Optimal threat level

[Icarus]

I am trying to decide whether it's better to
- aim for a global threat level that is as high as possible (and thus minimize avatar project progress) or
- stick to a threat level of slightly less than severe (and thus avoid super reinforcements, minimizing Advent Strength progress).

So what, in your opinion, would be a better aim from the start of the campaign? Of course mid/endgame you can tweak this to whatever is more threatening, but I basically hit Severe after my first liberation and am kinda worried it'll screw up my game. So I would like to know what to better focus on during the early game.

Disclaimer: I asked this question in thread "Managing Strength and Vigilance" before noticing it's a little besides the focus of that thread, that one being on handling individual regions instead of global levels, hence this thread.

[chrisb]

In the current state of the game, you want Severe as much as possible and have the avatar progress reduction % as high as possible. Once your at Severe, there's no more consequence of going higher. If your not at least at Severe then the avatar pips are going to be chugging along at near full steam and you'll be racing to beat the doom clock if you don't get really lucky facility leads.

[Jackal]

i don't even know what you guys are talking about ... where is 'severe' threat level mentioned or showing on the game?

[Tuhalu]

i don't even know what you guys are talking about ... where is 'severe' threat level mentioned or showing on the game?

On the Avenger, click Command, then Haven Management. Look at the top of the window that pops up. Even before you liberate a region you'll see a message that says something like:

Global ADVENT Strength: 39 Legions * Global Resistance Threat: Low

[Jackal]

On the Avenger, click Command, then Haven Management. Look at the top of the window that pops up. Even before you liberate a region you'll see a message that says something like:

Global ADVENT Strength: 39 Legions * Global Resistance Threat: Low

Thank you, Tuhalu.... since you were so kind and prompt with this question and another, can I ask you this one:

So, i'm in July.. July 20th

only have 5 havens, don't have enough intel to add another one... I don't even have a gunnery sergeant yet...

am i wasting my time? do i need to start over? I haven't been able to figure out how to liberate a region from Advent yet...

so many hours, not scum saving ... have had some rough losses.... i hate to have to go back to the beginning but i'd also hate to keep wasting time in a losing effort.

[Icarus]

@Jackal:

I can't reply directly due to lack of experience, but he may require some additional information about your game like number of doom counters, threat level and number of legions (see his last post), how far you progressed in the story missions (like how far away are you from the Blacksite) etc.

@chrisb:

So an Avatar project slowdown of 15-20% (below severe) isn't enough, or inviting super reinforcements is secondary to slowing down Avatar project, is that right?

@all:

If someone else can't follow along, the important mechanics are:
- The higher the threat level, the slower the Avatar project gains new pips.
- Starting from threat level Severe, Advent gains access to super reinforcements, adding 4 legions to to Advent's overall strength every couple of weeks.

So once you get near Severe, you kinda have to decide whether you want to minimize Advent number of legions by staying below Severe and thus denying super reinforcements or minimize Avatar progress further by going Severe.

[LordYanaek]

So an Avatar project slowdown of 15-20% (below severe) isn't enough, or inviting super reinforcements is secondary to slowing down Avatar project, is that right?

Super reinforcements will make your tactical game harder.
Avatar project will make you loose the game.
Which one is the biggest concern?

[Icarus]

Super reinforcements will make your tactical game harder.
Avatar project will make you loose the game.
Which one is the biggest concern?

A harder tactical game can kill me just as well as the Avatar project. So the question was "is it worth it to delay Avatar 10-20% more, when it means having 4 more legions on the map every couple of weeks?"

So far chrisb adviced me that it is worth it. Thanks. How do other people manage this?

[LordYanaek]

A harder tactical game can kill me just as well as the Avatar project.

A harder tactical game might kill you if you don't play the tactical game well enough but you can work around the increased difficulty with good tactics.
The avatar project will kill you even if you play a perfect tactical game. I haven't watched it myself but i've read that's exactly what happened to Marbozir (a well known streamer) on his LW2 campaign. He was dominating every single mission and had great soldiers and equipment but he lost. Against Avatar project, there is nothing you can do.
So another way to put it up is "would you rather face a threat you can fight (harder tactical game) or one you can't and must race against (avatar project)?"

