How do AI factions get control points so easily?

[jswilliams]

I'm experimenting early games as I learn. I always have ridiculously low % to Take Control of a cp in pick a country-Canada, France, Italy, Japan, India, Russia, etc.

The AI has apparently no trouble right at the start. What am I missing?

[Akameka]

Postat inițial de Lovecraft:

I've taken countries with only a 34% chance to win. It just takes longer.

I would never take a 35% chance to hit in an x-com. In this game I do it a lot. The consequences of a failure aren't as painfull as getting OS by a plasma riffle because you failed to hit at point blank.

[Bahrman74]

Postat inițial de jswilliams:

It's the start of the game. A decent diplomat or politician with 7 or 8 Persuasion and 4% shot at pick a country. Meanwhile the AI factions just go right in. It's way too early for public campaigns to make that much difference. I. Talking early October and they're taking over. Maybe the ai just goes for poor odds and gets "lucky" while I fail 3 times in a row at 81% trying for a cp in Pakistan...

Did you notice the slider that lets you dump some of a resource into things. Varies by task but for many it's influence. I know I missed it my first couple runs.

My first turn is usually buying a third counselor, influencing a bigger target say France or the USA, and trying to grab a CP in a smaller nation next to my big target. If my third is has decent persuasion and capture action I may influence and try to capture the big guy, or grab another small one.

[[b.cf]Trebax]

Postat inițial de Akameka:

Postat inițial de Lovecraft:

I've taken countries with only a 34% chance to win. It just takes longer.

I would never take a 35% chance to hit in an x-com. In this game I do it a lot. The consequences of a failure aren't as painfull as getting OS by a plasma riffle because you failed to hit at point blank.

yea unless you get a critical failure and your agent dies.

[Lovecraft]

Postat inițial de b.cfTrebax:

yea unless you get a critical failure and your agent dies.

That only happens if you try to capture or kill an agent with the "Hard Target" trait, and fail to protect your agent. In other words, it's easily preventable, once you know about it.

But it's definitely frustrating the first time happens.

[VoiD]

Postat inițial de b.cfTrebax:

Postat inițial de ulzgoroth:

You do know you can spend resources to do things, right?

In what I'm going to call the midgame (even though by some standards it's the latter early game) I can throw 64 of whatever at whatever needs it. That's a big difference.

I'm not sure exactly what the difficulty calculator is, but it's very non-linear. A 1% base chance is low, but if you throw in +7 for spending resources it only needs a relatively few more plusses to get into viable territory. I've cracked defended nodes by running up popular support...or by throwing an agent with ~20 Investigation at them.

And of course remember that you can repeat attempts. You don't need to succeed every time to succeed. The costs of failure on these tasks are small.

Then play the Servants.

Or, you know, figure out that this is an asymmetric game.

I figured out the game, I know how it works. the problem is, I have a 34% chance to win when I do everything right. When I do everything right in most video games I have a 100% chance to win. In Xcom you only get odds that low if you're using a shotgun like a sniper rife. I would only expect odds this low if I was taking entirely random actions and had no idea how to play the game. Not from min-maxing to the best of my ability.

It would be great if the game had 7 playable factions like they said instead of the 1 playable faction and the 6 unplayable ones that don't have cheat codes. Seems like the game just doesn't work the way they think it does, or the intended solution is to roll dice on a 12% chance of victory and just get lucky or save scum to victory.

People have told you already, public campaign and decent agents, that's it, that's all you need.

Aliens mind controlled 1 of my chinese points while china is sitting at 46.9Bn GDP, so it's the hardest country in the planet to crack down.

Used 100% unity for public support spamming, sent a decent 25 investigation guy to crack down the point, 2 "turns" later china was 100% mine again. There is nothing hard about it, if anything it needs to be harder to stop the AI.

Even now with the initiative playing a warmonger by declaring 4+ simultaneous wars with the US army every few months I could simply send all agents there and take them off the executive within 3 months if I wanted to. And I don't even have any presence in the US or it's nearby countries.

[VoiD]

Oh, and if the AI is doing a spectacularly bad job at keeping unrest low and cohesion high it's nearly impossible to fail a coup attempt with a decent 25 command agent too. That's an instant takeover.

[ulzgoroth]

Postat inițial de b.cfTrebax:

I figured out the game, I know how it works. the problem is, I have a 34% chance to win when I do everything right. When I do everything right in most video games I have a 100% chance to win. In Xcom you only get odds that low if you're using a shotgun like a sniper rife. I would only expect odds this low if I was taking entirely random actions and had no idea how to play the game. Not from min-maxing to the best of my ability.

Okay, so (A) you probably haven't done everything right and (B) you have poisoned expectations about what odds you should have.

Failing dice rolls is an option. 34% chance to succeed means you'll likely succeed within 2 tries and your expected number to succeed is 3. That's okay. You'd rather have better, but sometimes you'll have to accept worse! This isn't XCOM where you frequently are in positions where failing a single roll will ruin your game. A failed roll is just one councilor turn wasted.

