What I can say is that before the DLC it was much easier to beat the game with not much more than 2 or even only one single team. This is now pretty hard, maybe impossible, because you get simply overwhelmed as the Pandorans rise up much faster than before and are more active by attacking heavens. If you cannot counter them by destroying at least some of their bases then you are more and more in big trouble. To achieve this, now you should have to the end of January at least 2 full teams, better 3 to 4 and not stop to get even more.
Even if it was before the DLC a better strategy to get a second team ASAP, it was not absolutely necessary so early. But now I think it is, now quantity is more important than quality (sure, at least one high levelled squad is good, but more independent squads are better).
Maybe some players haven’t realise the changes that are forcing the players to this behaviour?
I also have to adapt my play style after the last changes. Before I had my second team mostly around early to mid February and it was not a big problem. Now I go ASAP to multiple teams, the second is ready at least in mid January (without stealing an aircraft), I fill all the early aircraft’s with APC because they are cheaper than 3 recruits and all this only to keep with the fast pace the game is going now.
I don’t know exactly but it feels that not only the evolution is to fast but also their spread and activity around the globe.
On new ‘feature’ of the last changes makes this even harder. Before Cthulhu one successful heaven defence was enough to reveal a Pandoran base, now you have to be pretty lucky to reveal one if the base is not in range of your radar, outside of your scanning range it could be that you have to do at least 3 successful defence missions to reveal a base if all of these 3 come from the same base. I had times with 3-4 HDs in a row without revealing any base and so these bases are longer active, making more attacks and that leaves to such cases with 3-4 HDs at the same time, that I can’t handle with only 1 or 2 teams. Edit: And because I couldn’t react to everyone, it got worse and worse. That’s why I actually build up as many intendant teams as possible in the early game, what I have never done before.
THIS. This “chance to reveal” pandoran bases has changed the balance a lot and thrown even more randomness upon it all. You’re absolutely right and good work pointing this out. I never get to reveal those bases!!!
I’ll make a case for unimpeded flight and reveal again - if my aircraft has the right tech (researched) and goes near a pandoran base, it should find it!!! And this should be a mid-game PP tech, that you could get around early february in the current game pace. Making aircraft able to flight anywhere and just find unexpected things would make exploration so much better…
Good Idea, but I think early February is probably to late. Citadels are announced end January and if you got one early February then you have the tech to reveal all Pandoran bases around the globe in your scanning ranges. That feels enough for me and from this point on it is not longer a problem to tone down their activities (in fact, from this point on, a good part of my many independent teams are more or less superfluous, 3-4 teams are enough to cover the globe). I think, you should have a better ability to reveal them around mid to late January, this is also the time when the mist spreads out more and more and so bases comes up more and more.
OK, I see what you’re getting at, and basically agree. To me, that’s not so much tactical freedom as army building structure, which makes subsequent tactical choices more fun.
What I mean by tactical freedom in PP is that I can read the terrain and make different approaches, and each good choice can produce success. I feel that what I can actually do on the battlefield is less constrained.
I would like to see movement speeds lowered across the board. The maps end up feeling way too small when soldiers are zipping around the map. (It’s more fun if you try to succeed with fewer soldiers, btw.)
Reading your post it seems so mad that so much happens in one game month… we really need a better pace. Going back to the base revealing thing, I guess the RNG makes experiences very different. In my current playthrough I only got 2 nests and very few HDs until mid-february. Then I got a base defense that revealed 2 citadels. By the end of february I found another citadel from a HD and then finally a lair.
All the pandoran bases I’ve found were inside my radar zones. I can’t remember finding a single one outside of them. As I said I didn’t get much HD’s until mid-february, so that didn’t help either.
Of course, RNG has a big influence especially in the early stages.
The only way to minimize its effect is to get additionally to early aircraft’s also pretty early 25% to all factions that you can see any heaven. On top of this as much bases as you can so that you can cover as much of these heavens with your radar. At best all of this at least to somewhat around end January early February, and then you are in a good shape and mostly independent from RNG. Run Forest run …
Its so funny to me reading other posts about “we need easier access to aircrafts” or this “you need a second team” while I barely manage to keep one aircraft full of soldiers alive.
I mean… you even have to buy/craft weapons and armor for all those guys… HOW?!
Most of the time I’m out of ressources and try to gain more while ignoring actual missions etc without making any noticable progress.
It’s really frustrating.
So… if I understand you correctly I even tried to do the right thing… kinda.
But still didn’t make it. Oof.
Also I have cleared several Pandoran Citadels and the small nests or whatever they’re called in english but never the “mid tier” ones. Those feel like an unbearable grind to me and every try until today endet in a total squadwhipe for me. Even with 8 Level 7 soldiers. And now you HAVE to clear them while a few months ago you could do a citadel instead.
I just dont get the balancing mid-lategame at all. I’m fighting armies of Bulletsponges that can oneshot my soldiers easily. Maybe because I never have good gear because I’m trying to recruit soldiers all the time… I dont know. To me it just feels completely unfair.
What I wrote, I use APCs (Scarabs in the early game), they are cheaper than 3 recruits and worth their price (not their space, 3 soldiers would mostly be better but cost also 3 times more resources). I only recruit when I have room in my aircraft’s, so on Veteran I recruit one early on to fill the starting Manticore and then not more until I have my 3rd aircraft. (Edit: … or if I lose one of my soldiers, of course )
My actual build sequence is as first a second Manticore when I have the resources for it. After that an additional fabric to reduce building time. This way the second Manticore is ready around 9th to 10th of January. The next resources are going into the 2 Scarabs, build time is around 2.5 days for each, so around mid January I have 2 Manticores with 3 Soldiers and one Scarab on each. These both aircraft’s are good enough to deal with the most that happens to this time, especially ambushes are not a big deal with a vehicle. I can spread out to explore more what gives me more resources in the same time as with only one aircraft and from then on it is easier to go ahead for the 3rd and 4th team, also always with one vehicle and rest recruits to reduce the costs.