So the question was "is it worth it to delay Avatar 10-20% more, when it means having 4 more legions on the map every couple of weeks?"

So far chrisb adviced me that it is worth it. Thanks. How do other people manage this?

It can be much more than 10-20% additional slowdown if you're serious about raising vigilance and lowering alert (with Troop ambushes/Supply convoy raids). You can slow the project by more than 100% (at least up to commander difficulty, i didn't test Legend so far).
I think it's a good idea to raise vigilance as high as possible, including with missions that "draw advent attention". The increase in strength is only part of the difficulty, another (possibly the biggest) part is the tech level of aliens (when stronger enemies appear) and that won't change with vigilance.
However if you want to rush the storyline missions, plan to liberate your first region by the end of April and then just rush every Golden Path mission you might not need to slow down Avatar that much and it might not be worth the additional strength.

Ultimately, since it's your game, you will have to find what works best for you. We don't play your missions so we can't choose for you. When i choose for myself i try to raise vigilance as high as possible because it removes pressure from my strategic game and put the pressure on the tactical game where i find i have better control.

[DonCrabio]

Probably you don't want to have low treat level, even if you don't have problems with Avatar project.

Looks like I have failed to generate enough vigilance in my current campaign. By September I'm operating in 5 regions + 1 liberated and only 1 region have Advent strength above 3. This is nice, because I don't have to deal with many retaliations, but this is a big problem also, because there not enough supply raids and column ambushes. I really short on corpses much needed to upgrade my swords, holotargeters and so on.

I don't know how to fix it, because I have 2-3-4 infiltration's in progress through all campaign, probably I need to expand more and field even more guerilla ops squads.

[LordYanaek]

Good point : having some regions with str ≥ 4 is important for ambush missions.

I don't know how to fix it, because I have 2-3-4 infiltration's in progress through all campaign, probably I need to expand more and field even more guerilla ops squads.

Missions that "draw advent attention" such as sabotage monuments are good for raising vigilance in one region if you want to get more troops there. Running liberation up to the Network Tower but not taking the HQ is also a good way to raise vigilance. Taking the HQ gives you an immediate return in corpses but waiting for ambush missions will probably pay more in the end (but of course you loose the supply generation of a liberated region).
If you can do this in a region with a lot of rebels (ideally 13) you should be able to detect most incoming convoys and any troop columns with good timers.

@Icarus : Also your difficulty level makes a big difference. On Rookie it's probably possible to win without even slowing Avatar at all. On Legend you would have to be really quick to do this.

[Jacke]

...he may require some additional information about your game like number of doom counters....

Jackal can't see the doom counter because he hasn't liberated a region.

[DonCrabio]

I have HQ ready to assault, but for some reason Advent don't care and not move in any troops at least for two weeks. Probably I will punch them in the face by doing liberation chain in my only 7 strength region.

[chrisb]

Super reinforcements will make your tactical game harder.
Avatar project will make you loose the game.
Which one is the biggest concern?

A harder tactical game can kill me just as well as the Avatar project. So the question was "is it worth it to delay Avatar 10-20% more, when it means having 4 more legions on the map every couple of weeks?"

So far chrisb adviced me that it is worth it. Thanks. How do other people manage this?

Also keep in mind that a lot of this advice is subject to change with 1.3. As it currently stands I've always pushed to severe as fast as possible and just kept hitting hard with missions going out constantly. It gets harder as the game goes on to keep this up which is why I feel it's best to start doing it early. Expand fast, hit hard and then you sort of coast through the end game, mostly taking out golden paths and defense ops. If you get through the mid-game with half the pips full it gives you a lot of breathing room to just run your A Team on the missions that matter and almost ignore everything else. Maybe counter some DEs if they matter or try to pick off some troop columns for loot. But once your into Sept+ it's really not worth it to push as hard as your risking getting MSGTs killed with no time to really replace them.

[Icarus]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Regarding my situation:
I'm playing on Veteran, am in June, and the Avatar project has one pip so far (shaved one off with Codex kill). I have a facility lead and access to the Blacksite, but I'm not doing it yet since there's so little progress on the Avatar project. Advent strength is 34 legions, slowdown is 44%. I have contacted 7 regions, with one liberated.

