Abiquiu Path Choices (Spoilers obviosuly)

[Thandrall]

There's been some confusion about the different choices present in Abiquiu, so thought to write out a guide, since I was crazy enough to try out each choice. I won't provided specific locations as none of this is hidden per say.

There are 3 ways of getting the required supplies needed to move on. The Local/legion Outpost, Balzano's base or the Movement Base.

TL;DR:
Attack legion outpost
Attack Movement outpost
Attack Balzano
Help Balzano and attack Movement
Help Balzano then betray him to help movement

After getting the required supplies, you have a few other straight forward missions before getting a choice of pretty much leaving the area, or staying and fighting Legion. Now here is the long part of it all. Which option gives what.

First choice is usually when you go straight forward from the start and meet the W brothers. While you can ask a few questions, the major choice is actually how you act about the Van. They have already looted some fuel and ammo from the vehicle. You can either get them to give it back via dialogue, or let them keep it. If you let them keep it, when you go see Balzano and ask if you can get some help from him, they will join up then and there, giving you a sharpshooter team nice and early.

Second choice is when you go to the sight of the firefight, you meet Mac in his technical. After some talking, you'll be notified on a wolfpack coming in. You can either fight it with him, or retreat. If you fight with him now, you can recruit him later on when you go to the movement camp after talking to the commander.

While this is less of a choice, make sure you exhaust all dialogue options with Kondo, or at least the one that talks about the locals.

Rescue the locals/destroy legion outpost option:
When you talk to Elder Charles, he mentions that he has people who will fight but has no weapons, and that there is a dealer near by you can get weapons from. Said dealer wants a way out of the place in return for the weapons, and will only take a Van.
There are two vans on the map, the one at the beginning with the brothers, and the Movement Outpost also has a Van, though occupied. Giving one to him will give you a Militia Team and a RPG team. Killing the dealer will blow up the house and the weapons.

You can then move up to the Movement outpost, and talk to the commander (now known as MC) there. The dialogue options you have will depend on what you have actually done on the map. I will act each one out on what i have described at this point. Talking to the commander will allow you to request help against the legion outpost, or to say to wait while you think about it.
Along the way to the legion outpost, at a destroyed church (be careful, if you just click over to the outpost, you can miss him, his group starts as just civilians), you can come across a pastor, who was an ex-navy seal, and can either agree with mason or not in recruiting him. He will become a heavy weapons team with a plasma recoilless rifle.

If you request help, he will say he will await your call, and will attack the outpost after you have started shooting at the enemy. Do be careful, the spiders there will utterly ruin the movement troops. Obviously, if you tell him to wait out, you can then go and attack the base on your own.

After taking down the legion outpost, you will get a cutscene and the needed supplies. You will also be prompted to talk to Harry the Mechanic by his sister. If you do so, and talked to Kondo about the locals, where he tells you Harry has a secret elevator, you will be able to get a fully loaded (but rusted, so weaker stats than normal) Styker.

At this point, Kondo will tell everything legion is coming. If you took the base down by yourself, all of the movement forces will retreat (leaving behind a light platform, a nearly empty supply trailer and a full fuel trailer). If you instead requested help from Movement to take down the base, you will get a choice. You can gain roughly half of the movement troops to yourself, but you are forced into fighting legion, or you can reject them and still be able to retreat.

Balzano's base:
Once again there are multiple ways to go about this. When you talk to Balzano, you can tell him you want the resources in the field, and when he says no you can just say you'll take them, starting a fight. If you move into the field and occupy one of the two vehicles there (M112 or the Humvee) he will be agroed as well. Since he does have a Bradley, your pretty much set into the fight.

The main point here is you can ask if there is anything you can do for him, and he will want your help against the movement base (this is also where you can ask for help and get the sharpshooter team). You can then go over to the MC, and you will have 2 new options when you talk to him. Option A is to tell the commander what Balzano plans, or option B is to lure him away as Balzano requests.

Option A: You convince him to go along with your plan, in which you move your forces to the west side of Balzano's base, before radioing in to the MC, where he will look like he is leaving, causing Balzano to attack. The movement forces usually can win against the troops Balzano sends (they have 2 RPG squads, they usually win against the Bradley, since it's rusted) while at the same time you are set to attack Balzano himself. Once he is dead (the mercenary unit acting as him), his troops will all flee (leaving vehicles behind). You then get the mission to go though and garrison the 3 or 4 buildings that makes up his base, which gets you the needed supplies (this is what happens if you straight out fight him as well). Que Kondo saying legion is incoming.

