Overview
Of all the things that I was ever known for as the Shogun Empire faction leader, the one thing that I never talked much about and I never revealed was my intelligence network. Nevertheless, certain agents of mine either turned against me or made slip-ups that gradually alerted the other factions to the presence of a network that, to them, was sadistically undermining them and listening in on their High Command chats. However, they became more shocked when they took their conversations to Steam chats and they still managed to reach my ears. The “Masaharta” network gradually became one of the untold legends of my time as faction leader. The intelligence that I received allowed me to make some decisions that were extremely uncanny and, to my HC, very foolish. However, when I turned out to be right later, they would praise me for being smart. Many of the older Shoguns consider me to be a wise leader, but I tell you now that the wisdom of my leadership decisions did not come from magical powers. They came from cold, hard intelligence that was delivered to me by agents who dedicated themselves to carrying out intelligence gathering, sabotage, and in-game “assassinations”.My old friends in the Shogun High Command asked me how I did it. I always gave evasive answers. Now, for the first time, I am outlaying the principles and the inner workings of a spy and sabotage network that essentially had its fingers on everything that happened in politics during my reign as faction leader. My promise to my agents still holds. I will not be revealing any names. I will be using certain operations that we called “white ops” to explain various aspects of how the network was built and run. However, I positively refuse to talk about the “black ops” jobs that we did. The sole purpose of this guide is to show how I built a spy and sabotage network within March of War and how I used it.
Building Trust
The primary key to starting a good spy network is to gain trust. You must exude trust from every pore in your body. For me, I always gained trust to start my spy networks by being polite and respectful to everyone I met. I am naturally that so it was no problem to utilize it to gain people’s trust. After gaining people’s trust, you must gradually feel your way. More often than not, they will give you the information you want if you just stimulate them to talk. The more words they speak, the more you can learn about them and their plans.
Selecting Potential Agents
As you establish a reputation of being polite and respectful to everyone, the rogues in the other factions will come to you to talk about what they don’t like in their own faction. Most often, they will dissatisfied, bitter, and ready to stab their faction in the back for whatever reason. While it is never wise to trust these people too far, they can often feed you information about the inner workings of High Command. Gain the trust of rogues!
The respectable members of other factions are often good sources of information. World leaders tend to have an inflated sense of their own importance and they like to spread some scuttlebutt. So they will probably have talked to High Commanders from other factions who told them their plans. Then these members will pass the scuttlebutt along and it will reach you through them. Before you know it, the plans that your opponent meant to keep from you are sitting right there in your lap.
Developing An Inner Circle
Some agents are good for nothing more than gossip. You will need to select trustworthy ones to do the brunt of the work for you. For me, I divided my inner circle into two categories: the “white ops” group and the “black ops” group. As I said before, the “black ops” group is something that I refuse to talk about in detail. However, it specialized in carrying out direct action sabotage on other factions by targeting their command structure and strategic plans. I never kept any files on the “black ops” missions that my agents ran. They all were highly trusted and not one broke their commitment to the group.
On the other hand, “white ops” agents specialized in carrying out sensitive intelligence gathering missions including, but not limited to the interception of tactical plans, dates for offensives, and talks between other factions on alliances, peace treaties, and war coordination. These operations were highly successful due to the agents that I kept in my inner circle. Once again, I do not provide names, but I did keep files on these missions. If I find time, I may redact them to protect sensitive data and release them to the public. For now, they will just add intrigue. My advice is never keep permanent records of “black ops” and limit the ones you keep on “white ops”.
Gathering Intelligence
Each agent in the “white ops” circle had multiple alts in different factions that were high command members. They operated in six, four hour shifts, monitoring every message sent through the High Command chats and noting down the essential intel. They also gained the trust of each new faction leader so they could gain information from Steam conversations. Each agent was trained to pump information out of people without making them suspicious and how to gather intel from group chats and make comprehensive reports on it.
Using Double Agents
Virtually everyone who is not part of your inner circle should be considered a double agent. I had members of Shogun High Command who I considered double agents. These High Commanders were people who were in my inner circle for leading the faction and would have never suspected how they were being used. I could have told them to shut their big mouths up, but that wouldn’t have worked. Consequently, I would purposely leak information to them in order to get them to pass it along to opposing factions. Opposing factions would react to the information but I would use a different plan when the time came. Normally, I rarely announced my true intentions more than 2 hours ahead of when I intended to execute them. Before that, I would be spamming a stream of less than accurate information to my High Commanders. People like to talk so leak false information to them and let it make its way to the enemy. You must not be careful to overdo it as it will be exaggerated on the way and it must still be believable by the time it makes it to the opposing faction.
Watching the Results
The crowning success of my “white ops” network had to be Operation Scrambled Eggs. Operation Scrambled Eggs was a month and half long mission that brought together every aspect of my military structure: the intelligence, the sabotage, and the actual battle on the world map. The setting for Operation Scrambled Eggs was the power struggle that went on in the United Republic between GEN3R1C and ABACUS2006. Each man’s battlegroup was struggling for control of the Republic faction leadership position and they traded the faction leader position several times over the course of two months. The constant exchange of the position resulted in inconsistent UR policy towards other factions.
With the unsettled state of the UR, virtually every faction was a target because both Gen and Abacus had differing viewpoints on who was a friend and who was an enemy. My “white ops” team first caught wind of this after the faction leader position changed hands the first time. They kept me updated 24/7 on the movements and plans of UR leaders. Consequently, I was able to attack the UR as soon as the hostile leader was elected and pull back as soon as the friendly leader was elected. The intel that I got enabled me to keep the UR off of Shogun lands for the duration of the power struggle.
Final Thoughts
The essence of a good spy and sabotage ring is its ability to gain trust and remain concealed. If it cannot do each of these things, it is ineffective and should be dismantled immediately. Spy rings are not meant to be standalone weapons. The only way you will be able to dominate the world is by integrating it with your current weapons. Improvise and form your own rings. The members of this ring have moved on. They have other interests and their use gradually dissipated with the development of new tactics in the Shogun Empire after I stepped down as Faction Leader. For now, the spy ring that I formed will remain a legend shrouded in the lore of the glory days of my reign. The only way that the full story on this spy ring including the operations will be released is if the Mercs approach me to discuss the release of the operational files for the “white ops” and if each member who participated in it agrees to release the records. As for the “black ops”, that is something that will have to be discussed long and hard with the Mercs and the operators who carried them out. For now, dream about it and may you find inspiration in this guide to start your own spy and sabotage ring.