Help in prepping for war

[Fiery Dog Poop]

So I have two alts and both of them I'm pretty sure are going to start a war soon; one against Zane and the other against those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sneaky smugglers respectively. Both of my alts have roughly 50k in cash after selling the tanker to Smith .

So my question is, how do I best prepare for a war so I can 'safely' beat the other side? What skills should I try to work on? What sort of teams are needed during the whole thing? I'd rather set them up ahead of time before declaring war. Is going to war even worth it in the end? Though I'm hands down going to war with the smugglers on principle alone. ♥♥♥♥ those backstabbing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Thanks a lot to any who can help out!

[orcaa]

I have only fought one war and it was with Zane and it was early in my character's life.
You will need combat skills, informer teams, murder team, etc. The higher in skills the better for your teams.
I will not give out spoilers but common sense will lead you. Good Luck !

[Canenald]

I don't remember if war the wars you have are the same. I've mostly fought pimp wars. If they are, once they start there will be a lot of opportunity to prepare, even more so than to strike against the enemy.

Once it starts, you should be able to hire a lot of Help and then definitely do what orcaa said, get one of each type of team at least.

Also good luck getting rid of your excessive Hired help when it's over :)

[Fiery Dog Poop]

I've just finished my war with the smugglers and I thought I should let anyone else who stumbles into this thread know of my experience in my first and only war so far. Wanted to share because I couldn't really find a handy guide to war in the steam discussion.

So, I started out with roughly 50k in cash, about 5 hired help, really low in the necessary skills, and about 130 credits or something. That's about it.

Post war, I now have (all slums) a surveillance crew, a crash team, and a street warrior team, about 30k in cash, 6 hired helps, 9 extra handguns, a whole lot of 'guilt' mood, a couple of bullet wounds, the "Survivor" achievement on steam, and about 72 credits left.

Was it worth it in the end? Objectively speaking, not really. The rewards for going to war against the smugglers weren't worth it I feel. But then again, the best reward was the knowledge that I ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over the people who thought they could ♥♥♥♥ with me and get away with it . so maybe that alone made it worth it.

What follows are some non-exhaustive tips for anyone else who are prepping for war that I've learnt the hard way;

1. Raise the quality of your teams as much as you can. Both crash and SW teams can be trained, which in turn trains your first aid & medicine, and close range & tactical awareness skills respectively. I think surveillance teams can only be upgraded via giving supplies and/or cash, but not trained;

2. Call your slums crew whenever you can to do one of two things, increase your leadership skill, or to increase your 'deeper into the slums' which in turn helps increase your slums familiarity (though I'm at 16 now and the option to increase the deeper into the slums is no longer appearing for me for some reason, not sure why);

3. Increasing your leadership basically helps with the quality of your team when first assembling them (though it also depends on other skills). Even if you do badly and the team starts with the worst quality, it's not a big deal as you can still train them and/or give them cash to increase their quality;

4. Familiarity with the slums helps in some cards, but I can't really remember which ones. Regardless, having higher familiarity still helps in all cases;

5. Farm 'Detailed Plans' if you can. The easiest way I can think of is (assuming you have it) to go to the Slow Club in Palisade, farm some Patterns and Inspired Thinking (and sometimes Rare Insight if you're lucky) by reading the news (I think the one that costs 3 action points), equip Inspired Thinking to get flexible closure, then change the Patterns into Slums Rumour, into Hard Fact, into Detailed Plans. Keep in mind that changing HF into DP requires 16 slums familiarity. You need DPs for one or two of the more important war cards, but I can't recall what exactly, but it's better if you have them in hand;

6. You can also use DP to straight up lower your opponents war strength IIRC;

7. This sounds ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ obvious, but DO NOT lead an attack if you've been shot when leading the previous attack and still have the bullet wound. I'm dumber than a bag of rocks and almost died, hence getting the 'Survivor' achievement. Only a really high quality crash team managed to bring me back;

8. I took Hypostims to raise my hand, which in turn gave me more chances to take control of the fight (vying for control), choose a leader (my crew or me personally), and then go on the attack (sneak attacks for me, which required the surveillance & street warrior team) . Not necessary, just really helpful;

9. Have some Supply and Demand handy. There's a card that says I can 'hit them where it hurts' (a.k.a. their money supply), and it costs some S&D. Not sure how much of an impact it had overall, but every little helps I suppose;

10. Take your time. There's no need to rush through a war like I did. Spent a free binge, a paid binge, and a binge breather trying to finish off the war ASAP. On the first day I really struggled through to kill off the other side, they went away for a bit, and then the next day they just came back with the same amount of strength. So, spread out your war if you could. Or don't, it's really up to you on how fast and hard you want to wage your war.

I think that's about it, that's all the tips I can think of right at the top of my head. Maybe someone will read this, maybe I'm just shouting into the void. Either way, if you have any tips I missed then please add them. For one, I don't know the mechanics of the other teams (i.e. assassination, fire, murder, and fast response) as I didn't have the money nor the supplies to make them. So, don't mind me, but I'm going back to slinging crack and spikes in the streets.

And finally, ♥♥♥♥ the smugglers, and ♥♥♥♥ your dodgy corpo spike .