There is a okay chance of the Bradley surviving on fire, or due to pathing issues and luck, you kill Balzano before the Bradley comes under attack from the RPGs, and you can then take it for yourself (remember you need someone with tank training to use it, aka Big Bob or Calderon)

Option B: You tell the MC to go to the Bridge where the firefight at the beginning was. He will take his remaining technical, the van, and the 2 RPG squads over there. Balzano will then attack, and you get another choice. Either help Bally, help the movement, or remain neutral. Remaining neutral seems to do nothing from what I can see, though it might be bugged.
If you help Bally, wipe out the movement troops (for whatever reason, Mac doesn't seem to care about this, and will gladly help kill his former people). Once done, you can then garrison the movement building to get the needed supplies. Kondo talks, legion comes, etc etc.
If you instead help the movement, all you have to do is wipe out the force Balzano sent, which gives you a good opportunity to set the Bradley on fire to get it yourself (one hit from behind with the plasma recoilless will work, same with the SMAW, a full salvo from RPGs from to side usually work to, but actually destroys it if hit from behind). The great thing is when the attacking force is down (but not killing Balzano himself) the entire movement force comes under your command. This is 7 technicians, 2 Militia, 2 RPGs, the technical, the van, and the main tractor at the base and the two trailers, all crewed. You also automatically get their supplies, completing that mission.

Since this is getting so long, I'll put in the second part of the mission in the comments.

[Thandrall]

Originally posted by Darth Glorious:

You can get an extra truck if you go full hard ass vs the 2 looters in the beginning of the mission and refuse to return it when Balzano told you to to do under 2 mins.

That is true yes, though I would say getting a sharpshooter team over a truck would be better in the retreat, and if you stay, you get the truck anyway when Balzano leaves the map, he leaves both vehicles.

[Thandrall]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

Originally posted by Thandrall:

I will point this out now, I spent hours trying to get it work, you can NOT bring your troops in, then get them to the retreat point. I tried, and actually got it so the Humvee hit the retreat box at the 1 second mark, but since they seem to disappear in waves, still didn't get it.

Sad times. It really seems impossible - I tried my best but couldn't even get to 1 second mark. Many hours of trying were wasted as well.
Tried sending personnel truck to get the most people - it can get to just about 1 screen away from the exit zone.
Tried sending some cars - they are within 5 second till timer runs out.
Cheeseless world tastes so bad :(

Yeah that 1 second mark was having the messanger waiting at the point so they left straight away, then having the humvee there, uncrewed, and having the second hero spawn right next to it, so I could jump in straight away and go. Aka the absolute perfect odds I could think of, and since it still didn't work, I gave it up, after multiple hours trying.

[Darth Glorious]

Originally posted by Thandrall:

Originally posted by Darth Glorious:

You can get an extra truck if you go full hard ass vs the 2 looters in the beginning of the mission and refuse to return it when Balzano told you to to do under 2 mins.

That is true yes, though I would say getting a sharpshooter team over a truck would be better in the retreat, and if you stay, you get the truck anyway when Balzano leaves the map, he leaves both vehicles.

I saw him drive the truck and left. He left only the Bradley and the tanker. His gang when returned also brings back 2 extra trucks for you to steal.

[HeathenSW]

There's also some strange RNG happening when you start the map. And I mean actual start, not restart or reload a save made just as you started. Nothing changed whenever I restarted or reloaded a save at least.

Depending on that RNG - there's possibility to have an extra "on fire" technical on the bridge that has a minigun equipped. I guess there's a short actual fighting before scripts start and it can get destroyed in it. There actually seems to be two techincals there (one with minigun and other with just .50 cal), but both are exploded usually with a smol chance of random one surviving "on fire".

[Thandrall]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

There's also some strange RNG happening when you start the map. And I mean actual start, not restart or reload a save made just as you started. Nothing changed whenever I restarted or reloaded a save at least.

Depending on that RNG - there's possibility to have an extra "on fire" technical on the bridge that has a minigun equipped. I guess there's a short actual fighting before scripts start and it can get destroyed in it. There actually seems to be two techincals there (one with minigun and other with just .50 cal), but both are exploded usually with a smol chance of random one surviving "on fire".

There's a technical forward of the bridge, that has a light platform, that's always on fire from my experience, I do always then see that minigun on the gun, thought that was weird but nice to know, and then there's Mac and his fresh technical. It would be interesting to have that one on the bridge survive to be honest. I do also wonder how many people actually take the humvee with the minigun from Haven as well?

[Franzosisch]

Originally posted by Thandrall:

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

There's also some strange RNG happening when you start the map. And I mean actual start, not restart or reload a save made just as you started. Nothing changed whenever I restarted or reloaded a save at least.

