Irismono's Campaign Report, Season 2

[Irismono]

June 1997

Calendar:
- Jun 1: Hired 5 scientists and 6 dogs, bringing us down to ~$320k. We can only really go up from here, but this does mean that major purchases will be extremely limited this month.
- Jun 2: Crop Circles in South Africa. Shouldn't be difficult so I send in Red Hilt. First time we've had a zombies on one of these. There are two of them as it turns out, not difficulty in stunning both them and the brainwashed farmer. First Zombie Parasite.
- Jun 2.a: SLF up North again. Cortain goes in expecting Mongorns, Shamblers, or Zombies, encounters Mongorns. Another easy hunt.
- Jun 3: Intelligence Center Complete.
- Jun 4: Scientists arrive. They're put straight onto Mutant Physiology. Dogs arrive. They're given headpats and armor..
- Jun 4.a: Citizens v.s. Monsters - one of my least favorite mission types - in Central Africa. Deployed Red Hilt, as Cortain is homing back from the Mongorn hunt. It ends up being Cobras, which could be worse, but have ranged attacks making them a real threat to the civies. It's also jungle terrain, making it a real threat to my sanity. Here's a screen from 3 turns in:

By some miracle we make it out with a decent score. Armed civilians did a lot of killing.

- Jun 7: First "Cult Activity". It's an EXALT Safe House in Central America.

Agents Tanida and Mun are selected for the raid, taking Caliburn. I'm fully prepared to hit abort turn 1 if the position is unfavorable. It looks okay however, though again heavily jungled. This time the terrain plays in our favor. Liberal use of smoke grenades makes our approach fairly secure.

Mun receives a flanking shot as he approaches the house with his shotgun, while Tanida stays back and picks off units with his hunting rifle. The two rendevous to apply a medkit before hunting down the last goon.

He ends up going down to bleed before we even reach him, allowing a live capture. The loot pile contains a psiclone and several money briefcases in addition to the Goon, who will unlock EXALT Network for us. One wounded is an excellent deal for such a successful mission. A clean half million in the bank once all is said and done. This one safehouse had more liquid than our entire clandestine organization.

- Jun 12: After a very quiet few days, we get an SLF in Oz. Red Hilt is sent as it's both not an urgent affair and not close to home. Giant spiders, and one of them is purple. We manage to bring it in, albeit at the cost of few civilians.
- Jun 13: Agent Wilson, one of our founding members, is the first Agent of X-COM to complete his gym training journey.

- Jun 13.a: Cult Apprehension in Yekaterineburg. Cortain is close enough, and brings along a dog for good luck and eating faces.
- Jun 14:

"Meet the Informant" is a mission type that could go very well or very poorly. Knowing this, I choose to send Senior Agent Tanida with Dakota the Dog in Caliburn. They get to Madagascar safely, but something goes wrong with the meeting and Dakota ends up taking a bullet as Dog and Agent engage a crew of Westmen in a tense shootout. Tanida goes full John Wick and takes out the entire building, taking only one alive. Loot includes some Criminal ledgers.

This list of awards is longer than the dialogue can accommodate. Tanida also received tasemaster. Dakota is our second KIA of the campaign.

- Jun 14.a: Cult activity in Britain, a CoD safe house while all my vehicles are out. I choose to divert Cortain from its mission in Yekaterineburg, with Red Hilt taking over Russia the moment it gets back from its first deployment. Red Hilt finds four melee-only Red Dawn gangers and takes them out from range. No reason to bother with captures for the moment.
- Jun 15: Suspects in Tunis, SLF in Alaska. I don't have enough vehicles to do these missions, but we're gonna try anyway. With Tanida scratched up for a day, Agent Zhengqiu takes over Caliburn, taking another Dog, Bonnie, to Tunis. The mission is over in two turns as it happens to be only a single Red Dawn grunt, who miraculously survives. Caluburn is then sent with the same team out to North America, for the sole reason that everyone else is still in transit. Private Cars really do move quick. The SLF is once again Mongorns. I don't mind the easy missions, but it does get samey after a while. (Leeroy mod is looking more and more appealing)
- Jun 16: Cortain finally raids the Dagon safehouse. No money, but one greenhood is captured, so that's good. Only two cults left to go. A few minor wounds sustained.
- Jun 17: Gopnik Dream slander event.

