Recruitment Raid Very Difficult

[oesis]

I had my first recruitment raid since I don't normally set many to recruit, and the mission seems darn close to impossible. I was spotted turn 0, by 2 groups, one of which Mind controlled one of my units. Moving uncovered a 3rd pod + a turret, and re-enforcement were set to come on turn 2. Now It's probably possible, But It seems far more difficult than any of the other retaliation mission. Are other people having challenges completing these missions?

[bountygiver]

play it slow, don't move on turn 1 as it's a reinforcement turn, try to clean them up with overwatch, and slowly scout with shinobi and overwatch creep, don't move if it's a reinforcement turns afterwards.

If it's really too hard for you, consider skipping it and let the recruits die, it's better than your soldiers dying.

[Jacke]

If it's really too hard for you, consider skipping it and let the recruits die, it's better than your soldiers dying.

I'm getting a bit alarmed at the shear number of hopeless missions that come along in LW2. Games are supposed to be challenging and fun. Not exercises in frustration.

[johnnylump]

It would help a tremendous amount if people would post what difficulty they are playing, along with things like the game month and the regional alert level. Without that kind of information, I don't have a meaningful foundation to make any changes.

[stefan3iii]

If it's really too hard for you, consider skipping it and let the recruits die, it's better than your soldiers dying.

I'm getting a bit alarmed at the shear number of hopeless missions that come along in LW2. Games are supposed to be challenging and fun. Not exercises in frustration.

I think recruitment retaliations are one of the easier mission types? The map is generally lightly populated, and the reinforcements are usually murdered by an overwatch.

If the game is too hard, reduce the difficulty. If you're on rookie, well that's a balance issue that should be addressed I agree.

My ranking for retaliation difficulty (L/I):
Supply Raid: Trivial milk runs for farming XP. These are actually way too easy, as it's nothing but reinforcements in the exact same 2 or 3 points over and over. Everything dies the turn it spawns.
Haven Retaliation, 8 turn evac: Similar to Supply Raid, but a little harder because the spawns are usually more spread out. Sometimes trivial, sometimes a little harder.
Recruitment raid: Fairly easy, but have to avoid pulling too much stuff on a reinforcement turn. Just crawl forward, overwatch for reinforcements.
Data tap: Very RNG. I've had a rebel die on the map opening, before I even got to move. Worst case you lose some rebels and your haven advisor, your main team shouldn't have any trouble.
Full Haven Retaliation: These are hard if you actually want to save your rebels, have to play recklessly to clear the map quickly enough.

[Sporadix]

Playing on L/I, I find these to be among the most difficult missions in the game. The problem isn't just the difficulty by itself, it's the amount of risk that comes along with it. No abort option means you're completely committed. If you send your A-team to this and it goes sideways, probably that means your campaign is over. I think that's simply too punishing for a mission where you're already starting on the back foot (due to yellow alert enemies and Turn 1 RNFs). On the datatap mission, you can at least throw the flare and leave when it becomes apparent you have no chance to win (and this becomes apparent very quickly).

There's also a little bit of gamey-ness that comes along with rebels needing to evac before your squad evac timer starts. If you have some incredibly slow rebels, you have this perverse incentive to kill them off on purpose just to get your team out faster. To be fair, I haven't actually had to do this yet, but I HAVE seriously considered it a few times.

[Jacke]

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.

[oesis]

Difficulty Impossible
Month: May (15)
Advent Str: 5
Map Difficulty: Light
No gameplay Mods besides LW2

I ended up doing to the mission 3 or 4 times, with different load outs + spawns and eventually beat it. I saved 1 civi, lost a Soldier, and got more than 50% of my A team wounded. I probably could take it slower as people have suggested, though I am hesitant to go to slow because I was under the impression that re-enforcement get stronger and spawn faster over time. Does anyone know if the map has a set re-enforcement rate, or will it ramp up to every turn.

Specific annoyances I have with the mission beyond difficulty is that the AI can get turn 0 abilities off since theirs a strong chance of enemies in vision range of your starting location. As well, I had 1 run, where the enemies spawned so close they broke the concealment of my shinobi, which I don't feel should happen.

[aedn]

Reinforcement waves take time to build up, and on the mini retaliations are scripted more then regular missions. I rarely have a problem with them, by freezing in place for 3 turns, killing the reinforcement wave, which will pull any nearby pods to you, killing them and doing a blue move / overwatch combo to the evac, freezing when additional waves drop.

Activating on mission spawn is a problem that should be addressed, if it's a huge issue, just reload a save from the geoscape, which should generate a new mission layout completely.

The only other issue with mini retaliations, is the mod does not provide you with information on how to avoid them entirely. By keeping 4 or less rebels on any particular job at higher advent strength you will completely avoid any datatap, supply or recruitment retaliations. Regular retaliations can be avoided by doing "prevent a data leak" missions.

[Izzy]

Moderate-Heavy on Commander and the toughest Long War 2 mission i have ever played (including a finished Veteran campaign).

