Keeping the Nations Happy in 2.4

[Gren]

I tried Hard and Very Hard levels, but gave up because I couldn't seem to keep the nations happy enough. The game was continually ending whilst I was building and awaiting sightings to engage. Reloading from an earlier save, seemed to change the course of the game slightly, but the outcome was still unavoidable.

The few missions that came along were completed successfully - all manual and alien ships sold to the highest bidder, and in the next attempt, the nation with the lowest level of happiness - there didn't seem to be very much effect between the 2 methods.

Perhaps the difficulty levels should be more geared to the actual mission/conflict with the aliens. Success or failure rate should then be a reflection on the happiness of the nation where the mission took place. I get the feeling that whilst trying to set up your first base(s) there isn't enough mission action to cater for the volatile happiness levels in these early stages?

[homunculus]

i do wonder how you managed to make nations unhappy that way.

playing the one-base way i also made nations unhappy by the end of second month, but building a second base asap i didn't even come close to getting defeated because of unhappiness, and i tried twice.

first base at lake baykal, because i like how grenades bounce on ice (not even saying that it is a beautiful lake in real life, and therefore an especially good location for the decadent phalanx agents), and second base in nicaragua, third at the northern tip of madagascar (although a better location for radar coverage should be at lake malawi).
so, with more than one base intercepting ufos in the middle of april and cleaning them up quickly as most crashes were close to bases, there seemed to be some 1 to 3 'content' and a few 'happy'.

now i am wondering why you were having trouble, if you say you had few missions, maybe that's just being extremely unlucky or something.
it might mean that, even with the second radar, the aliens were doing their thing outside your radar range most of the time.
and that would be extremely unlucky in my opinion, because in my games, ufos flied around a lot, and eventually ended up in my radar range (looked quite reliable).

[Gren]

now i am wondering why you were having trouble, if you say you had few missions, maybe that's just being extremely unlucky or something.
it might mean that, even with the second radar, the aliens were doing their thing outside your radar range most of the time.
and that would be extremely unlucky in my opinion, because in my games, ufos flied around a lot, and eventually ended up in my radar range (looked quite reliable).

I think we can discount the luck element all together, judging by the number of restarts and game reloads in trying to persevere. IIRC, the furthest progress made was just after the end of month 1 and the set up of Base 2 with a couple of Living Quarters builds.

Up to this point, I guess perhaps 5 or 6 missions with the bulk being successful Alien Scout interception and then DS visit.. as stated, firstly selling the wreckage to the highest bidder each time, then subsequently to the unhappiest nation. A few hours on from here, whilst awaiting the next sighting, the game ends because I cannot look after all the nations needs.

If Alien activity is happening outside of my radar area, then there isn't so much I can do about it really..  

[homunculus]

you are tempting me to play the first two months over again, just to check it again, maybe it was me who was lucky right at the moment when i changed my strategy, and got false impression that way.

starting at baykal, i remember my nicaragua base started intercepting ufos at about april 15, and third base at madagascar started intercepting ufos at april 25.
for a fun fact i saw a soldier with 3 accuracy, and 38 heavy weapons, who would give a heavy weapon to that guy (except flamer, i guess)?

i think i'll try a new game until may, and see how it goes.

[Magniff]

Hi everybody,

according to my experience so far, maintaining international happiness isn‘t a big issue during the first month‘s. Additionally it seems like a high number of successful missions (no matter at which location) does strongly improve international happiness.

But as some people really seem to struggle on this, I’m wondering to which extend the location of the first base does influence somebody‘s ability to detect an shoot UFO‘s? Are there regions that exhibit a higher density of UFO flyovers then others do?

As an example, in my current game (Version: 2.4-dev Nov 24, 2011) on normal difficulty I‘ve build my first base in the asian Republic and the second one in the US. By now (May 18, 2084) I‘ve performed 68 missions. While the majority of missions took place around Asia, already all the Nations are at least happy.

Regards, Magniff

[Gren]

Well thanks for the input.
There just may be something in what you say as homunculus starts in a different place too. I must admit I normally start in New Africa - first base towards the west, mainly because I used to love the Harvester desert missions, but there doesn't seem to be quite so many with the latest builds.. maybe I will try again and place the HQ somewhere completely different. 

[homunculus]

tried the first two months again, and the game allowed me to continue to may again.
2 happy, 3 content, the rest pleased.
this time i didn't build a second lab in the first base, but saved money to get 2 additional bases quickly.
first mission done from second base was april 11.

what i noticed, however, was some ufo hyperactivity starting at april 25.
it seems that if you are not able to detect and intercept ufo-s in more than one location by then, you will be discontinued.
fair enough imho, and makes sense from roleplay perspective.