- Jun 19: With Researcher hired we're now halfway to Promo II. Engineer is around the corner as well, but I decide to stop briefly and research a few of our animals, specifically zombies, in order to clear room in the pens.
- Jun 20: SLF in South America. Red Hilt investigates. Spiders are easily dealt with. Cavalier earned.
- Jun 20.a: Zombie Infestation also in South America. Caliburn is go. One foolish civilian gets herself eaten, but otherwise the mission goes fine. Dogs make zombies a lot easier to deal with. Bonnie actually gets a bravery up, which is cool to see.
- Jun 21: Rat Infestation in El Paso. Small point loss.
- Jun 22: Cult in Asencion Island. Red Hilt deals with it.
- Jun 23: Red Tape event gives us MAC10. A neat gun imo.
- Jun 24: Cortain finally reaches an SLF in S-EA. All that way for a single Cobra corpse. Cavalier earned.
- Jun 26: Dagon Safehouse in Central Africa. Cortain is on its way again. Surprisingly easy mission, but with 4 agents I wasn't exactly expecting trouble. No wounds or deaths, and 200k in the bank, which brings us back over 1 mil.
- Jun 27: A crazy EXALT Hideout safe house spawn in the Falklands! Caliburn is loaded up and sent out. Several turns of cat and mouse in the hills lead to a full clear out, no wounds, and yet more money.


- Jun 28: The CIA has once again investigated us. Here is a meme I made to commemorate the occurrence.

- Jun 30: SLF up north, once again. Red Hilt's Turn. Will actually happen in July.
- Jun 30.a: Council Report. Vast majority of the Barracks gets Seniority medals, with the original 6 having gotten them last month.



Research this Month:
Mutant Physiology (Jun 11) -> Alien Fuel Trace (Jun 16) -> Chief Researcher Recruitment (Jun 19) -> Zombie (Jun 24), Fat Zombie (Jun 27), Abducted Farmer (Jun 22), Brainwashed Farmer (Jun 23), Westman (Jun 25) -> Asmodean Cobra (Jun 27) -> Psiclone (July 1) -> Chief Engineer Recruitment

Hugely successful month. With both labs up it feels like the X-Ball is finally rolling. Fewer research projects overall, but the projects done were impactful. Engineer should be hired pretty shortly, and then Envoy is just a matter of RNG. Wounds are becoming a little bit concerning, enough that Sick Bay is going to be a mid-level priority, up from being completely ignored. A second base is likely the more important investment at this stage, probably a research and/or training base, with the eventual Base #3 (Late Fall 97?) being used for storage and manufacturing.

Considering we're 6 months in, I think we're doing pretty well. The barracks is getting a decent XP spread with a few standout agents. We're starting to approach the limits of our initial Gyms, so more agents may be a priority in the future. Vehicles are mostly doing well, though I feel Red Hilt is losing its luster.
I don't usually build more than 3 hangers per base, but a 4th one is possible, so long as I move where one of my stores is. A second Van may be in order.

Priorities for July:
1. Chief Engineer
2. As close to Military Envoy as luck allows. For CoD and EXALT safe houses focus on efficient kills; for Red Dawn and Lotus focus on capturing the ranking enemies.
3. Figure out transport situation.
4. Base #2, likely in NA.
5. Sick Bay

[Irismono]

Am I understanding it right that Red Hilt is still a pleb car and you're playing with one of each type of transport? Why? I'd try at least 2 vans, to offset the slowness and to be able to preposition somewhat. Hangars aren't too expensive, and you should still have enough space for four at this point.

Initially, keeping Red Hilt as a pleb car was a money issue. I knew I'd want at least one private car to handle covert missions during the stretch between Promos II and III, but 60k for a second private car felt like a little much when I wasn't sure how badly RNG would screw me on labs. Now that I have safe houses I'm much more willing to swap Red Hilt out. I haven't played July yet so we'll see what I do there. I'm honestly tempted to just move to 2 Vans plus Caliburn until better options become available.

[psavola]

I think you're somewhat behind the curve, because you only researched the first cults (Black Lotus etc.) in May (which has also been the limiting factor to obtaining Intel Lab, which is usually the first lab you can most easily and earliest get), so you haven't been able to start cracking on Safe Houses at all. Preferably you should be able to start working on safe houses in March or April at the latest. With good RNG they bring in good loot. And it may take a while to get each safe house with a spawn you can manage, and capture all the second level cultists. Until you have all of them, you can't get cult Network research and you can't get Military Envoy, which can will also block Promo II.

