Just The Network Tower?

[Sines]

So, I've claimed my first HQ. Unfortunately, it was in my home region, so no free Network Tower for me. But I'm going into Lib3 on a second area, and with completion of the following Network Tower, I'll complete a continent bonus. +5 power, right when I was about to start building Power Conduits anyway, so good timing. Of course, that means that the HQ mission will just be sitting there, asking if I want to do it. And in a region where I have more rebels than I know what to do with.

So, how do people feel about completing the Network Tower and then just buggering off? I could just turn all my soldiers onto supply gathering until Strength hits 4, and then maybe put them into Hiding, and come back once Strength falls to 2 or 3. I wouldn't have to tie up a bunch of soldiers for a while, which would be nice, so I could put them to work elsewhere. And the area would function well as a 'bait' for Strength while I screw around elsewhere.

On the other hand, the HQ is pretty rewarding. And I just completed my first HQ with a single lightly wounded soldier. I think I'll be one more FL up by then, without better gear, but with a bit more troop experience it shouldn't be too much worse, and given how well my first HQ went, that shouldn't result in any dead soldiers.

So how plausible do people find it to just call it quits after the Network Tower, and to finish the liberation later?

[Antifringe]

I do it all the time. Free radio towers are always good, whereas liberation can be double edged. Basically, I do tower missions anytime one is available at reasonable strength levels, and do liberations only when I have a specific reason to do so.

[trihero]

I lean towards finishing the HQ nowadays as long as there are sufficient troops available. I used to waffle a bit, but if you just quit after the HQ is exposed without attacking it, you risk retals/mini-retals, which are highly irritating and can come at bad times for you. Every HQ you liberate is a lot of passive supply income every month, much more than you can hope to S&G/supply raid in one region in a month, and supply is a major concern for most of early through mid game. HQs also are a fair source of corpses and usually has something you don't see very often. Yeah you have to tie up soldiers, but it's a long term investment that pays back. You should also plan to use the intel boost to make sure you don't spend like a month infiltrating.

There's a point at which it feels like liberating HQs is more of a chore than not, and that point is usually reached when you feel like you're making more money than you can possibly spend, but that's a very good problem to have and you can just stop liberating after your income takes care of itself entirely passively.

There might be some problems with liberating HQs, but there's also plenty of problems with simply leaving the HQ up as well.

As far as "strength baiting" goes, I find that liberated regions act fairly well as strength baits. They seem to like to gather strength on the border of liberated regions if you aren't doing anything else. If they choose to invade, well invasions are good exp, they drop corpses, and they also drop strength by 2 when you win it. I'm much more ok with invasions than I am with retaliations. Invasions also have a much longer cooldown period.

I would argue that you should try to liberate 2 HQs ASAP (you may wish to spend some time building up enough rebels first to help detect lib missions outside your home region, but you'll figure out whatever asap means to you). The income from one HQ isn't enough to keep up with your expenditures, and recall that your income actually decreases down to 1/2 from a given region once you've mined it long enough. One is just too little, and I think you will still be thirsty after 2, but on higher difficulties it can be a chore to get more than 2 liberated.

[Icarus]

What are the consequences of doing this on the strategic layer? I had the impression that the aliens amass strength on regions with exposed HQs - though that may have been due to the vigilance you usually amass in the meantime.

Does anyone know whether exposing the tower or the HQ makes the AI behave differently in any way?

[Tuhalu]

All that I know is the minimum vigilance for a region is 1 and it becomes 2 after you build a radio relay there (your starting region doesn't count).

I think the vigilance spikes are usually due to the amount of missions you need to run in your early region. In 1.2, I was able to unlock the HQ Assault on a region with 2 Advent Strength in a later region. I only did the Liberation missions, which let vigilance stay very low. I left the region as it was expecting Advent to move there and nothing really happened for a godawful time. I eventually encouraged it up to 5 Advent Strength and pounded it.

The AI apparently likes to build up to 8 strength in regions adjacent to your liberated ones, but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with vigilance at all.

[Rebus]

[rather than start a new thread, this is related I think]: In first 1.3 run I just did a second tower mission in same continent as starting region (which is liberated) but the continent bonus for second tower didn't pop. I'll restart the game and see if it pops, tonight after work, but just wondering if I'm misunderstanding the 1,3 rules. I thought each tower lib now gave a free radio tower and assumed those counted for the continent bonus. The first pip on the continent bonus was always there from the starter region as usual.

[Lyzak]

I'm currently facing this dilemma myself. I have no liberated regions yet and I'm between FL 7 and FL 8 (mid-late June); East Asia, which is right next to my starting region, I spiked an enormous amount of vigilance in (13) but was surprised that reinforcements weren't really coming in. I exposed the HQ and set everyone on hiding to let vigilance cool off before trying to liberate, but in that time ADVENT decided now was the time for a full-retal and my haven's numbers dropped to 4. Plus, strength has now spiked to 6 (when it was 2, before). So now I'm trying to figure out if I bother with liberating the region or not.

