Nueva Tortuga for Dummies

Looking at the discussion topics at the forum, plenty of people have issues with this mission and even the advice given to them by other commanders often lacks this or that bit of critical information. This guide includes all I have uncovered during several attempts. Obviously, spoilers ahead.

Infiltration and minor sabotage

Your objective is to set the stage for the arrival of the main force. Your forces are meagre in number, the enemy is numerous and well entrenched, so you need to pick your fights and do the most while keeping your cover, then go loud and unleash hell. Also, scum save manually between steps because of RNG.

>Warning< The steps below do not cover all possible actions and will not grant you all possible achievements for this mission, although you can still get them if you do a manual save after step 16 and revert to it to do stuff differently. However, I found them and their sequence the most advantageous.

Step 1. Save the Slave
Immediately after mission start and south of the main gate, you will encounter a Cartel slave about to be shot for dropping groceries. You can, and should, intervene, yet claim that you will pay only 10 pesos (of 500) as compensation. The Cartel guard is going to be satisfied, the slave ecstatic - he will not only advise you to visit his friend nearby, but also mark some other important locations in the visitor-available part of the town.

Step 2. Buy the Gun
Head west of the site and visit the slave's friend to say hi only to find out that he sells energy guns. Your sergeant's eyes sparkle at the sight of plasma shotguns for his squad, worth 400 pesos (leaving you with 90), which you should immediately buy, as they become unavailable later on.

Step 3. Search for the Spy
Head south, past the train station and talk with the Movement spy. She needs you to distract the station guards just outside, so that she can gather some guns. She also suggests inciting fights with gangs and marauder crews visiting the town to get their guns, which means more armed slaves joining your cause later on.

Step 4. Avoid (following the) Advice. For now.
Instead of challenging the Skulls gang just outside for calling you out, rush past them to the Challenge Pit in the east, which is now unlocked. Agree to fight the first spider bot, bet on yourself to kill it in 15 seconds, then kill it in 15 seconds. Use your engineers with energy shotguns and rocket launcher.

Step 5. Double Down
If you have wounded, wait until they heal then accept the second challenge, bet again and repeat the feat. Congrats, you should now have over 900 pesos and can easily afford the rest of arms dealer goods.

Step 6. Buy the Gun, part Deux
Head back north west to the gun dealer, buy the sniper rifle and machine gun for your lieutenant squad.

Step 7. Tour the Town
The third challenge at the robo-spider pit will be a huge event that even the reclusive Furies would pay to see. But you don't know that yet. You don't know many things, in fact.
Take a drive and visit the Saloon, south of the train station and east of the spy's shop, just where the mean Skull ganger was calling your names. Enter and buy drinks. Turns out you get 7 and can share with two guys inside. They don't talk much, but tell you to call them if you ever go against the Reverend.

Step 8. The Bothering at the Brothel
Head south to visit the ladies of negotiable affection only to find out that the Reverend does not like to be bothered, but likely enjoys bringing the hurt to others. The brothel owner will save you by calling you a bum and slamming the door in your face.

Step 9. Harrass the Hotel Host
Head east to find the Hotel, which is closed because the local anti-tank crew called the Furies are actually very calm and like their peace and quiet well enough to spend boatloads of money on renting the entire place to aggressively meditate. While sober. Crazy, I know. Anyway, you can't see or talk to them, but now you get to know that they go visit the Pit to watch the big fights.

Step 10. Search the Saloon (or do so a bit later)
Jog north, towards the pit. You still have some pesos left to offer a round (or three) to Mad Mike and his crew. Each round of drinks impairs their fighting abilities, up to three, but offer them too much and they will either get arrested or puke and leave, which gives you no guns for rebels. To avoid that, ask Mad Mike to quit calling you names and have a more or less easy fight. You did remember to save though, right?

