Triggering phase 2 (refugee camp)

[Tobold]

*SPOILER Alert* This is a discussion about how major game events are supposed to happen.

I have tried different strategies for the early/mid game, and it seems to me that there are two phases to this game: The initial phase, where your enemies are mostly Legion troops, and the second phase, where your enemies are mostly regular soldiers, which are a lot tougher.

Now in one run I triggered the second phase as early as end of May. It seems that capturing a second mine triggers an event where the Major announces that he will go after Biff in A8. And if you intercept those troops and then go to A8, you will be asked to visit the refugee camp, which then triggers phase 2. Both A8 and the refugee camp are extremely hard fights, and the game spikes significantly in difficulty from then on.

But in a different playthrough I just ignored the attack on Biff. I that run I had three mines, and was accumulating a lot of money. So I did a little experiment where I was simply holding my position, checking whether at any time the simple advancement of time would trigger phase 2. That doesn't seem to be the case, I got until mid-October and phase 2 never happened. I hear phase 2 triggers if you approach the Major's camp, but there doesn't seem to be a timer.

Which makes me wonder when phase 2 is *supposed* to happen. Going to A8 seems to be a terrible option, there doesn't seem to be a good reward for doing so. You can't actually hire Biff, at best you can get his green diamond. I hear people have simply intercepted the troops going after Biff, *without* visiting A8, and that way they didn't trigger phase 2 either. That seems to be the much better option, as you can play through most of the game and do many quests against much easier opponents; and you can still visit Biff later and get the info from him. Is going to A8 to save Biff some sort of hidden option for hardcore players, and us regular guys are supposed to not trigger phase 2 until much later? It seems somewhat stranger that there seem to be two very different ways with much different difficulty to play through this game. Is this intended?

[archmag]

Originally posted by Cenotaph:

I'm on the second island and yes i triggered that refugee camp and you get the major calling to get the green stone. I'm after this section,saving the guy was pretty much impossible with my level.
These things trigger without warning or the game telling you as far as I'm aware. The enemy difficulty spikes to the point I cannot continue solo

Can you take an outpost at D10 (or somewhere around there, I don't remember exact coordinates) and train militia in time or just intercept the legion squad going there? If you can then you can delay the event with Biff for a long time. If you can't even do that I am not sure why you are playing the solo challenge on your first try instead of learning the game playing normal. I am not sure what exactly happens if you just let the squad go there. At worst I think they will kill Biff and you don't get a piece of evidence and won't be able to get a good ending but you should still be able to continue the game and enemies don't scale just by activating that event.

The thing that event triggers doesn't put a timer on it. There are two events with timers that I remember - N-Night where you get a warning that a port will get attacked in about 4 days after you talk with some person in the area (you can delay it by not talking or at least not taking the port) and some mission in sanatory which I didn't do because I just rushed to the end at the second part of the game where in 10 days you need to do something. Everything else doesn't have a timer so after activating the event you can still do your own things until you visit the area or trigger something else.

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

I'm not sure what triggers biff/refugee camp but it's not having 2 mines, it's not moving too far north, it's not a certain time. In my game, I had 3 mines, and 1 had run out already. It was still May, I had not been to the camp, in fact had not been further north than the outpost NW of Fleatown. I got the Biff call while doing Port Cacao side quests in the south.

Indeed in my most advanced game I took pr Cacao then headed north to refugee camp, totally forgot about the biff squad stuff, let him die, then headed north to Pantagruel, then A2 mine, so had 4 mines and phase 2 still didn't trigger...

[archmag]

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Indeed in my most advanced game I took pr Cacao then headed north to refugee camp, totally forgot about the biff squad stuff, let him die, then headed north to Pantagruel, then A2 mine, so had 4 mines and phase 2 still didn't trigger...

So based on this and other info in the thread:
1. If you get 2nd mine or go too far east/north you get radio transmission between Biff and Major and legion squad spawn going after Biff
1.1. If you intercept the squad you can delay Biff death/completion until you visit the area and defeat several waves of enemies. If you don't visit it nothing else happens for a while and you are free to explore
1.2. If you let enemy squad get to Biff, they kill him but event in Refugee camp doesn't trigger until something else happens
1.3. If you go to Biff and clear his multi-wave battle Refugee camp event triggers
2. In Refugee camp event you are asked to get back to Refugee camp and when inside you can't leave until talking to colonel
2.1. If you talk to colonel in Refugee camp army wave spawns and final part of the game starts
2.2. If you don't go back to Refugee camp to talk with the colonel you can continue to explore the whole map until you get close to Eagle's nest (A20) in which case event in Refugee camp autocompletes, army wave spawns.

