What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Share strategy and tips here.
Post Reply
jztemple
Posts: 43
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 3:13 am

What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by jztemple »

I'm currently working on liberating my second area. I just notice that the Advent strength has increased to three. In my first region it was pretty much one all the time. In this new region with Advent Strength 3, is there anything I should be doing differently, say in how I assign the resistance or what missions I should concentrate on?
User avatar
Ellie
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 12:31 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Ellie »

I'd spread out your missions, if it gets to 4 or higher I believe they can start doing terror missions. I believe ADVENT strength makes missions harder as well.
If you're determined to liberate right now then I'd do it as fast as possible before it gets any worse, and make sure you avoid any "Get ADVENT's attention" missions.
mattprice516
Long War 2 Crew
Posts: 265
Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:49 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by mattprice516 »

Advent strength directly influences the "Alien Activity" level on missions (aka the number and difficulty of enemies). Basically, the higher that is, the harder it is to do missions there. You are also more likely to be attacked.
jztemple
Posts: 43
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 3:13 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by jztemple »

I just got a lesson in the increased activity. I did a lone wolf VIP escort mission. I had done this in an Advent Strength One region and was able to outfox the what turned out to be eight soldiers looking for me. However, this time as a Lone Wolf VIP escort in an Advent Strength Three region, I had twelve enemies which included a Muton and three Vipers. So yup, the Advent Strength really changed things. My VIP engineer never made it out (but I have five already, so :roll:) but my Shinobi with speed nineteen and Ghostwalker made it to the evac without ever being seen.
jztemple
Posts: 43
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 3:13 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by jztemple »

I just thought of something. Would it be possible to lower the Advent Strength by putting my rebels in hiding and moving the Avenger to another region and doing missions there? I guess it's something I can try, but there might be other factors that cloud the issue. I'm just thinking how miserable it's going to be trying to run more missions against an Advent Strength of Three or (gasp!) more :shock:
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by LordYanaek »

As far as i understand, yes. Advent has limited global strength and they assign it to regions based on how much they think the region needs so if you start blowing stuff in a different region and go quiet in your HQ, then it's likely they will move there, but it might take some time.
User avatar
Devon_v
Long War EU Crew
Posts: 297
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:17 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Devon_v »

jztemple wrote:I just thought of something. Would it be possible to lower the Advent Strength by putting my rebels in hiding and moving the Avenger to another region and doing missions there? I guess it's something I can try, but there might be other factors that cloud the issue. I'm just thinking how miserable it's going to be trying to run more missions against an Advent Strength of Three or (gasp!) more :shock:
This is exactly how it works. Go hit them somewhere else, make them chase you around the globe. Keep an eye out for Troop Column ambushes, they allow you to reduce ADVENT strength by wiping out one of their global legions.

This is why sometimes you want to Get ADVENT's Attention, to draw them away from what you really want to hit.

I've seen force levels as high as 7.
jztemple
Posts: 43
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 3:13 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by jztemple »

Great info, thanks! I think I'll avoid any place with Advent Strength of seven :shock:
Arizael
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 2:50 pm

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Arizael »

Doesn't global Advent strength increase as well ? So in theory by waiting you risk that Advent will get more troops everywhere ?
trihero
Posts: 1099
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 7:01 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by trihero »

To answer the original question, I don't really "feel" advent strength until 5 or so, and that's about when they send retaliations. Level 3 instead of 2 or 1 is essentially ignorable.

And also I agree with the poster above, your strategy cannot be to literally to hide everywhere at once; advent strength goes up globally over time regardless of what you do (in my game the weakest regions have strength level 4, and the highest are 7 and 8). Make sure you are always hitting something, and it's actually a pretty darn good idea just to tunnel your efforts in one area to uncover the HQ location at least which you don't have to assault right away if you don't want to but you get higher reward missions (supply raids, counter ops) as you get closer to it which actually get you the funding you need to get more troops/research. Running around just always hitting "very light" missions that offer purely intel is where everyone starts off, but it's a habit you need to break because it's not really getting you anywhere in the long run. You need liberated regions to provide you a steady flow of cash. It's EXPENSIVE to outfit 20+ troops in high quality gear not to mention all the buildings and GTS upgrades.
User avatar
Devon_v
Long War EU Crew
Posts: 297
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:17 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Devon_v »

Arizael wrote:Doesn't global Advent strength increase as well ? So in theory by waiting you risk that Advent will get more troops everywhere ?
You don't wait, you act elsewhere.

Once you locate the network tower or regional complex you can make noise in other regions and come back for them later.
Kizaray
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2017 6:16 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Kizaray »

jztemple wrote:I just thought of something. Would it be possible to lower the Advent Strength by putting my rebels in hiding and moving the Avenger to another region and doing missions there? I guess it's something I can try, but there might be other factors that cloud the issue. I'm just thinking how miserable it's going to be trying to run more missions against an Advent Strength of Three or (gasp!) more :shock:
If you do a "get advents attention" mission or many other missions in connected regins they will move their strength over. One strength at a time. Think of it like the board game risk. You do missions they allocate strength. You stop and eventually... up to months later they will chill out a bit.
LeaderEnemyBoss
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2017 5:27 pm

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by LeaderEnemyBoss »

Devon_v wrote:
Arizael wrote:Doesn't global Advent strength increase as well ? So in theory by waiting you risk that Advent will get more troops everywhere ?
You don't wait, you act elsewhere.