Don't get me wrong, you should roll with 90%+ a lot of the time, but you shouldn't be afraid to roll with less when called for.

Postat inițial de b.cfTrebax:

It would be great if the game had 7 playable factions like they said instead of the 1 playable faction and the 6 unplayable ones that don't have cheat codes. Seems like the game just doesn't work the way they think it does, or the intended solution is to roll dice on a 12% chance of victory and just get lucky or save scum to victory.

I assure you, Servants aren't the only playable faction...and I'm pretty sure they don't work the way you're demanding either.

[corisai]

Postat inițial de ulzgoroth:

Failing dice rolls is an option. 34% chance to succeed means you'll likely succeed within 2 tries and your expected number to succeed is 3.

No, statistics isn't following common sense at all :)

Chance to succeed in two tries is only 56%.
3 tries mean you still have 30% chance to fail.
Almost surely you will succeed in 8 tries (<4% failure chance).

[ulzgoroth]

Postat inițial de corisai:

Postat inițial de ulzgoroth:

Failing dice rolls is an option. 34% chance to succeed means you'll likely succeed within 2 tries and your expected number to succeed is 3.

No, statistics isn't following common sense at all :)

Chance to succeed in two tries is only 56%.
3 tries mean you still have 30% chance to fail.
Almost surely you will succeed in 8 tries (<4% failure chance).

Expected value is a statistics term of art. Look it up :). It's actually very useful.

Yes, chance to succeed in 2 tries is 5/9. Which is more likely than not. I didn't say you were 90% likely to get it in two tries.

[BasicallyClueless]

Is this a good trade?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/800484610378301494/1028000882769534996/unknown.png?width=1026&height=630

Information about the base is above the trade screen, I already have a base producing 6.0~ Water and 20~ Metals, but no Volatiles or Fissiles. Without giving up any orgs this is the only way these people will say yes to the trade, though I'm pretty sure they don't have a mining facility in their base yet but I figured I could make one with the resources from my other one?

[ulzgoroth]

Postat inițial de Carrion:

Is this a good trade?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/800484610378301494/1028000882769534996/unknown.png?width=1026&height=630

Information about the base is above the trade screen, I already have a base producing 6.0~ Water and 20~ Metals, but no Volatiles or Fissiles

Weird thread for the question.

That's a deep cut to your resources, and a base with generally poor production, but getting good fissile production is quite helpful.

That's not nearly enough volatiles, and you're going to badly need more water as well. How much do you need the resources you're giving up?

[corisai]

Postat inițial de Carrion:

Is this a good trade?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/800484610378301494/1028000882769534996/unknown.png?width=1026&height=630

I would prefer a marines way in that case. But if you don't have any other source of Volatiles - that's a good step for Mars.
BTW. But yean, price is too high. I again vote for marines xD

[Bahrman74]

Postat inițial de Carrion:

Is this a good trade?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/800484610378301494/1028000882769534996/unknown.png?width=1026&height=630

Information about the base is above the trade screen, I already have a base producing 6.0~ Water and 20~ Metals, but no Volatiles or Fissiles. Without giving up any orgs this is the only way these people will say yes to the trade, though I'm pretty sure they don't have a mining facility in their base yet but I figured I could make one with the resources from my other one?

Um... Maybe make a separate thread for that question as it has nothing what so ever to do with anything in this one?

Not that this thread didn't already get threadjacked but still, that was at least mildly tangential.

[BasicallyClueless]

Postat inițial de ulzgoroth:

Postat inițial de Carrion:

Is this a good trade?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/800484610378301494/1028000882769534996/unknown.png?width=1026&height=630

Information about the base is above the trade screen, I already have a base producing 6.0~ Water and 20~ Metals, but no Volatiles or Fissiles

Weird thread for the question.

That's a deep cut to your resources, and a base with generally poor production, but getting good fissile production is quite helpful.

That's not nearly enough volatiles, and you're going to badly need more water as well. How much do you need the resources you're giving up?

Oh sorry I thought this was the newbie questions thread, I forgot I'm subscribed to more than one. I produce an insane amount of influence/money/ops so I'm not really worried about those, I have full control of the United States and Kazakhstan with a lot of investment / industry built up. I only managed to secure one base before the moon was mostly covered in bases on the good spots, so I was wondering if this base is a good trade?

[BasicallyClueless]

Postat inițial de Bahrman74:

Postat inițial de Carrion:

Is this a good trade?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/800484610378301494/1028000882769534996/unknown.png?width=1026&height=630

Information about the base is above the trade screen, I already have a base producing 6.0~ Water and 20~ Metals, but no Volatiles or Fissiles. Without giving up any orgs this is the only way these people will say yes to the trade, though I'm pretty sure they don't have a mining facility in their base yet but I figured I could make one with the resources from my other one?

Um... Maybe make a separate thread for that question as it has nothing what so ever to do with anything in this one?

Not that this thread didn't already get threadjacked but still, that was at least mildly tangential.

Yeah my bad I thought this was the questions thread lmao I'll post it over there