Tips on the Jack Sparrow difficulty?

[Psina_lososina]

Hello, everyone

Couple of weeks ago I finished my another run on the Black Beard difficulty. That was an amazing, incredible and...quite boring adventure. So, I decided to try the maximum difficulty the game can offer - after all, I've been playing xcom and all sorts of mods for 10 years, what in the Universe can stop me?
What an arrogant fool I was

So far I've made five attempts. I've learned a LOT of new things. I learned how to use dogs, how to get an aircraft with guns by april, how to finish a battle against 30 enemies with 0-2 casualties without save-loading, how to survive with no money and still have an army, capable to fight. A great school it was, my skill increased SIGNIFICANTLY. But I just can't go any further of May of the 1st year.

My current strategy:
- Starting in Egypt: 12 clone troopers with golden shields and modern weapons with decent accuracy (but awful damage though) is a big thing for the first 2-3 months;
- Peasants route: opens the Harvester - 20 crew, 3x 25mm cannons, no windows on the main deck - imo THE BEST guaranteed ship for the early game with no need to build a workshop;
- Dogs. AI at this difficulty seems to be much more intellegent, so enemies abuse overwatch mechanics much more often, and dogs are the best way to solve this problem
- Capture prisoners. It's not my cup of tea, but money is money, and clone troopers have electrical gloves, so, why not.
- Reject the power: potentially a good choice because it gives acsess to Ninja`s weapons, but I haven`t gone so far yet :'(

What is the issue:
In April begins the war against Ninjas. OK, I can outlive this, with negative score (like -1500 points), but in May they build 4-6 hideouts (so I have solid -3000 points) AND local governments attack MY hideout (-1800 points per mission). I don't know if their attack is a normal script for this difficulty or they attack me because I'm, technically, a vassal of Cleopatra, but it certainly doesn`t help The only way to get back on rails is to destroy couple of Ninja's bases per month, but... I found it impossible. Even with save scumming. Even with heavy lasers looted from the govrenmental soldiers. No matter what I'm trying to do, I just can't get enough of heavy artillery and good soldiers by that cursed May. I don't see any other way to improve my score, because regular missions don't spawn frequently enough. The only mistake that I did and can name is that I could`ve get the Harvester by March (not by the end of April) and shoot down 3-5 hostile aircrafts, but it wouldn`t be enough to survive.

And, as result, at the end of May I'm losing because of bad rating.

If you have beaten the Jack Sparrow difficulty, could you give some tips how to survive the first spring?

UPD: I'm not complaining, I have more fun from the game than ever before, I just can't win

[Abyss]

As far as I know, Ninja war starts only when you do a related research project.
Which is called "Ninja War", or something like that. At least, it was so in the N5 version, which I played last.
Previously, indeed, it was quite challenging to deal with ninja war, as Dioxine introduced them hardcoded and JS difficulty spawned them quite in large numbers and strong score penalties. M-series releases, I think?

Anyway. Go the the X-Piratez matrix chat and ask ppl there.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10381.0.html
This particular X-Piratez forum is 80% abandoned.

And don't even try to install X-Piratez on Brutal OXCE with all this input

[Psina_lososina]

As far as I know, Ninja war starts only when you do a related research project.

Not if you play the highest difficulty, here it's triggered automatically :'(

Anyway. Go the the X-Piratez matrix chat and ask ppl there.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10381.0.html
This particular X-Piratez forum is 80% abandoned.

Thank you!

[Iazo]

As far as I know, Ninja war starts only when you do a related research project.
Which is called "Ninja War", or something like that. At least, it was so in the N5 version, which I played last.
Previously, indeed, it was quite challenging to deal with ninja war, as Dioxine introduced them hardcoded and JS difficulty spawned them quite in large numbers and strong score penalties. M-series releases, I think?

Anyway. Go the the X-Piratez matrix chat and ask ppl there.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10381.0.html
This particular X-Piratez forum is 80% abandoned.

And don't even try to install X-Piratez on Brutal OXCE with all this input

This is untrue, please do not provide false information. On JS, the Ninja War autostarts by default.

I have some expertience playing JS, but never finished the game due to chronic restartitties, though I did play one year and a half, after which JS is basically just a normal game. I am on matrix, but I will type a longer post here soon.

[Iazo]

I think your biggest problem is Thebes. I, personally, would not even try a Thebes star on JS, the bill for that power comes too early.

Might I suggest an alternate start, from my picks of top pick starts?

Turan/Siberia, ESPECIALLY on Peasant revolution, those hyenas are insane compined with the harvester. The bill for all this power is a 500k bill in feb and ocasional 100k every now and then.

