PSA: you can extend stair cases instead of building new ones
Finished one campaign. Abandoned another one due to a bug (can’t find the mission I need to go forward. I tried refreshing missions but didn’t seem to help.)
The hardest part of the game is not being able to dig anywhere you want. This makes it hard to do the awesome trap corridors. On Map 1 I ended up with a really nice trap corridor (Fan/magnet to push/pull and freeze, bubble traps. Later I added bees.) They manage to turn all normal agent waves, and even average soldiers can get turned around and go home.
I’m feeling less bad about not picking this title up the more I read. Hopefully it gets patched up and improved into the game everyone hopes it would be.
I’d say releasing a game in 2021 is different than releasing it in 2004, when EG1 did. Now there are more expectations for games to have a decent post release support, and if the game has areas where it should be improved, maybe it will be done in future updates.
I mean, maybe, but they had the entire development time to do it and they didn’t. It’s not like these are flaws that only emerged once they had completed development. They’ve been known about for over a decade.
Despite my earlier frustration, I did start a new game and it’s growing on me. I put myself in a death spiral in my initial game, and I understand how to avoid it now. The game still has flaws, and mission side progression bugs, and the “tutorial” is kind of useless in explaining things, but I’m enjoying it now.
Most important advice, there’s no need to maintain criminal networks everywhere. In my initial game I kept building up my control room until I had a criminal network in every region. This was a terrible mistake. By doing this what I really did was unlock every super agent. In my current game I’m avoiding having criminal networks in more than a handful of regions, and only a single full FOJ territory at any time. If I have a mission I need to do in a region outside my regular territory, I establish a network to do the mission and destroy it when I’m done. This not only keeps heat and super agents manageable, but makes dealing with the world map manageable too.
As I complained above one thing that was wrecking me was that failed distractions can result in the agents getting murdery. The mistake I made here was using the “distract” camera zone at all the entrances to my base from the cover operation. Which tagged each and every agent as then came in the door. Which would work for a while, but with higher level agents arriving due to the unmanageable heat of trying to keep networks everywhere, eventually a check would fail.
Having zones set up is also a recipe for mass minion death with heists. The super agent Synergy comes in with level 6 or 9 heist agents that are devastating if they get into combat mode. They are no problem if you just leave them alone they steal whatever they can (usually not much since I’m spending my money pretty quickly, and when you get the message that she’s coming you can just quickly burn all your cash on minions). But in my prior game they would trigger the distraction zone, my guys would fail to distract them since they are high level, and then the murders began.
In my current game I’m managing agents much better by only having zones in front of things that actually generate suspicion and letting agents walk around more. I also set up pointless mazes of locker rooms and doors that they waste time checking out. I took Eli Jr. in this playthrough as my initial henchman. His power drains the resolve of agents, and one use will send a level 1-2 agent home immediately.
Setting up combined rooms rather than monolithic rooms also. Rather than a separate mess hall, barracks, security room, etc. For example my control room has a lunch counter and some bunk beds right there in the room to minimize minion downtime. My prison has a guard table in it to deal with escapees. It also helps you separate operations so as the base grows you can keep moving things that cause suspicion like the control room and prison deeper into the base since they are self-contained.
Yeah, I think that’s a common mistake, one I also made my first game. The World Stage gameplay is easily the weakest part, and if you open up territories as quickly as possible (which is very quick indeed) you’re drowning in busywork AND agents. I still haven’t gone back though, even with a base that pretty much ran itself I just felt no joy in completing objectives.
Yeah! upgrading them for no reason at all also costs a lot of space in the form of control rooms and energy plants.
I finished one campaign and got pretty far in another.
The first map with Maximillian is not bad to handle. The casino entrance has a lot of space on the “northeast”. You can use that to make trap corridors. Non-lethal traps (freeze ray, bubble, fans, magnets) will make average agents turn around. Even soldiers will turn around and go home.
The second spawn point is closer to the bottom but that can be managed with a very short trap corridor (10 squares?), a table of security close by, and a camera/evil genius standing by to trigger.
…
After playing all those hours I learned just look for blinking world map targets. Everything else can pretty much be ignored… (The purple spend money + intel to get instant heat reduction can be useful).
Minion production is slow in this game unlike the first EG. Most death spirals were from minion loss (battles + corpses). Bad corpse management will mean you lose 5-10 guys from morale. Build a lot of furnaces near your kill zone (4+) to make cleanup fast.
In my second playthrough I was actually having a lot of fun. Had a nice base. Had worked out how to use traps for effective and entertaining results. Was well into the story and tech tree, and again I can’t progress because the missions I’m supposed to complete on the world map don’t show up (“Study john steele on the world map” in the “Specters” mission of the Emma campaign).
A door that opens into a magnet trap with bumpers on either side that shoot people into side halls with bees was the current favorite trap in my base. I was just researching knockout gas when I gave up.
