Sword and SHIELD: An MCU AU

Mechanics:
This will be a rather basic quest run as follows: You are a Soviet spymaster in the Cold War, and must retain the Politburo's favor to remain in position.

Resources:
These are a way to model cash and requisitions, and is a single quantity.
You are allotted a set amount of resources per turn as your budget, and have a set amount that you can stockpile, for example you may have +500 resources per turn, and a maximum capacity of 1000. Repeated lack of use of the full budget can lead to cuts from the high command, as is often the case in government budgeting.
More resources and independent supply can be gained by criminal activity outside the USSR, smuggling, illegal activities inside the USSR, and once the Union collapses (if it does), seizure of assets.
Resources are used to build bases and fortifications, recruit troops and maintain them, and finally to run operations.

Favor:
The Politburo's favor can be earned by completion of objectives, successful operations, visible successes (e.g. assassinations), and by taking the right side in the internecine conflict in government. Low favor with the Politburo can lead to budget cuts, transfer of assets away from your control, and personal consequences such as the gulag - which is pretty much game over. High favor can mean more resources, more and better recruits, and chances to push policy ideas of your own to the directors of the USSR.
Maintaining favor is key to keeping your post, and must be a priority. Each turn the Politburo's attitude and Favor will be displayed, and you start with 20 Favor (Neutral opinion). Below 10 means that your position is actively under threat, and below 5 is a chance of gulag.

Operations:
Each turn you have three actions that can be taken from a list of options. They are divided into Infrastructure, Active Ops, and Materiel. Infrastructure actions are the bones and muscle of your agency - building bases, research, logistics and so on. Active Operations are missions that are undertaken to attain objectives set by the Politburo. Each operation can be expensive and complex - so be careful to pace yourself. Finally, Materiel actions cover recruitment, arms acquisition, and intelligence acquisition. The last can be either through infiltration or through use of more esoteric means - mutants, metahumans and so on.
Every few turns the Politburo will issue a strategic objective - usually a broad one like 'Acquisition of Military Intelligence', 'Acquisition of Scientific Personnel', or 'Infiltration - England'. There will be a number of turns within which you're expected to show results, and failure results in loss of Favor.
Bases:
You begin with one operational base, based on what you choose in the first update. As you expand into different theaters, you'll have to assign personnel to oversee those areas and your responsibilities will grow. But for now, there is one base and one central mustering point - defend it well. Should the USSR collapse, this will be the center of your power, so best to make it robust and well-stocked.

Defense:
SHIELD will not be idle while you launch raids and infiltrate Western society. Each turn I will roll for SHIELD to detect you and take action, and once detected there will be attacks both political and physical on your forces and powerbase. Expect to be taking one defensive action every few turns once Nick Fury hits his stride.

Occultism and Magic:
Magic here is far more fickle than the vanilla MCU, and I'll be using a modified Lovecraftian feel for most of it. This quest starts well before Doctor Strange, and I'm not familiar enough to work with the earlier characters, so expect modified canon to show up.
Similarly the dimensional planes and so on are far more sinister in nature than in the MCU, and there are far more hazards than the Asgardians out there.

Stats:
Your character has three major stats: Political Acumen,Combat Skill, and Science . The first influences politics rolls, interpersonal rolls and rolls involving administration. The second influences combat, command and tactical planning - including active operations. The last influences research, magic and occultism.
All three stats can affect the relations with characters who value them highly - for instance high Science makes interaction with Ivan Vanko easier, and high Political Skill makes interaction with the Red Room agents easier.
Besides these three there are the subsidiary stats of Resources and Favor, which have been described above.