Once you locate the network tower or regional complex you can make noise in other regions and come back for them later.
So far i have never seen a tower/hq-region where the advent strength falls again, even when putting all rebels on hiding. I am talking about 3 months game time, strength just stayed at 10 or kept climbing even. I feel any benefit that hiding may have gets eliminated by the raising global force levels. Maybe this is a legend specific issue, but usually if I dont do these final liberation missions right away, i may aswell forget about these specific regions, maybe put a few rebels on supplies so they are not totally useless, but few enough so you dotn get retaliations.
Doglywolf
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 2:46 pm

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Doglywolf »

looking at the code Advent Strength does not really go down on its own - you have to do things in other areas to make them angerier at those areas to get them to move troops out of an area. Also priority for a move comes from closer regions so doing a lot missions across the map will not have same impact as doing it in neighboring region.

Vigilance (how angry they are with you only goes down once every 344 hours IF you have not done anything to anger them in that 344 hours ) Someone told me having more then 3 guys on any one job increses vigilence them 3 or less is safe. But i have been unable to find that in the code to confirm or deny that
User avatar
Devon_v
Long War EU Crew
Posts: 297
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:17 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Devon_v »

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:
Devon_v wrote:
Arizael wrote:Doesn't global Advent strength increase as well ? So in theory by waiting you risk that Advent will get more troops everywhere ?
You don't wait, you act elsewhere.

Once you locate the network tower or regional complex you can make noise in other regions and come back for them later.
So far i have never seen a tower/hq-region where the advent strength falls again, even when putting all rebels on hiding. I am talking about 3 months game time, strength just stayed at 10 or kept climbing even. I feel any benefit that hiding may have gets eliminated by the raising global force levels. Maybe this is a legend specific issue, but usually if I dont do these final liberation missions right away, i may aswell forget about these specific regions, maybe put a few rebels on supplies so they are not totally useless, but few enough so you dotn get retaliations.
Legend may be distorting things. On Vet I had one game where I got chased out of a region after finding the tower and ADVENT strength did indeed just keep climbing. But I think what happened was that Vigilance was so high because I'd run like 90% of my mission out of there that even when I started working the neighboring region I wasn't making enough noise to convince them to transfer anything. In my current campaign I contacted two adjacent regions immediately and I've been mixing up where I push my Intel and I've got two network towers located and ADVENT is still moving forces around between the three regions rather than fortifying the ones I found the towers in. Presumably no one region has a Vigilance score significantly greater than any other.

Edit: This also seems to be what the Get ADVENT's Attention missions are for. If you've got most of the rebels in hiding in the hot region and you run a bunch of missions next door, including the assassinations and monument demolitions, you draw them into the adjacent zone, perhaps ambushing some of them in the process.
User avatar
Arcalane
Posts: 339
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 10:42 pm

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by Arcalane »

Arizael wrote:Doesn't global Advent strength increase as well ? So in theory by waiting you risk that Advent will get more troops everywhere ?
Yes. They periodically deploy offworld reinforcements. In a pinch, they may call down emergency reinforcements.

If you sit on your hands too long then globally, their strength will go up. Regionally, however, you can mitigate it in the various ways explained by others, either redirecting it around or actively depleting force strength via ambush opportunities.
GavinRuneblade
Posts: 178
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 6:55 am

Re: What should I do different if Advent strength 3 instead of 2 or 1

Post by GavinRuneblade »

Doglywolf wrote: Vigilance (how angry they are with you only goes down once every 344 hours IF you have not done anything to anger them in that 344 hours ) Someone told me having more then 3 guys on any one job increses vigilence them 3 or less is safe. But i have been unable to find that in the code to confirm or deny that
Trihero posted the critical bits here with some good analysis:
http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... ne+bum%27s


trihero wrote:
3. there's a minimum amount of rebels on jobs before it's possible for them to do a retaliation, thus this is the true benefit of "hiding"

; Rebel raid mission config
RAID_MISSION_MIN_REBELS=3
RAID_MISSION_MAX_REBELS=6
MIN_REBELS_TO_TRIGGER_INTEL_RAID=6 ; Number of rebels on intel job to make this mission trigger
MIN_REBELS_TO_TRIGGER_SUPPLY_RAID=6 ; Number of rebels on supply job to make this mission trigger
MIN_REBELS_TO_TRIGGER_RECRUIT_RAID=6 ; Number of rebels on recruit job to make this mission trigger

The above are mini retals; strangely, the minimum is lower for regular retaliations (which are harder)

ATTEMPT_COUNTERINSURGENCY_MIN_REBELS = 5 ; Population of Haven (so missions aren't bare of civvies to rescue)
ATTEMPT_COUNTERINSURGENCY_MIN_WORKING_REBELS = 5 ; Population of Haven assigned jobs (allows hiding job to avoid retals)

So it should be impossible to get any retaliation missions in a given region if you only have 4 working rebels there, and you can go up to 5 of a given type of job without triggering the mini-retal specific raid. But if you do have 5 working rebels on a particular job (or spread across different jobs), you can get the normal retaliation even though you won't trigger the specific mini-retal.
I haven't seen anything specific to vigilance though, unless I missed it in that code thread
Post Reply