How does it work the Advent Strength?

[josna238]

I see advent strengh grows but don't know what thingd do it happen, neither how much or if we can lower it and how. Basically just know that advent strength determines how much aliens will be per mission acording to one table in the ufopaedia, but we know no more.

[Devon_v]

I see advent strengh grows but don't know what thingd do it happen, neither how much or if we can lower it and how. Basically just know that advent strength determines how much aliens will be per mission acording to one table in the ufopaedia, but we know no more.

When you win missions, ADVENT gets worried about you and sends more forces to the region. If you keep winning missions in the same area, they will get more and more worried about it and send even more troops to fight you. The only ways to reduce it are to complete the Ambush Troop Column mission, liberate the region by destroying the regional HQ, or by winning missions in other regions to make them move troops over there to try to fight you.

[Jacke]

Note that in the long run, XCOM can't beat ADVENT strength on strength. While you are fighting ADVENT, they are bringing in more troops from offworld and will increase those strategic reinforcements if you do better. If you go so far as to liberate all Earth zones, all of them get a simultaneous invasion by massive ADVENT forces.

What you are trying to do is build up XCOM and the resistance and liberate a small number of zones to support them, while training and preparing your best troops to locate and destroy the AVATAR project and beat the alien leadership. It is an insurgency with a decapitation strike, you are fighting your strength again the aliens' weakness.

[josna238]

I thought ADVENT strength grew by doing missions in that region and thet some missions afected more than others. So I tryied to stop the operations on a region that was at strength-4 and focused on other regions but the first one still grew anyway up to strength-7. So why does this region still grow (in fact more than the other regions where I am fighting)?

[Devon_v]

I thought ADVENT strength grew by doing missions in that region and thet some missions afected more than others. So I tryied to stop the operations on a region that was at strength-4 and focused on other regions but the first one still grew anyway up to strength-7. So why does this region still grow (in fact more than the other regions where I am fighting)?

Because strength doesn't go up immediately when you complete missions. It makes ADVENT want to move troops there, but they have to actually take time to do that, and those troops actually have to move from region to region across the map. So if you run a bunch of missions and make ADVENT want to put 7 legions there, then stop when they have 4, they will still get the other 3 in there eventually, the orders were given, and the troops are on the way, it just takes them time to arrive.

You can, however, ambush them when they do. Whenever you see the Supply Ambush mission, that's the moment that an ADVENT legion is moving from one region to another. You can stop them by completing the mission.

[Jadiel]

I thought ADVENT strength grew by doing missions in that region and thet some missions afected more than others. So I tryied to stop the operations on a region that was at strength-4 and focused on other regions but the first one still grew anyway up to strength-7. So why does this region still grow (in fact more than the other regions where I am fighting)?

There are also other factors which affect how the AI allocates strength to regions. So for example, if you only do liberation missions in a region, then vigilance should never go higher than 3. However, the AI knows that the region is vulnerable to liberation, so it will reinforce that region to make it hard to liberate, even if you don't run any missions there.

[gimrah]

I hope they tone down the vigilance spike from Liberation in 1.3. It seems overly punishing right now if you don't manage to complete Lib 2 and Lib 3 the first time they come up.

[josna238]

And does the strength depend on haven population? Or is it just about XCOM activity?

[chrisb]

Strength depends on an internal hidden variable call Vigilance. Vigilance starts at between 1-4 per region, and the global sum of vigilance scales with difficulty. When you do a normal mission, Vigilance goes up by 1 generally and Get Advent Attention missions push it up by 3. Every 7 days, contacted regions have Vigilance go down by 1.

This Vigilance dictates where Advent will move their troops on the map at certain intervals. If the Vigilance on one region is alot higher than every other region, then Strength will increase fairly quickly as all of their troops converge on that one region. If Vigilance is spread out more evenly, then Advent will distribute it's excess strength amongst those regions.

Because the troops move around at specific intervals, this introduces some amount of lag between Vigilance spiking and the Strength increasing in that region.

My biggest gripe at the moment is that there is no indicators in game for regional vigilance levels and basically requires you to track your missions manually. The only information you get is the vigilance/strength delta in the haven overview listing beside global strength, which is fine as you want that High as much as possible, but not having any info on regional vigilance makes it something that the average player simply looks at as some magical hidden info, and more advanced players can simply spreadsheet an approximation to stratagize controlling advent strength to keep them away from regions.

[josna238]

If I begin an infiltration, but I decide to abort it before the end of time. Does it increase the vigilance/strength? or do I need to start the mission to suffer this thing?

[Dwarfling]

I hope they tone down the vigilance spike from Liberation in 1.3. It seems overly punishing right now if you don't manage to complete Lib 2 and Lib 3 the first time they come up.

Actually, it's great: set everyone to Intel and catch the incoming Supply Raids. Nom nom nom.

[chrisb]

If I begin an infiltration, but I decide to abort it before the end of time. Does it increase the vigilance/strength? or do I need to start the mission to suffer this thing?

You need to complete the mission successfully in order for vigilance to increase.

[AegixDrakan]

If you go so far as to liberate all Earth zones, all of them get a simultaneous invasion by massive ADVENT forces.

Woooooow. That's insane.

[Pendrako]

@Aegix: of course, that'd be insanely hard to do, and if your forces are that badass... you're still pretty likely to wipe the floor with a good portion of them, even with taking hits in some regions. especially given, you know, you would have any other missions either, since you own the world. Honestly, I'm really okay with liberating one or two continents at most myself. generally by the time you've managed to pull that off, you're probably closing in if not already at the endgame anyways.

[trihero]

If you go so far as to liberate all Earth zones, all of them get a simultaneous invasion by massive ADVENT forces.

Woooooow. That's insane.

Well that was actually a bug, they fixed it so they only invade one region at a time with a min cooldown of 10 days (the "foothold" mission). I'm getting close to liberating my 16th region on rookie mode for the lulz while I await some serious rebalancing of missions and psis.

[Jacke]

If you go so far as to liberate all Earth zones, all of them get a simultaneous invasion by massive ADVENT forces.

Woooooow. That's insane.

Well that was actually a bug, they fixed it so they only invade one region at a time with a min cooldown of 10 days (the "foothold" mission). I'm getting close to liberating my 16th region on rookie mode for the lulz while I await some serious rebalancing of missions and psis.

...as trihero discovers that Pavonis has added in extra special trihero-detecting-code and suddenly things get a lot harder.