intel cap is determined by base intel, trust, infiltration and diplomatic agreements. If the current intel is below the cap, it will increase by 12 each year, while being above the cap will decrease by 1 each year. Since information itself is now a valued commodity in Stellaris, Empires should consider building the Sentry Array Megastructure. When fully completed, in addition to seeing every hyperlane and star system in the galaxy, the Sentry Array now increases your intel level cap on all Empires by 40.
Now that you’ve got a spy ring and some info, it's time to conduct a clandestine Operation. Operations are targeted events that you can trigger within a desired Empire that can include subterfuge, manipulation, sabotage and provocation. If you don’t have Nemesis installed, the only operation that can be selected is “Gather Information.” Running an operation requires having an Envoy assigned to the spy network, and your network's infiltration level must meet or exceed the requirement for the operation. In addition, all operations have an upfront energy credits cost to start them and ongoing energy upkeep until completion. These costs increase if the operation is more difficult and requires higher infiltration levels.
If problems arise during an operation, the spymaster for that network will contact you to make a decision that might cancel the op, complete it, or fail it. Progressing an operation functions similarly to the archeology mechanic. The codebreaking skills of your Empire are pitted against the encryption of the target Empire to determine the difficulty of an operation. Players should keep in mind that this also works vice versa, as other Empires might try to use their codebreakers against your encryptions. Codebreaking and encryption levels can be increased through research, civics, government type, and edicts. Most operations will reduce your spy network's infiltration level upon completion, making the target Empire increase their security for a time. Sometimes a spy ring will manage to acquire an asset from the target Empire, making certain operations easier to accomplish.
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