Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

JoINrbs
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

Post by JoINrbs »

Jacke wrote:Here's xwynns doing an Intel Raid Protect the Datatap last week in his LW2 Legendary campaign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Z2rOPeEt8&t=12m30s

I'm still watching it. Xwynns had hoped to come in quickly, beat it, and deploy the same troops back on infiltrating a mission he'd pulled them off of. Unfortunately, due to the nature of these raids, that's already a bust. While engaging an ADVENT pod that was just out of sight on deployment, he gets attacked from behind by an Muton/Andromedon pod. He's already suffered 2 of his 8 troops seriously wounded. Strategically, he's already down badly from this mission with grave likelihood of this to get worse.

EDIT: He lost his Scientist Advisor. One of his rebels was wounded. Worst, the 2 soldiers, MSgt Ranger and GSgt Blade Shinobi, are out for 21 and 20 days and he's late campaign. And from all the raids I've seen him do, this was a good result. More damage to the squad and less to the rebels, but still both are hurting.
This is a pretty good result for a retaliation. Two wounds, one civilian dead, and a bunch of quick response experience and loot. Like if this had been with a CPL Ranger Haven Advisor instead of a Scientist Haven Advisor it'd be very difficult to argue that it wasn't just straight up good for him to have gotten the mission for the fast experience.
LordYanaek
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Re: Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

Post by LordYanaek »

JoINrbs wrote: This is a pretty good result for a retaliation. Two wounds, one civilian dead, and a bunch of quick response experience and loot. Like if this had been with a CPL Ranger Haven Advisor instead of a Scientist Haven Advisor it'd be very difficult to argue that it wasn't just straight up good for him to have gotten the mission for the fast experience.
I guess it depends on the specifics of the campaign : how many squads can you field and how late in the game are you? I haven't followed xwynns LPs (merely watched a couple episodes) so i don't know about his specifics but having some high ranking soldiers wounded for 20 days in the late campaign isn't necessarily worth the experience gain for a low ranking advisor. Earlier and if you have enough squads the experience is more valuable of course but we could argue that those soldiers wounded will actually loose XP because of this mission (by not being able to run any other mission for quite some time). So it's not just a matter of "gain some XP at the cost of a rebel"
Then we have to consider the haven itself. If it's a large one with 16 rebels and you can immediately replace the lost one, it's no big deal, if it's a small haven (because it was recently contacted and/or suffered some retaliations already), loosing one guy hits much harder.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but i don't think considering this a "good result" is universally true either. It's not a bad result (he could have lost all rebels and some soldiers) but that's definitely not the sort of result that would make me want to "exploit retaliations for experience" all the time.
josna238
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Re: Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

Post by josna238 »

I had one in veteran and did just because had my best squad with best gear and an incredible lucky day (hit all the overwatch, critical all flanked, missed all slien shots, pods clustering on gas pumps...) But was as follow:

- Alien turn 0 reinforcements coming. I explore with shinobi and saw that couldn't move more than 4 tiles in any direction to avoid activation of first two pods (in fact some of the soldiers just couldn't move a single tile. Set an overwatch wall.
- ALien turn 1 Reinforcement came and first pod selfintroduced in combat.
- Alien turn 2 Shots alerted the other pod that came. I needed to move a few tiles to get cover and accidentally activate the third pod.
- Alien turn 3 Fourth pod join tho the party.

And at the end after the evacuation of all civilians and the planification af all mission about that evac point my ******* evac zone dissappeared and appeared on the other corner behind 2 reinforcements!!!

To me this mission brings one of the three worst tactical features of XCOM1 (pod trigering chain reaction, panic chain reaction by receiving a hunkered 5% shot and the poisoning thinmen rain). That feeling of moving a single tile could trigger a chain reaction that ends in dissaster doesn't matter what the player do. In that case all was about doing micromovements, if we was lucky and haven't activated a pod then had a fantástic overwatch wall if was unlucky and activated a pod then began a chain reaction that ended in total loss.

