Evil Genius 2 How I learned to stop worrying and love the agents

Intro

I’ve read a lot about players having problems with agents, and I’m dealing pretty good with them, so I’m going to explain what I do in case it can be useful for someone.

As technical info, I'd played two campaing:

-The first one with Zalika, Medium mode in the doughnut island. Still, making some changes, it should work in any other island, just try to be cunning and think out of the box.

-The second one, in Montañas Gemelas, Emma, medium mode

Disclaimer, English is not my mother language, so bear with me.

First point, in the very early game, I realised about one important thing that is the key: investigators love doors. When they see one door, they go for it.

Note: After playing a second campaign, I'm editing to add more info that I'd discovered.

Part Cero - The Man With The Golden Thermometer

Something important is to understand that controlling Heat is the first line of defense.

You'll get a wave of investigators, it doesn't matter what you do. But the amount of heat would decide which organization and the level of them would show up at your door. When the heat of an organization is reduced enough, it’ll be swapped for another one with more Heat. I’m not really sure if there’s any practical difference between P.A.T.R.I.O.T. investigator or S.M.A.S.H. investigators, and if there’s any, doesn’t seem to be important.

Anyway, the higher the heat, the higher the level. If you keep it below 100, they’ll be the minimum level according to the point in the campaign you are, which would be from 1 to 5.

When they are ready to appear, you’ll see the countdown of (usually) 5 minutes. You have that time to reduce your Heat, and the level of the investigators would depend on the Heat you keep when the countdown reaches 00:00. I’m not really sure if the amount of heat you have makes the time for the countdown shorter.

Either you destroy very hot networks or you launch Intel heat reduction, if you manage to keep it below 100, the investigators will be low level, and easier to manage in the HC, either in the casino or traps. Or shoot them down, as you prefer.

First Part: Casino Battle Royale

When you start the game, you have a big clear casino. The investigator just goes around a little bit, and then goes straight to your lair, attracted by that nice door that leads to your HC. We don’t want that.

At that point, the first thing I did was redesign the whole casino to make it a maze, with lots of corridors that makes them waste their time until they get to my door. Of course, in the way there’s lots of tables, desks and stuff to makes them waste even more time and Resolve. Needless to say that the area is tagged as “distract”, so they are constantly harassed by Deception minions, which makes them lose more Resolve. In late game, when you unlock slot machines, I make use and abuse of them: they work good and don't need staff to handle them (the bad part is having that music constantly in the head).

Some Henchmen have skills that decrease Resolve, like Silver tonge’s Barracuda, or the poison soup of Fu. Investigators won’t attack them, so I use those skills constantly.

As well, I used to have a couple of advance guard posts in the entrance that stopped them from carrying on. In the early game, when the agents are just three and a low level, usually with that is enough but lvl 5 or higher will, the game changes, and so I did.

About Montañas Gemelas, I'd made the casino big enough to include the back entrance in it. Investigators that came from the back door, were driven through the casino by my deception minions. Deception minions, plus the skills of my henchmen, made them lose resolution with no problems. But I want to make clear that I manage to have low levels investigators thanks to keep a very low Heat levels.

Part Two: Live And Let Get Loss.

As I said at the beginning, investigators (and soldiers, even Super agents) feel attracted by sexy doors. So I gave them what they are looking for.

I’ve built a maze full of traps (just traps) in the very entrance of the casino, with one of those doors they love so much. What do they do? Cross it. As the game gets harder and investigators are harder to trap, I’ve made it bigger and twisted in order to make sure they spend lot of time in it. They’ll deactivate most of the traps and will avoid others, but if there’s lots enough, their Resolve will perish (so far I’ve seen lvl 7 max investigators). Btw, all the traps I use are Resolve oriented: bees and ice. Fans and magnets are there to lure them. As well I have some to divide them (that is very important).

Even here, in corridors, you can keep using the skills of a henchman without being attacked, so I keep giving psychological fight.

Honestly, very few investigators get out of here with the Resolve high. Just a few manage to get out but just with a low level left. Use the henchmen to finish with their morale.

