How to properly play defense missions?

[berandro]

In this game being the attacker is much easier than defending a location. Whenever I have a defensive battle I feel like I'm playing a freaking RTS (which I hate) in the beginning while I scramble to position my mercs where I want them + issue overwatch for everyone where applicable, all while the enemy walks in and the militia is standing miles away on the other side of the map.

More often than not, the battle will start before I'm ready (that's how bad I am at fast clicking stuff and the reason I hate RTS games), which really defeats the immersion factor for me. Like, I've been holding this place for months. Why can't I deploy my mercs wherever I want from the get go? And why do I have to wait seconds between overwatch orders because of the animation delay? It is so stressful and dumb to have that in a turn-based tactical game!

Do you guys have any tips to mitigate this? What's your usual approach to defensive missions?

[Econ]

Let the militia "tank" the initial onslaught - once things switch to turn-based, everything is more manageable. I bunch my gang up in a central location, as a kind of mobile reserve and move to the sound of the guns.

Once you get into turn-based, I really like defensive missions as I like turtling. Defending the museum may be my favorite fight in the game.

More generally, what I used to do was set up my LMG (only) on overwatch and then use my best sniper to start the ambush - that way you only need to micro two of your crew in real time. But it is not optimal, especially given the triple nerf to LMGs.

What this game needs most is a button to press to switch from real time to turn-based mode. BG3 has it, just saying ...

[Katsu]

I feel ya. Being able to pause to issue orders would certainly help in such situations, and the absence of this functionality can be highly annoying.

This said, defensive battles have the advantage that you are in control of any fortifications, and you know the rough area the enemy is advancing from. Plus, most of the time the enemy forces are fairly small groups of maybe 4-6 soldiers.

My go-to approach depends highly on the map and just how far proper defensive positions are away from your deployment area. If they are close enough that you can position your people within just a few seconds, it can be worth to try and split them into several smaller groups as part of the paused deployment phase, which you can then select and order around easier/faster once you click Start.

If it's too much of a hassle because the distances are too big, I usually just care for the team's sniper (to be sent on roofs/towers) and/or any machine guns (set on overwatch in direction of the enemy advance), since they alone can determine the outcome of a battle. Everyone else just gets shoved behind the nearest cover and told to keep their heads down until I need them.

Keep in mind that Auto-Resolving battles is an option as well; if you have mercs *and* militia in a sector, you might actually make it out with fewer casualties, i.e. no need to retrain new militia, because those guys tend to act fairly suicidal in played battles.

Later on in particular, you can just watch for troop movement paths and occupy one or two strategic bottlenecks, then keep a squad of cheap mercs on standby there to back up the militia, and let the loot pile up automatically over time whilst you use your A- and B-Teams to focus on the campaign goal.

[mr_oluap]

setting up overwatch while in real time is tricky, i prefer to have full turns availaible for my mercs after initiating combat

There's an indicator on the map that tells you where ennemies are coming from so just try to get there asap

[Twelvefield]

Using the key commands will make it faster to get the entire squad's attention all at once and have them go stealthy, that helps in the first one or two seconds of a lightning combat. You could even use a macro.

[Engioc]

I enjoy the defense missions. I see some people get concerned about militia dying, but personally, I feel like they are there to get in the way and die, so my mercs don't die. Let them take on the initial onslaught while you get your mercs into a good position. It's not that I want all my militia to die, but just saying I'd rather them than my mercs. Plus, I've had fights where the militia was totally useless, too busy farting around looking for cover while they were miles away from the fighting, the fight was done before most of them even arrived.

I have watched and played some JA2 recently and I do like the fact it lets you move militia around as needed, seems like a legit thing you'd do, plus just another way to manage your resources.

Originally posted by Econ:

What this game needs most is a button to press to switch from real time to turn-based mode. BG3 has it, just saying ...

Totally off topic, but the very reason why to this day I HATE BG1, it had a really dumb, confused system. I read the manual that said something along the lines of its real time, but during combat I should hit pause so I have time to hand out orders to my team. From the moment I read it I hated it, seems dumb. So its real time, but I have to keep pausing it and manually make it turn based, but yet not really turn based because only I can perform actions and the AI can't. DUMB. Unpopular opinion I know, but I think BG1 was a piece of crap and doesn't deserve the praise it got, rubbish RPG.

I only said that because it sounds like they've seen sense in BG3 and have a proper real time and switching to turn based, makes way more sense than hitting pause/unpause.

BG1, not one of the best RPG's of all time, what of the biggest piles of ♥♥♥♥ ever.

Edit: having said that, each to their own, not meaning to hate on you, just saying I'm clearly no BG fan. :)

[Econ]

Originally posted by Engioc:

ITotally off topic, but the very reason why to this day I HATE BG1, .

Not sure about BG1, but in BG2 you could set it up to auto-pause on many different conditions (e.g. spell cast, enemy dead, weapon ineffective). You didn't real need that in BG1, as you could just mow down everything with massed composite longbows, but it was a godsend for BG2s intricate spell duels.

There was a "rounds" kind of system, so I don't think pausing mechanically advantaged you over the AI. Often a human manual pause and re-direction might waste your "round". But of course, it would give the human mind time to do what it does best - think strategically - while neutralising the AIs advantage at multi-tasking and micro.

For these isometric squad tactics games though, I do prefer fully fledged turn-based system. It works really well in BG3, which abandoned the Infinity engine's "real time with pause".

[Stray952]

I think the game in defense missions is something in the military called a "hasty ambush"

To be fair, if you knew exactly where the enemy would appear and could put your guys anywhere... it'd be way too easy.