Also keep in mind that a lot of this advice is subject to change with 1.3. As it currently stands I've always pushed to severe as fast as possible and just kept hitting hard with missions going out constantly. It gets harder as the game goes on to keep this up which is why I feel it's best to start doing it early. Expand fast, hit hard and then you sort of coast through the end game, mostly taking out golden paths and defense ops. If you get through the mid-game with half the pips full it gives you a lot of breathing room to just run your A Team on the missions that matter and almost ignore everything else. Maybe counter some DEs if they matter or try to pick off some troop columns for loot. But once your into Sept+ it's really not worth it to push as hard as your risking getting MSGTs killed with no time to really replace them.

Thanks. But I hope I do not need to just do story missions in September. We'll see. Maybe it's the roleplayer in me, but I don't like giving Advent that much leeway. Also, I have quite a wide roster (5 active teams) and a few dead soldiers won't kill me.

Also, does anyone know of any changes in 1.3 that could have an impact on your advice?

[LordYanaek]

Regarding my situation:
I'm playing on Veteran, am in June, and the Avatar project has one pip so far (shaved one off with Codex kill). I have a facility lead and access to the Blacksite, but I'm not doing it yet since there's so little progress on the Avatar project. Advent strength is 34 legions, slowdown is 44%. I have contacted 7 regions, with one liberated.

Avatar starts really slowly but then accelerates a lot as new facilities start contributing to the research but on Veteran you shouldn't have issues at all if you keep the slowdown around 40% for the entire game.

That being said, the reported 44% slowdown is surprising if you're only at high threat. With high threat you have at most 19 global vigilance over global alert. Every point of GV over GA slows down avatar by 10 hours so with 19 you're at 190 hours slowdown for every pip added or roughly 8 days which is 22% of the avg research timer for facilities and only 17% of the HQ research timer
As far as i know each research is handled separately so if you're delaying 2 (expected) facilities and the fortress the global slowdown would be (2×0.22+0.17)/3≈20% reduction at most, possibly less if you're not at the highest level of "high" threat
Sorry for that technical stuff but i'm trying to better understand how evety aspect of the Avatar progress works and this is a surprise for me. I didn't really pay enough attention in my previous campaign and once you're at extreme there is no way to tell exactly how much GV over GA you are generating.

The interesting part for you is you're probably doing fine and even thought the avatar project will rise, having a facility lead available will definitely help you. In my previous campaign i got my first one late September IIRC (or maybe early October) which is pretty late.
Try to research it once you have time as it won't unlock the mission directly but simply show the facility on the map. This way you'll know what region to contact. If you see that facility is adding pips you'll then have a chance to strike it.
With a facility lead when the Project is so low you probably don't need to aim for extreme delay so if you're worried about str growing too quickly it's probably safe to try and stay at high threat. Be sure to have high str in a couple of regions anyway for those juicy troop ambushes, you have enough regions to play with ADVENT str/vigilance in order to get all kinds of missions.

Also, does anyone know of any changes in 1.3 that could have an impact on your advice?

Not really. The changes we know are the addition of a new mission type to grab some supplies/alloys/stuff outside of ambushes and lots of perk trees reworks (large and small) but deeper changes to the strategic layer are merely guesses so far.

[Icarus]

I'm not at high threat, sorry if I threw you off. I've been at Severe for a while and the strength growth made me nervous, hence the question.

[Antifringe]

My personal answer to this question is "Whatever is the highest number you can possibly reach." Trying to hover at a +20 score means doing relatively few missions. This puts you in a double bind, because the aliens continue producing Avatar II (shudder) at a relatively unhindered rate, AND you are getting less resources and xp from missions.

At +20, you add roughly 8 days to Avatar pip production. Facilities take 32 days to make one normally. Going from 32 to 40 is unimpressive. I know that in my first game, I tried to keep vigilance low (mistakenly thinking that Vigilance was creating legions rather than merely attracting them) and I lost when the aliens forced me to watch Avatar II way sooner than I was expecting.

