It’s most of the way through January and I’m into the fourth week of my Legend campaign. I load up my saved game and take a look at how things are going.
I’ve currently got two full teams of soldiers deployed, with a scout team on exploration duty and a C-team on the way. I’m allied with New Jericho (75+ rep) and working on getting to Aligned status with Synedrion (49 rep) and Anu (35 rep). My reputation with Anu is a little low since a week or two ago I raided a couple of their havens, killed all their defenders, and blew up their power plants, but I’m sure they’ll get over it. If I can get Anu to like me it’ll get me the Priest class and some nice leg armour.
So, the first thing to do is kill some Anu. I’m playing the Legacy of the Ancients DLC and the current mission is to steal a weapon blueprint from one of their havens, which I do by murdering my way through all the defenders. I don’t suffer a reputation hit, so apparently they don’t particularly mind.
Next job is to kill some Synedrion. I’ve got 3 aircraft at the moment but could really use a fourth so that I can explore faster. I want a Helios for the speed, but I can’t afford to pay 250 tech and 1200 materials this early in the game, and I’m not aligned with Synedrion so I couldn’t build one even if I wanted to. So I find a Synedrion haven with an aircraft and go steal it. I slaughter the defenders, shooting them in the arms to stop them using their weapons and then shooting them in the back when they try to run away, and fly off over their bodies in my shiny new Helios. The raid gives me a -6 faction hit with Synedrion, but since I was at 49 rep that doesn’t actually make any difference because I can’t go to 50 until I complete their diplomacy mission anyway, so I might as well raid them now so that I’m getting some benefit next time I clear a Lair or Nest or defend one of their havens.
Speaking of defending havens, an Anu haven is getting attacked. I fly my A-team over and save the day! I also hit an exploration event that let me side with Anu over Syn, and combined with the +12 for the haven defence this pushes my Anu rep up to 49. The Anu diplomat congratulates me and tells me that they want me to go murder a bunch of New Jericho soldiers who are occupying some sacred site. The only dialog option I’m given is “yes, I’ll do it” so it’s time for some more murder! We fly over and kill the soldiers of my ally for committing the crime of standing around in a cathedral or whatever. Anu are very happy and now I’ve got their tech.
Next mission after killing the NJ soldiers is clearing a Pandoran Lair. The +10 bonus pushes my rep with NJ to 100. Tobias West contacts me personally, tells me how great the Phoenix Project is and what close allies we are, and gifts me a truckload of resources. I’m wondering if he’s going to bring up the fact that a week ago I raided a NJ haven and killed all the soldiers there to extract some doctor called Helena, but apparently NJ have forgotten all about it.
Since we’re in the area, I figure I might as well do the next Blood and Titanium mission, which requires me to attack a Synedrion haven that’s also getting attacked by the Pure. It’s not really explained why I’m supposed to be killing the defenders as well, but whatever, I’ve given up trying to make sense of this storyline. I fly in and kill all the Synedrion soldiers, then kill all the Pure as well. Somehow this opens up some extra bionic tech, which is too expensive to use right now but which might come in handy later.
In the meantime, I’m about ready to do the Synedrion diplomacy mission, which’ll give me Aligned status with Synedrion as well. I raid a Phoenix Base occupied by humans and kill everyone inside, including the leader, who according to the Synedrion AI is a ‘Pirate King’. Well, whoever he was, he’s dead now. Athena from Synedrion is very pleased and we have a friendly chat about which Synedrion faction I should share the materials with first. We part on very good terms.
Time for the next LotA mission. I’m supposed to attack some Synedrion group to get the blueprints for something called the ‘Scorpion’. I kill my way through the Synedrion defenders, grab the objective, and evac once everyone from Synedrion is dead.
The week comes to an end. I have 97 rep with NJ, 69 with Anu, and 62 with Synedrion. Everyone in the world thinks that the Phoenix Project is absolutely wonderful.