[nanomage]

Here's some more feedback:
I've started a game on the very hard level half a week ago (freshly downloaded 2.4 dev version) and I never had any serious issues with nation happiness. They did sometimes fall below the limit, but never worse than a mission + a couple sold UFOs can fix. Soon enough in July i was able to get them all Exuberant and now I can even ignore any UFO  except those that land or crash by themselves, without interception.
If it's an issue on lower difficulties, I think we can suggest it's due to not enough UFO's being generated for you to shoot down and raid. That's really a bad thing if it's so, because overwhelming amount of UFOs all with the same tedious missions is imho the worst part of the game.

[Magniff]

Seems like there are some opposing strategies which are, never the less, working quite good.
Therefore it seems interesting to learn more about the individual extent of the separate happiness impacts.
Especially it‘s hard to separate the impacts of the following actions:
a)  Shooting down a UFO
b)  Performing a tactical crahside-mission
c) Selling the UFO‘s remands

The following section tries to accumulate the information that was provided on this topic so far:
1.) As reported by geever in reply #7: Shooting UFO‘s without performing action b) and c) won‘t be enough to maintain happiness (low impact)
2:) As reported by homunculus in reply #14: Shooting enough UFO‘s at the sea is maintaining international happiness, even though  action b) and c) are unavailable. (medium impact)
3.) As reported by me in reply #19: Performing a crashside-mission seems to generate some kind of overall happiness increase, no matter which nation the crashside belongs to. (medium impact)
4.) According to my own experience: Performing some crashside-missions within a certain nations territory generates a recognizable impact on it‘s happiness (high impact)
5.) As reported by nanomage in reply #22: Selling UFO‘s in adequate numbers to a certain nation also does a good job on increasing this nations happiness (high impact)

As point 1.) and 2.) seem to contradict each other, I‘m either missing something or there must be some special mechanic concerning UFO‘s which are shoot at the sea.
To me, the best bet on this special mechanic would be the overall increase on happiness (point 3.), which seems to be gifted automatically if someone shoots a UFO at sea.

Any suggestions, adjustments or additions?
_

[TrashMan]

I got to say, I'm noticing it's more difficult to keep a nation happy, especially early game.
I saw relations drop by 2-3 point within 1 hour.

Asia went from Pleased to Giving Up one me in one day..One day. Despite me selling ALL of my ufo's to it. Possible it was hit by several terror missions in a row?

[homunculus]

in the beginning game the nations are dissatisfied, then they will be balanced for a month or two, and then they will all be uniformly exuberant, meaning that the nation happiness might be excluded from the interface after that point.
i don't know what happens with xvi, though, never seen any xvi.

well, you could call it 'something that needs more balancing', i guess.

[Nutter]

And then you lose the game via trigger happy recruit holding a flamer.
I like.

[Coyote]

In my experience with the latest dev version, it's ludicrously difficult to keep the nations happy in the first two or three months - their relationship with you constantly drops no matter what you do and you essentially have to shoot down every single UFO you see and do every single mission that becomes available and sell every single piece of wreckage just to keep them from shutting you down.  However, for some reason, once you hit late May/early June, it peters off, they're much more forgiving of mistakes, their satisfaction falls more slowly and is raised more easily.  I'm not sure if this is a bug, or if it's a hidden feature - the funding nations being initially skeptical of the organization but becoming more willing to support them after they've had a few months of successful operation.

[geever]

Coyote, could you offer you savegame for analysis?

-geever

[nanomage]

In my experience with the latest dev version, it's ludicrously difficult to keep the nations happy in the first two or three months - their relationship with you constantly drops no matter what you do and you essentially have to shoot down every single UFO you see and do every single mission that becomes available and sell every single piece of wreckage just to keep them from shutting you down.  However, for some reason, once you hit late May/early June, it peters off, they're much more forgiving of mistakes, their satisfaction falls more slowly and is raised more easily.  I'm not sure if this is a bug, or if it's a hidden feature - the funding nations being initially skeptical of the organization but becoming more willing to support them after they've had a few months of successful operation.

I sort of confirm this, happiness is much harder to maintain in the beginning. I came to think it's because there's not many UFOs in the beginning, so you can't get enough missions to perform and remains to sell.
It's just that i never thought of it as of a bug: after all, you are supposed to try and shoot down every UFO you see, and you are supposed to do every tactical mission, and there's nothing to do with all those UFO's in the beginning other than sell them. That seems perfectly right for me.