As I’ve explained before one of the most important systems in Axioms is the “Intelligence Network”. Each character, to obviously wildly varying degrees, has their own network of agents and assets. There are tiers of knowledge as well as targets. So you have “Province Details”, “Population Details”, “Army Details”, “Unit Details”, and “Character Details”. For clarity the Unit class(c++ class) and associated classes are utilized both as the subsections of the Army class and for other stuff like Intrigue “Missions” and other things.
Provinces
So there are a few different Province Missions such as the Surveying Mission which gives basic data up to 8 Levels about the Geography/Climate and Resources, the Population, and the Characters in the Province. So at Level 1 you gain basic information like basic details about the Populations in the Province, Climate/Weather/Terrain/Geography, and obvious Resources. At Level 2 you gain basic details about local Characters as well as more info about the Populations and static features of the Province.
At level 3 you gain basic details about any Army in the Province as well as more Character and Populations details. At Level 4 you get improved details about previously mentioned entities plus some better understanding of the Weather and Resources. At Level 5 you gain more Character details and you get a lot more information about the less obvious/common Resources in the Province.
At Level 6 you gain information about important Locations as well as information about the Buildings and what they do and who owns them. You also get significantly more data about any Army in the Province which starts to include data on the Units in the Army or Armies. At Level 7 you gain info about Boats, Trade, and on lesser known Characters. Level 8 gives you the most detail about Resources, Locations, Units, Trade/Transport, and Characters that you can get from Surveying Missions.
Populations
Populations can be specifically targeted for a variety of purposes. The information gathering Mission for populations starts Level 0 of Population Detail, just as we saw with Province Detail before. Population Detail can cover a lot of the information in the later Tiers/Levels of Province Detail but after Level 2 or 3 you start to move toward much more detailed and specialized information.
At Level 3 you have full access to the basic statistics of a Population you are gathering info on including Race, Religions, Caste, Faction, Number, Leader, and so forth. You also know how they feel about their Leader and potentially the Liege and Vassals and Family of their Leader.
At Level 4 you can access their opinions on other Characters, their general Ideology, and how they feel about other Populations nearby. At Level 5 you have much more detailed information about their Ideology, Occupation, their general level of Happiness, how they feel about their Quality Of Life including Food and Amenities, and so forth.
At Level 6 you gain information about their recruitment for various purposes like Units in Armies, knowledge about their Language, their feelings about various Laws/Edicts, more on their Religion, and general “Cultural” knowledge suitable for various uses like Propaganda efforts, recruitment for Intrigue, and information on their Traders.
At Level 7 you are able to gain valuable information about their “Technology/Science”, their Crafts, their Magic, and so forth increasing to some degree your own abilities. Finally at Level 8 you have full access to all their data as if you were their Leader or associated Characters and you have a much higher capability in their Language, and your knowledge of them lets you engage in much more effective Propaganda, and other shadowy actions.
Characters
Characters have Missions and 8 Levels of information as well. As before the first 2 Levels contain information you could gain through the last 4 Levels of Province Detail or the last 3 Levels of Population Detail. These are cost trade offs involved here where having 3-5 levels of Character Detail is much useful and far cheaper than acquiring similar knowledge at the later levels of Province Detail. But sometimes you may be so engaged with a Province that you gain information on Characters and Populations essentially for free.
At Level 3 you gain moderate access to how the Character feels about closely associated Characters and Populations. Especially their Liege or Vassals and Family. This is equivalent to basic knowledge of their schedule or routine as well. The major Mission here is Surveillance or following/tailing to use modern terminology.
You have some amount of Population in one or more Units and possibly one or more Characters involved and some Funding/budget and time frame/duration. This is how the power of all missions is calculated. Each Level has a value of 1000 and your degree of investment defines how how up the tiers your Level is and how fast you advance. Level and Value decline over time, and much more quickly at higher Levels.
At Level 4 you gain even more knowledge of their daily routine and schedule, you see some number of the people they associate with, and more info on their Opinions of other Characters. Finally at Level 5 you start to gain the potential for engaging low level Assets, like chambermaids and stable boys, as well as the chance to discover Secrets.
At Level 6 you start to gain the opportunity for higher level Assets and Secrets and you gain some knowledge of the capabilities of Characters such as their Magical Aptitudes and Natural Attributes. At Level 7 you have an advancement in existing understanding as well as a higher understanding of their security and the environment around the target. Finally at level 8 you have access to the highest tier Secrets and Assets, know basically all the capabilities of the Character, and even perhaps the equivalent of Level 3 info on their close associates.
Counterintelligence
There are several Missions that are the equivalent of opposing actions to each of the proactive Missions. Province, Population, and Character being the main ones. These Missions let you generally reduce the efficacy of offensive missions. They have essentially no impact of information at the first 2 Levels. Technically the various Details are the result of Missions not part of them. They exist and operate even without a relevant Mission.
Counter-Missions apply a negative pressure of Value for Details independent of proactive Missions. Their impact is spread evenly among all Details from all other Characters and their Intelligence Networks. This pressure is determined by investment. So a Counter Mission at some level of investment might apply -400 Value a turn, divided over 8 Details, so -50 for each. This applies the same regardless of Detail Level. Since investment decreases at higher Levels for proactive Missions that means -50 hitting a Level 7 or 8 Detail might require a proactive Mission to invest far more to counter.
There are also Missions that target other Missions rather than all Details generally. Think of this as sort of like a “combat system” for Intrigue. Additionally some Characters might have Illusion/Light/Sound/Shadow/Darkness/Velocity Magic or Mind Magic or Spatial Magic or Time Magic. So Magic can hit far above the weight class you’d expect depending on the kind. Non-magical intelligence work has a sort of negative modifier vs the magical variety. Invisibility isn’t immune to non-magical counteraction but it takes far more work.
General Knowledge/Knowledge Sharing
Obviously this system seems like it would impact “lesser” characters heavily. They might not be able to keep up even low levels of information. Would they even know other Characters exist? Essentially Characters will “share” basic information with those they are “responsible for”. Characters can also intentionally share information to the “public”. Information known by a certain number/percentage of characters will automatically become “public”. Additionally some information is “static”. This sounds complicated and is a pain for me as a programmer but in game this stuff will have very little friction on the player.
A good example is that the “location” of provinces will very quickly become “public”. There might be a bit of a “range” impact here. Most characters in a game that has a “History” longer than a few hundred years will “know” the location of most Provinces within several hundred to a few thousand miles. Characters will always be aware of Provinces immediately adjacent to their “location” province, perhaps including provinces adjacent to that first layer of adjacent provinces.