Covert Operations

Covert Operations is a premium mode that adds a CIA situation screen to the presidency game. It presents a board of countries, each with a single number showing how far the enemy's grip has spread there, alongside two national meters. The president runs the station by typing free-text orders. An operation can leak, in which case the enemy strikes back. A country on the board can also be lost to the enemy or won away from them. The same screen plays two different stories depending on the era: the Cold War against Moscow in the 1950s to 1970s, and the War on Terror against jihadist networks from the 1990s onward.

The toggle is offered in every presidential era and starts off for each new game; a free account is shown an upgrade prompt instead. It is forced off in the Designated Survivor scenario, which has its own investigation track, and by The Fourth Estate, which plays alone with the other high-cost modes switched off. It is not offered on the Career Mode builder. The setup screen's own label describes only the 1950s and 1960s as the Cold War and calls the 1970s the War on Terror, but a 1970s game actually plays the Cold War board; this is a known mismatch in the setup screen's wording rather than in how the game plays.

The board

Every country on the board carries one number from 0 to 100, representing communist influence on the Cold War board or terror presence on the War on Terror board. Countries fall into three groups: allies of the free world, contested ground, and the enemy's own bloc or havens. The exact set of countries changes from decade to decade as the Cold War map moves from the early confrontations of the 1950s through Vietnam-era Southeast Asia to the détente years of the 1970s, and the War on Terror board covers the Middle East, South Asia and the parts of Europe and Africa exposed to jihadist networks.

Two national meters sit above the board. The first tracks penetration of the enemy, whether that is the Soviet Union or a terror network. The second tracks homeland security. Both start at a level that reflects how exposed the country already is at the start of that era's games.

The screen

The situation screen has four tabs: the theatres, a desk for the enemy (called the Moscow desk on the Cold War board and Networks on the War on Terror board), a homeland desk, and a case log of everything that has happened. Each desk carries a monthly report that is fuller and more confident when the matching meter is high, and mostly redacted when it is low.

Orders

The president types one order a month. An order can be an instant operation, which fires once and moves its meters immediately, or an ongoing operation, which starts the following month and continues to move its meters for as long as it runs, until it is ended from the case log. More extreme operations, and anything run against American citizens at home, carry a higher chance of leaking; a leak risk lingers for a time even after an operation has been ended.

What happens each month

A country's grip on the board never holds still on its own: the enemy pushes back every month, so any gains made by an operation fade unless an ongoing operation keeps reinforcing them. If a country outside the enemy's own bloc reaches the highest level of grip, it is lost: on the Cold War board it falls to a communist government, and on the War on Terror board it instead becomes the site of a major attack the following month. A country can also be won back below a low threshold, joining the Western camp or being cleared of the terror network. Each month can also bring a random event: a leak that becomes the month's news, a homeland terror attack on the War on Terror board, a foiled enemy plot the president can expose publicly or handle quietly, or a smaller incident logged to the field reports. Authored covert events tagged as terrorism or intelligence can also appear in place of the month's regular event while the mode is on.

In a 1950s game with Red Scare on, Senator McCarthy's influence can help hold up homeland security, and successes on the covert side feed back into his fear meter in turn.

The covert-action box

The policy screen also carries an older, separate feature: a collapsible box for authorising a single covert action alongside the month's regular policy, marked as optional and premium. It is not controlled by the Covert Operations toggle described above. An action typed into this box applies its effects quietly, without being seen, and can later be discovered, at which point it becomes a scandal event built around the president's own words.