And it gives me some fun for those moments I have to wait.

I would like to add something about traps. The main problem is not the trap himself as most people complain about. The issue is when agents came in packs of five. Let’s say you have a two fans combo and a group of five agents came in, it is easy for them to deactivate it, since the first fan will be desmantelated by one investigator, and the second for another one. The main point is to divide them. If there’s just one, he will deactivate the first fan, but will trigger the second one. With that in mind, a dungeon is not just dropping traps and wait. No, no, no. Is a masterpiece of engineering in order to divide groups to make them weaks. This game is called Evil Genius, not Violent Orcs.

Btw, do you remember what I said about that doors fetish? If you make an empty room, they’ll just have a look and turn back. If you want them to cross the room (probably because there’s a trap), you need to put another door on the opposite side and, mostly, they’ll go for it.

Part Two And A Half: Not Saving Private Ryan.

Soldiers are not here for making friends, either found your casino on Tinder. They’ll shoot at anybody on their way, mostly deception minions since the casino is his area of work. Get used to it. The best thing to do is kill them as soon as you spot them.

Traps that affect Resolve are a waste of time with them, since they’ll keep killing everything. The only thing that would work are deadly traps, but since I don’t want to kill investigators, it makes no sense to have a set of deadly traps, mostly deactivated, just for soldiers. Turning them on and off is a pain in the ass as there’s not multiple selection in this game. As well, technicians are constantly walking by the maze fixing the traps, so they are a nice target for people with more bullets than manners. So, the fastest thing I’ve found is to tag them for die (my casino is set for distraction), and send the guys as soon as they show their faces in your casino. If I could attack them on the beach, I would.

I've been checking about how combat works, but that will be for another guide.

Part Three: For Your Minions’s Eyes Only.

I’ve seen (and read in posts) that investigators become aggressive when a minion tries to distract them. As I see, that happens when they try to enter a non-casino room, even a corridor. Maybe they realise there’s something else that a casino and want to investigate by force.

I’ve found two options:

-Tag that room in tier 0 (I mean, leave the investigator to have a look at our Ikea beds) and avoid problems.

-Make an area previous to the forbidden room, in order to make sure it’s kindly invited to XXX off before he/she finds anything. As well I’ve found that they don't give any problems if the room they try to get is not tagged.

General talking, they don’t give me problems as long as they are in casino areas.

But that is my experience, maybe they keep fighting for no reason. Well, high-level investigators are tough guys. They are not Miss Marple, but Humphrey Boggart or Mike Hammer.

Part Four: From H.A.M.M.E.R. With Love

The Developers say that constantly, and for a good reason: keep your XXXXing Heat down.

When you get rid of some super agents that becomes much easier. I try to not make it higher than 100, and I’m getting just lvl 5, much easier to deal with.

“I’m getting constant waves of high lvl investigators from areas with 800 Heat, and I don't know what I’m doing wrong. Must be a bug”. Yes… sure. Just keep poking with the wrong people.

Part Five: Minions Are Forever.

I Never, ever, kill an investigator if I can avoid it. I Capture them and give them a nice brainwash to add them to my happy family. So far, so good. No saboteurs, no thiefs… Sometimes some soldiers show up, but mostly because a fight starts by mistake, when I didn’t understand why investigators get aggressive, or when they get involved in a battle against a super agent.

When you kill investigators is when soldiers come looking to spend some bullets. And they don´t ask questions.

Conclusion

In the image, is how I made my place. The maze is at the right, and they ALWAYS get in. No agents had skip that door. None. I need to make some changes to improve it, but basically is how I made my place, and is working pretty good.

When there’s a fight, is usually in the entrance, either because I fight the soldiers soon, or because is when someone is coming out of the maze (there’s just one exit, and is the same as the entrance)

I hope that helps someone, especially those small percent of players that spend some time trying to understand the game, instead of complaining about everything.

Any additional info is welcome.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2486199425

How I learned to stop worrying and love the agents