I was searching for topic about how quickly haven fall victim of attacks of other factions, but I can’t find it right now. Recently there are topics that havens fall under Pandoran attack really quickly, but it looks more like a bug. There is also this topic - Haven Defense suggestions, but it is pure imagination of what could be in full release, which is kind of far away from what game presents right now.
So I wanted to ask about opinions about my two balance suggestions which I’m working on. I’m trying to design Geoscape as more alive place where is quite many things to manage and to observe. So my two points related to attacks on havens:
Faction war: make faction war less lethal to havens (as some mod already implements),
single attack should not have strength more than 15, thus faction strongholds could withstand simple attacks of other factions,
successful attacks: single attack should only disable some functionality (district) in haven and kill no more than 20 people,
after second attack there should be another district disabled and like 10% casualties (no more than 500) and
after third attack they should take over such haven without any more damage to infrastructure, but removing 50% of its inhabitants (but no more than 1500)
Alien attacks: make like point about faction war but
allow strength of attackers go up to 30(?),
there should be no haven wipe out after first successful attack (one exception could be that attacking force is 4 times stronger than defending),
each succesful attack should have some consequences like with faction war (not defined yet),
third succesful attack should end with wipe out,
to make it look like invasion there sould be a lot more attacks (simultaneous from multiple alien bases*), but havens should successfuly defend by themselves at least few times (with only few casualties) during those attacks there would be no reward except small reputation boost with local leader if player will decide to participate,
then when loosing particular attacks they would still exist, but you would need to monitor their status to know where to help (and get rewarded)
lost haven defences taking part more than 2500 km from revealed** PP bases don’t influence PP standing with factions (but there would be more PP bases, so it won’t be too easy to not get involved in defences)
*Addendum. Alien bases would be slower progressing and they would had lower rate of merging. Each haven defence wouldn’t reveal all alien bases involved in attacks.
**I won’t explain here what is revealed PP base.
I like this. This is a good foundation for Alive Geoscape mechanics.
Remembering XCOM 2012 and the start menu with the choice of a continent for the first base. For PP, base generation within the continent. Plus a variety of bonuses like in LongWar.
Maybe I should say, what I mean by slower progression of alien bases. Each of them will grow its range slower than previously, and single alien base would still generate single mutation of given alien unit. But having multiple alien nests in vicinity would provide variety of units in missions where such nests have influence. So they would have overlapping ranges. Order to merge and create Lair would come when DDA would decide that single Nests are not efficient enough in human population reduction (so Lairs will spawn more likely in areas where player is involved in defence or where factions have strong defences). Same will happen with Lairs merging into Citadels.
As mentioned previously successful haven defence won’t always reveal alien bases. Even if multiple of them take part in attack then will be revealed:
only one if attack was stronger than defence or its strength was greater than 10(?)
two when attack had double strength of defence or was stronger than 20(?)
I like the first suggestion better than the second. I see no in-Lore reason why a successful Panda attack wouldn’t destroy a Base and infect all the surviving population with Pandoravirus to mutate them into Pandas.
Which does lead to an interesting idea. What if Panda attacks were less strong - and therefore more survivable by strongly defended Havens - but when the Haven falls it turns into a Pandoran Nest! So the Pandas spread across the world by attacking Havens and turning them.
If you were to institute this, I’d advocate making the strength of any individual Nest’s attack force no more than 10, but overlapping Nests can combine forces to get strengths of 20 or more. So the Havens could defend themselves more easily, but get ground down over time, until they are overwhelmed.
It is not grounded in lore. Just a mechanism to spot which haven was already affected by 2 successful attacks and need to be defended or they will perish. I suppose I forgot to mention that after some time haven can rebuild and reset that death counter (of course population won’t go up).
I suppose what I’m saying is I see no need to artificially limit successful Panda attacks to 3 & Out., though equally, I think reducing the strength of Panda attacks so that they don’t automatically wipe a Haven out is a good idea.
It should be up to the player to assess whether the Haven can withstand an attack and decide whether or not to defend it. If the player knows that a Haven will always last 2 attacks, that takes some of the hard decision-making that makes a game like this worth playing out of the player’s hands.
But sometimes there is no time to respond for an attack that overwhelms defenders. In situation above player would have time to organize ship and soldiers to go and defend that haven from next attack.
Yes, but letting that haves suffer from second attack could lead to worse relations with faction, no trade and/or no recruits from that haven, lesser chances of survival of nearby havens (as they all support each other). What is worth mentioning that with each loss of population each faction is weaker in terms of production, research and providing recruits.
Of course reduction of Panda attacks strength is on the table (it is what I have proposed in 5th bullet point under alien attacks - maybe it is not presented in right way, but I had that in mind).
More hard-decision would be where to go, not if to defend or not, as there would be simultaneous 1st, 2nd and 3rd attacks happening around. Proposed mechanic of multiple attacks to defeat a haven would help to organize defense. For example if that is 1st attack on haven player could send there more rookies, and on other missions more experienced squad.
a) Clear predictability will enable this idea to be included in the beginner’s difficulty.
b) For difficulty Veteran and above, 3 waves with medium power. In case of failure, when the attack goes from 2-3 sides (3 nests or 2 lairs …), even wave№2 can be fatal. (Let a signal appear about the critical threat)
