I’m playing on standard difficulty and it’s mid-game. Initially, ambushes were easy enough, but it’s now at the point where they are becoming a serious challenge, even for a multi-class squad of eight. The problem isn’t completing, it’s completing without losing anyone, or losing patience first. I get that this is supposed to be a risk, and I’m not sure how the frequency of ambushes is calculated; whether it’s rolled on the spot, i.e. ambush/reward site/scavenging site, or whether these sites are pre-ordained when the world is created at the start of the game. Either way, I’m getting an ambush every 1 hour to 90 minutes of IRL gameplay. If it’s expected that I will lose at least one soldier at this frequency, the situation is hopeless.
The problem with ambushes as I see it is several-fold, and while the design is quite fiendish (which is a good thing), in the broader aspect of the game, they present an inevitable choke-point, and you must pass through the eye of the needle to continue at all, which is a feature I’m not sure if I like.
Because the evac zone isn’t revealed until turn 4, this presents something of a gamble regarding which way to fight. Necessarily, to survive, you need to move everyone into or toward cover on turn 1. An ambush usually starts with you surrounded on all sides, often with two visible enemies on three sides, and only one on the another. The enemies usually occupy or cover angles on the cover you need to be in, so again, necessarily, you need to take down one or two enemies in your first turn, while moving toward their position.
After experimenting, and I might be imagining this, it seems like the direction with the least visible or weakest enemies is in fact the opposite direction to where the evac zone will appear. This means that you do in fact need to take down at least two on turn one, and go the other way. I know it’s meant to be a mad scramble, but because everyone usually has to fire as well as move, you can’t get everyone into decent cover, and someone always gets tagged. Woe betide the soldier with the motion scanner, as they will become an absolute bullet sponge. I’ve seen Tritons and Arthrons run past adjacent targets just to take a shot on the motion scanner guy. This can be a bitch when restarting, as you don’t get to edit your mounts, meaning the motion scanner soldier gets turned into swiss cheese faster than you can say ‘hold the Emmental’, every time. If it’s not the scanner causing this, I don’t know what does - the assault/sniper in question was level 7, holding 4 weapons (Pythagoras, Ares, Hera, and Neurazer). Other soldiers were similarly levelled and equipped (there were at least four snipers), so this was all I could deduce it to be.
Anyway, turn 2, you need to hold them off and keep edging toward where you think the evac zone will be. Repeat on turn 3. Turn 4, you should be able to make a mad dash for it, if it appears as expected. If it doesn’t, it’s restart and fight the other way, cheesily forearmed with this knowledge. It’s this mechanism that annoys me most; success is more likely on the restart when you know which way to go, not by virtue of anything you learned about the enemies behaviour, or by improving your tactics. When you know where you’re going, it becomes so much easier, so effectively, the game is just making me waste my time and patience.
I’ve tried these scenarios several different ways, numerous times; rushing to cover and trying to see all enemies off completely, standing and fighting in the starting zone, or just sprinting to the exit from turn 1. The controlled retreat method does seem to work the best. However, the difficulty of the missions when you consider the effect of their outcome on the game overall does seem a little too high, especially since they are unavoidable once committed, unless you backtrack and avoid them completely, which seems unsporting.
Any thoughts?