The Best Councilors by Type

[nephilimnexus]

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion.

The Good

#1: Spy - The Spy does pretty much everything. They can crackdown, purge, build & remove unrest, start revolutions, investigate, detain and assassinate without any extra orgs required. The only thing you'll want an org for is to Assault Alien Asset and Control (i.e. burn away xenoflora). AAA can be found in half the orgs out there for cheap and Control is only really valuable for the first year of the game; once all the land has been grabbed, it's all Crackdown & Purge from there on out and Control is only ever pulled out when a Revolt happens.

#2: Inspector - Almost as good as the Spy, but they can't Assassinate without an attached org (non-criminal assassination orgs do exist but are somewhat rare), but they do get Control to make up for it, which is good for the first year at least (see above).

#3: Executive - While their ability list is short, it has all three most essential ones - Control, Crackdown and Purge. Will need org padding to go beyond that, but honestly after the first year these are the abilities you will never not have a need of. They will always be employed doing something, somewhere - count on it.

#4: Operative & Commando - Almost identical to the Spy, and in some ways even better as they can do Assault without orgs. The only thing they really lack is, like the Spy, the Control ability. But again, with just one org you can completely fill out their roster so that they can do anything you need.

#5: Politician - The Inspector's slightly weaker sibling, again they have your three essential powers and the rest is just a matter of leveling up administration and org-padding as needed.

The Acceptable

#1: Fixer & Kingpin - As natural Criminals, they can innately scoop up all those crime syndicate orgs. The bad news is that those orgs will be worthless to you beyond their high incomes because you already have every ability that those orgs offer. Purge is nice but without Crackdown will find itself under used, so you'll definitely want to find an org that offers Crackdown, of which there is... umm... one, maybe? Good luck with that. But hey, at leas they're good at mowing down enemy councilors.

#2: Journalist - Like an Inspector, only much, much weaker.

#3: Activist & Rebel - Sure, in theory you could use unrest and coups to overthrow the world, but it all just takes too dang long.

#4: Astronaut - Yay, the one person who can assault enemy space habitats, provided you have them on a ship with marines... and if you have a ship with marines, you don't need a councilor to assault it in the first place. But at least they're good at PR stuff.

#5: Hacker - Because the RNG hates you and didn't offer you any Spies or Operatives, I guess?

The Rubbish

#1 - Diplomat - Only marginally better than a Tycoon due to ability to do PR stuff.

#2 - Evangelist - You thought that Activist was lacking? Wait until we nerf it even further!

#3 - Scientist - Wow, look at that huge bonus in one field of science than can be easily replicated & surpassed by just a few station modules! Look at the absolute lack of any worthwhile skills beyond that!

#4 - Tycoon - This is the bottom of the barrel. They have Control and... that's pretty much it. After the end of year one they'll be sitting on the bench with nothing to do for the rest of the game unless you max their administration and bury them in ability-themed orgs. You'd be better off just leaving the roster space empty and waiting for a better option to show up.

You'll notice that is based entirely off the abilities they offer and the importance of those abilities (or lack thereof):

#1: Crackdown and Purge are your most essential powers. In fact you'd be better off taking someone with C&P over someone who has Control but not C&P and just waiting until year two when it starts paying off.

#2: Revolt can become a superpowered version of C&P if you max your skill with it, as it can dislodge an entire country in one pass.

#3: Stabilize is needed when moving into poor countries and Destabilize is needed to break enemy fortress countries (such as China). Both are time consuming but still important.

#4: Inspect & Detain is something you'll want everyone to have eventually, and can be easily tacked onto any councilor through any of the many randomly generated security orgs that the game generates as you go. Always be sure to prelude any assassination attempt with these two abilities in order to soften up your target.

#5: Assassination keeps the enemy having to recruit inexperienced replacements whilst your own team just keeps getting stronger.

#6: Hostile Takeover is useful for a little while... at least until your org inventory gets filled. If you really want to hurt your opponent, though, just murder their councilors instead. It's faster.

#7: Assault Alien Asset really just means burning away alien kudzu, which is only needed to prevent megafauna from spawning and doing billions of dollars of damage to your all important GDP before fizzling out. Why yes, I do play the Exploit Council, why do you ask?

#8: Public campaign can be used to soften up countries for Control or Crackdown but that's basically it.

#9: Control is absolutely the most important power in the game for the first year and/or until all the land has been claimed. After that it completely pointless unless a revolution happens somewhere and you have to patch that nation back together.

#10: Everything else is so situation specific that you can play through the entire game without ever using any of them once, thus they are all pretty useless unless you're go out of your way to find an excuse to use them.