[Irismono]

July 1997

Calendar:
- Jul 1: Dismantled a general store and moved it a tile over to make space for a hanger. Began building said hanger. Bought some extra equipment for a second Van.
- Jul 1.a: Red Hilt arrives at SLF. This will be its last mission. It's a singular Mongorn, taken down and taken live. I decide to sell it because I've already researched live Mongorns, and 30k will be a lot more useful than 2 blood plasma.
- Jul 2: Sold off Red Hilt to make room for Hauteclere, a second Van named after a sword from the Matter of France.
- Jul 2.a: Caliburn responds to a Cult Apprehension in East Asia. Nice and quick Lotus capture.
- Jul 2.b: SLF in Britain, off goes Cortain. A classic british mystery ends with a confrontation with a werewolf, who is taken in by force on turn 1. Cavalier earned.

- Jul 3: Suspects in Calcutta, Caliburn swaps its crew out and deploys. Red Dawn firefight gets a little ugly, but we get out okay.
- Jul 3.a: Crop Circles far away, Cortain takes care of it. Yet another Brainwashed farmer for the eggheads to look at.
- Jul 3.b: EXALT Hideout in Canada. Sounds like a job for Hauteclere! Tanida leads the van on its maiden voyage. The crew starts pretty far from the house, with plenty of cover in between; that's good enough for me. The fight is rough, but smoke and picking targets allows us to get out with only two people wounded. Only one capture, no money, one psiclone. Bad luck on this one, but we've got what we need from EXALT progression-wise so I'm not sweating it.

In other news, Tanida continues to be an absolute beast.

- Jul 6: Cultists in Warsaw calls for Cortain to investigate. One fellow in a window gets the drop on us, but aside from that it's a clean mission against Dagonists.
- Jul 8: Ammo and Weapons boxes assigned for opening. Keeps the engineer busy for a little bit.
- Jul 11: Cultists in Brussels, perfect training mission for Hauteclare.
- Jul 14: Started building Sick Bay.
- Jul 14.a: Red Dawn Safehouse in North Africa, nice and close to home. Cortain equips and deploys for a raid. Desert hills terrain. The main squad approaches through the center with smoke while Lord the Dog attempts a flanking maneuver. This flank results in one enemy kill before Lord is wounded and retrests for medical attention. In the meantime, the rest of the team has bagged a Pioneer. In total there were only 8 enemies. Total monatary take is 40k. Pioneer is the big score however.

- Jul 14.b: Crop Circles in Australia. Caliburn's purview, Caliburn's arrest-at-shotgun-point.
- Jul 15: I decide to start in on my Deep One Corpse, with an eye towards Alien Containment at some point.
- Jul 15.a: Red Tape lottery gives us... Switchblade!
- Jul 15.b: Black Lotus Safe House in Papua New Guinea. It's a long way, but I decide Hauteclere has the best shot at dealing with this target. Unfortunately I lose tracking before it gets there... Will use Caliburn in the future.
- Jul 19: SLF in the arctic yet again, only so many things that could be. Cortain deployed. A lot of zombies in very clear terrain, with no civilians in sight. Too many close to the van for comfort, so I abort for a clean zero.
- Jul 19.a: Ammo boxes finish opening, most notably giving us a handful of grenades.
- Jul 20: Crop circles in South Africa. Caliburn team knocks out the farmer on turn one with beanbags, then hunts down zombies, ultimately getting cornerd in the vinyard and engaging in a stunstick skirmish to sedate the undead.
- Jul 22: Hopes of a second base this month are dashed as we spend 500k on a hundred point banquet. I hope this doesn't become a habit.

- Jul 22.a: League Aprehension is a weird mission type. I'm not entirely sure why it's a thing to be honest. I send Caliburn to deal with it. Fortunately there's only two of them, armed with melee weapons, so stunning them is no issue and we net 120 points for the trouble.

- Jul 22.b: Gang War in Siberia. I send out Cortain, but don't expect it to get there in time. To my surprise, Cortain actually makes it. The squad dives for cover and smoke as the gunfire starts. Because everybody has full TUs, the turn is extra long. Unfortunately for us, the rival gang seems to be doing most of the dying while Red Dawn does most of the killing. The squad huddles near the van and picks off who they can, and within a few turns a large portion of Red Dawn is panicking. We end up with ten total captures. I let the Gangers go but keep the Lad and Pioneers.