[aedn]

Moderate-Heavy on Commander and the toughest Long War 2 mission i have ever played (including a finished Veteran campaign).

This is an excellent example of why these missions are not hard at all. This mission was 100% preventable, and entirely up to the player as to if it even spawned or not. This is a high strength region, that had rebels set on mass recruiting. It is entirely possible the player did not know the proper way to deal with mini-retaliations so that is a potential issue,but aside from that the player in LW2 has complete control over these types of missions ever happening for the entire length of the game.

The main issue is that the players need to be informed about the game mechanics in an more transparent fashion, not have to go search the internet to find out how these types of missions work. the developer does need to add some flavor text to these types of missions, so that the information is plainly visible to the player, that if they opt in to having a large number of rebels on a single job, these missions can occur, and the same with "prevent a data leak" needs to be more transparent in that a retaliation will happen.

[Izzy]

I know how this works in theory (by reading forums and watching vods) but I never looked up the exact numbers because I find this concept of avoiding mini retaliations by placing exactly the right number of guys on each job extremely gamey. Saying that, I will never ever do one of these missions on this strength level again.

[oesis]

@aedn It may be a case of information like you say. I consider Recruitment Retals to be the least intuitive of any map mode I have played so far. Generally speaking for other maps, you lose once and you know what to do. But with RR you can play several times and still not really be clear on how to play it well. Once you know how to play them maybe they are easy.

At the same time, considering the simple fact that you can't Evac, and are guaranteed to be swarmed by units if you don't get a hold of the situation, I feel like I will pretty much always avoid them in the future. I just don't think there will be a situation where I need extra recruit so badly that its worth the risk of a Recruitment Retal. Compared to say Supply or Intel, which are both worth the risk. It just seems odd to have the least valuable Haven task spawn the most risky Retal Job.

[Saph7]

I've never actually had a recruitment retal spawn, but my takeaway from other people's posts has been 'never put more than 4 rebels on recruit unless it's a liberated region'.

[LordYanaek]

Recruitment raid require alert level (ADVENT Strength on the map) to be at least 4 to trigger so you can run as many recruit as you want on regions with 1-3 str. Since you are not doing missions you don't draw ADVENT attention (you don't increase vigilance) and they shouldn't rise in str for quite some time.

[chrisb]

Recruitment raid require alert level (ADVENT Strength on the map) to be at least 4 to trigger so you can run as many recruit as you want on regions with 1-3 str. Since you are not doing missions you don't draw ADVENT attention (you don't increase vigilance) and they shouldn't rise in str for quite some time.

This is true in general, but there are modifiers on top of vigilance that can increase strength in a region. Being next to a region that is liberated, being next to or in the blacksite/forge/psigate region or a region with an alien facility in it all increase the amount of strength advent wants in that region.

Also if the region has been contacted it seems like vigilance is bound to a minimum of 2.

[FoulFoot]

I just had a mini-retaliation -- Datatap -- in a region where none of the jobs had more than 4 rebels, and the Advent strength was 3. It was in February, and I've never had more than 4 rebels on a job since the beginning of the campaign.

I wonder if the number of Faceless makes this calculation wonky. I have like fifteen rebels in this territory, and if I happened to have put four Faceless on Intel or something, might this count more than four?

Foul

[Jadiel]

Also if the region has been contacted it seems like vigilance is bound to a minimum of 2.

I don't think this is actually true, but the resistance runs operations (which generates vigilance) before you contact a region, so most regions start with vigilance above 0.

I just had a mini-retaliation -- Datatap -- in a region where none of the jobs had more than 4 rebels, and the Advent strength was 3. It was in February, and I've never had more than 4 rebels on a job since the beginning of the campaign.

I wonder if the number of Faceless makes this calculation wonky. I have like fifteen rebels in this territory, and if I happened to have put four Faceless on Intel or something, might this count more than four?

Faceless do count double (I think) for the purpose of increasing your 'footprint' for different rebel activities. So one (or probably more) of the rebels you have on intel is almost certainly a Faceless.

[LordYanaek]

I just had a mini-retaliation -- Datatap -- in a region where none of the jobs had more than 4 rebels, and the Advent strength was 3. It was in February, and I've never had more than 4 rebels on a job since the beginning of the campaign.

Faceless do count double (I think) for the purpose of increasing your 'footprint' for different rebel activities. So one (or probably more) of the rebels you have on intel is almost certainly a Faceless.

Yes, faceless count as 2 rebels to trigger an ADVENT raid. Since you need 6 rebels on a specific task for the respective min-retaliation to trigger this means you had 2 faceless among your 4 intel rebels.
4 Is usually the safe number because you can have a faceless and not trigger the raid but if you're sure of your guys (like they all survived a retaliation) you can put 5 on a job and be safe. Of course you might trigger a raid with only 3 rebels on a task, but that would mean they are all faceless so try to have them killed
Also the Intel raid is the only mini-retaliation to require 3 str, recruit and supply require 4.