On the one hand, it'd be a token liberation. With just 4 rebels in the haven, it wouldn't produce much of anything in the way of supplies for a long time until I recruited a ton more help. Strength 6 is also a frightening prospect for an already-swarming Regional HQ, and it's only going to continue to go up.

On the other hand, it'd be nice to quash that strength so that if I chose to liberate one of the two nearby regions, I don't already have 7-8 ADVENT Strength waiting there to invade me in a month. Plus, with VERY few salvage missions available, it's really, really hard to argue against it being "a really big Troop Column" for corpses and supplies.

That, and I feel like I should PROBABLY see how the Avatar project is coming along, lest I get Avatar-sniped while I'm not paying attention to the Golden Path at all.

[deaconivory]

I lean towards finishing the HQ nowadays as long as there are sufficient troops available. I used to waffle a bit, but if you just quit after the HQ is exposed without attacking it, you risk retals/mini-retals, which are highly irritating and can come at bad times for you. Every HQ you liberate is a lot of passive supply income every month, much more than you can hope to S&G/supply raid in one region in a month, and supply is a major concern for most of early through mid game. HQs also are a fair source of corpses and usually has something you don't see very often. Yeah you have to tie up soldiers, but it's a long term investment that pays back. You should also plan to use the intel boost to make sure you don't spend like a month infiltrating.

There's a point at which it feels like liberating HQs is more of a chore than not, and that point is usually reached when you feel like you're making more money than you can possibly spend, but that's a very good problem to have and you can just stop liberating after your income takes care of itself entirely passively.

There might be some problems with liberating HQs, but there's also plenty of problems with simply leaving the HQ up as well.

As far as "strength baiting" goes, I find that liberated regions act fairly well as strength baits. They seem to like to gather strength on the border of liberated regions if you aren't doing anything else. If they choose to invade, well invasions are good exp, they drop corpses, and they also drop strength by 2 when you win it. I'm much more ok with invasions than I am with retaliations. Invasions also have a much longer cooldown period.

I would argue that you should try to liberate 2 HQs ASAP (you may wish to spend some time building up enough rebels first to help detect lib missions outside your home region, but you'll figure out whatever asap means to you). The income from one HQ isn't enough to keep up with your expenditures, and recall that your income actually decreases down to 1/2 from a given region once you've mined it long enough. One is just too little, and I think you will still be thirsty after 2, but on higher difficulties it can be a chore to get more than 2 liberated.

I agree 100%, I try to liberate my second contacted region first if possible just for the early additional free radio relay, but in general I follow this strategy most of the time. I usually stop liberating at 3-4 regions, and then just focus on contacting new regions to track down the GP missions/regions. I have completed a campaign with only 2 liberation (on Vet), where the timer was a balancing act right up to the end, and DE really hammered me along the way. In all honesty I've not tried stopping at the Network tower, and I am definitely curious what people's experience is with it.

[Zyxpsilon]

For me, it all depends on what the Geoscape current conditions are;

1) Your HQ starting region matters a lot in terms of simple reasons... a) Early grab of its CB when part of a "Duo" rather than more & b) What the valid Links would allow us to develop optimally while keeping further Intel costs low.

2) The new Free-Tower rule throws a big wrench in the old expansion plans for MUCH more logical decisions than just A & B above. It can determine where the most optimal trajectory is and how important the first Res-Comm (3+ contacts to be choosen) truly is.

3) Ultimately, i almost never consciously worry about Strengths & Vigilence ratios or even where the "random" activities pushes their value high or low.. since my primary concern (for at least three months) is two fold; Research pace & setting up a clear path towards steady supplies.

Considering these three principles.. the main factor (again for me only) is represented by WHICH links are offered in LW2 (basicly those six extras could become the wildest twists in the trajectory structure) & what kind of early access to secondary CB gets possible and, how fast can the BlackSite (and.. PsiGate + TheForge) locations get to be revealed for me to obtain the quickest ways to their Regions (if still red-locked).

Soooooo -- if i'm too tight (in my core resources & coverage plans), i don't even hesitate to crush some "pending" HQs while also purposely seeking out their Facilities (by leads or not) to somewhat control the Doom-Tracker Pips.

To better illustrate such a theory of optimal Trajectories;



PS; Red lines are the newest LW2 links. Note that some of these multiple regular links can get discarded as usual.

Which would you give priority when you know how you HQ is connected worldwide? Honestly with --NewIndia + NewAustralia + SouthAfrica + NewBrazil-- each having a probable 5 links to connect with... should they preferably *BE-come* the initial HQ & if so, where should your first two early freebee contacts be made? Please spend your precious INTEL -- wisely.