- Jul 22.c: Suspects in the oft forgotten Faroe Islands. Hauteclere is our only vehicle not deployed, and it's well within range. The report ends up being about some guy in a wife beater hanging out at a cafe. We take him in as presumed Red Dawn.
- Jul 26: Hanger #4 is complete. A new private car, Carnwennan, named after King Arthur's dagger, joins the fleet. Carnwennan gets her first mission just a few hours later with an SLF in India. This turns out to be a farm with a massive spider infestation, made up of giant spiders. I decide that discretion is the better part of valor and retreat, netting -30 for the poor farmer.
- Jul 27: Zombie Infestation in NA. Hauteclere rolls out to clean it up. A couple civilians dead, but more zombies dead and no wounds on the squad.
- Jul 27.a: SLF in Australia. Caliburn shows up to a town ruled by Asmodean cobras. Little sketchy, all civilians dead, but no wounds sustained.
- Jul 28: First Concerned Citizen gives us Osiron! This is a very nice bit of RNG in our favor.
- Jul 28.a: Zombies in central South America. Cortain deployed. Jungle terrain sounds like a nightmare so I abort immediately. Net -60 points.
- Jul 29: SLF in Northern China. Carnwennan goes out for redemption. A werewolf hunt that goes swimmingly, with the dog getting the final (live) takedown. Cavalier earned.
- Jul 31: Agent Tanida finishes his gym training. His current stats (including his laundry list of commendations) are as follows:
[img width]https://i.postimg.cc/tCBRBvkw/Screenshot-from-2025-05-17-12-55-09.png[/img]
While his bravery isn't particularly inspiring, he has the highest aim in the barracks by a decent margin. I really ought to get him a better gun.
- Jul 31.a: Council Report.



Research this Month:
Chief Engineer Recruitment (Jul 3) -> EXALT Goon (Jul 6), Disciple of Dagon (Jul 4), Abducted Farmer (Jul 6) -> Mad Man's Diary (Jul 5), Black Lotus Follower (Jul 8 ), EXALT Infiltrator (Jul 7), Red Dawn Ganger (Jul 7) -> EXALT Network (Jul 8 ) -> Ramshackle Weapons Box (Jul 8 ), Ammo Box (Jul 8 ), Church of Dagon Network (Jul 9) -> X-COM Fliers (Jul 10), Illegal Requisition Files x2 (Jul 10, 11), Sick Bay (Jul 14) -> Red Dawn Bio-Enhancement (Jul 15) -> Deep One Corpse (Jul 20) -> Red Dawn Pioneer (Jul 22), Giant Spider (Jul 27) -> Red Dawn Network (Jul 24) -> Red Dawn Pioneer (Jul 29), Concerned Citizen x2 (Jul 28, 30) -> Werewolf (Aug 1) -> Mongorn Anzug

Missing that Lotus house was a pain. I thought they lasted a little longer than three days for some reason. I will probably plant a van in Asia next month on the expectation of another spawn. The good news is that I have the other three Networks done, so Military Envoy really is our hold up for Promo II. Very annoyed at losing that 500k. 3 Mil is my soft target for establishing a second base, and this month came with a few hefty expenses (Banquet, Hanger, Sick Bay) without any big paydays besides the Council Report. That said, Concerned Citizen has opened up Osiron, which could be very lucrative depending on RNG. I'm still going to pursue Covert Ops stuff since I didn't do a lot of it last campaign, but my worries about having to slog through covert ops -> Syndicate -> Osiron are gone now.

Research wise I've been trying to get things ready for Promo II. Flight Training will be needed for aircraft, and Hidden Caves will be important soon enough. I should also probably get cracking on awakening the Alenium Shard. I've decided against researching Workshop for the moment, mostly because I don't think I'll be using it until Base #3 goes down, and that's dependent on money for the moment.

Priorities for August:
1. Get a van in Asia to intercept a possible Black Lotus safe house.
2. Angle research towards prepping for Promo II and Base #2
3. Watch money, jump on Base #2 ASAP.
4. Promo II, if at all possible.

August will be heavily determined by RNG I think. If I get a Lotus house early it will be a Promo II month, if I get a Lotus house late, Promo II may be a September thing. If I don't get a Lotus house at all I'll be pretty annoyed.

[psavola]

Missing that Lotus house was a pain. I thought they lasted a little longer than three days for some reason. I will probably plant a van in Asia next month on the expectation of another spawn. The good news is that I have the other three Networks done, so Military Envoy really is our hold up for Promo II. (...)

Research wise I've been trying to get things ready for Promo II. Flight Training will be needed for aircraft, and Hidden Caves will be important soon enough. I should also probably get cracking on awakening the Alenium Shard. I've decided against researching Workshop for the moment, mostly because I don't think I'll be using it until Base #3 goes down, and that's dependent on money for the moment.)

