This is stupid. Why should we lose willpower just because civilians die? Pandorans don’t lose willpower if stupid worms die where is the balance? On high difficulty defence missions enemy just can wither your willpower in 1 turn, and since you need to hide like a coward because of stupid acid chirons this makes totally no sense.
2 Likes
I am of both camps in this quandry. While I understand that the loss of will power when one can’t save a civilian is part of the “mission”, on the other hand our units should receive will power for each civilian rescued. As it is, it a lose/lose situation. Don’t even throw in a couple of sirens that zap the units will power… I said, don’t do that… but now you’re thinking it, aren’t you. 
2 Likes
Seeing a fellow human die, would, I think, have an emotional impact on another human, especially if their aim was to protect that human. Worms on the other hand, are just worms.
What I think is strange is that Pandorans are bothered by the death of anything - I don’t see crabmen having a best mate.
That’s a good suggestion.
1 Like
I’m with you here:
In game terms, you need a WP loss to prevent power-gamers from taking over civilians and using them as cannon fodder. I have actually read some posters on these forums advocating just that tactic.
However, to both mitigate that and promote what is imho proper behaviour - ie, you should be trying to rescue the poor buggers - you should earn a 1WP gain every time a civilian evacuates from the map.
And I’m opposite to you. 
In current state when you lose WP when civilian dies, then yes. It would be fine gaining some WP for rescued civilian. BUT
First of all civilians are objective, not our teammates. We shouldn’t lose WP on their deaths. XP penalty is enough. What more - mission can even end in failure and your standing with haven can drop, but that’s it.
Secondly I’m really against any willpower boosters for the whole team (only exception could be some primary objective like in Fort Freiheit mission - but that could be 4 or 5 points boost for the whole mission). Soldiers shouldn’t loose WP because of random things like civilians deaths and they shouldn’t regain it like mana thing. (That was subject of many threads that Will Points are not so significant resource during mission).
Another thing… I wouldn’t allow to evacuate civilians from the map. Gaining control over them is fine to prevent AI blocking path for your own soldiers. Evacuating them is wrong. For me those missions are like:
“there are numerous alien forces storming this haven → Phoenix Project squad is sent to one of the most crucial areas to prevent some part of those alien forces from killing too many civilians → there is fight all around this critical site (thus alien reinforcements entering map in spawn zones) - > when you clear your map it means you have secured some important place in whole haven but the haven defenders still clear other regions → you secure this area until all fights are over”. SO you can’t evacuate civilians outside of the map because there would be also possibility for them to die AND you don’t evacuate them to your dropship because in case of emergency you won’t have space for your soldiers to evacuate from the battlefield. So civilians should stay on the map for the whole time of the mission.
I’m surprised that YOU propose such solutions.
When it comes down to it in real play, I do the same thing I do in haven missions where one is to protect facilities. I use the locations to help determine where the enemy is headed. I then position my squad to take advantage of this heads up. Saving civilians or facilities are the secondary mission (if even that), if I can take out enough enemies to make it worth it. The way the game works (especially after the early game), the only reason to do these missions is to reveal the attacking base.
I’m perfectly okay with loosing WP for every civilian killed when under my responsability. Most cops and peace-keepers would need months or even years before really recovering from loosing civilian lives under their care : I’m okay with my little soldiers being silghtly human-sensitive this way to put some additional momentaneous tension on the gameplay.
Gaining WP when evacuating some of them could be interesting, but it’s already a good tactic (getting them out of Dodge is an effective way to “protect” them from anything, while using them to scout ahead is usefull but risky) and it’s already rewarded by the end-mission SP bonus.
It’s a pure game design decision:
- You have to lose WP for civilian casualties to prevent heartless tossers from using civilians as meat shields.
- That being the case, you need to gain WP for evacuating them a) to make up for the WP loss of 1, and b) to incentivise players to evacuate the civilians.
The Evac Zone could just as easily be a safe haven in the settlement as it could be the dropship. Doesn’t matter. Evacuating civilians feels like the right thing to do.
And there are times that the civilians lost are so far away from one’s current positioin, there is no way they can be protected, let alone rescued.
So I would punish player in other way than WP decrease. Wasn’t that you who created long topic about WP being to easlily replenished? 
But well, there can be topic where we disagree (quite rate case). 
Really, @mcarver2000 ? Do you mean you encountered recent maps where there was literaly no way to rescue some of them ? Because I haven’t since launch : sometimes it would be extremly foolish to try and save some of them (“Sorry, buddy : I’ll send flowers, or apples.”), but I believe the actual impossibility has been patched out after BB5…
Yes indeed, a number of them are on the far side of the map. Therefore, one must use them as fodder to keep some of the enemy occupied while one assists those closer.