[chrisb]

Also if the region has been contacted it seems like vigilance is bound to a minimum of 2.

I don't think this is actually true, but the resistance runs operations (which generates vigilance) before you contact a region, so most regions start with vigilance above 0.

The place I got this from was in the RegionalAI update code.

Code: Select all

if (GetOwningRegion().ResistanceLevel >= eResLevel_Outpost && LocalVigilanceLevel < 2 && !GetOwningRegion().IsStartingRegion())
    LocalVigilanceLevel = 2;

This code happens after the vigilance decay is triggered. It has 2 conditions before it runs. Vigilance must be > 1 and the region needs to be contacted. So perhaps if the newly contacted region has only 1 vigilance to start with, then the decay code does not run because you can't decay past 1. But once you run a mission, bumping it to 2, it stays there permanently and won't decay past 2.

[Jadiel]

Yes, you might be right, actually. I was working from my memory of this thread: http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... 16&t=24425

There are several ProtectRegionEarly activities in Vigilance 1 regions, which I assumed were contacted (because I didn't think the AI generated those missions in uncontacted regions). However, looking at the income dump further down, it looks like none of the Vigilance 1 regions are actually contacted. So, I guess it needs some more investigation - my apologies for contradicting your earlier statement!

[chrisb]

Yes, you might be right, actually. I was working from my memory of this thread: http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... 16&t=24425

There are several ProtectRegionEarly activities in Vigilance 1 regions, which I assumed were contacted (because I didn't think the AI generated those missions in uncontacted regions). However, looking at the income dump further down, it looks like none of the Vigilance 1 regions are actually contacted. So, I guess it needs some more investigation - my apologies for contradicting your earlier statement!

Interesting, so it seems like Lib missions are spawned in every region at the same time. There are 14 ProtectRegionEarly and 2 ProtectRegion, with one of those being the network tower, the other would be Lib 3.

[Jacke]

And I just got the pre-Intel Raid mission in Eastern NA: Destroy the Alien Relay, with 4 hours to expiry and Light-Moderate enemy. And that 4 hours became 2 as the Avenger flew back from contacting New Arctic (my, that ship can move). Tried equipping a full 10 soldiers with 4 Gunners to take it out, with plenty of Laser weapons and a host of weapons mods. Against swarming with no infiltration I had to save scum even to get close, what with enemy vision almost removing the benefit of concealment. And then they stumbled onto my squad as I was moving into position. Killed 7 of the initial 14 alerted. But then a Viper tongue-grabbed a Gunner out of half-cover and that alerted another 15. 8 turns until I get an evac flare out.

And if I skip this and do the Intel Raid, that'll be worse.

Sure, this is Legendary, but this is getting damn silly. No way. Backing up to a previous save and pulling out my advisor and setting everyone to other jobs.

[Jadiel]

And I just got the pre-Intel Raid mission in Eastern NA: Destroy the Alien Relay, with 4 hours to expiry and Light-Moderate enemy. And that 4 hours became 2 as the Avenger flew back from contacting New Arctic (my, that ship can move). Tried equipping a full 10 soldiers with 4 Gunners to take it out, with plenty of Laser weapons and a host of weapons mods. Against swarming with no infiltration I had to save scum even to get close, what with enemy vision almost removing the benefit of concealment. And then they stumbled onto my squad as I was moving into position. Killed 7 of the initial 14 alerted. But then a Viper tongue-grabbed a Gunner out of half-cover and that alerted another 15. 8 turns until I get an evac flare out.

And if I skip this and do the Intel Raid, that'll be worse.

Sure, this is Legendary, but this is getting damn silly. No way. Backing up to a previous save and pulling out my advisor and setting everyone to other jobs.

Intel Raids don't have pre-missions. If you don't do that mission, you'll get either an Haven Evac or Defense mission.

[JoINrbs]

Difficulty Impossible
Month: May (15)
Advent Str: 5
Map Difficulty: Light
No gameplay Mods besides LW2

I ended up doing to the mission 3 or 4 times, with different load outs + spawns and eventually beat it. I saved 1 civi, lost a Soldier, and got more than 50% of my A team wounded. I probably could take it slower as people have suggested, though I am hesitant to go to slow because I was under the impression that re-enforcement get stronger and spawn faster over time. Does anyone know if the map has a set re-enforcement rate, or will it ramp up to every turn.

Specific annoyances I have with the mission beyond difficulty is that the AI can get turn 0 abilities off since theirs a strong chance of enemies in vision range of your starting location. As well, I had 1 run, where the enemies spawned so close they broke the concealment of my shinobi, which I don't feel should happen.

I think part of this is that May is really difficult. You don't quite have your very efficient perks up yet, are likely only just getting up Lasers + Predator, but ADVENT is showing up with a lot of high hp snakes and MECs. I've found late April and the beginning of May to be the toughest part of the campaign tactically.