How to turn enemy councilors?

[Kalshion]

How do you turn an enemy councilor onto your side? I read a guide on it but it wasn't entirely clear (just kept stating to investigate and eventually you'll get the option to turn) but is that the correct way or am I missing something?

[db48x]

Use the mission called “Turn Councilor”. Not every agent has it, of course. There are also orgs that grant it, if you want to upgrade your existing agents.

[fortydayweekend]

You need to investigate them enough to be able to see their actual loyalty score (not estimated loyalty in red).

Then you need an agent with Turn Councilor. You should be able to see if any of your agents has it in the missions bar or council screen (it will just be grayed out on the mission bar if they can't use it).

High persuasion helps and you're penalized by their loyalty and difference in ideology, so use a high persuasion agent and/or target one with low loyalty

[Stac Polly Reiver]

Investigate three times.
Then send agent with 'turn councillor' (and high persuasion) on mission.
Success chance varies - i.e. +6 difffculty on their home turf/-6 if you 'detain' them.
Success can change if their agent starts in a friendly/non-friendly location and moves before the attempt happens.

[Kalshion]

Yea for some reason in my previous game, I was getting *no* agents spawning with the "turn councilor" ability, even after getting to 2034. Restarted and they began to appear a few years after I started. Not sure what happened.

[danhammond58]

I am not sure what good it does anyway to turn a counselor? It is a lot of effort to put in and what return do you get?

[Blockhead]

Originally posted by danhammond58:

I am not sure what good it does anyway to turn a counselor? It is a lot of effort to put in and what return do you get?

Turning a councillor reveals all their faction's councillors on the map, and their missions/orgs - allowing you to see who might be causing your trouble and eliminating them easily, or finding a councillor with a juicy org to steal.

You can force the turned councillors to auto-fail their missions at a certain threshold (again useful if they're a troublemaking councillor); although setting this quite high can cause your scheme to get discovered and your turned councillor dismissed/brought back into the fold of their parent faction very quickly.

[danhammond58]

Originally posted by Blockhead:

Originally posted by danhammond58:

I am not sure what good it does anyway to turn a counselor? It is a lot of effort to put in and what return do you get?

Turning a councillor reveals all their faction's councillors on the map, and their missions/orgs - allowing you to see who might be causing your trouble and eliminating them easily, or finding a councillor with a juicy org to steal.

You can force the turned councillors to auto-fail their missions at a certain threshold (again useful if they're a troublemaking councillor); although setting this quite high can cause your scheme to get discovered and your turned councillor dismissed/brought back into the fold of their parent faction very quickly.

Yea like I said a lot of effort for little return. Cheaper easier ways to solve most problems and faster results. The only big payoff is a very nice org to steal. That is very iffy just to find that needle in the hay stack. Then to steal it...a lot of turns spent with your agents doing that when they could have been doing better things. So now back around again to little return on a maybe big item.

[Blockhead]

Originally posted by danhammond58:

Originally posted by Blockhead:

Turning a councillor reveals all their faction's councillors on the map, and their missions/orgs - allowing you to see who might be causing your trouble and eliminating them easily, or finding a councillor with a juicy org to steal.

You can force the turned councillors to auto-fail their missions at a certain threshold (again useful if they're a troublemaking councillor); although setting this quite high can cause your scheme to get discovered and your turned councillor dismissed/brought back into the fold of their parent faction very quickly.

Yea like I said a lot of effort for little return. Cheaper easier ways to solve most problems and faster results. The only big payoff is a very nice org to steal. That is very iffy just to find that needle in the hay stack. Then to steal it...a lot of turns spent with your agents doing that when they could have been doing better things. So now back around again to little return on a maybe big item.

I wouldn't say it's a lot of effort - a couple of investigate targets and then a turn councillor mission. If you set their failure threshold low they can stay turned to you for years - providing intel on all the other councillors without you needing to investigate them anymore.

