Insurgent Camp Mechanics

[Cerin616]

So it feels almost like destroying insurgent camps is a bad thing.
I have found that as you destroy insurgent camps, more pop into the map almost immediately.
This kinda sorta means that destroying a camp makes you more likely to be overrun.

IMO this mechanic feels extremely unintuitive and unrealistic. destroying a camp should ALWAYS be agood thing and should always give you some breathing room. Instead i find it adding more insurgents around the map and making insurgent control even more difficult

[GoblinCookie]

You found? Are you sure it works that way, I am pretty sure that camps spawn randomly irrespective of how many you destroy or not.

[Cerin616]

It's possible, but it seems pretty consistent that any time I destroy a camp there is a new camp almost immediately. Now I don't think getting a new camp is contingent on destroying an old one but I think there might be like a 1 camp minimum at any time

[BeardedS0ul]

It does give you a little breathing room, on Mega Brutal it's almost necessary to give you the early game advantage.

An active camp hasten the insurgents recruiting and advancement into nearby zones.

While it is an annoying mechanics, it is fairly consistent with reality.

The whole map is a war zone, a insurgent-cell can be anywhere and destroying one camp will lead to survivors moving their operation elsewhere or inspiring other cells to take up arms.

This ofc make it seem like the insurgents are using teleportation around the map.

You are correct that destroying one camp, makes them create a new one, due to the reasons stated above. the mechanic becomes a larger problem the later the game goes.

while the game is focused around stabilisation of zones, it is in fact more about containing the Insurgents, till you stabilise.

As for strategy, based on Mega Brutal, its effectiveness is increased on lower difficulties:

1: the first two early game camps should be destroyed to gain an early advantage and dampen the insurgents.
2: Then contain the insurgents with troops, remote and mountain ranges effects your reputation the leased, contain them in at least 4 zones, less then that will make new camps pop up elsewhere much more often.
3: Late game, start drone/airstrike camps in contain zones to stop rep loss.
Most often the insurgents will just remake a camp in their controlled space, they only move out if you retake the zone.
4. New camps will come in non-contained zones, look for '?' and instantly move a troop unit over to deal with it, before it gets rooted.

[not harvey]

You are mostly right, but you're overlooking some stuff.

If you dont destroy camps, they can spawn insurgents into any adjacent zone (and after a while 2 zones away), these are essentially free attacks that can happen without cooldown, and the 2-range spawns can be very tricky to combine with the main insurgent cluster again.

Second, if you leave them, eventually more camps will spawn anyway, whereas if you destroy the camp fast you at-least get some reduction to insurgent capability.

[GoblinCookie]

I though the camps were placed randomly and activated when the rebel AI feels under pressure.

[Enrique von Friedruch]

No no no. My friend. In fact, this mechanism is very close to reality and reasonable. It's just that you ignored some details. For example, when there are still areas on the map that have not achieved peace, send all the troops to attack the rebels.

[Cerin616]

Well, no, if it works the way im suggesting its not really close to reality. Mostly it feels like if i clear the map of camps, one is force spawned somewhere else immediately. In reality it would take at least a little time to reorganize a new camp.

though It looks like it doesnt quite work they way it sometimes feels.

[GoblinCookie]

Originally posted by Cerin:

Well, no, if it works the way im suggesting its not really close to reality. Mostly it feels like if i clear the map of camps, one is force spawned somewhere else immediately. In reality it would take at least a little time to reorganize a new camp.

though It looks like it doesnt quite work they way it sometimes feels.

The basic system is when the rebels are cornered, they activate other camps they have elsewhere to become un-cornered, it keeps you from simply marching them into a corner of the map and forgetting about them.

[leftbehind]

I did quite a bit of play testing regarding insurgent camps while creating a scenario, specifically because I wanted to use the 'Government Takeover' mechanic (which creates a Garrison whenever you destroy an Insurgent camp).

The map itself defines initial insurgent camps: Either pre-placed (Zone Editor), or X camps randomly placed (Region Editor), or both.

After that, they spawn "randomly" but with certain priorities: Camps seem to spawn more frequently in Remote (mountain) zones than Rural zones, and rarely if ever in Urban zones. I'm still not sure if they spawn more often in neutral vs. insurgent-controlled zones - I think there might be a toggle based on the "insurgents control number of connected zones" mechanic, so if they have connected zones it might prioritise spawning camps inside insurgent territory, but if they don't have connected zones it might prioritise spawning in neutral territory? Zone security seems to make it harder for camps to spawn, particularly in stable zones.

The rate at which camps spawn is dependent on how many camps they already have; more camps = takes longer for new one to spawn. Also, when a new camp spawns, it has a 'gestation period' before it will start spawning insurgents - thus, if you can destroy a camp quick enough you can significantly reduce number of insurgents appearing on the map, although new ones will spawn so it ends up like that fairground game of "whack a mole".