So here are my priorities -
1. Switch all chars (sans snipers) to full-auto weapons before the battle
2. Deploy squad directly in the path of the attackers so that you know where they're coming from.
3. Once you ID the main route they'll be filtering in, put soldiers with full-auto guns on either side of it and setup overlapping fields of fire. The two fans should make a delta. If you have time, have your other chars all throw up overwatch as well... (you won't have time)

If you do this in the first 20 seconds, all you have to do after is use your sniper(s) to make sure machine-gunner enemies are dead/suppressed, and have your medic(s) somewhere safe nearby where they can cover anybody who flanks your full-auto guys.

Honestly, I've found Steroid w/ an extended mag/bipod AK to be a one-man bulwark against pretty much anything.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Stray952:

To be fair, if you knew exactly where the enemy would appear and could put your guys anywhere... it'd be way too easy.

I find generic defense are tedious combats but the specially designed combats more defense oriented, as those of Cacao are fun. For me it's auto combats, or do a few time some generic defense of Cacao harbor.

So for port Cacao, it seems depends on difficulty level , but then it's always the same enemies entrance points.

[uncle nick]

The first 5 things i always do during a militia defense.
Step 1: Select deploy spawn area closest to enemy spawn area.
Step 2: Press ~ to select all mercs.
Step 3: Press H for hidden.
Step 4: Double Tap T for visible rooftops.
Step 5: Mouse Right Click onto nearest rooftop.
Step 6: ....
No two play throughs are ever the same, but if i do these 5 steps at the very beginning before combat pause begins, ...there will be a better outcome for more friendly militia (expendables) to survive.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by uncle nick:

The first 5 things i always do during a militia defense.
Step 1: Select deploy spawn area closest to enemy spawn area.
Step 2: Press ~ to select all mercs.
Step 3: Press H for hidden.
Step 4: Double Tap T for visible rooftops.
Step 5: Mouse Right Click onto nearest rooftop.
Step 6: ....
No two play throughs are ever the same, but if i do these 5 steps at the very beginning before combat pause begins, ...there will be a better outcome for more friendly militia (expendables) to survive.

Mmm is really stealth the best?

You still have a deploy area, I would suggest position one per one each merc, select all and crouch.

It gives better control on when combat starts TB and with good postions and cover you have a better start.

But it's a suggestion, I tend have done what you listed in the few generic defenses I tried and in special defenses combats.

[LuckyDude]

Originally posted by Dorok:

Mmm is really stealth the best?

It gives you 100% invisibility at long, medium and even short range with high agility (see picture below) until you too close to the enemy or you make a shoot that doesn’t kill but damages him. If you kill you will be still in stealth mode even with loud weapon. The enemy will run at your position after that, but they will not shoot until steath mode is active.
The best strategy if you can't oneshoot is to damage enemy with spoted mercs using covers and finish him with mercs in stealth mode that don't need cover

With high agility (in the picture entire squad have around 90 agility) you can even sneak at short range and the enemy doesn’t see you
https://imgur.com/a/K75Uc0O

[Marbur]

In my opinion attack is the best defense.

If I am in a city with militia, I like to make a step forward to the invaders and attack them outside the city. This has also the benfit of no collateral victims.

[Echo.Ren]

Originally posted by Dorok:

So for port Cacao, it seems depends on difficulty level , but then it's always the same enemies entrance points.

cacao is hell :D so for the n-night i accidentally timed refugee camp events and got 50 or so enemies in one go in vanilla. and they were not chumps with mp40s, but full on military forces of colonel, n-night + 3 squads. you can imagine what shtshow that was simply by adding my 6 mercs + coffeebeans + 8 militia + random junkyard knights...
on the topic of how to - idk, if it's majors forces i usually leave it to 2 mercs on guard duty (2 in panta, 2 in cacao. cacao guys see less action so they often can go def fleatown) just sniping enemies and letting militia tank for me.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by LuckyDude:

Originally posted by Dorok:

Mmm is really stealth the best?

It gives you 100% invisibility at long, medium and even short range with high agility (see picture below) until you too close to the enemy or you make a shoot that doesn’t kill but damages him. If you kill you will be still in stealth mode even with loud weapon. The enemy will run at your position after that, but they will not shoot until steath mode is active.
The best strategy if you can't oneshoot is to damage enemy with spoted mercs using covers and finish him with mercs in stealth mode that don't need cover

With high agility (in the picture entire squad have around 90 agility) you can even sneak at short range and the enemy doesn’t see you
https://imgur.com/a/K75Uc0O

No, I mean for starting a defense generic combat, you can enter stealth after and stop enemies move sooner.

Otherwise for sure stealth is a powerful tool.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Echo.Ren:

Originally posted by Dorok:

So for port Cacao, it seems depends on difficulty level , but then it's always the same enemies entrance points.

cacao is hell :D so for the n-night i accidentally timed refugee camp events and got 50 or so enemies in one go in vanilla. and they were not chumps with mp40s, but full on military forces of colonel, n-night + 3 squads. you can imagine what shtshow that was simply by adding my 6 mercs + coffeebeans + 8 militia + random junkyard knights...
on the topic of how to - idk, if it's majors forces i usually leave it to 2 mercs on guard duty (2 in panta, 2 in cacao. cacao guys see less action so they often can go def fleatown) just sniping enemies and letting militia tank for me.

For normal defenses, not the camp event, not N mission, playing MI, I have yet to see Legion even 10 win over militia 5 with some elites. So auto combats is powerful then, and can sustain many attack before you need train again. For the camp event as it's 3 groups for the first location, it's simpler just let it fall and defense the next sector that will be against less than 2 groups.