Civilian/VIP targeting by enemies is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game-ending RNG

[nonexistent]

I've lost 4 expert ironman+hardcore runs now due to civilian/VIPs getting targeted. If enemies decide to ignore squad agents and shoot/run across the map to murder civilians/VIPs there isn't always a way to prevent this. Am still seeing happen even when playing aggressive and positioning right next to enemy units.

There are measures to minimize the chance of this (e.g. cherub shield VIPs, moving next to civilians to rescue), but that's impossible to guarantee. The worst offender is a non-story "prevent civilian casualties" mission on a bridge w/ a ton of exploding cars that's specifically ended my run twice now. For that map in particular, the following can happen:
- Breach forced overwatch -> squad auto shoots moving enemies -> multiple squad RNG sprays hit cars which instantly explode and kill civilians
- Player or enemy RNG spray hits cars -> explode and kill civilians. If the civilian is far or multiple sprays hit the car there's no time to move next to them to rescue.
- Enemies choose to shoot civilians instead of squad (long map w/ full sight lines almost anywhere), killing 1 or more civilians (enemy RNG spray can hit cars -> explode -> more dead civilians)

No other map I've encountered so far is as bad as the above, but the general problem is that you can instantly get gameover from unpreventable RNG. If anyone knows of a way to manipulate the AI to prevent the described scenario that would be very helpful. Extremely frustrating to repeatedly lose runs many hours deep from this.

[Ixalmaris]

For the anarchy mission you should bring a CC heavy team and it is imo the one mission where rescuing civilians by moving next to them is important.

As for the escort mission, you are aware that the enemy which will ignore your squad and go for the VIP will have a symbol over their head?

[nonexistent]

Right the "prevent hostage-taker" missions aren't the issue, since the enemy gunning for the hostage is clearly marked like you said. It's the various VIP missions where they need to be manually moved to the green exit squares that can be a problem, usually not possible to guarantee no enemy has line of sight. There's always half and sometimes full cover options to position the VIP units to, but even combined with hunker down it's still entirely possible to lose the dice roll and instantly gameover if the enemy targets them.

Having a CC heavy squad makes sense in theory, but it's difficult to guarantee that's available. Agreed that moving next to civilians to rescue them is important, but they're always spread out all across the map so it's not always possible to reach enough of them quickly enough.

[Ixalmaris]

Even in escort mission the one who goes after the VIP is marked.
In in hostage mission I usually clear the room first before getting the hostage.

[nonexistent]

Oh damn thanks for the tip, somehow haven't noticed an aggro indicator for escort missions. Maybe it's just the civilian missions that are the problem now...

[Yian Yan]

It is, fortunately almost always that guy at the end of the initiative that will receive the VIP targeting job. It is also unfortunate that this is usually the beefiest dude on the enemy team.

[Uncle Al]

The 'prevent civilian casualties' mission can be nasty, definitely. It's a single episode mission so you can blow all your cooldowns as your opening.

I just did one this morning and my opening used teamwork + a motile inducer + terminal's AP ability so I'd had four turns, two of them axiom dashing forward rescuing civilians while smashing down enemies, before the enemy got to move. Ended up with zero civilian casualties even with chrysalids in the mission. Chrysalids + civilians is very, very bad incidentally.

Note you only get the rescue civilians mission only comes up in response to a district being at 5 unrest. So you can always skip it if you can manage the unrest in other ways, and I'm sure it's intended to be nasty because it's an uncontrolled unrest mission. They're all pretty brutal with little reward beyond bringing unrest back under control.

[Ixalmaris]

Speaking of Chrysalids, they always go for a civilian in their first turn, marker or not.

[nonexistent]

Good points + tips, thanks!

[rcbridii]

Originally posted by Ixalmaris:

Speaking of Chrysalids, they always go for a civilian in their first turn, marker or not.

Oh yeah... somehow each new game makes me hate chrysallids more than I already did.

[Perplex]

Originally posted by Ixalmaris:

Speaking of Chrysalids, they always go for a civilian in their first turn, marker or not.

I thought Chrysalids where annoying in Xcom 2 but in this game they are even worse. Atleast they dont poison you this time around but they rek all the civilans (wich means you get more unrest in the city area).

[Case]

Originally posted by Perplex:

Originally posted by Ixalmaris:

Speaking of Chrysalids, they always go for a civilian in their first turn, marker or not.

I thought Chrysalids where annoying in Xcom 2 but in this game they are even worse. Atleast they dont poison you this time around but they rek all the civilans (wich means you get more unrest in the city area).

I keep hoping some sadist will bring back classic Chrysalids just to yank everyone's chains that thought they were ever a problem in the remake/sequel.

As for the topic, it's worse when you can't tell why the car explodes instantly sometimes and then other times will burn for 3 turns.