Step 11. Spiderbots and Infuriating the Furies
Assuming you wiped the floor with Mad Mikes team, and only suffered minor losses so far, you can take on two bots now. You can also now ask the organizer to notify the Furies how big of a fight that will be. AAAnd you can again bet on your fight, extra pesos can be useful to replenish the said losses at the prison in the south, but killing two spiders in 15 seconds might be hard, 'cos RNG, so maybe try with 30 seconds. Try not to get your sargeant squad too beat up, as immediately after the won match you can provoke the gang, if you choose so, and it's the shotguns that will do the talking. I usually lost one squaddie during that fight.

Step 12. Skin the Skulls
Your main squad will do the fighting, so you might want to replenish your troops numbers by visiting the prison. You won't need the pesos anymore (not here, anyway, and definitely not if you follow my steps).
Go back to the train station. Change unit formation to a line, save, pray to Lady Luck, and challenge the Skulls. The line formation should help your squad not to die in a single burst of enemy machine gun fire, but you might still die due to RNG. Like, a lot. Rinse and repeat, if necessary - while it is possible to win with only wounds and no deaths, be ready to accept a casualty or two if you don't want to reload forever.

Step 13. Seek the Spy
Go check on the spy gal at her shop. She's not there, but she got her guns nad left you a "join the Cartel" voucher. Head south-east to the military base and talk with the security chief - he now will hire you, but only after you fight another spider. Yep, the guy was at work all day and didn't hear you run a succesful bug extermination business. Kill the spider at the pit and return to him.

Step 14. Hired Help
Yep, you guessed right. Before you can join the Cartel at the most basic position, you must do something that the entire Cartel didn't do up till now - ask the Reverend to bugger off. The soon-to-be-fellow guards are called off, so you can tell something is fishy about the job. Avoid the brothel then, instead go visit the bar by the train station and tell the two brothers that you are about to square off with the man they hate. Head south.

Step 15. Reverend Returns
Or rather you should. Go back to the brothel. The Cartel wanted a show, so you get ambushed. Fortunately, you bought yourself someone to pull fire away from you, as the two guys will start sniping at the enemy crew in the brothel. Smoke and storm the building, your teams should easily dispatch the occupants with CQB.

Step 16. Complaining to the Cartel
Head back to the security chief, you will get a new truck for your trouble and another job - deliver a hacker to the Integrators in exchange for Terminator Tank controls. Get into the truck and the spy will show up to take the wheel.

CUTSCENE
While the spy tells you all about everything she knows and did, you will first drive to the prison. When you pick up the hacker, you can also get a free batch of squad members to fill in for any losses you had up until this point (assuming you had some but didn't buy any earlier).
Next stop is the brothel, then the spy shop, then you park by the arena. Make a manual save here if you wish to test other paths or step sequence.

Major sabotage, sowing confusion and going loud

Step 17. Cartel Career
Instead of doing any of the suggested side objectives or the main quest, enjoy the freedom of going to places that you would get shot at, if visited before. Drive to the west, across the train tracks and find the shooting range.

Step 18. Risky Rescue Rangers
A bit further to the west, than the range, is a guarded warehouse. The guard tells you to back off, but the sarge says you can shoot them during another training session at the range and nobody would notice. Dismount, wait for the shooting to start again, then attack the guards. There is a humvee patrolling, but the driver is due to run out of fuel any minute now, since he's been doing rounds since you startet the map. Once the guards are dead and you are not being shot at by their pals, enter the building and release the living target dummies from Movement.

Step 19. Rearm and Regroup.
Good job, now you have some more units which are considered Cartel members. You can rearm them by letting them board the provided truck as passengers. What is more, you can now use them to visit most of the map, grab any empty vehicles and drive them somewhere close to the slave quarters where you are supposed to deliver the the guns. Meanwhile, drive your van with hero units back to the pit and park there.