I think this is missing some other triggers for Refugee camp event because Biff's is more common. I don't know if Hermit or Boss have anything to do with it but I think I've read somewhere that they do. But still after being asked to get to the Refugee camp you can prolong the start of army wave for as long as you want just by not visiting it and not getting close to Eagle's nest.

[Cenotaph]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by Cenotaph:

I'm on the second island and yes i triggered that refugee camp and you get the major calling to get the green stone. I'm after this section,saving the guy was pretty much impossible with my level.
These things trigger without warning or the game telling you as far as I'm aware. The enemy difficulty spikes to the point I cannot continue solo

Can you take an outpost at D10 (or somewhere around there, I don't remember exact coordinates) and train militia in time or just intercept the legion squad going there? If you can then you can delay the event with Biff for a long time. If you can't even do that I am not sure why you are playing the solo challenge on your first try instead of learning the game playing normal. I am not sure what exactly happens if you just let the squad go there. At worst I think they will kill Biff and you don't get a piece of evidence and won't be able to get a good ending but you should still be able to continue the game and enemies don't scale just by activating that event.

The thing that event triggers doesn't put a timer on it. There are two events with timers that I remember - N-Night where you get a warning that a port will get attacked in about 4 days after you talk with some person in the area (you can delay it by not talking or at least not taking the port) and some mission in sanatory which I didn't do because I just rushed to the end at the second part of the game where in 10 days you need to do something. Everything else doesn't have a timer so after activating the event you can still do your own things until you visit the area or trigger something else.

Im telling you, 100 percent, it's either an event or it's time based level scaling. This is enough to ruin it imo. There's no excuse for it that enemies in the same town are easy in my first play through of about 20 hours, and are rediculously hard in my second. Same difficulty settings.
Whatever it is, i find it annoying and it needs to go.

[Cenotaph]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Indeed in my most advanced game I took pr Cacao then headed north to refugee camp, totally forgot about the biff squad stuff, let him die, then headed north to Pantagruel, then A2 mine, so had 4 mines and phase 2 still didn't trigger...

So based on this and other info in the thread:
1. If you get 2nd mine or go too far east/north you get radio transmission between Biff and Major and legion squad spawn going after Biff
1.1. If you intercept the squad you can delay Biff death/completion until you visit the area and defeat several waves of enemies. If you don't visit it nothing else happens for a while and you are free to explore
1.2. If you let enemy squad get to Biff, they kill him but event in Refugee camp doesn't trigger until something else happens
1.3. If you go to Biff and clear his multi-wave battle Refugee camp event triggers
2. In Refugee camp event you are asked to get back to Refugee camp and when inside you can't leave until talking to colonel
2.1. If you talk to colonel in Refugee camp army wave spawns and final part of the game starts
2.2. If you don't go back to Refugee camp to talk with the colonel you can continue to explore the whole map until you get close to Eagle's nest (A20) in which case event in Refugee camp autocompletes, army wave spawns.

I think this is missing some other triggers for Refugee camp event because Biff's is more common. I don't know if Hermit or Boss have anything to do with it but I think I've read somewhere that they do. But still after being asked to get to the Refugee camp you can prolong the start of army wave for as long as you want just by not visiting it and not getting close to Eagle's nest.

This may very well be related to the level scaling that happens in the second island, to me this needss to be clarified in the story thats being told or it should just be removed because it makes no sense otherwise

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by Cenotaph:

Originally posted by archmag:

So based on this and other info in the thread:
1. If you get 2nd mine or go too far east/north you get radio transmission between Biff and Major and legion squad spawn going after Biff
1.1. If you intercept the squad you can delay Biff death/completion until you visit the area and defeat several waves of enemies. If you don't visit it nothing else happens for a while and you are free to explore
1.2. If you let enemy squad get to Biff, they kill him but event in Refugee camp doesn't trigger until something else happens
1.3. If you go to Biff and clear his multi-wave battle Refugee camp event triggers
2. In Refugee camp event you are asked to get back to Refugee camp and when inside you can't leave until talking to colonel
2.1. If you talk to colonel in Refugee camp army wave spawns and final part of the game starts
2.2. If you don't go back to Refugee camp to talk with the colonel you can continue to explore the whole map until you get close to Eagle's nest (A20) in which case event in Refugee camp autocompletes, army wave spawns.