Arctic/Nordfederation.

Blackmarch/Europe.

Cattyfornia/North America


Also, I see no mention you have prepared for the missile rain starting in July. Ideally, at July 1st the latest you shoyld have 4 overcharged radars built.

No codex will have an easier start, but at the cost of absolutely grueling midgame.

[Abyss]

This is untrue, please do not provide false information. On JS, the Ninja War autostarts by default.

Oh, I don't particulary care about JS. Because JS was just "sort of challenging" option back 2-3 years ago, and then, when ninja mechanics were initially introduced, all fucked up due to scoring imbalance.
X-Piratez were famous for literally every mission being doable from the literal beginning. And then Dioxine said that he makes JS hellish nightmare just to punish autists who flatter themselves by showing how they beat highest difficulty (whoa).
And he did so not by making overall balance more tough, but by introduction of spreading disaster. And then, after people like we started yelling about such "unfair" circumstances, nerfed the punishment a bit.

My solution is: Brutal AI + difficulty below JS. It gives significant push to all enemies, not just ninjas, while still keeps geoscape balance close to adequate.
And also, try playthrough without savescum, it will also surprise you how one single mission can fuck up 2 weeks of progress)

[Iazo]

If you don't care about JS, why post in the tread about JS to tell us all how you don't care about JS?

[Abyss]

Because I cared about JS a year ago) It was fun.
Except the ninja part. It totally wasn't fun.

[balam]

Before I start, I must add that while I don't savescum mid run, I often restart at few key points early on if I don't like how the rng is going, and the last version I played was N6.

Cleopatra Mommy is my choice as well, but a few versions ago a new event was added that makes Egypt start way harder than it used it to. As you have experienced, being Egypt's vassal will lead to constant raids. What kind of raid you get is random and some are more punishing than others - if you are lucky you can get nomads which don't carry a hefty score penalty. Those raids can start at month 3 (or 4) iirc but they are only an issue early on. After you get enough air defenses (850) you can just blow 'em up so you won't be at risk of getting low score (at the expense of loot). This also affects the expansion game but there is a workaround: the game decides which bases are going to get targeted by those raids at the start of every month, so if you build your bases at the start of a month you will have enough time to build your defenses.

Personally, I like the gal's path better. The harvester is very good indeed, but I prefer the codex transport (and ravenclaw robe). Reject the power is quite hard since you won't be getting codex crafts. All codices are viable, but they grey one adds a layer of rng to a key building. (edit: only grey + dumbass has the rng thingy)

Now, to deal with your issue. Basically you need to game the game and try to get your score as high as possible (but not too high, at least early on):
- The missions you get are random and some give more score/money than others. You need to unlock the good stuff as soon as possible (bounty hunts, warehouse raids, ghoul town, etc).
- Capture: Besides giving more money you will also get more interrogations which give more score/money. Early game I capture pretty much everything worthwhile alive. I'm not sure about electrical gloves though, since when I last tried they simply killed stuff, but 6 clones with stun rods can capture everything in any early game mission (except terror missions).
- Zombie capture exploit: Dunno if this has changed in the last versions but you get a huge score bonus for capturing non-researched zombies. We are talking about 3000+ points depending on the mission here and again, 6 clones can easily 100% capture those.
- Research and interrogations: The numbered researches (#001 for example) give a whooping 250 points each. You should focus on those when you want to pad your numbers.
- Scientists: You haven't mentioned scientists at all but they are one of the most important aspects of the game. More research = more score. I get an extra scientist at the start of the game and aim for 4 or 5 at month two and full house by month 3.
- Airgame: Shooting stuff down and doing those missions will give a huge boost to your score. With good rng you can start your airgame as soon as month 3.
- Ninja outposts/airfield/bases: I don't bother clearing those until I get tanks.

As Iazo mentioned, another thing you need to worry about are the missile strikes. One thing I want to add is that if you get good rng you can get hefaistos battery before july and those are way cheaper than Overcharged radar.

[Xylon666Darkstar]

I'm having particularly good results with Blackmarch/Europe with gray codex/dumbass captain, catgirls, power. Gambling events + rng events give me random gnomes/LOTS of boots, that I've never seem short of OP gnomes. Unless this is really RNG, and not tied to blackmarch/dumbass captain in any way. Literally gnomes out my ears for three bases.

Feeling to airspeeders/piranhas with seagulls/x2 25mm cannons have kept me decent results after the first summer. Provided I can get enough money for the overcharged radars by July.

Hectic, but a fun challenge + brutal AI that I enjoy. Guess I'm autistic.