Red Dawn Cult Manors are crazy!

[karatewalrus]

I have armor, and dragonflies, experienced soldiers, and blackops and uac weapons. And I can't do shit about these things. If you attack it you get blown up by like 5 grenades instantly. The one I'm trying to assault now has a tank in additional to all the other bullshit. My dragonflies are frequently getting blown out of the sky on the world map when I'm trying to do regular missions because I can't escape from their jets. It's just nuuuuuuuts. I can't do shit. It's game over :p

[Chuckebaby]

For right now it's about strategic placement and smoke to find cover. Use dynamite/high explosives to knock out the tanks. They go pretty easy with a few tosses of booms (1 H.E. + 1 dynamite).

This is actually the fun of the game. The difficult missions which you must fit all the pieces in place to make the perfect puzzle

[CaptainVietnam]

I have armor, and dragonflies, experienced soldiers, and blackops and uac weapons. And I can't do shit about these things. If you attack it you get blown up by like 5 grenades instantly. The one I'm trying to assault now has a tank in additional to all the other bullshit. My dragonflies are frequently getting blown out of the sky on the world map when I'm trying to do regular missions because I can't escape from their jets. It's just nuuuuuuuts. I can't do shit. It's game over :p

    Best tip ever
Always attack humans in the dark never at day unless you have good armor like tactical suit

This mod has a looks like you didn't know about this mechanic/feature, now you lose. Restart and do better next time mind set. Just like a lot of beginner traps in this mod a easy fix is to rush promo 3. Taking on and manor without it is a bad idea. Motors and tactical grenade launchers with gas are a must. I have blown up like 20+ with a single shot before.

 
after rushing promo 3 you get tactical suit (amazing armor) and better weapons makes early cults a lot easier to deal with after that. you also get large radar and you can make basses with jets to track down these cults so they don't get to strong.

usually I get promo 3 by the end of first year or early 2 year. a few months in year 2 I have global large radar coverage and 1 jet per base. Then I usually see a a craft moving I follow it with my jet and patrol and I find and wipe out the base while they still have cars lol. car vs jet combat ftw.

I personally take out red dawn first since it's easy to get. After you research durathread you get a durathread factory spawn next month. You have a few ko grenades to take out the dude in the trench coat. after you research him you get hq spawn (again next month).

       Tips for red dawn
 you spam grenades to avoid sniper spotter if you shoot they shoot so don't and throw frags (sniper/spotter mechanic is the worst).
Only use black ops sniper anything less wont do they are tanky. Only fire if you have to or are far away crouched and in the dark.
don't bother with smoke most of them are snipers anyway just stay in the dark
Bring tnt and make it a priority to kill tanks asap (again don't shoot just spam tnt at them) (takes 1-2 tnt to kill them)
Don't bother chasing them down to their hq since they usually surrender when I'm still on the surface.

Also you don't have to kill them all or take the base just steal the memory card and communicator from trench coat guy.  You can do this as easy as turn 1-2 if your lucky

my best attack on red dawn was with a helicopter no deaths and only one person was shot for like 2 hp lol. I'm not counting the time I beat up trench coat guy turn one and left with him and his stuff

[SBBurzmali]

    Best tip ever
Always attack humans in the dark never at day unless you have good armor like tactical suit

In this mod, every faction has multiple units that have better night vision than your agents in armored gear and there isn't any good night vision gear that can stand up to even weak small arms fire. Showing up at night is just asking for someone to spot you on turn one and to have snipers and grenades raining on you immediately.

The best advise I have for an early manor, is saturation bombing, the faster you can cause a loyalty cascade, the better. Most manors have corner to the NE of the starting location where many of the enemy units will try to navigate at one point or another, burying that corner in explosives and gas is a good start. You'll also want to save at the end of every turn before passing since the game can spawn reinforcements one tile behind you and wipe you out instantly.

[karatewalrus]

I thought, well what if I just wipe out the red dawn? So I researched their HQ, went to their HQ, and killed everyone and 3 tanks. I only lost 1 dude. It was easier than the manors! And the manors still stayed after the red dawn was destroyed! FML.

AND

One of the damn manor's is on top of my base so if I use any vehicles they get blown out of the sky and I lose everything. So I had to built another base nearby and ship everything to it! WTF. I wish I could pay them to leave me alone. Like here's 2 millions dollars, fuck off! :p

[vadracas]

Well, one good note to this whole situation for you: Red Dawn manors do stop spawning once the HQ is defeated, the existing ones just don't despawn.

