tl;dr: espionage and information warfare in domain games needs to be handled with care to avoid slowing the game and diminishing player agency.
A point raised in Infernal Pacts Cataphracts retrospective and I saw myself in Empyrean Dynasty - people getting inside other peoples information loops leaving a sour taste with players where they did not know those moves were possible.
Getting false information through from the GM feels bad because players did not know their information channel was lies - same problem with false hydras, red herrings, etc. - it requires very specifically invested players who love being paranoid about their information.
Typically players suspend disbelief to fully trust the imperfect channel that is DM comms and when that is revealed to be lies, then the reaction is "well what is the point?" It is often tricky enough to sweep together the clues and information about a setting to be able to make an in-world reasoned assessment of the situation that players are unenthusiastic to have to sift those clues and information for reliability from there.
Players have only so much attention in the first place for a game, if they did not sign up for an infowarfare or opsec-forward game, then that is just friction before they get to do what they want. I sign up for chess, I might be unhappy to be forced to play rounds of poker before every move. If the infowar game does not excite them, then you will never get to the strategy moves and the game is toast.
Twisted intel has its place, but it is a question to be carefully considered whether allowing one player to lean into that information-warfare layer in a domain game is clever play or will the other players (who are not aware this active information distortion may be happening) consider it changing the rules of the game without players assent.
The Empyrean Dynasty games were clear that information warfare was happening, which made it fine, though the cycles and subcycles of intercepts, precognitives, order revisions, further intercepts, etc. slowed later turns to a crawl - particularly where life happening further delayed the move-counter-moves - leading me to suggest again it is to be handled with care. Time-limits on orders can work.
I think it is essentially a question of PVP - some folk enjoy it, others do not, so being very clear on whether or not it is possible allows people to play with full agency and not end up feeling like near-NPCs in someone elses game.
If players only find out after that fact that there was a whole infowar pvp layer going on, they will feel stripped of their agency, low-level players in a high-level game, or that there is no point in acting because other players are inside their decision loop. Messing with player agency, is to be treated with extreme caution.
I am a big fan of 'the twist' over 'the red herring' - where a new piece of information puts existing information in new context - or a 'big reveal' which is high impact new information. For a masterfully done example, see "A campaign of baits and switches" from Zzarchov Kowolski. I find that you typically have un-equally distributed attention among players, through life intensity, committments, schedules, etc. some will have more capacity than others off the table and allowing those players to run rings around other players because they have time to do so is another thing to be treated with caution.
All told, I think secret information and the like is fine to have as long as it is a known quantity and either everyone is into that or there is some accomodation - players buddy up and one who can works up good information for both to act on - better than "too bad" for those without the inclination or wherewithal to play that layer of the game.
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