Among the many things the game needs is more info on everything. Unless I missed something, I had to figure out by trial and error what traps did what type of damage. Once I did I was able to create enough distraction paths filled with resolve reducing traps to get most groups of agents to turn around before they got anywhere near suspicion raising items.
If they manage to fix the campaign bugs I’d pick it up again. If only to get the highest level traps and create a vault with enough quality trap combos on the way out of the vault to take out an entire level 9 heist team, since they so vexed me in my first run through when I didn’t know what I was doing.
If I remeber correctly the Study John Steele missions are sequential on the world map. So doing one spawns the next one. There will only be one on the map ever.
We’ve eliminated the cause of a number of progression blockers, simplifying the method of summoning Super Agents to your Lair and making sure that critical Schemes have room to spawn.
This really proves that the world map is one of the worst UIs ever as the code to place the little mission icons on the map is apparently the culprit in progression blocking bugs.
It’s really quite a substantial patch, and fixes quite a few of my complaints. Very encouraging.
General
Vehicle speed and responsiveness have been significantly increased, resulting in a faster game pace, and more rapid travel for all characters to and from the Lair.
Body Bags have been made less punitive, by increasing the duration of the negative status effect, but lowering the Morale drain that results, giving minions more time to reach stat restoring equipment.
Minions operating furniture will no longer ignore Executions.
Minion Salaries have been increased in line with the increased income available from the World Map. Evil Genius discounts still apply.
Specialist minions who are not paid will suffer increased penalties to their Morale, and the messaging of these penalties has been improved.
Minions will abandon a wider range of Lair activities to travel to the World Map, speeding up Scouting of Regions, Upgrading Criminal Networks, and running Schemes.
Muscle minions will respond to combat at a slightly increased range, and their base armour and damage values have been increased.
Suspicion required to attract a wave of Specialist Agents has been lowered.
The cost of the Bonus Minion Capacity Research Projects has been lowered.
Agents will spend less time on individual items in the Cover Operation, and are less likely to revisit them.
The number of Tourists arriving at the Lair will increase with campaign progress.
Additional categories have been added to the Minion Manager for Guard Posts, Armoury Staging Posts, and the Laboratory.
Advanced minions types are now available earlier in each campaign.
Main and Side Story tasks that require minions to be trained now take into account those already present in the Lair.
Difficulty Modes
When playing on Easy difficulty, free Worker minions are auto-hired at a rate of 6 every 60 seconds, increased from 2 every 60 seconds.
When playing on Easy difficulty, Worker minions can be manually recruited at a cost of 1,000 Gold per minion, reduced from 2,000 Gold per minion.
In Hard mode, Agents have had their combat stats increased to ensure they remain a challenge in the face of tougher Muscle minions.
World Map
Increased duration on long Gold and Heat schemes, and cost adjustments made to allow for more hands-off World Map play.
Criminal Networks now generate more Gold as a passive income at each level.
New Scheme Type Added: Intel Only. These schemes do not require minions and have a very short duration.
Increased variety of Schemes at Tier 1.
Super Agents and other Antagonists on the World Stage can be attracted to the Lair directly by selecting the character on the map, and then using the “Lure” option on their side panel.
After exiting Lockdown, residual Heat in a Region remains at 0%/20%/30% when playing on Eay/Medium/Hard difficulty.
Broadcast Strength required to upgrade Criminal Networks has been reduced.
The time required to upgrade Criminal Networks has been reduced.
Super Agents ignore Heat Reduction Schemes.
Lair Building
Gold earned from excavating Gold Tiles has been increased.
Furniture Modes have additional descriptions.
Muscle minions now prefer Advanced Guard Posts over Armoury jobs.
Training time has been reduced for Biologists, Quantum Chemists, Counter Agents, Socialites, and Spin Doctors.
Internal door access times have been modified to favour shorter times for minions and longer times for agents. The Evil Genius and Henchmen can pass through any door unimpeded.
External doors to the Lair now open automatically for minions on lower security levels, but not for Agents, cutting down on the time it takes minions to travel to the World or collect new items.
Minions gain improved benefits from the “Well Fed” Trait, gained by eating at specialised Food Counters in the Mess Hall.
Campaigns
Scheme durations have been reduced to 10 seconds for the overwhelming majority of Objective Schemes.
Doomsday Device Fuel Scheme costs have been adjusted to cost only ONE thing: Gold, minions or intel, and had their durations reduced to 10 seconds.
Doomsday Device Fuel Schemes now require only a level 1 Criminal Network at all stages, making gathering fuel much easier throughout each campaign.
Schemes spawned from Red Ivan’s Doomsday Device reward a number of Muscle minions in addition to a significant quantity of Gold.
Heat generated by Objective Schemes has been lowered so that Schemes can more reliably be run without being cancelled by the Criminal Network entering Lockdown.