[Xylon666Darkstar]

Do red dawn and dagon manors upgrade to an advanced tier like Exalt and Black Lotus do?

[karatewalrus]

I'm not sure if they upgrade, but mine had tanks and every units except the most elite dude with the trench coat who is ridiculously tough.

Anyhow I took a mudranger and chanced it against them destroying it and attacked the manor that spawned near my base. I threw a bunch of smoke around everywhere so everything anywhere near me was in smoke. And I got shot a couples times but thankfully they didn't toss any grenades. I also tried to spread out my dudes so they wouldn't chuck grenades as much. And then I ran a spotter forward and found the clumps of enemies and threw hi-ex at them. I was killing about 7 dudes a turn with one guy throwing high ex. And then another pack would run in an die. And then some aliens with squirt guns ran in and died. It was insane. And my dog killed some maids :p I didn't lose any dudes and I destroyed the place. 1 guy got shot to shit and got taken down to about 1 health. He was a rookie on his first mission :p I blew up the tanks with dynamite as well. It's just crazy. Like you start right next to all the enemies and you have to slog it out. You're going to get shot, and blown up, period. This game is gonna give me ptsd :p 

[CaptainVietnam]

In this mod, every faction has multiple units that have better night vision than your agents in armored gear and there isn't any good night vision gear that can stand up to even weak small arms fire. Showing up at night is just asking for someone to spot you on turn one and to have snipers and grenades raining on you immediately.

The best advise I have for an early manor, is saturation bombing, the faster you can cause a loyalty cascade, the better. Most manors have corner to the NE of the starting location where many of the enemy units will try to navigate at one point or another, burying that corner in explosives and gas is a good start. You'll also want to save at the end of every turn before passing since the game can spawn reinforcements one tile behind you and wipe you out instantly.

Most factions have 9 vision same as you besides Dagon. A rat or a dog has like 15 or so vision. one dog and a few flares and suddenly you have better vision and can see them across the map while they have to scamper 9 tiles away from you to shoot you. As long as you blow up and shoot the snipers no one will harm you. I often don't shoot guns till I take out priority targets.

"Showing up at night is just asking for someone to spot you on turn one and to have snipers and grenades raining on you immediately."


THE OPPOSITE ACTUALLY
If you attack During the day anyone who is seen gets seen which is everyone turn one basically can be shot upon and blown up from across the map by snipers. when you run or pop smoke they still know you exact position thanks to ai hacks, so smoke doesn't help. now boot up a mission in the dark you can spread your units apart chuck a few flares and hide turn one and be safe to rain down hell on them. You can also hide wounded soldiers in far corners of map you can't hide very well in the day. wounded soldiers can also still help by putting their weapons away and throwing bombs at them and not be at risk of death. only downside is if a maid is spawned one tile away from your spawn and sees everyone lol.

I already mentioned saturation bombing on my first post but you don't get the good stuff till promo 3. I also said you don't get sniper ai hacked if you throw frags so you don't get fired upon in the dark like you would the day.

"You'll also want to save at the end of every turn"
I don't like to save scum. It ruins the tension for me. It makes victory not so satisfying. Probably why I would get my teeth kicked in on ironman/immposible in Enemy within and love it.

[CaptainVietnam]

I thought, well what if I just wipe out the red dawn? So I researched their HQ, went to their HQ, and killed everyone and 3 tanks. I only lost 1 dude. It was easier than the manors! And the manors still stayed after the red dawn was destroyed! FML.

AND

One of the damn manor's is on top of my base so if I use any vehicles they get blown out of the sky and I lose everything. So I had to built another base nearby and ship everything to it! WTF. I wish I could pay them to leave me alone. Like here's 2 millions dollars, fuck off! :p

That's good news now you have to research promo 3 your almost there look up the prerequisite for it. Trust me all starting cults will be a cake walk with this armor and motors. You also get large radar jets and a funding boost. This game is still salvageable if you work fast to get it.

[Juku121]

Do red dawn and dagon manors upgrade to an advanced tier like Exalt and Black Lotus do?

Yes.

Spoiler:

Red Dawn develops into Hybrid Embassies (as one might have guessed from the suit-wearing Hybrids), but at half the rate. Dagonites create their own special strongholds with spiffy TFTD-style maps since... uh, maybe 2.8 even? I don't think they've been officially announced yet.