Depending on that RNG - there's possibility to have an extra "on fire" technical on the bridge that has a minigun equipped. I guess there's a short actual fighting before scripts start and it can get destroyed in it. There actually seems to be two techincals there (one with minigun and other with just .50 cal), but both are exploded usually with a smol chance of random one surviving "on fire".

There's a technical forward of the bridge, that has a light platform, that's always on fire from my experience, I do always then see that minigun on the gun, thought that was weird but nice to know, and then there's Mac and his fresh technical. It would be interesting to have that one on the bridge survive to be honest. I do also wonder how many people actually take the humvee with the minigun from Haven as well?

If you reload after starting the mission the one on the bridge has a chance to not explode.

[HeathenSW]

Originally posted by Thandrall:

There's a technical forward of the bridge, that has a light platform, that's always on fire from my experience, I do always then see that minigun on the gun, thought that was weird but nice to know, and then there's Mac and his fresh technical. It would be interesting to have that one on the bridge survive to be honest.

Yeah, there seem to be 3 technicals there when the mission starts. 1 with light platform that's always there to grab (but will get destroyed when the legion starts moving in a crossfire like 99% of the times), 1 with standard .50cal and 1 with minigun - the last two usually are destoyed in the fog of war, but you can get lucky to only have one on fire and not destroyed. Never got both of them in like 30-40 reloads.

Originally posted by Thandrall:

I do also wonder how many people actually take the humvee with the minigun from Haven as well?

I bet most behave like I did - during my first playthrough I saw that I could bring a vehicle and was like "wait, how could I have a vehicle if everything was blocked in Haven?", so I reloaded and viola, there was a humvee to grab :D

[Rin Palora]

So final loot count on a redo, medium difficulty, cheesed the mission to get all Movement troops and the Stryker.

Left behind because I couldn't take them for one reason or another:
1x Fuel Station trailer with 6k fuel (parked it near the exit, refueled everything on the way out).
A bunch of Mounted heavy plasma rifles (~3) from the Tank Rev's, a lot of miniguns from the civilian escort revs, lots of RPG-7s.

Got:
- 2 x LWMMG advanced machineguns from homunculi squads, 1 of them stays around the gas station on the main road, the other comes from the top NW side and goes across the river.
- 1x Plasma Recoilless, 1x Regular Recoilless (on a Van)
- 1x Bradley, 1x Striker, 1x m113, 1x Humvee, 2x Vans, 2x Trucks, 4x technicals, 2x light platforms.
3x Main Tractors, 2x Supply Trailers (the Movement reinforcements gift you 1 tractor and 1 trailer), 1 armored trailer.
- 3x Militia, 3x RPG squads, 1x Heavy weapon squad, 11x technicians.
50375 supplies used per day. :D

Observations:
- I got all the vehicles from the looter reinforcements by kiting or disabling them with the tank's coaxial. The Van's are already damaged from mines and usually explode just from 1 .50cal bullet :D .
- I'm pretty sure you can get more vehicles by letting the Movement reinforcements duke it out with Legion and later kiting the looter reinforcements into the vehicles the Movement parks on Balzano's house with the Tank not returning fire (other vehicles are too squishy and will get taken out by sniper, rpg or Recoilless fire, but I didn't wanna let my bro's die.
- I think it's possible to disable Balzano's truck with sniper fire either after you beat his attack or as he flees from legion (ending up with 3 of them at the end). The AI seems smart enough to keep fleeing off the map on foot if their vehicles are disable.
- given Santa Fe outskirts is the next mission I don't think trading the Plasma Recoilless rifle for the Mounted Plasma MG is worth it.

[HeathenSW]

Originally posted by Rin Palora:

So final loot count on a redo, medium difficulty, cheesed the mission to get all Movement troops and the Stryker.

Left behind because I couldn't take them for one reason or another:
1x Fuel Station trailer with 6k fuel (parked it near the exit, refueled everything on the way out).
A bunch of Mounted heavy plasma rifles (~3) from the Tank Rev's, a lot of miniguns from the civilian escort revs, lots of RPG-7s.

Got:
- 2 x LWMMG advanced machineguns from homunculi squads, 1 of them stays around the gas station on the main road, the other comes from the top NW side and goes across the river.
- 1x Plasma Recoilless, 1x Regular Recoilless (on a Van)
- 1x Bradley, 1x Striker, 1x m113, 1x Humvee, 2x Vans, 2x Trucks, 4x technicals, 2x light platforms.
3x Main Tractors, 2x Supply Trailers (the Movement reinforcements gift you 1 tractor and 1 trailer)
- 3x Militia, 3x RPG squads, 1x Heavy weapon squad, 11x technicians.
50375 supplies used per day. :D

Observations:
- I got all the vehicles from the looter reinforcements by kiting or disabling them with the tank's coaxial. The Van's are already damaged from mines and usually explode when shoot by .50cals.
- I'm pretty sure you can get more vehicles by letting the Movement reinforcements duke it out with Legion and later kiting the looter reinforcements into the vehicles the Movement parks on Balzano's house with the Tank not returning fire (other vehicles are too squishy and will get taken out by sniper, rpg or Recoilless fire, but I didn't wanna let my bro's die.
- given Santa Fe outskirts is the next mission I don't think trading the Plasma Recoilless rifle for the Mounted Plasma MG is worth it.