[corisai]

You forget in disclaimer that that's opinion is biased about early game (so 1-4 agents) :)

Originally posted by nephilimnexus:

#3 - Scientist - Wow, look at that huge bonus in one field of science than can be easily replicated & surpassed by just a few station modules! Look at the absolute lack of any worthwhile skills beyond that!

Except it's STACKING with stations :)

True, not the best agent as a first trio - but definitely worth it in a long run (especially Energy one).

Most of agents unique abilities (read: missions) could be replicated by orgs but bonus from scientist is unique one so I'm actually hunting for a good scientist as 4+ agent.

Originally posted by nephilimnexus:

#2: Revolt can become a superpowered version of C&P if you max your skill with it, as it can dislodge an entire country in one pass.

Be warned about doing revolts in nuclear-armed countries - they could bite you later :)

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by nephilimnexus:

#1: Spy [...] build & remove unrest

Spy doesn't have Stabilize. Though it's very common in the commando orgs that also contain AAA.
Also, they can Campaign and Turn, though their Persuasion isn't very good so Turning is mostly just for councilors that have been Extorted.

#4: Operative & Commando - Almost identical to the Spy

Operative is fairly close, but Commando has little in common with them. No Crackdown, Purge, or Coup. I think they have one of the worst mission lists (they also don't have Control). They basically have Stabilize, AAA, Assassinate, and Surveil. AAA and Surveil are easily acquired through orgs by anyone, and Government easily gets Stabilize, while Criminal easily gets Assassinate.

#1 - Diplomat - Only marginally better than a Tycoon due to ability to do PR stuff.

Diplomat doesn't start with Campaign, unlike what it seems like your comment is saying. At least they have Stabilize and guaranteed Government.

#8: Public campaign can be used to soften up countries for Control or Crackdown but that's basically it.

And Coup and Purge. However, this is very powerful. It takes minimal investment to get reliable Campaigns done in most places, and it provides massive bonuses towards Crackdown and Purge.

Also, you didn't mention Officer, Judge, Professor, Celebrity, Tech Mogul, or Investigator.

Originally posted by corisai:

but bonus from scientist is unique one so I'm actually hunting for a good scientist as 4+ agent.

Scientists aren't the only ones that can have those scientist traits. Professors often have them, too, and are way better councilors overall. Officers, Astronauts, and Hackers also have some of those reasonably often (Military, Space/Military, Computer, respectively)

[ian.whitchurch]

"Everything else is so situation specific that you can play through the entire game without ever using any of them once, thus they are all pretty useless"

Boy, is that the Dunning-Kreuger Effect in a sentence, or what !

[Asuzu]

Don't agree with some points.

My top best agents:

1 x Activist - will last you entire game, this is your PR, Control, Inspire, and Turn machine. Max out Admin, than Per, than Security (they are in the open a lot, need Sec not to get assassinated). slap all Persuasion orgs on it and enjoy. Max all your team loyalty with Inspire spam, then max herself with Officers. Can be Goverment, can enhance with a security org so they can Investigate things, and give an org to Stabilize too when needed. you can run PR in any country of any difficulty, quickly raising public opinion before your Operative comes in to Crackdown and slaughter the opposition. Lategame helps holding some random mining % orgs.

2-3 x Operative - much better than Spy because does everything, but better. Like, yeah, Spy has PR, but who is ever going to pump it on a Spy? Can be Government. All you want from this is assasinations/crack/purge/help assaults. Max out Admin then Command, slap all Investigate/Espionage ogs on it, max out Crackdown and Purge, then rocks monster Command as well. Can also Stabilize. By endgame they rock max Command same as Officers. Usually with their monster Espionage these guys are invisible to anyone, so don't really need much Security.

2-3 x Officer - sits in your major countries spamming assist, max Admin then Command, slap all Command orgs on it. WIll spam Stabilize. WIll rip apart any alien flora or enemy habs with a fleet. Can be Government. Your best one will lead base assault on Quaoar. They collect Boost, MC and Military % and science orgs for me. Usually they have monster Security from their orgs and impossible to assassinate even in the open,

1 x Executive - you only need one, max Admin asap then Security/Science (they are also in the open a lot, need extra Security), and spam stealing best orgs from AI. Later on helps with assist, controlling things and Stabilize. Can be Government. Can also Investigate with an org since has good starting values. Can run a PR org to help with PR campaigns in not too difficult countries. Usually collects all mining % buff orgs for me.

I usually shy away form Criminals since they are country-locked and not that powerful anyway. Government orgs are ways better.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Like, yeah, Spy has PR, but who is ever going to pump it on a Spy?