Most factions have 9 vision same as you besides Dagon.

Disciples and Priests have 10.

Many cultist higher-ups across all cults have 1-3 tiles of extra night vision. The ones notably above the norm are the two highest-tier wet ones, BL women, Brainers and Gillmen Deep Ones.

This game is gonna give me ptsd

Solarius gets a cut of your shrink's fees, don't you know?

[SBBurzmali]

Most factions have 9 vision same as you besides Dagon. A rat or a dog has like 15 or so vision. one dog and a few flares and suddenly you have better vision and can see them across the map while they have to scamper 9 tiles away from you to shoot you. As long as you blow up and shoot the snipers no one will harm you. I often don't shoot guns till I take out priority targets.

On the enemy side (a sampling):
Elite soldier - Night Vision 13, you'll see around 15 of those on any higher level manor mission
Hybrid Assault - Night Vision 12
EXALT Liquidator - Night Vision 12
EXALT Enforcer - Night Vision 11
Red Dawn Coordinator - Night Vision 11
Red Ops Soldier - Night Vision 11
Red Dawn Pioneer - Night Vision 10 + camo at night

On your side (Armor that can take a hit or two at the point manor start showing up)
Tritianum Vest - Night Vision 9
Heavy Tritianum Suit - Night Vision 9
Personal Armor - Night Vision 9

Show up at night and get lit up, the AI can attack you from beyond your sight range and you'll get torn up. As for save scumming, I like finishing games, in its current state, openXcom can not be completed without either save scumming or spending an absolute eternity in maps like the manors.

[Juku121]

Show up at night and get lit up, the AI can attack you from beyond your sight range and you'll get torn up.

Not using their couple of extra tiles of night vision. It's either one of them getting close (and probably being a spotter, too) or the 'Hit me, I spot you!' mechanic. Maybe one of the enemies with 15-20 tiles of night vision.

...in its current state, openXcom can not be completed without either save scumming or spending an absolute eternity in maps like the manors.

Tell that to the Ironman players.

[CaptainVietnam]

On the enemy side (a sampling):
Elite soldier - Night Vision 13, you'll see around 15 of those on any higher level manor mission
Hybrid Assault - Night Vision 12
EXALT Liquidator - Night Vision 12
EXALT Enforcer - Night Vision 11
Red Dawn Coordinator - Night Vision 11
Red Ops Soldier - Night Vision 11
Red Dawn Pioneer - Night Vision 10 + camo at night

dog still has better vision then any of those you mentioned. Besides that a flare ($60 item) an item you can buy day 1 can be used to make vision range pointless. walk around landing sight with dog, kill people close to lz, throw flare stay in dark, profit. If your walking around the dark with no flashlights, flares, dogs your doing it wrong.

At night if played correctly you have a high chance of never even being fired upon. In the day you don't get that and have to slug it out and hope your armor doesn't fail you. The benefits you get for attacking cults at night are far greater then the day in almost all cases.

This boils down to
you can see them as good as the day with a flare and they cant see you unless close vs you both can see each other and they outnumber you.

Tell that to the Ironman players.

Ironman here and I love being beat up. that's why I play xcom. It's not very healthy.

[SBBurzmali]

dog still has better vision then any of those you mentioned. Besides that a flare ($60 item) an item you can buy day 1 can be used to make vision range pointless. walk around landing sight with dog, kill people close to lz, throw flare stay in dark, profit. If your walking around the dark with no flashlights, flares, dogs your doing it wrong.

If you are counting on flares, that is not what I'd call an "Ironman-safe" strategy as you agents will happily yeet a flare into the back of the head of anyone in 10 yards lighting up your team and getting you instantly gun down. Sure, it you are save scumming, you can undo the sillier behaviors of thrown items, but in an ironman run, every thrown item is spinning the wheel on a squad-wipe, Dogs have better vision, but so what, they can't reaction fire, enemies are real dumb, they walk to the point they can see you and open fire, with superior night vision, that'll be from outside of your range, so no reaction fire before they drop a rocket on you, unless you have surrounded yourself in rings of flares, which is a bit of a craps shoot if you are running ironman. In my experience, the best way to survive is to kill anything that could shoot at you and force anything that could get in range to have to walk far enough to lose their ability to fire. Grenades set to 1, proximity grenades, mines if you have some decent throwers, that's the way to handle manors early on. That and regular saves, unless you like restarting because a reinforcement wave spawns 1 tile behind you and rips you apart.