Step 20. C-4 Carnage
Since you have rescued guerillas and armed them with C-4, you can go about the town placing bombs. My two top choices are both of the artillery humvees in the Cartel base, where you got hired. Bear in mind that once you go loud, many units will relocate (not the arty though), occupy different buildings etc., so you might want to keep your Unabomber instincts in check to save supplies for rearming other units (like the Cartel Tank or the Terminator Tank via captured supply trucks. Because you did capture them when I told you to do so, right) and for a far more important reason that I will come back to later. Once you are done, make sure to move your guerillas a bit east of slave quarters, just before the checkpoint on the road to the mayor's mansion. See the empty tank by the checkpoint? Good, keep an eye on it, it's a Money Maker. Hide the other rescued infantry in buildings close to the slave quarters.

Step 21. Reputation Ruined
Go to the pit, block all your weapons from use and ask for a final fight (not accessible before). You will face an MLRS spiderbot. The spy can disable it and then the hacker can try to infect it with his virus, but not if your other two squads blow it up. Once it is hacked, return to the entrance (DO NOT go to the Integrator Camp though the other entrance, as your sarge suggests) and bear the shame of a coward who didn't fire a shot, ran, and did not collect his 3000 pesos reward that could buy him the Terminator Tank. Load up into the truck and drive towards the Terminator Tank.

Step 22. Integrator Incident
Unless the spiderbot bugs out and does not return home, you should see his icon moving to the camp and hear some shooting and explosions in the west. Careful, as some plasma artillery may land close to you. Due to RNG, the survivability of infected terminators in the camp varies, but you should soon hear the Cartel Guards reporting being attacked. While the damage to the Cartel will be likely minimal, MOST OF THE GUARDS FROM THE MAIN GATE WILL MOVE EAST TOWARDS THE CAMP, in order to shoot first and loot later. That includes the snipers from the tower and the Bradley, which would chop your main force to bits.

Step 23. Take the Terminator Tank
The Cartel will also shoot the guards of the T-Tank and, if you move there fast when prompted by dialogue from the spy, you will hear that the sarge found the control pilot for that beast.

Step 24. Spread the Sickness
Once the shooting dies down, head towards the pit and park close to the "dormant" terminator trucks and spiders. The hacker says it might be a bad idea, but it is a great idea (unless it goes too good and you will lose the T-Tank, so save here). Make sure the truck is facing north, approach the spiders with the hacker then, once the dialogue ends, run to the truck and speed off due north.

Step 25. Drive, Drive, Drive
After about 10-15 seconds, the terminator units will wake up and start shooting everyone nearby. Again, a few (un)lucky shots may end the robot revolution in seconds or lead to all 6 T's going for the main gate up north (possibly killing your T-Tank) or hunting humans down south. However it goes. keep driving towards the slave quarters to deliver the weapons. The Cartel is dumb, but not that dumb as to not connect all the recent calamities with your humble persona and issue a reward for killing you.

Step 26. Let's Get Louder
Keep in mind, that you will not be identified immediately - provided that you keep your nose inside of the truck and none of the rescued units are close to the enemy, you should be safe. But wait, didn't you leave the guerillas by a manned checkpoint during step 20?! Well, hopefully you did, and hopefully your truck made it to the slave quarters delivering the guns. This will start the revolution preemptively, which in this case is the best possible time.

Step 27. (Grabbing the) Money Maker
As soon as your shotgun enthusiast are identified, run for the tank. It's empty, but a crew will try to board it as soon as the alarm rings. Be first. Get in, pause, block the use of main guns and drive away a bit so you don't get grenaded to oblivion yet can turn around and use the coaxial MG to mow down the former crew and checkpoint guards. Once done, head into the plaza to secure more guns for the rebels. Also, be careful of enemy squads trying to cross the plaza to reach the vehicles that you might have parked there.

Step 28. But why "Money Maker"?
The Cartel Tank has AP shells. AP shells overpenetrate other Cartel vehicles about 70-80% of the time, which is great. Why? Because overpenetration makes vehicles burn, instead of blowing up. A burning vehicle is decrewed, the crew can be killed with the coaxial MG while posing minimal threat to the Cartel Tank. Once every enemy nearby is dead, another of your squads can recover the vehicle for sale or use post mission.