A couple of comments, for this or following plays:
- you really want to have Basic Flight Training as soon as possible, because it gives you HELICOPTER which has good range and allows 6 agents and is much faster than vans (you can forget about vans after you get it, except for certain special missions such as Industrial Investigation). With 6 agents you will also be able to put in 1-2 dogs without sacrificing all that much firepower. 1 dog or rat can be useful for cult missions (if you go by night) because of their better night vision to avoid nasty surprises of nearby spawns. 1-2 dogs may be useful for environmental alert missions to stop enemy rushing down on you with reaction barking.
- with two properly placed bases you can cover essentially the whole globe with HELICOPTER (you miss basically just some islands in the Pacific). Your placement might require three bases. When you upgrade to OSPREY, the range is reduced a bit but you can still cover most of the globe from 2 or 3 bases. This will allow you to tackle Cult Outposts with HELICOPTER, and cult forward bases with OSPREY.
- after promo II you will want to start saving money for Science Lab (2M). If your base placement for sufficient globe coverage does not require it, I'd defer building the third base and rather save for Science Lab which is a major research upgrade.
- Alenium shard research is not really all that useful until you also have the workshop to build AI drones, so I often defer it a bit.
- the biggest early game benefit of workshop is the ability to manufacture Healing Gel out of all the zombie corpses you recover (if you want a much more easily usable source of healing than the human medi-crap) and possibly build scout drones (if you don't manage to capture rats for BL assassin detection)

[Juku121]

What did you shoot the werewolves with, shotguns? I remember these furries being quite tough. Regenerating really fast, too, if there are more than one.

I'm still amazed how well your small, not-even-SWAT-level-equipment squads are doing vs safe houses. And even a hideout! No losses so far, right?

Arctic Zombies are usually shooting fish in a barrel, unless lots of them start around the vehicle. Which seemed to be the case. Should at least try to shoot off a few shots for training purposes and maybe score before aborting.

I have bad memories of League Apprehensions, having to fight civilians who potentially outgun you, lots of urban terrain for corner surprises and score loss for being too hard on them.

It seems the Gang War went well and the red gangbangers took all the heat for you.

[Irismono]

- you really want to have Basic Flight Training as soon as possible

Glad I read this before I played August. I forgot I could get Heli before Promo II tbh.

- after promo II you will want to start saving money for Science Lab (2M). If your base placement for sufficient globe coverage does not require it, I'd defer building the third base and rather save for Science Lab which is a major research upgrade.

Noted. It's high on the priority list, though getting some better gear takes priority.

- Alenium shard research is not really all that useful until you also have the workshop to build AI drones, so I often defer it a bit.

I'll probably delay until Base #3 is down then. I've got plenty of other stuff to work on after all.

- the biggest early game benefit of workshop is the ability to manufacture Healing Gel out of all the zombie corpses you recover (if you want a much more easily usable source of healing than the human medi-crap) and possibly build scout drones (if you don't manage to capture rats for BL assassin detection)

I'm currently doing alright with medical. Healing Gel would be a nice addition, but I don't exactly have infrastructure for it. Admittedly I haven't even gotten Trauma packs.

[/quote]

What did you shoot the werewolves with, shotguns? I remember these furries being quite tough. Regenerating really fast, too, if there are more than one.

Shotguns with standard buckshot. Both times was only one. The second werewolf I had a dog for who kept it from moving.

[/quote]

I'm still amazed how well your small, not-even-SWAT-level-equipment squads are doing vs safe houses. And even a hideout! No losses so far, right?

None to hideouts. I suspect part of it is difficulty (I'm on Experienced), and part of it is my tendency to hold most of the team back with hunting rifles or other long ranged options. I've had several close calls though. The EXALT "Hideout" was a Safe House that I mistyped in my notes.

[/quote]

I have bad memories of League Apprehensions, having to fight civilians who potentially outgun you, lots of urban terrain for corner surprises and score loss for being too hard on them.

I'm not a big fan of them either. They're always really tricky to navigate. Do they have a plot trigger to stop appearing?

[Juku121]

The League won't go away. But at least it'll get reduced chances of happening after a year or so.

Actually, it seems winning against them even once is sort of bad, as it permanently unlocks the other League mission. The one I have those bad memories about, Apprehensions with just a couple of civvies weren't too bad.

Very Owlcat of Solarius, I must say.