For critical missions like some story or faction missions or to destroy Pandoran bases I join two of these teams to have more firepower.
The biggest plus and also boost with the second aircraft is the double exploration and more flexibility for heaven defences early on.
I don’t know, I personally have not that much problems with Lairs (the mid tier Pandoran bases). Mostly I rush with 2 or 3 Assaults to the Spawnery, shot its eggs and when all 6 are destroyed then it takes 2 turns for it to bleed out, mostly the time I need to get these Assaults to the next evac zone. The rest of the squad mostly stays at the starting position, snipes and distracts enemies that pretty often try to get to them and not engaging my Assaults.
Maybe you should not focus to much on new recruits but optimise what you have.
Another way to get almost endless resources would be raiding heavens. Not my way but pretty effective. Also trading around with almost any heaven can help but is of course very tedious.
You’re right, but I was talking more specifically about the base finding RNG case. They didn’t attack much havens and I couldn’t find them, even in the few haven attack cases. When we previously talked about needing aircraft and 2 teams early, we weren’t taking into account the base-finding RNG’ness much. That’s why I think it was great that you brought this into the discussion, it’s also a big point.
I think the first alien base may already be always close to you and inside your radar zone. It’s probably a case of making more of the next ones like that in easier difficulties. However, I’m liking this “chance to find the base” less by each day, it doesn’t seem a good mechanic. Maybe if you always found the base after ANY second attack from it that you deflected, it would make the game less RNG-prone in this specific problem.
You’re absolutely right. I’ve been discussing here that unless you exploit broken mechanics (raiding and/or trading), that’s what happens. I consider myself a good player and I’ve only been able to really build gear for my soldiers around the end of february, in a campaign that I got bad RNG in the whole of january.
I’m not sure if this is already the case, or it was planned.
If not, it must be 50% on the first defense, 75% on the second and 100% on the third.
And if the attack comes from Pandoran structure within the scanned area, it should always be detected.
What does happen is that because Pandoran bases can have a huge range you can get attacks from different bases on the same Havens…
Tbh, I think you can manage without that and I don’t find RNG on the strategic layer much of an issue at all - no matter where you start there is a red mist blob nearby, and another one on a different continent a few bases away, and I always end up activating the same bases to establish the POI chain to get around the Geoscape that I want.
But then I have played the game for +500 hours so I know exactly what I’m doing. Perhaps that is fine for Legend, but certainly not for the lower difficulty levels.
On easier difficulty levels you should have plenty of resources.
Of course I hope the counterintuitive Diplomacy that rewards acting like a crazy psycho with all the factions, and the commodity arbitrage will be fixed as well…
Nope, I’m pretty sure (devs have said either here or in canny, can’t remember… maybe that’s in the game too, I’ve seen this multiple times) that first reveal chance is 20%. After that I THINK it’s the fourth time that’s a 100% chance, but it may be the third. Anyway, second time is also not high, probably 40% or 50%. I thought it was in the patch notes but couldn’t find it, sorry.
The end result, at least in my campaign, was that I could only find 2 nests until mid-february. I’ve lost only one HD that was too far away. Also, I only had Anu at 25% until then because of the lack of HD’s.
Maybe you got good RNG in your campaigns. This was the first one that was so bad to me. In my previous campaign, it was almost the opposite picture, it was a cakewalk because I got a LOT of HD’s.
Just to clarify, I also do this.
It was veteran, and I also have a few hundred game hours and know mostly what I’m doing, although I do play with some self-imposed restrictions (mostly no OP skills, no use of abusable mechanics, friend to all). I’m also a veteran of this game type, I’ve played all the originals and firaxcoms to death, plus some of the similar games.
I’m not arguing it’s too difficult for me - as this is not my first campaign, it isn’t - but it IS heavily RNG dependent in the beginning and it’s clearly very difficult for new players even in the lower difficulties.
Yes, all my comments are based on not using this at all.
Mid February and only Anu on 25% is very late and I highly assume that there where much more heaven attacks, but you don’t see them. That’s why I say it is also important to get 25% ASAP on all factions.
I know, without HDs to that you can react and without exploiting sabotage missions like you do it is mostly impossible to achieve. And this is clearly RNG driven, I completely agree here. This should not happen on lower difficulties, there must be a way that you can play this game the “normal” way. At least give the player POIs or choices on visiting heavens to get these 25% early enough.
Probably, yes… even though I activated 9 or 10 bases in total and had radars on almost all of them. I was in north Africa, the first base I activated was northwest NA, the nearest base to the second mist. No HDs at all and when my radar on this base became ready and its range reached 100%, guess what… only one NJ base inside its range, already destroyed, with a parked aircraft there lost forever.
Yeah, that’s why I think a free exploration system (although still having PoI’s) would be a great start.
To everyone: check out the canny post and see if you have anything to improve on it please:
+1 I am seeing more and more post like this. I do wish they would wake up and smell the bankruptcy.
Would it be so hard to just try to make the game enjoyable? Forget this fetish for challenge, it’s greatly over-done to the point that there is no challenge, only luck, usually bad luck.
If the game is unplayable, or not to your liking, why on Earth are you still playing it?
It appears that irony escapes you in your own comment. Games should be challenging, to stimulate your brain into overcoming those challenges. But you don’t see that, and blame Luck, RNG, whatever else you can come up with.
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Games should be challenging, to stimulate your brain into overcoming those challenges. But you don’t see that, and blame Luck, RNG, whatever else you can come up with.