I think this is missing some other triggers for Refugee camp event because Biff's is more common. I don't know if Hermit or Boss have anything to do with it but I think I've read somewhere that they do. But still after being asked to get to the Refugee camp you can prolong the start of army wave for as long as you want just by not visiting it and not getting close to Eagle's nest.

This may very well be related to the level scaling that happens in the second island, to me this needss to be clarified in the story thats being told or it should just be removed because it makes no sense otherwise

In my game 2nd mine (and even 3rd one) didn't trigger anything, call from Biff was when I reached Refugee camp iirc
Maybe there's a bug/missing trigger when you let Biff die ?

[Bogster]

Im not 100% sure what triggers the Biff comm event either, but I made the mistake of rescuing him, it is my first playthrough and I dont think I was too far along, on the second island and I think I had 2 mines. I have not even been to the refugee camp prior to rescuing Biff, I have saved the girl in one of the sectors that is next to a town and it triggered a quest to meet her in the refugee camp. Now when I went to the camp, everyone is dead.. I call this an absolute poor design decision.. They could have used a separate location for such an event... So far I had fun, after 18hrs the game seems a bit repetative at this point, but this sort of ruined the playthrough for me... shame.

[archmag]

Originally posted by Bogster:

Im not 100% sure what triggers the Biff comm event either, but I made the mistake of rescuing him, it is my first playthrough and I dont think I was too far along, on the second island and I think I had 2 mines. I have not even been to the refugee camp prior to rescuing Biff, I have saved the girl in one of the sectors that is next to a town and it triggered a quest to meet her in the refugee camp. Now when I went to the camp, everyone is dead.. I call this an absolute poor design decision.. They could have used a separate location for such an event... So far I had fun, after 18hrs the game seems a bit repetative at this point, but this sort of ruined the playthrough for me... shame.

Just ignore it. There are like four minor quests in that camp which you can do before it is blocked:Help Karen leave the country by finding her passport (yeah, mem Karen), save Shaman's family by bringing medicine or using operation if you have a good medic, find someone and bring news about them back to the camp, repair satellite TV for some guy so he can watch porn. All four are minor and only give small amount of exp as a reward, or at least I don't remember getting anything good from completing 3 out of 4. No reason to give up on a playthrough because you fail those due to an unexpected event.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by archmag:

No reason to give up on a playthrough because you fail those due to an unexpected event.

Definitely. It's one thing to worry about missing out on something... the fomo is strong for me which is why I'm fine with spoilers. But if we miss something, it's not the end of the world. And starting over to get a "better" outcome for one side mission doesn't mean we'll do better on the next one, or the one after that!

I'll Just keep playing, mistakes and all. And my 2nd run, I'll have a better idea of how to avoid those mistakes.

[Vicid]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by Bogster:

Im not 100% sure what triggers the Biff comm event either, but I made the mistake of rescuing him, it is my first playthrough and I dont think I was too far along, on the second island and I think I had 2 mines. I have not even been to the refugee camp prior to rescuing Biff, I have saved the girl in one of the sectors that is next to a town and it triggered a quest to meet her in the refugee camp. Now when I went to the camp, everyone is dead.. I call this an absolute poor design decision.. They could have used a separate location for such an event... So far I had fun, after 18hrs the game seems a bit repetative at this point, but this sort of ruined the playthrough for me... shame.

Just ignore it. There are like four minor quests in that camp which you can do before it is blocked:Help Karen leave the country by finding her passport (yeah, mem Karen), save Shaman's family by bringing medicine or using operation if you have a good medic, find someone and bring news about them back to the camp, repair satellite TV for some guy so he can watch porn. All four are minor and only give small amount of exp as a reward, or at least I don't remember getting anything good from completing 3 out of 4. No reason to give up on a playthrough because you fail those due to an unexpected event.

The Refugee camp is important for Recruiting Pierre

[pRaX]

Originally posted by Vicid:

Originally posted by archmag:

Just ignore it. There are like four minor quests in that camp which you can do before it is blocked:Help Karen leave the country by finding her passport (yeah, mem Karen), save Shaman's family by bringing medicine or using operation if you have a good medic, find someone and bring news about them back to the camp, repair satellite TV for some guy so he can watch porn. All four are minor and only give small amount of exp as a reward, or at least I don't remember getting anything good from completing 3 out of 4. No reason to give up on a playthrough because you fail those due to an unexpected event.