In successive campaigns, I started fielding more and more teams. I went from the vanilla style of only one team to an A/B team combo to finally just getting a giant roster. I aim for four copies of each class and I should probably have even more. Don't worry about spreading xp thin, that's not what will happen. If you are on point with Intel, you will have so many missions that your A and B teams are always busy, so extra teams just mean more missions done overall. Equipment becomes an issue, but teams D-F generally just get ballistics. You would be amazed at what you can do with basic gear even at high alien tech levels once you get used to it. And if F-team gets wrecked, whatever, you didn't invest much in them, anyway. They really only need one or two successful missions to justify their existence.

In my last game, I had a +60 score by the time I got coil weapons and would probably have taken it higher if I hadn't decided to stop and wait for 1.3. That was +24 days to the Avatar timer, which helped a lot. I felt very little pressure, even though I hadn't even found a facility yet.

The SuperEmergencyReinforcements that you get at 20+ aren't all that bad. On commander, ADVENT gains 2 legions every 10 days, and the super UFOs add +4 every 21 days. Okay, so that triples legion production, which sounds bad, but it really isn't. If you are spiking vigilance in a few regions at a time, you can create roach trap regions that absorb most of the enemy strength. The idea is that you get up to 13 recruits ASAP (either via Jailbreaks or by hardcore recruiting, depends on what stage of the game you're in) and then go full Intel, with a Scientist and everything. A tower is nice but neither required or even recommended unless you need it for contact purposes. Do every mission you can. Even do lib chain stuff, even if you don't intend to liberate. Vigilance will go through the roof. You can hit 20+ much, much faster than you think.

Once strength hits 5 or so, you stop getting the nice things like High Value Targets and Data raids and stuff, but you will instead start attracting lots of "hard" targets, like reinforcements and troop manuevers, and maybe even a lucky UFO. I call this the "bleeder" stage, where you attract and kill as many legions as possible until strength finally becomes unmanageable. You can typically kill 2-6 legions during this stage, more if you get a UFO.

Once you can't handle it anymore, pull up stakes and leave. Set 4 rebels to Supply and 4 to Intel (mostly because why not). Don't even leave an advisor unless you just have billions of engineers or something. You might think that this is a waste of a haven, but you're wrong, this is actually a very valuable one. Vigilance will be crazy in this region now, possibly 30+. ADVENT will be like "Holy shit, send everything we've got there!" The thing is, you won't actually be there anymore, and eventually ADVENT will garrison 15 legions there, more or less permanently. Do this to 2-4 regions, and you can harmlessly absorb months and months worth of new legions. Meanwhile your little haven will still find the occasional troop ambush (Troop ambushes get a bonus to detection when strength is high, a mechanic unique to that mission). Do these when you can, since they increase vigilance and require ADVENT to send yet another legion to replace the one that you killed.

I've found that I actually prefer having roach trap regions more than liberated ones. I'll liberate 2-3 regions early, which is great for global vigilance (all regions gain +1, except for adjacent ones, which get +2), but the rest are used as roach motels.

EDIT: About liberations. There's a technique to it that I rarely see discussed.

When you liberate a region, you kill four legions and the remaining ones get distributed to adjacent regions. It sometimes looks like you've killed five, but this is an artifact of how strength is displayed to the player. Let me explain. Minimum ADVENT strength is one. When you check with the console, even liberated regions have strength one, it's just that this point isn't shown to the player. This is not just a technicality, since that point still counts towards global strength and therefore helps with the filming of the Avatar movie. It also means that the minimum strength you should liberate at to maximize damage is 5, since that is the lowest level at which you still get all four legion kills.

When I target a region for liberation, I try to do it very quickly. I go full Intel in a quiet region and fly up the lib chain. I oftentimes end up with a sub-5 region with an exposed HQ. I recommend doing a mini-bleed in this case, delaying the HQ while running full Intel to pick off supply convoys and troop columns. This relieves pressure from other regions. Eventually, enough legions will slip through that strength reaches 5, and that is when you liberate. You can end up killing 8-10 legions this way.

[Icarus]

Thanks all. The argument that you lose out on a couple of missions, hence XP and loot, is a good one. I'm actually quite glad about not having to restrain myself to keep below Severe, it's much more fun to hit as hard as I can doing as many missions as I can.