Phoenix achievement, destroying Alien Administration

[roman566]

I have no idea how to destroy it. I have killed all alien agents running around Earth, but the unrest sits at 0. Increasing unrest has a 6% success chance with maxed-out agents. I can kill every Servant councilor, and stop aliens from landing new agents, but that's the limit of my abilities. Any ideas on how to deal with it?

[Maty83]

If there are non-AA countries around, throw a few nukes at the ayys. The lower living standard due to fallout should force the unrest up. Same for exhausting their own stockpiles by sending assault armies. Sure, Earth will be in a nuclear winter probably, but that alone increases Unrest by 3. If you want to get rid of their armies, use Bombard with some orbiting ships so it's easier to get the AA to use their nukes.

[roman566]

No other countries. If they were this wouldn't be a problem, I would do just as you suggested.

[Maty83]

That is indeed quite problematic. I assume you're already using the max resources for increase unrest, else it's a matter of popping out some Marine buildings for it. Definitely shoot the servants as Stabilize is 2x as effective as Increase Unrest.

[roman566]

I just found out aliens can spawn new councilors directly on Earth. I have no way to kill them quickly enough, kill Servants, AND increase unrest with less than a 10% chance to succeed at the same time. On top of that bombing Earth from orbit seems to be bugged and does absolutely nothing.

Guess this run is over. The only way to get the achievement is to start a massive nuclear war that would kill half of Earth's population. Then once AA takes over Increase Unrest mission might actually have a decent chance to succeed. Really stupid achievement, forcing the player to do counterintuitive things to get it.

[SillySMS]

Alien councilors can spawn from alien facilities as well as incoming transport ships.

Your save is probably technically salvageable if you don't mind a lot of savescumming after each successful +unrest mission.

Otherwise, I don't think it's practical unless you can keep parts of Earth free to build up armies capable of liberating most of the AA. At least in one case, the AA refused to nuke my armies unless they were directly attacking the capital, so it may be possible to liberate everything but the capital, then send in your counselors for +unrest.

While achievements haven't been working for my, my best guess on how to do Phoenix is to first disarm as many nuclear weapons as possible, let the AA conquer most of Asia/Africa/Europe while trying to keep the number of AA armies/navies at a manageable level, let the Servants declare victory, then unleash the (relatively isolated, high-miltech) USA on the conquered territories. The one thing I'm unsure on is if the Servants can declare victory when they don't control the New York region.

[Zanotirn]

If I remember correctly AA only uses nukes to defend its capital. So you can conventionally conquer most its territories, then get nukes and armies for a small disposable country (give independence if needed), nuke whatever armies they have left in capital and send yours until they run out of nukes. Nukes increase atmosphere aerosols and effect from a single one dissipates within a year or so, so if they use them one by one, the effect will just be a mild temporary reduction in global warming.

[roman566]

The problem is once Servants win, they get the whole world. There. Are. No.Free. Countries. Left. Nothing, nada, zilch. Everything is AA. So without Increase Unrest, there is no way to spawn an independent nation.

As far as I am aware, there are no more alien facilities on Earth. I destroyed them all once I started fighting. Aliens still spawn new councilors without flying them.

[void0x00]

by the large army and 0 democracy of AA, their base unrest usually is 0, kill all concilors does not help.
I complete this achievement by create a large democracy nation as the last nation for them to absborb. Then there is a high unrest, high resistance public opinion AA after Servants win. Within serveral months, before the they drop, the success rate of increase unrest is not so desperate

[roman566]

I wasn't aware armies reduce unrest. I would have nuked every army AA had the moment they got the required amount of population to win.
Also, Xenoforming (something that I have simply ignored due to laziness) also reduces unrest in AA.

[WillWKM]

I believe your only hope here is breakaway nations. If cohesion is low (and I suspect it should be with the AA holding the whole world, although 0 democracy does push this the wrong way) then every successful "Increase Unrest" mission, regardless of whether it is meaningfully impacting unrest, has a chance of causing a nation to break away from AA and become a breakaway rebellion. I believe you can target capital regions to make that country more likely to break away. So, spamming increase unrest is one thing, but spamming increase unrest in Washington, DC to potentially free the USA and declare independence / start nuclear war should be a low but nonzero chance of success that *eventually* gets you somewhere.

Is there something about this mechanic I'm misunderstanding? I don't know the numbers for any of this, just the concept.

[TheMarksman]

The problem is once Servants win, they get the whole world. There. Are. No.Free. Countries. Left. Nothing, nada, zilch. Everything is AA. So without Increase Unrest, there is no way to spawn an independent nation.

As far as I am aware, there are no more alien facilities on Earth. I destroyed them all once I started fighting. Aliens still spawn new councilors without flying them.

Currently twenty-something years into an unintended Phoenix run from my first blind game. I have a theory involving causing a state to succeed, but I haven't come up with any solid plans yet on how to carry on from there. Some theories involved buying armies, or nukes, but right now, my priority is destroying the alien presence in space.

I'm documenting my run on the TI discord, so if you want to see how much of a train wreck my game is going, you can come take a look.