Evil Genius 2 World Domination

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:27 pm

My wife has foiled my dastardly plans to be able to stay home and play all day tomorrow!

She decided that after my vaccine shot on Wednesday I might not be up for going out to dinner plus Walmart and grocery shopping, so we're doing that tomorrow

. Still, I ought to be able to get in a few hours of play. This is all assuming that Green Man Gaming gets me my key in time.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:37 pm

From “Worth Playing” who are generally on point (at least for my tastes):

All in all, Evil Genius 2 is a perfectly solid update-slash-sequel to the original title. It doesn't break the mold but focuses on streamlining the core gameplay while adding more enemies, features and traps. It's similar enough that it probably won't change your mind if you didn't like the original, but by the same token, if you liked Evil Genius, you'll most likely enjoy Evil Genius 2. It's also a good starting point, as you don't need knowledge of the original to jump into evil scheming. It's not perfect, but it's probably the best supervillain simulator out there.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:33 am

It's good to hear they didn't "Startopia 2" this one.

Hey guys, let's take a kind of niche older game people loved and strip away the things that made it fun, and then see if anyone buys it "because nostalgia"

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:25 am

ACG who is my go to reviewer said wait for a sale and borderline wait for deep sale. Saying the first 4-6 hours are fun but it doesn't really improve/change after that and there are so many things that are opaque like various bonuses for ambient items. On the other hand Outriders doesn't come out until Thursday and I am bored, so I bought it. I'll check it out more at lunch and give initial impressions even though I have seen a couple people play the first hour already so I don't expect much in the way of surprises there.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:29 am

Who/what is ACG?

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:45 am

Maybe this?

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:47 am

Yeah, Angry Centaur Gaming though he is rarely angry and I am not clear on the centaur part.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 11:19 am

Well, I've got my key from GMG and downloading now. Impressions sometime later today.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:10 pm

Played about an hour over lunch. It was all tutorial so not a lot of options. The interface worked well, the graphics are nice. There is a lot of stuff going on until you are waiting for stuff and wow do you need a lot of power!

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:19 pm

I've also put in about an hour so far. The tutorial only holds your hand so far, after that it just suggests what to do but doesn't always put a flashing arrow above what you need to click or such. Not really an issue. And after the first three rooms you're only given a suggested size but where and how big you make the room is up to you. No red flags so far.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:22 pm

One minor quibble with the tutorial. At one stage they MADE me collect the reward for an optional objective when my vault was basically full, throwing away most of a $7500 reward.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:25 pm

coopasonic wrote: ↑Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:22 pm One minor quibble with the tutorial. At one stage they MADE me collect the reward for an optional objective when my vault was basically full, throwing away most of a $7500 reward.

Point noted. I'll tweak the size of my vault right now

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:33 pm

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:25 pm
coopasonic wrote: ↑Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:22 pm One minor quibble with the tutorial. At one stage they MADE me collect the reward for an optional objective when my vault was basically full, throwing away most of a $7500 reward.
Point noted. I'll tweak the size of my vault right now

Note it was in the very first like 15-20 minutes so you are likely past it now, but yeah your vault capacity is key (but power is MORE key).

I really hope there is research to increase power supply as the way it is going your base will be like 40% power generation.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 3:21 pm

I assume I want to choose Vulkan mode instead of DX12 mode? I have no idea what Vulkan is.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 3:26 pm

wonderpug wrote: ↑Tue Mar 30, 2021 3:21 pm I assume I want to choose Vulkan mode instead of DX12 mode? I have no idea what Vulkan is.

In theory Vulkan is a little faster, but the difference is negligible, particularly in a game where frame rates aren't make or break.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 3:52 pm

A couple of tips. One, turn off your incinerator if you don't have any bodies to burn. That's five power right there.

The other might be a bit of a spoiler (NOT story related), but if you are hurting for money, take a look...