You don't need to pump PER to use Campaign effectively, except in China, India, and Totalitarian states. But having it available is very beneficial.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Like, yeah, Spy has PR, but who is ever going to pump it on a Spy?

You don't need to pump PER to use Campaign effectively, except in China, India, and Totalitarian states. But having it available is very beneficial.

You won't get much out of it with their starting 3 Per. IMO its pointless when you have dedicated agent for PR spamming.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

You don't need to pump PER to use Campaign effectively, except in China, India, and Totalitarian states. But having it available is very beneficial.

You won't get much out of it with their starting 3 Per. IMO its pointless when you have dedicated agent for PR spamming.

You'll get plenty out of it when you use it when you have nothing better to do. Which is pretty common with the INV/ESP mission set.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by Asuzu:

You won't get much out of it with their starting 3 Per. IMO its pointless when you have dedicated agent for PR spamming.

You'll get plenty out of it when you use it when you have nothing better to do. Which is pretty common with the INV/ESP mission set.

My assassin guys are usually busy investigating everyone, and assisting/stabilizing countries in downtimes between the slaughter, not PR, which is maxed anyway by Activist and Unity prio.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

You'll get plenty out of it when you use it when you have nothing better to do. Which is pretty common with the INV/ESP mission set.

My assassin guys are usually busy investigating everyone, and assisting/stabilizing countries in downtimes between the slaughter, not PR, which is maxed anyway by Activist and Unity prio.

Assisting is one of those things you do when you have nothing better to do (except, on occasion, using COM to boost military performance)

[fade7777]

you can see all the starting mission types by profession on this chart

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1796397839027077276/0A1A2DDEEE8DAB3897A74EDB2975329D9309129A/

please dont compare commando(11missions) to the operative(19missions) .. the operative is hands down far better than a commando having all the same missions of a commando has +8 more that the commando doesnt. ..... with a spy(16 missions) and kingpin(15 mission) coming in a close 2nd place to operative.

the operative is generally considered to be the strongest with a whooping 19 starting missions(compared to the tycoons 4 .. lol) .... they can do anything fairly easily with a small amount of org's. a cyborged out operative late game eats hydra for breakfast solo.

ranking a councilor by their starting missions however is slightly deceptive as not all missions are equal in worth. with some missions being EXTREMELY hard to acquire thru orgs aka *Inspire* only 2 orgs and *Turn councilor* only 1 org *Laguna Foundation* .. which are pretty nice missions to have

use the org list on the wiki(not sure if up to date) to check for availability of missions thru orgs to get an idea of which missions will be hard to acquire thru orgs and add that in your weighting for preference of councilor profession. this also give you some insight on to which orgs are more valuable than others. such as laguna foundation org(turn councilor) and UNESCO (Inspire)

here is the wiki list for orgs https://hoodedhorse.com/wiki/Terra_Invicta/Orgs

sort by missions acquired and see which missions are hard to get and which are easy.

with that said you only need 2 councilor with inspire so they can raise everyones loyalty to 25. and you probably only need 1 councilor with turn councilor mission.

[Asuzu]

Good analysis above ^

[Autolykos]

I don't think profession matters that much, except for a few key missions that are hard/expensive to get from orgs (mostly Defend Interests, Inspire, Turn Councilor and Assassinate). Traits (Striver & Quick Learner, all the Scientists) and to some extent nationalities (to get good orgs from crappy nations) are much more important.

[Autolykos]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Assisting is one of those things you do when you have nothing better to do (except, on occasion, using COM to boost military performance)

Assisting is GREAT when used on a large nation that needs some fixing (India, China) or a meganation. But those are usually mid-late game concerns when you often don't have anything better to do anyway.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Autolykos:

I don't think profession matters that much, except for a few key missions that are hard/expensive to get from orgs (mostly Defend Interests, Inspire, Turn Councilor and Assassinate)

Criminal vs Government also matters here. Criminals can pretty easily get Assassinate, but Stabilize is very hard to find for them, whereas Government easily gets Stabilize, but Assassinate is rare. Some councilor classes can only get Criminal, and some others can only get Government (and, for some ridiculous reason, National Heroes and Pariahs can't get either)

[corisai]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

(and, for some ridiculous reason, National Heroes and Pariahs can't get either)

Nothing ridiculous - that because of price for having Government / Criminal trait (event "story") as for them it will stop making any sense at all.

And overall - many Government-related orgs are quite shadowy ones so don't have sense for them to work with National Hero (risking his reputation). Same with Criminals - being a Pariah mean you did something really-really bad so nobody in your country will enjoy your company.

UPD. Honestly - Megastar should block Government / Criminal trait too.