Step 29. ???
Up to you, really. The revolution has started, the armoury was taken, you have all the means for your violent ends.

If you take the two train depot buildings with infantry (plentiful and versatile, since you killed all the gangs), you create a nice strong point that the enemy will try, and fail, to take.

Incoming vehicles and the Bradley looting the integrator camp can be burned and stolen by skilful use of the Cartel Tank and some scouting (block the use of main gun after you cause burning, second shot will blow up the target), or blown up to smithereens since you also have the Furies ATGM with 6 missiles mounted on a van with plenty of stolen supply trucks to rearm it.

The T-Tank, if not destroyed by other terminators, will come under your direct control after a couple of minutes, and it will take the Mayor a while to decide to ru... akhem, personally inform the Cartel Board on recent developments, so there isn't much of a timer as opposed to going stealthy all the way and running for the heli to bring in your main troops, only to face a hostile T-Tank after fighting through the gate.

You can literally make this town a training field in house-to-house infantry assaults or daring yet risky armoured rushes. Just don't forget to detonate that C-4 on enemy arty. Oh, and remember to pick all the goodies left in arena after gang fights.


PS,
Writing this guide took a lot more time than I expected while keeping me away from the game, thus minimal effort, no screenshots etc., but I hope it really will help someone to enjoy (and profit from) this mission. Also, I am going on holiday until March 18 so don't expect updates, fixes or clarifications anytime soon.

[Aleinater_1_2_play]

Funny enough, this run requires the sacrifice of: A the mercenary groups drunk or shot, B the intergrators, C and possibly a hacker squad (if flinch didnt make it). I tried a run where i activated the legion trophies before telling lucia to meet with the rebel leader and i got stuck in a panel where i meet the mayor and the cartel leader being smart. this stopped my gameplay. Thanks for the idea for getting the demo team before rescuing them later and put use. I never done that before might try it.

[DailyFrankPeter]

Good job man!

[Goel]

Thank you so much for the guide, second time using it and it is really making my life so much easier, to have every step laid out.

If you find the time, it would be helpful if you added in the main section:
Under step 22. that it leads to negative relation with the integrators by hacking the spider bot in the arena.
Under step 27 "The Money Maker" As soon as the spider bots turn hostile to everyone, you can grab the tank, without the Cartel turning hostile to you yet, then you still have time to drive the tank into position, while Flinch gets further away from enemies, and then when Flinch is far enough away, you can drive the main quest truck over the finish line initiating combat with the Panhard in a perfect position.

Just to clarify - it does NOT impact relations with integrators if you infect trophies, it is only by hacking the spider bot in the arena

[facetious dog]

hold on to something!

[Medmed]

Thank you really for the guide, it was very helpfull

[Dr. Merkwürdiglieben]

Thx for the guide.

[Whackeygrunt]

Awesome guide but this mission is utter bs.

If I wanted to play a top down RPG where you're at the mercy of RNG I'd have bought one and a proper one at that, not this half arsed attempt that's more frustrating to play (hence the need for your guide that relies on save scumming so much).

This is meant to be an RTS/RTT game with light 4X mechanics where you control multiple squads /vehicles.

[Sumatris]

Also, any losses your hero squads have taken are replaced automatically and for free during the cutscene visit to the prison after you've become a cartel member. Something to keep in mind in case you're really strapped for pesos.

[Sumatris]

I'd like to add that hacking the arena spider and (maybe) scrambling the trophy bots in the town center are considered hostile actions by the Integrators. If you want to stay on good terms with them (primarily for trading, they have really good stuff on offer), destroy the arena spider and purchase the tank controller with the price money instead. Not entirely sure about the trophy bots, but I wouldn't risk it; they won't accomplish mush most of the time anyway but make planning your surprise attack harder due to the invisible timer.

[Shadowuzi]

I feel like you add to the guide you can have your guerillas place all their C4 charges after the integrator/cartel fight so you can track all the vehicles down and embrace the inner Irishmen to blow up most of the cartel. You can just pause the game and click on all the C4 after deciding to attack