Intel costs have been reduced for Main Objective Schemes, and entirely removed from Side Objective Schemes.
The Objectives “A Moment’s Calm”, “A Moment’s Respite”, “A Moment of Preparation”, and “The Final Respite” have had requirements for Loot, Schemes run, and Research completed entirely removed.
Traits
Feels No Pain, Good Reflexes / Thick Skin / Owns Armour damage reduction to 10% / 15 / 20% / 25%
Decent Uppercut / Good Cross Punch / Strong Left Hook / Strong Right Hook / Strong Left Jab / Strong Left Jab bonus melee damage increased 10 / 10 / 15/ 15/ 20 / 20
Crack Shot / Good Shot bonus damage increased 25 / 10 Ranged damage, and no longer stack with Poor Shot
Ex-Force of Justice Spotting Power bonus increased against the appropriate Force of Justice
Perceptive Spotting Power increased against All Agents
Loves Sleep / Loves food bonus stat restore increased to 10 per minute on affected jobs
Bad Back Vitality drain while carrying body bags and furniture lowered to 5 Vitality per minute
Sees Dead People spawn chance lowered slightly. Now restores additional Morale when disposing of bodies
Thrifty / Cheap Salary Reduction increased to a 50% / 75% discount
Loves 80s Ballads Morale Restore boost on Karaoke Machine doubled
Hates Needles Morale drain reduced while operating equipment in the Infirmary.
Embarrassing Tattoo Willingness to train into a minion type who does not have sleeves on their uniform further reduced
Bug Fixes
General
Crash fixes and stability improvements.
Evil Genius 2 can now be played and saved if your Windows username contains non-latin characters.
The setting to “Share Game Information” is reliably saved between games.
Agents and minions will no longer refuse to die in unusual combat or trap combinations.
Characters will no longer become stuck in place after triggering Traps in unusual circumstances.
Geniuses and Henchmen will no longer fail to enter combat with disguised Agents when given a direct command.
Minion Salaries are correctly removed after desertion.
Commitments are correctly updated after canceling or rearranging build orders.
Agents will brazenly don their Disguises in front of minions if those minions lack the Smarts to remove them.
Interrogating Force of Justice Agents of any quality will correctly generate Intel.
Research progress on the HUD is displayed consistently.
IRIS will no longer erroneously advise that the Vault is empty on starting a new game.
Minion Manager performance has been improved.
Minions with Traits which recover their stats can be captured correctly.
Minions will upgrade their weapon after training to become a more advanced minion type, provided better weapons are available for them to do so.
Event Logs for characters arriving at the Lair now trigger when the vehicle they are in has arrived.
The Cruise Ship will wait for significantly less time before departing.
The cooldown on specific IRIS Event Log messages has been increased.
Loot Items do not indicate one is available to place in the Build Menu after they are stolen by Rogues.
Causes of death remain on Body Bags after loading a save.
Dropped Rogue sacks now have a standardised appearance, regardless of their contents.
Minions can correctly be assigned priorities in the Minion Manager whilst Training.
Overhead icons for wall-mounted Traps now appear in the correct location above the trap.
Luxury Beds have had their passive durability decay removed.
Brainwashing Saboteurs/Rogues/Soldiers will more reliably add Technicians/Valets/Guards to your workforce. Brainwashing higher level Agents will add higher level minions to your workforce.
Muscle minions now prefer to use Advanced Guard Posts over the Guard Tables / Staging Posts in the Armoury.
When playing as Maximilian, multiple Conference Tables can be built.
The area near the Helicopter Tower on Crown Gold is no longer autotagged.
World Map
Schemes necessary for progressing Objectives spawn more reliably.
Super Agents no longer become stuck in the “Investigating” state on the World Map.
Schemes that provide rewards over time have had their presentation modified to improve messaging.
Criminal Networks can no longer be destroyed while a Region is in Lockdown.
Super Agents will travel to the Lair after a Scheme has been run in their Region, even if that Scheme is cancelled.
Super Agents will respawn more rapidly on the World Map after leaving the Lair without being defeated.
Campaigns
Running Doomsday Fuel Schemes will correctly progress Objectives which require it, even if the Doomsday Device is fully fuelled.
Side Stories
In the Side Story, “Cunning as a Foxworth”, killing any Steele Agent will correctly progress the task to “Kill J. Steeles in the Lair”.
Full Metal Jackie is now easier to recruit.
The Side Story, “The Other Most Dangerous Game”, can no longer be started if one or more Super Agents have been permanently defeated.
Minions will correctly move away from stat restore equipment during Objectives which impact their maximum stats.
The Rayguns stolen from Area 51 list the correct minions that can use them.
Sandbox Mode
All Tech Tree nodes are correctly accessible in Sandbox Mode.
Research which costs more than 40,000 Gold can now be unlocked in Sandbox Mode.
Photo Mode stability has been improved in Sandbox Mode.