Wait, 3 Main Tractors? Where's the 3rd one on this map? I replayed it a lot and only got 2 ever. 1 is a given, another is with the Movement and retreats and does not return or is blown up, and the last one is with the reinforcements from the Movement. So to my knowledge you can only get 2.

[Rin Palora]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

Wait, 3 Main Tractors? Where's the 3rd one on this map? I replayed it a lot and only got 2 ever. 1 is a given, another is with the Movement and retreats and does not return or is blown up, and the last one is with the reinforcements from the Movement. So to my knowledge you can only get 2.

As the OP said if you trick the movement into leaving their base so Balzano can attack it you will then get the option to support one, the other or be neutral. If you side with the Movement ALL of them on the map join you once you kill Balzano's attacking force. The downside to doing this is that you don't NORMALLY get the striker, but you can cheese it and get that too (info in the op).

So you have 1 empty Main Tractor near the bridge, 1 from the Movement on the map that joins you if you help them against Balzano's attack and the 3d is given to you by the Movement reinforcements.

[HeathenSW]

Originally posted by Rin Palora:

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

Wait, 3 Main Tractors? Where's the 3rd one on this map? I replayed it a lot and only got 2 ever. 1 is a given, another is with the Movement and retreats and does not return or is blown up, and the last one is with the reinforcements from the Movement. So to my knowledge you can only get 2.

As the OP said if you trick the movement into leaving their base so Balzano can attack it you will then get the option to support one, the other or be neutral. If you side with the Movement ALL of them on the map join you once you kill Balzano's attacking force. The downside to doing this is that you don't NORMALLY get the striker, but you can cheese it and get that too (info in the op).

So you have 1 empty Main Tractor near the bridge, 1 from the Movement on the map that joins you if you help them against Balzano's attack and the 3d is given to you by the Movement reinforcements.

Ah, this explains it. Thought I was going crazy, since this is my least popular sequence of events :D

[Rin Palora]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

Ah, this explains it. Thought I was going crazy, since this is my least popular sequence of events :D

Mine too but I found it so intriguing that I restarted my campaign from Oklahoma just to try it out.
It is also very interesting that the most rewarding path is to engineer a situation where the Movement forces owe their life to you. Let's just hope Mason doesn't blab about it :D ... even tho Balzano is all on the coms we all share (I assume) about how we don't get to double cross him and live.

[HeathenSW]

So, did run away, while attacking Movement base. What I got:

Vehicles:
- 2 main tractors
- 2 light weapon platforms
- 2 technicals
- 2 humvees
- APC
- Stryker
- Hemtt
- Fuel trailer
- Supply trailer

Loot:
- Minigun
- Recoilless rifle
- Everything that could be taken off the Haven people (3 rifles, 2 barrets, 2 smaw launchers, 7 smgs)

Troops:
- Rangers
- 2 tank crew
- ATGM
- Sharpshooters
- Technicians
- Militia
- Kondo
- Heavy weapons team (pastor)
- RPG squad

200000 supplies for the road (23450 per day), plus 44 free manpower since I disbanded my Haven survivors after Haven. Everything is kinda meh, but next mission that do not exist if you defend the village should even things out. Maybe I was able to disable 2 Movement vehicles, but there is no crew to pilot everything here. had to leave 1 technical even.

Honestly love Mason being angry at me after that :D For some reason it feels more fitting for the story then saving everyone.

[Franzosisch]

Fun fact I just found out. You can completely skip the second wave of machines. I had helped the Movement kill of the outpost but instead of going it slow I rushed the enemy and it just ends. Mason says we can leave and that's that.

[Thandrall]

Originally posted by Franzosisch:

Fun fact I just found out. You can completely skip the second wave of machines. I had helped the Movement kill of the outpost but instead of going it slow I rushed the enemy and it just ends. Mason says we can leave and that's that.

Do you mean you killed all the machines that came to take the people away, or do you mean the wave of reinforcements after that? That second wave only comes if you don't detonate Haven Base. If your taking about before than, that is what retreating means. Otherwise if they don't turn up at all... that's a bug?