The Refugee camp is important for Recruiting Pierre

This. Bastien is there too.

[archmag]

Originally posted by Vicid:

The Refugee camp is important for Recruiting Pierre

Really? Why?

I remember he went somewhere after I released him in the fort. Then he ended up in the red diamond mine. When I got there he already was transferred to some outpost. When I rescued him there after he heard that I killed boss of the red diamond mine he joined me. What exactly happened in refugee camp related to Pierre?

Edit: nvm, checked online and I remember something now. There was a guy with the wife who were banished from the village on tutorial island. For some reason they are related to this quest but I don't remember how exactly.

[ronjn]

Originally posted by pRaX:

Originally posted by archmag:

That was about actually activating Refugee camp event that summons an army wave. You don't have to go to the camp after you get invited there after Biff's event. So you can complete the whole map except for the camp itself and A20 corner (and 1 tile radius around it) if you just ignore the camp. If you get next to A20, Refugee camp will activate automatically and you will just get radio notification about it and army will appear.

Well, see here is the thing. I have a save where I didn't take a single mine, didn't talk to anyone to activate the "Conspiracy" quest but went eastwards past the Sanatorium and the Refugee Camp even triggered nonetheless.
So this is extremely weird if people are able to do the entire map without triggering it while I can't on that save.

Originally posted by RasaNova:

I'm not sure what triggers biff/refugee camp but it's not having 2 mines, it's not moving too far north, it's not a certain time. In my game, I had 3 mines, and 1 had run out already. It was still May, I had not been to the camp, in fact had not been further north than the outpost NW of Fleatown. I got the Biff call while doing Port Cacao side quests in the south.

This is actually true. Taking a certain amount of ports and/or towns will trigger the Biff event. Can confirm that. For the refugee camp, as long as you don't have any form/phase of the "Conspiracy" quest in your log, you should be fine. Except for that possible anomaly on my end outlined above.

Yesterday I was curious, I snuck straight to the eagle's nest (on easy was a test) The event triggered even though I had not cleared any territory short of maybe 1 port to access the river.

I now wonder if I even need to rescue the president to actually finish the game... since there's an achievement to finish before May 10...

I think the event isn't avoidable unless there is a way to kill the "end boss" early... and shooting the "end boss" on day one does nothing... I have found 2 people that have plot armor so far.

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by Vicid:

The Refugee camp is important for Recruiting Pierre

Really? Why?

I remember he went somewhere after I released him in the fort. Then he ended up in the red diamond mine. When I got there he already was transferred to some outpost. When I rescued him there after he heard that I killed boss of the red diamond mine he joined me. What exactly happened in refugee camp related to Pierre?

Edit: nvm, checked online and I remember something now. There was a guy with the wife who were banished from the village on tutorial island. For some reason they are related to this quest but I don't remember how exactly.

In the first village you can get Herman and his wife thrown out by telling he denounced Tinjay, when Luc (Pierre's father) is framed instead
It all boils down to a family feud ^^

[Alpha]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by Bogster:

Im not 100% sure what triggers the Biff comm event either, but I made the mistake of rescuing him, it is my first playthrough and I dont think I was too far along, on the second island and I think I had 2 mines. I have not even been to the refugee camp prior to rescuing Biff, I have saved the girl in one of the sectors that is next to a town and it triggered a quest to meet her in the refugee camp. Now when I went to the camp, everyone is dead.. I call this an absolute poor design decision.. They could have used a separate location for such an event... So far I had fun, after 18hrs the game seems a bit repetative at this point, but this sort of ruined the playthrough for me... shame.

Just ignore it. There are like four minor quests in that camp which you can do before it is blocked:Help Karen leave the country by finding her passport (yeah, mem Karen), save Shaman's family by bringing medicine or using operation if you have a good medic, find someone and bring news about them back to the camp, repair satellite TV for some guy so he can watch porn. All four are minor and only give small amount of exp as a reward, or at least I don't remember getting anything good from completing 3 out of 4. No reason to give up on a playthrough because you fail those due to an unexpected event.

Completing the quests in the refugee camp will reward you (one of) the best armor sets (helmet, chest and pants) in the game.