Spoiler:

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:05 pm

I like the way base building is presented. It is possible to actually refill a room with rock and start again, or in the case of my barracks below, make a rather twisted layout for best efficiency.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:35 am

I'm up to around 5 hours, not terribly far past the pretty damn long tutorial. I finished the first main mission set after the tutorial and am started on the second set. While I was working on the world stage or something I totally missed a group of investigators. They were on their way out when I noticed them and by then I could only grab one of them. I am not sure if that is why I now have a nearly non-stop stream of investigators, but whatever the reason it is pretty damn annoying and keeping me from building up to where I want to be. I guess I need to spend more on defenses and maybe beef up the cover operation. Money is the one thing I have plenty of and power is better now that I have the upgraded power systems.

I really need to research stairs, but I really need to research some defenses, but I really need to research some... well, you see how it goes. Needing more comms to upgrade operations on the world stage is annoying me. I hope I find upgraded comms stations soon too or I'll need to dedicate a whole damn floor to comms.

Soooooo much to do!

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 12:45 pm

I'm really enjoying the game. I put in just under eight hours yesterday, pretty good seeing as I didn't even get to it till early afternoon. I was up till almost three

. I was a bit critical of the activities on the world view, thinking them a bit too abstract and simple, but I am so, so busy at my base I really don't have a lot of time to spend on the world view anyway.

I got nailed with a bad investigator attack as well. I spotted them (five) coming off the boat and made the mistake of sending my minions out into the casino to fight them. I lost more than twenty(!) and the knock-on effect is bad. I've run out of minions to send on world view missions, so my cash flow is drying up. And this is right after I researched digging tough soil so I'm ready to rearrange my base, but I'm so hurting for money right now. But it is a good hurt, I'm really liking how the gameplay works. Kudos to Rebellion, eight hours in and I've yet to see a bug, graphic issue or load/save problems.

I did figure out how to really save power, I'm shutting off any items I'm not currently (ha!) using like research devices, cells, medical pods, stuff like that. It adds another layer of work for me, but now I can sell off a few power units to get more available cash.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 1:28 pm

Good first impressions for me as well so far. I wish there was another option for a front besides the casino, and I wish the main menu had a "continue from last save" button instead of making you dig into the load menu... but those are my biggest complaints so far.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 2:33 pm

wonderpug wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 1:28 pm Good first impressions for me as well so far. I wish there was another option for a front besides the casino, and I wish the main menu had a "continue from last save" button instead of making you dig into the load menu... but those are my biggest complaints so far.

There are three different starter islands, are they all fronted by casinos?

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:21 pm

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 2:33 pm
wonderpug wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 1:28 pm Good first impressions for me as well so far. I wish there was another option for a front besides the casino, and I wish the main menu had a "continue from last save" button instead of making you dig into the load menu... but those are my biggest complaints so far.
There are three different starter islands, are they all fronted by casinos?

Yup. The layouts are different, and they start in different geographical locations, but they all have casinos.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:37 pm

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 2:33 pm There are three different starter islands, are they all fronted by casinos?

Well, that's 50% more islands than the original had in the entire game. How can you go wrong?

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 12:45 pmI was a bit critical of the activities on the world view, thinking them a bit too abstract and simple, but I am so, so busy at my base I really don't have a lot of time to spend on the world view anyway.

In the original, overworld activities were entirely "Fire and forget". You could sit there and watch the timer tick down, or you could go be more amused watching you minions run around and maybe kill one or two to make the others work harder.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:54 pm

I might be missing something. On the world view, I'll know from the icon at the bottom left that there are, say, four regions where I can take an action, but right now the only way I seem to be able to find them is to mouse-over each region and see. Is there some button or other method to use that jumps me to each region in turn where I can take an action?

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:46 pm

Things are not going well. A saboteur came in and set fire to the place:

And now I'm in a death spiral with few minions, low money and bad guys showing up a lot. I'm not ready to throw in the towel, so I think the best approach is to quit sending out minions, accept the reduced money income and hope the decreased heat stops the bad guys from constantly showing up

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:48 pm

Did they get by a lot of your traps?

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 31, 2021 11:33 pm

Daehawk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:48 pm Did they get by a lot of your traps?

The saboteurs disabled the traps and while normally that would be seen on my surveillance camera, I had so few minions I couldn't keep them manned. And since I had unlocked more of the story I was facing some nasty opponents.

