Haven evacuation - Pre-placed pods?

[Undershaft]

I'm just playing a haven evacuation retaliation (not the prevent the massacre one!) on veteran difficulty where I took a few steps and immediately encountered 12 aliens already on the map. Am I mistaken here or didn't that type of mission used to bring in enemies only by reinforcements every new turn? At least that was the case the dozens of times I played it before. Has anything changed or might this be a bug?

Edit: It's fucking brutal! Three pods in the immediate vicinity of the starting position and more coming in every turn. In August! This looks like a trap, but one you cannot withdraw from, because the skyranger will only show up in 8 turns. This definitely looks broken to me.

[Tuhalu]

I'm just playing a haven evacuation retaliation (not the prevent the massacre one!) on veteran difficulty where I took a few steps and immediately encountered 12 aliens already on the map. Am I mistaken here or didn't that type of mission used to bring in enemies only by reinforcements every new turn? At least that was the case the dozens of times I played it before. Has anything changed or might this be a bug?

Edit: It's fucking brutal! Three pods in the immediate vicinity of the starting position and more coming in every turn. In August! This looks like a trap, but one you cannot withdraw from, because the skyranger will only show up in 8 turns. This definitely looks broken to me.

There are two different haven evacuation type missions.

In one the Aliens drop in over multiple turns and you have to mow them down as they arrive while searching for rebels. The Evac Zone is marked but does not activate for a certain number of turns. This is probably the mission you've been doing.

In the other mission, the Aliens start already on the map and they mow down rebels while you are rushing to rescue them. This one has no reinforcements and you are almost certain to lose a lot of rebels, but you can at least evacuate yourself and any rebels you find immediately from the evac zone. This one is based on the original "Haven Retaliation" mission from the vanilla game.

[Undershaft]

I know. I have been playing both kinds of retaliations dozens of times... just never at the same time!!!

To clarify once more: There are 12 aliens waiting right next to the starting zone. You have no concealment, so you activate them all at once. At the same time, there are reinforcements coming in every turn and you cannot flee the mission because the skyranger will only arrive after seven turns.

[seananigans]

I know. I have been playing both kinds of retaliations dozens of times... just never at the same time!!!

To clarify once more: There are 12 aliens waiting right next to the starting zone. You have no concealment, so you activate them all at once. At the same time, there are reinforcements coming in every turn and you cannot flee the mission because the skyranger will only arrive after seven turns.

I've once or twice had that version of a retaliation have an existing pod. But just one pod, and only 3-4 enemies. In maybe 8 total of that type of mission.

12 pre-existing aliens on the 8-turn evac retal version sounds brutal, and hopefully bugged/broken.

[trihero]

That's interesting, I wonder if it has to do with advent strength of the region.

[stevemoonpig]

I've had this once too, except it was at least 3 pods already on the map - about 20 enemies total - who all pathed into me on turn 1, with 4 reinforcements every turnas well. Didn't go well!

[trihero]

What was the advent strength?

[Undershaft]

That's interesting, I wonder if it has to do with advent strength of the region.

It shouldn't. It's a measly five. The highest I have anywhere at the moment.

[trihero]

Ok it has to be said:

That's XCOM, baby.

[Tuhalu]

I know. I have been playing both kinds of retaliations dozens of times... just never at the same time!!!

To clarify once more: There are 12 aliens waiting right next to the starting zone. You have no concealment, so you activate them all at once. At the same time, there are reinforcements coming in every turn and you cannot flee the mission because the skyranger will only arrive after seven turns.

My bad. I can't have read your post well enough. That does sound rather rough.

[Undershaft]

Ok it has to be said:

That's XCOM, baby.

It's mid August. A mission like this would end the campaign without any fault of your own. If it had been some kind of trap where you die if you're too stupid to cut your losses and retreat, THAT would have been XCOM, baby. But to bury your A-squad in a totally random avalanche of aliens without any means of escape, that's not XCOM, that's the corpse-eating monster lurking under XCOM's bed that makes XCOM keep the lights on at night and its hands and feet under the covers.

[trihero]

Oh, I thought "that's xcom, baby" referred to missing 100% shots; i.e. losing despite you knowing the mechanics. : p

[Undershaft]

Oh, I thought "that's xcom, baby" referred to missing 100% shots; i.e. losing despite you knowing the mechanics. : p

I thought you were using it as an analogy. ; )

In this case, the equivalent of "That's XCOM, baby" (missing a sure shot, maybe losing a soldier because of it, accepting your bad luck and fighting on) would be "arriving at a retaliation site with your A-Team, expecting an easy win as usual, but finding out that, this time around, Advent also brought their biggest guns". You veni, you vidi, but you don't vici. Instead your squad eats some steaming hot bowls of plasma for one or two miserable turns, then you accept that you can't win them all and hightail it, living to fight another day.

