Viability of delayed Liberation

[Dwarfling]

Ok so I've done several Liberation rushes by now, most of them successful, but one thing in common with all of them is that the first liberated region will spike in vigilance because of all the missions, resulting in a severe increase of ADVENT strenght, resulting in the region's Haven requiring most of their rebels to go into hiding to avoid a retaliation while the main squad is infiltrating, and by the time I complete the infiltration of the HQ the strenght is high enough (usually hits 8) that it causes a spill of legions into adjacent regions at liberation, which usually means I've to send those havens into hiding. All of this resulting in a loss of supply gathering efficiency.

But what if I don't rush it, leave it close to ready, move to other areas, then go loud on several areas at the same time?

I just started a new 1.2 C/I campaign and this is the layout of my plan:

1. Complete Liberation 2 on the starting region, then immediatly cease missions and turn the region to Supply and Recruit while vigilance goes down.
2. Move missions toward the periphery regions, trying to also complete Liberation chains, then letting vigilance go down while switching to Supply/Recruit.
3. Focus on expanding horizontally so that once the Blacksite is revealed, you'll be close to it.
4. Meanwhile complete the Skulljack project, probably look into fighting the Codex.
5. Complete Liberation chains at low strenght, minimizing strenght spill.
6. Possibly intercept the reinforcements because of the vigilance/strenght gap.

Cons: Avatar project won't get slowed because global vigilance will be low.

[Jadiel]

Ok so I've done several Liberation rushes by now, most of them successful, but one thing in common with all of them is that the first liberated region will spike in vigilance because of all the missions, resulting in a severe increase of ADVENT strenght, resulting in the region's Haven requiring most of their rebels to go into hiding to avoid a retaliation while the main squad is infiltrating, and by the time I complete the infiltration of the HQ the strenght is high enough (usually hits 8) that it causes a spill of legions into adjacent regions at liberation, which usually means I've to send those havens into hiding. All of this resulting in a loss of supply gathering efficiency.

But what if I don't rush it, leave it close to ready, move to other areas, then go loud on several areas at the same time?

I just started a new 1.2 C/I campaign and this is the layout of my plan:

1. Complete Liberation 2 on the starting region, then immediatly cease missions and turn the region to Supply and Recruit while vigilance goes down.
2. Move missions toward the periphery regions, trying to also complete Liberation chains, then letting vigilance go down while switching to Supply/Recruit.
3. Focus on expanding horizontally so that once the Blacksite is revealed, you'll be close to it.
4. Meanwhile complete the Skulljack project, probably look into fighting the Codex.
5. Complete Liberation chains at low strenght, minimizing strenght spill.
6. Possibly intercept the reinforcements because of the vigilance/strenght gap.

Cons: Avatar project won't get slowed because global vigilance will be low.

I think there may be two problems with your plan. The first is that Vigilance is only one of the variables which influences how the AI deploys it's strength. You may find that even if you let vigilance cool off, strength doesn't change much. The second is that Global Advent strength rises pretty rapidly (although you're playing on Commander not Legendary, so maybe this isn't as much of an issue), and you may find that you end up doing HQ at basically the same Strength as you would have done anyway, just 3-4 months later.

I tried a campaign where I only ran lib missions in a region (I ignored any other missions which came up except Supply Raids and Troop Columns), but I didn't find it made a noticeable difference to Advent Strength.

[wei270]

also keep in mind that when dark event spawns there will always be one non tactics dark event in your contracted region and only one dark event can happen in a region. so if you have too many regions liberated and not enough contacted you can put your self in a position where you have 0% chance of finding tactical darkevent

[Elfich]

You need to cause enough of a ruckus elsewhere to get the AI to draw down troop strength. In the mean time overall Adventnstrength is climbing unless you can consistently kill troops in troop reduction missions. In the long term overall legion strength will climb faster than you can manage.

[Devon_v]

I've always rushed them. Just get the tower done before the spike and you'll be fine. I run pure Intel all the way so I get troop ambushes and transfers and can knock strength down a bit. Sure some of the strength is going to get dispersed when the HQ goes down, but that strength always existed. It's not like doing the liberation chain created it.

You get tons of supplies from a liberated, radio equipped, scientist-led region. 3-4 ADVENT strength isn't a big threat elsewhere. I contact all the adjacent regions and try to run missions all over to prevent a vigilance spike that could lead to an invasion. Eventually you'll see where they want to build up for the invasion on their own and you go full Intel in that region and fight it out while working the regions adjacent to that one, which ADVENT doesn't want to defend.

[trihero]

You mean engineer-led, right?

But yeah anyways I highly recommend doing as many liberations as you can as early as you can. The chains get very hard very quickly on legendary, and the income base is hugely helpful the earlier you get it done. If you can't though, there's nothing inherently wrong with expanding everywhere and having 4 rebels on supply to avoid retals, you just have to contact a lot of regions to get your supply line flowing.

[Alketi]

Ok so I've done several Liberation rushes by now, most of them successful, but one thing in common with all of them is that the first liberated region will spike in vigilance because of all the missions, resulting in a severe increase of ADVENT strength, resulting in the region's Haven requiring most of their rebels to go into hiding to avoid a retaliation while the main squad is infiltrating, and by the time I complete the infiltration of the HQ the strength is high enough (usually hits 8) that it causes a spill of legions into adjacent regions at liberation, which usually means I've to send those havens into hiding. All of this resulting in a loss of supply gathering efficiency.

I'm in the exact same trap. I had my starting region and an adjacent region both on the Network Tower mission. My starting region was up to ~8 AS by this time and the adjacent was about a 3. I decided to liberate my starting region, figuring I wouldn't have the chance if I let it keep rising. I succeeded in running the Network Tower and HQ at an AS of 8 or 9. Very tough.

However, the adjacent region immediately spiked to 8 and has been hovering between 8-10 for months despite only having 4 soldiers on Supply and not running any missions.

Fearing an invasion of the liberated region, I've put almost everyone in there on Intel. Everywhere else I have greater than AS 4, so I'm limiting those regions to just 4 active Haven soldiers, as I've already been hit with two Haven retaliations for misbehaving. Anywhere I don't want to do missions those also have 4 soldiers on Supply. In the lowest strength region I have them on Intel, and scan the Avenger there.

My monthly income is about 350 supplies. At this point, I just don't get how people are claiming that they're taking down 2,000+ supplies per month from liberating a couple of regions. I'm in hiding all over the globe and despite scanning with the Avenger, am not capable of finding Lib 1 with any reasonable time left nor at a reasonable strength.

[trihero]

At this point, I just don't get how people are claiming that they're taking down 2,000+ supplies per month from liberating a couple of regions.

Interesting, who is saying that? I can only get to 2000+ when I have about 6 liberated regions.

A "couple" (two regions) and I'm making something like 600 supplies myself.

I don't think it's a good idea to put rebels on intel for the invasion.

For one thing, they can't invade for the first 21 days after you liberate, so any rebels on intel during that time period is purely a waste. But besides that, you are severely killing your supply income for in exchange for...a chance to protect your supply income? It doesn't make sense. Just make whatever supplies you can, and let the invasion mission come. The invasion mission is not very difficult (they even let you have 12 men now), it gives you corpses, it lowers strength by 2 when you win it, and the cooldown is 40 days.