I know from a story perspective it makes sense, not all of the towns would break up into the three factions but from a game play perspective they are useless.
I don’t think you are able to recruit soldiers from them, getting high diplomacy with them does nothing and since you level so quickly right now there is no need to save them from aliens as the cost to build equipment or recruit a new soldier if they die is more than the reward you get from saving them. After the first hour in game I stop saving them from aliens because it does more harm than good.
It just feels like they don’t serve any purpose and are just there to get killed by the aliens.
Sometimes you get an event where they ask for your advice for joining a faction (at least in BB4 it would happen). Can make you gain influence with the faction you choose.
If I well remember factions will fight to acquire those independent havens. So even if not useful at the beginning they can be useful later when taken by one of those factions. And still they distract aliens from faction havens, so you don’t have to worry about your allies. I would say it is good to hold them in good shape for some time at least.
As I see it, from a “meta” perspective, just don’t defend them, since there is nothing to gain. Let them burn, so that aliens attack other havens that you can defend for diplomacy points.
Now if you think from a “this is not a game perspective”, it’s pretty horrible to let all those ppl die…
Considering that in final game you can get hostility from other factions, letting said factions gain access to new, independent, havens, will be a bad idea.
Imagine you are full hostile with NJ, and they are constantly harrassing you, they attack your havens, steal your food, spy your research. If NJ gets new havens, it will supply them with more troops and more means of harrassing you.
Yesterday, I came in such a haven with a spy from NJ. You have 4 choices and I ended with the spy joining my team (yeah free assault). Won’t say what I chose, choose wisely ;o)
I got 4 units from events, NJ techie, Syn Sniper, 2 NJ Assaults with old armor models (one looks punkish, the other one western). They were all level 1, except for the Sniper that came level 3.