To turn the analogy inside out: This retaliation reminded me of missing one 99% shot and going straight to the "Advent won" Screen.
No way a non-concealed squad of 8 can survive 8 turns against 12-16-20-24-28-32-36-40 aliens, berserkers and mechs included, who pop in every turn from every direction out of thin air. They will be completely overrun. Admittedly, the mission type is a bit too easy under ordinary circumstances, with 3-4 aliens arriving each turn into overwatch fire. But when you have to deal with 12 of them from the get-go, there is no overwatch reception, the aliens will pile up and your numbers will start to dwindle, which will make each successive turn even more grizzly. Chances are you will lose every single one of your highest ranking soldiers *and* all your best gear, in addition to the whole haven personell, which is hardly worth mentioning anymore. And from such a loss, there is hardly a comeback.

Which is why, I'm ashamed to admit, I consoled the welcoming committee out of existence and played the mission like I expected it to be. Made a copy of the ironman savefile, though. Maybe I'll play the whole mess out for shits and giggles, as some sort of alternate timeline experiment, and report back how it went. : D

[trihero]

I also use "that's xcom, baby" to refer to situations you get absolute B.S. line of sight to say a vip hiding in a van from 2 screens away so it activates all the pods around it, they kill the vip then you're like wot? And also when an unactivated, unsighted, green alert gatekeeper on rookie mode uses its area attack on you while inside the UFO.

[Undershaft]

Wasn't it Nietzsche who famously said: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that they don't see him from two bloody screens away. And if you gaze long into an abyss, you will sometimes get your face burned to a crisp by an unactivated gatekeeper."

[CheyneShot]

Registered just to post here. I had this happen to me the other night - mid-November, only two deaths up to this point and all going well.

Blue move from start - 15 enemies all in one cluster activate on a tiny map. Including a Sectopod, Superheavy MEC, and lots of T3 Advent, Muton Centurions, etc. Plus reinforcements every turn. Completely unwinnable and ended in a squadwipe. Fortunately I think I can still win the campaign.

[trihero]

Wasn't it Nietzsche who famously said: "He who fights with ayys should look to it that they don't see him from two bloody screens away. And if you gaze long into an abyss, you will sometimes get your face burned to a crisp by an unactivated gatekeeper."

Fixed that for you. We need more ubermench (mimetic skin implant soldiers from EW) to beat the ayys.

[Rebus]

I had my first retaliation in a liberated zone last night - late Nov, vet level, squad of whoever wasn't out in infiltration - and there were three pods all activated in a few steps (one with three codex!), with reinforcements starting on third turn. Crazy hard fight. Fortunately I started on top of a 3-story bldg with decent cover, and the relay was on top of another building within a full move of technical's rocket on third turn (which seemed to turn off reinforcements?). Lost all but two haven staff, just trying to stay alive. Fortunately you can pull PSI guys out of training or I'd have had just 6 soldiers against first three pods + five more pods + reinforcement pod. Crazy, but survived thanks to Domination on a Codex. Seems like masochism sometimes.

[Hobbes]

Wasn't it Nietzsche who famously said: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that they don't see him from two bloody screens away. And if you gaze long into an abyss, you will sometimes get your face burned to a crisp by an unactivated gatekeeper."

Definitely. Nietzsche had an adoration for them and even had a pet Gatekeeper he called 'Nihilist'

[Undershaft]

Definitely. Nietzsche had an adoration for them and even had a pet Gatekeeper he called 'Nihilist'

Interestingly, that translation from 19th century German is not entirely accurate. Nietzsche called his pet Gatekeeper "Annihilist", but people misunderstood because of his syphilitic stutter.

[Undershaft]

I had my first retaliation in a liberated zone last night

Yeah, but invasions are a different story. With them, you know that you're walking into a brutal warzone.
Retaliations happen more often and should stick to their own rules.

[Undershaft]

We need more ubermench (mimetic skin implant soldiers from EW) to beat the ayys.

Ah, that's just a typo. In the original manuscripts, Nietzsche was talking about the "Übermech" - a giant killer-robot which he wanted to use to settle some grudges from his university days. People today really don't understand the poor man at all. : (

[seananigans]

I had my first retaliation in a liberated zone last night - late Nov, vet level, squad of whoever wasn't out in infiltration - and there were three pods all activated in a few steps (one with three codex!), with reinforcements starting on third turn. Crazy hard fight. Fortunately I started on top of a 3-story bldg with decent cover, and the relay was on top of another building within a full move of technical's rocket on third turn (which seemed to turn off reinforcements?). Lost all but two haven staff, just trying to stay alive. Fortunately you can pull PSI guys out of training or I'd have had just 6 soldiers against first three pods + five more pods + reinforcement pod. Crazy, but survived thanks to Domination on a Codex. Seems like masochism sometimes.

As mentioned by another poster, this is an Invasion, which is entirely different from the regular Retaliation missions (two variants, one of which is under discussion). The variant under discussion so rarely has more than one small pre-existing pod of 3-5ish that it seems odd/unusual and/or bugged to see 12+ pre-existing enemies on top of the 8 straight turns of reinforcements.