Cult of Apocalypse missions

[Stormtrooper]

So, after like a year of waiting or so, I finally got communion of apocalypse spawned, followed by outpost since I prioritised researching next tier cultist asap. I expected them to be similar to "standard" cult missions and progression, but oh boy I was so wrong.

Despite playing on beginner (my first run with the mod so yeah), in the two forest maps these battles took place there were more enemies than trees. Literally! For 4 basic cults maybe their hqs on superhuman come closer to similar density of enemies...

And the biggest irony is that since I had to wait for so long I already have cyberarmor and lasers and between how standard and even uac firearms fare against it and the density of targets I suppose this looks hardly different from a standard shooting range training I imagine my soldiers periodically go through... Okay they can still sometimes pose a threat with incendiary grenades, earned a couple of serious injuries but nothing chempistols with extinguishing ammo can't fix. And if I had the patience and really wanted to avoid this I could just spread out instead of squeezing as many shots as possible from TU pool.

I wonder why it was made this way - why cult of apocalypse missions are so densely packed up with enemies, and especially compared to every other cult mission? Even the engine looks like it wasn't made for such scale, map scrolling lags a little, turns take a lot to process and even soldier movement is drastically slowed (I imagine because the game processes all this unit spotting etc given how many enemies appear or disappear from field of view with each step).

Technical issues aside, from the gameplay perspective it seems it's either you have armor strong enough to be invulnerable (which leads to boredom quickly), or don't even bother - if I had to care about not getting hit, how could I do so with enemies covering the whole map separated by literally 5-10 tiles max? How do you take cover in such situations if you're surrounded on all sides and the enemy is in almost melee range? There's nowhere to hide from them, no flank is safe, hell you can't even do a single thing without triggering tons of reaction shots. This paragraph sounds like exagerration, but I swear I don't, these missions are that ridiculous.

Any chance of Cult of Apocalypse being brought to the same state as other cults in terms of population numbers?

P.S. Just finished an outpost mission, 82 enemies. And only one of them was a cleric needed to progress further (and according to data viewer it's always only one regardless of difficulty!), it's a miracle it didn't get killed by other enemies once they started panicking near the mission end. For comparison, red dawn hq is 114 enemies + 3 armored cars in the worst case scenario on superhuman, but drop down difficulty to genius and the worst case scenario becomes 77 enemies + 3 cars.

Let that sink in: a freakin' hq of a highly militarized organization having two units less in case of worst RNG roll and on second highest difficulty than a random outpost of loose satanic cult on beginner.

[Stone Lake]

How do you take cover in such situations if you're surrounded on all sides and the enemy is in almost melee range?

Hide in ship. Bomb them into oblivion.

Enemy counts here pretty much mean nothing except the lag. There can be a few dangerous guys, like rocketeers / minigunners, but overall next to no resistance. And to top it off, there's no snipers IIRC, so you go at night and just enjoy the massacre.

Spoiler video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9mYBlK-JJI&t=1380

As for lags, opengl /w raw filter should get you max game/scrolling speed at all times.
This mission is fairly benevolent as much as high-count ones go. Cyberweb late stages are a chore, and so are couple of others (MiB lunar is nuts).

[Stormtrooper]

Hide in ship. Bomb them into oblivion.

Works only if you're lucky enough to have sykranger spawned facing the edge of the map. Literal edge, even 10-15 tiles from it and you'll already have a welcoming comitee you can't hide from with this spawn density. Meanwhile I cleared other cult outposts with a helicopter just fine back in the day...

Enemy counts here pretty much mean nothing except the lag.

...and except the boredom. If you're invulnerable it's just a chore, felt as I was washing the dishes or something as I gunned them down and waited for their turn to finally finish. And if they can hurt you... Not sure if excessive camping in skyranger on the map edge is a fun challenge compared to tactically sweeping the battlefield, taking important positions, finding enemy groups etc that a reasonable battle provides.

there's no snipers IIRC, so you go at night

That's not something you can know unless you dig into the guts of the mod or have someone tell it to you, but in that case I guess it's a valid strategy. If there are no snipers then probably smoke spam can also work provided you're lucky enough to clear welcoming comitee. But again, I'm not sure if that's the most fun mission you can get...

As for lags, opengl /w raw filter should get you max game/scrolling speed at all times

Thanks a lot, will try these settings! Won't help with tedium, but still worth it to have the tedium processed faster by my device. 

[Nerro]

The night attack solution works very well even at early tech.
Throw a few flares, use AoE weapons and watch them panic in the dark.

The mission is actually quite fun when you don't have advanced armor. You have to push back the wave of ennemies and manage lights because they will actually kill you if they see you.

[DarthTheIII]

I just did a communions with heavy tactical suits and it was a lot of fun.  Went during the day, but 4 TGL with gas changed that pretty quickly. 

[Stone Lake]

Literal edge, even 10-15 tiles from it and you'll already have a welcoming comitee you can't hide from with this spawn density.

That's not something you can know unless you dig into the guts of the mod or have someone tell it to you, but in that case I guess it's a valid strategy.

It's something you can know after trying once. And going at night is usually preferred tactic against humans (I prefer close range and extend it to aliens, too), for this exact reason (lots of enemies that swarm you).

Also, it's one of the rare missions where you can easily grind Mass Killer or Whirlwind commendations. Not that these matter much now that you have spartans, but still.

[Stormtrooper]

Never liked night missions because sometimes bug hunt happens and it can be tedious even without severed visibility range. Also I imagine the enemy can sneak up on you just as you can, so it's hardly a panaceum for overwhelming forces.

Having said that, I can see why for this particular mission this might be the only option outside having armor impenetrable by conventional firearms (like I do). Yet still, something feels... wrong and broken about having a forest map with twice as many enemies as trees. On the easiest difficulty...

[Nerro]

You should see this mission on difficulty 5-6, you have 2x more ennemy XD
Fun time!

[Stone Lake]

Also I imagine the enemy can sneak up on you just as you can, so it's hardly a panaceum for overwhelming forces.

Well, "obviously" you bring dogs/rats/bats with like 16-20 night vision against their ~12. Then you do have the advantage, unless you stumble into the light.
For enemies and aliens with rivaling ~20 night vision, you're on "equal" terms, but at least they won't snipe you from 40 tiles away, hence my preference. That is, until you also drop smoke and use same dogs/rats/bats to see through it. And now enemy is at visual disadvantage again. Well, unless it's a few who's immune to this, too. It's one of things that let you play safely without reloads.

[Empiro]

It's my favorite mission now, even though initially it seemed impossible. I especially love it on Superhuman with all the enemies.

Night mission is the way to go for sure. None of them (as far as I know) have any sort of special night vision. None of scout-sniper mechanics. Plenty of them have heavy weapons, but that doesn't matter if they never get a shot off on you, which isn't that hard.

Pre-prime high-exposives and gas grenades. Run down the ramp, throw it, and run back up the ramp. End the first turn and watch the fireworks. After the first turn, the LZ should be clear and you just have to be careful to manage light sources. It basically becomes a turkey shoot, or opportunities to train up your melee and mass-killer medals.