One of these abilities is "incite unrest". Across several turns, this can enable a war of attrition ( a turn represents a year or a season I cannot remember). Death by 1000 cuts is a way to reduce the morale and economic output of a city in order to eventually conquer it.
Here is an excerpt from a forum dialogue about the game:
"Incite Unreast give "X" public order penality, depending on your agent skills and traits. Army gives "X" public order boost depending on army size and general traits and skills.
So yes.
The best tactic would put as many agents as you can get into far positions, champions can decrease public order as a passive, spy like you already know they pay for it, armies can raid, which decrease their upkeep and steal some of their income for youself."
https://steamcommunity.com/app/214950/discussions/0/61956934...
“It is an open secret,” he said, “that secret services of imperialist powers and foreign anti-Soviet centers actively join extremist nationalistic actions. Later on, they start playing the part of open instigators of hostile actions aimed at kindling hostility among nations. One should not underestimate the danger of this method of subversive activity.”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-04-14-mn-1958-s...
(a red flag here is that the word "secret" is repeated rapidly in succession. Timeless "click" bait before Jobs ever visited Xerox).
We must first consider credibility of a dot com site. LA times does not represent vast majority. But this is from 1988. Fear mongering conspiracies can get tongues flapping. This is also before digital proliferation of media injection into cultures (click).
Behind "video games" are 20-50 year old minds digesting their environment and historical records made available to them by their coordinated government(s). My "real life" has not been affected by rioting and widespread respitory pandemic (destroyed storefronts are not selling things I want, economic furlough gifts me spare time and empty streets to hone new skills and more quickly traverse new domains). I am interested in the Phoenix that rises from this reset (dust is still in the air and must settle).
From the wikipedia article for Principle of Charity:
"The first to state this hermeneutic principle was Rabbi Meir ... 'A person does not say things without reason'."
The video game designers are steadily sculpting their audience's perception of "real life" via their own art form.