A map too small, high alien density, high allied density, no concealment, all in yellow alert and reinforcements in turn 0 is a bad idea. Moreover thinking that the reward is saving half dozen of civilians.

Edit: And I am playing in veteran, what makes me guess this mission would be pure hell on legendary.
JoINrbs
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

Post by JoINrbs »

LordYanaek wrote:I'm not saying you're wrong, but i don't think considering this a "good result" is universally true either. It's not a bad result (he could have lost all rebels and some soldiers) but that's definitely not the sort of result that would make me want to "exploit retaliations for experience" all the time.
well, it's a retaliation on legend difficulty. if he's getting a result which we can't clearly say is bad it sounds like it's undertuned if anything.
JoINrbs
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

Post by JoINrbs »

here's my recruit raid from last campaign: https://youtu.be/ujyJ0CAWivg?list=PLesI ... M9gSb_l-PX

Image

a considerably different situation from yours, as it's a str 4 region in late july, but maybe skimming through it would help.

intel miniretals from my last campaign as well (all quite easy imo):

https://youtu.be/ApNCYanqLa4?list=PLesI ... M9gSb_l-PX - moderate early july
https://youtu.be/xMMNviA5_MA?list=PLesI ... M9gSb_l-PX - light-moderate late july
https://youtu.be/96GLRzqAt7A?list=PLesI ... M9gSb_l-PX - light early september
LordYanaek
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Re: Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

Post by LordYanaek »

josna238 wrote:Moreover thinking that the reward is saving half dozen of civilians.
Well, retaliations are not supposed to actually reward you. You are trying to avoid being screwed completely.
I guess you never lost a country to a failed retaliation in LW1 :lol:
JoINrbs wrote:
LordYanaek wrote:I'm not saying you're wrong, but i don't think considering this a "good result" is universally true either. It's not a bad result (he could have lost all rebels and some soldiers) but that's definitely not the sort of result that would make me want to "exploit retaliations for experience" all the time.
well, it's a retaliation on legend difficulty. if he's getting a result which we can't clearly say is bad it sounds like it's undertuned if anything.
Well, yes. In fact my point was also an answer to you saying "RETALIATIONS ARE GOOD." in this thread. If this result (2 soldiers wounded for a long time and a scientist lost) was what you consider good, our points of view diverge ;) . Of course he managed to limit the damage pretty well but from this other thread and some answers here, it looks like you consider retaliations a good thing (because they give you XP), but depending on the exact situation (how far are you in the campaign, how big is your haven ...), i don't think it's always true. They might give you some XP but usually at a higher cost than other missions and without added benefits. They totally fit their purpose, it's really the fact you seem to consider them desirable that surprised me.

Note that i hate loosing rebels as i feel like it weakens my strategic game (like loosing some city population in a Civ game) and in my campaign i ran 0% destroy the relay with my heavy duty squad rather than toss a coin for an easy or hard retaliation whenever possible. It might not be the most efficient strategy but i feel like i it's my troops duty to protect those unsung heroes in the havens :lol:
fowlJ
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Re: Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

Post by fowlJ »

JoINrbs wrote:intel miniretals from my last campaign as well (all quite easy imo):

https://youtu.be/ApNCYanqLa4?list=PLesI ... M9gSb_l-PX - moderate early july
https://youtu.be/xMMNviA5_MA?list=PLesI ... M9gSb_l-PX - light-moderate late july
https://youtu.be/96GLRzqAt7A?list=PLesI ... M9gSb_l-PX - light early september
I haven't watched any of these fully yet, but it looks like in all of them you managed not to get the instant activation that seems common on this mission type (where a pod within sight range of your rebels activates before you even get camera control) - do you find that happens to you often? Because I feel like that's where these missions really kick you, when your rebels are forced into a fight without the benefit of dealing some damage on overwatch and you don't get a 'free' turn of movement with your main squad, making it harder to link up with them before they all get killed.
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