I've had a Protectorate turncoat under my umbrella for years. His failure threshold is 20% (he's an Investigator, so I don't really care too much about his missions). But by having him on my side I can see everywhere the Protectorate is, what they're doing, I can see what stats their councillors have, freely steal tech at my leisure, and assassinate their spies; all without having to run any further investigate missions.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by Blockhead:

But by having him on my side I can see everywhere the Protectorate is, what they're doing, I can see what stats their councillors have, freely steal tech at my leisure, and assassinate their spies; all without having to run any further investigate missions.

Best of all, I see ALL their orgs, and can shop for the best ones to steal. I don't really care if the turncoat fails their missions or not, because every other councilor of their will be weaker and I will be stronger, once their best orgs are mine.

[Kalshion]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

Originally posted by Blockhead:

But by having him on my side I can see everywhere the Protectorate is, what they're doing, I can see what stats their councillors have, freely steal tech at my leisure, and assassinate their spies; all without having to run any further investigate missions.

Best of all, I see ALL their orgs, and can shop for the best ones to steal. I don't really care if the turncoat fails their missions or not, because every other councilor of their will be weaker and I will be stronger, once their best orgs are mine.

Curious but what are the best organizations to have? I've been aiming for Tier 3 ones, or those that contribute a lot to research or mission control.

[Blockhead]

Originally posted by Kalshion:

Curious but what are the best organizations to have? I've been aiming for Tier 3 ones, or those that contribute a lot to research or mission control.

All depends on the councillor you're assigning them to. You might want to really boost their primary missions stats to 25 using orgs, or you might want to try and round them out using orgs. You could be really hurting for Boost or Mission Control, and an org is a handy way to get that quick bonus. Tier 3 orgs aren't always the best - sometimes you can get a better benefit from three tier 1 orgs, or a tier 2 org and a tier 1 org. Even some of the exclusive orgs that are tied to Government/Criminal aren't that great sometimes.

[Doctor Zalgo]

Originally posted by Blockhead:

Originally posted by danhammond58:

I am not sure what good it does anyway to turn a counselor? It is a lot of effort to put in and what return do you get?

Turning a councillor reveals all their faction's councillors on the map, and their missions/orgs - allowing you to see who might be causing your trouble and eliminating them easily, or finding a councillor with a juicy org to steal.

You can force the turned councillors to auto-fail their missions at a certain threshold (again useful if they're a troublemaking councillor); although setting this quite high can cause your scheme to get discovered and your turned councillor dismissed/brought back into the fold of their parent faction very quickly.

You also get more info on their faction through the intel screen including what they're currently researching (which is extra useful if you've got a Servants agent on the payroll and need to keep sabotaging their tech).

[Mistfox]

Org shopping and sudden assassination spam imo are the best ways to use a turned agent. Every one of their councilors starts exposed, making it exceedingly simple to just kill them all in 2-3 turns.

[DarkestOnion]

I dislike the mechanic where he chooses missions for himself. All we get is a slider to tell him how often to fail in order to possibly mitigate his RNG? I prefer counselors who go where they are told and do what they are told. So now I turn them, bleed their people for Orgs, and discard him back to my pool forever. Or you know - I don't bother and stick to counselors whose behavior I can predict before the Mission RNG - so all I have to worry about is them missing one roll as opposed to two

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by DarkestOnion:

I dislike the mechanic where he chooses missions for himself. All we get is a slider to tell him how often to fail in order to possibly mitigate his RNG? I prefer counselors who go where they are told and do what they are told. So now I turn them, bleed their people for Orgs, and discard him back to my pool forever. Or you know - I don't bother and stick to counselors whose behavior I can predict before the Mission RNG - so all I have to worry about is them missing one roll as opposed to two

You do know that he is still taking orders from the enemy org and not you right? He's not choosing missions for himself, he is going where his faction tells him to. He is just passing information to you. If he won a control point, it's not going to you, it's going to his original faction.

Something tells me someone misses the point of a "mole" or "spy".