And after twelve hours, it's...

My genius got killed trying to stop another super-intruder. Normally I'd have kept him out of danger, but I was rather low on guards at the time:

I was given the option to load either the latest save or a save of my own choosing. I used a save from a few minutes before, but things were already too deep in the hole to survive. So I've decided I'm going to start a new game with a new Evil Genius, but play on Easy. And this time I'm going to try to avoid over-expanding too soon, something I'm guilty of going back to games like SimCity

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:32 am

Started a new campaign with the Red Ivan guy on the third island.

It is actually a simpler island in that it has one less level to deal with and less of a threat from the neighbors.

I still chose to go with the Easy difficulty. Here is the map after I've unlocked guards, about to start going after technicians:

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:56 am

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:46 pmhope the decreased heat stops the bad guys from constantly showing up

Heat in the original was like a resource you managed as much as money. You had to constantly wait for things to cool off between heists - or you invited destruction on yourself. IIRC, keeping investigators and agents out of your base and letting them leave without having seen anything was a substantial heat mitigator. The casino isn't just a front, it's a way to get them to burn the time they have to spend looking for evil plots before they need to go home.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:53 am

What sets this apart for the original?

Newcastle · Post by **Newcastle** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:44 am

Wow the time just slips away playing this thing. Play for a bit, 3 hours are gone. Damn. I'd give it a 7/8 tentacles so far. I played the first one and enjoyed it. But it's been soooo long ago that I dont recall anything of it. So i can't compare it. I am enjoying my time with this. Got about 10 hours in it so far maybe. Got my first henchman and working on my second one. Playing as Emma, the spider lady, on the gold island, medium difficulty.

TLDR - if this genre is your type of game, ie tropico, city manager....you'd probably like this.

Things I like:
-base management is interesting [ what rooms to build, minion levels, ]
-research creates a nice set of competing choices; do i buff my minions? buff me? do I get that laser fence been eyeyin? or maybe look into nuclear power? ] Also how they do it is pretty cool in that there are 4 disciplines [ minions, lair, traps, global network]. Each has about 4 tiers of research. In order to progress to tier 2, you need to research 3 techs from any of the 4 categories. So you may need 3 techs to advance, but they can be spread out from all disciplines, or from one.
-base design is also fun and challenging. [ where to put your inner sanctum, infirmary]. I've had to redesign several rooms for better lair feng shui. Also am toying with the idea of a trap corridor, but to do that, need money...and that presents a whole category of challenges.
- you do have to look after worker morale, smarts and one other thing. but thankfully if you send minions on missions the disgruntled tend to get sent out.
-i've not really gotten too deep into trap design and layout, though I really want to.
-no noticeable bugs, no crashes, smooth so far.
-systems work in place
-lighthearted as a villain simulator can be
-interesting synergy on what to build and where [ do i put the cafeteria near the barracks] etc.

Things I dont like
-the building tools take a bit to get use to. When building and trying to rotate the mouse cursor seems to be very touchy and squirms around. Though this is controlled by a deft touch. The controls for managing the building are the weakest thing I see so far. TIP: when holding middle mouse button to rotate the camera for a better view of placement, less is more. Meaning move slowly rather than fast. If you move too fast the viewpoint goes chaotic.
-lack of an ingame encyclopedia to explain how "Heat" mechanics work. Though this isn't a deal breaker yet.
-global screen could have a better indicator on what countries are free
-would like a better statistics screen so I can make better choices.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:14 am

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:53 am What sets this apart for the original?

Works on modern PCs, modern graphics. I didn't play the original enough to say much more.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:17 am

You can also rotate object on the PC using the "R" and "T" keys, this is in the options. There is also a slider to adjust "Furniture rotate sensitivity".

I agree about the global screen, knowing which regions are free without having to mouse over each of them.

Considering how often I was getting raided in my first game, I'm not really understanding heat either. On the stats page there is a display for the five governments, showing the level of heat with each with labels of "Low", "Medium" and "High". In my new game I'm going to try to keep under the Low limit and see if that helps.

There was a patch this morning, but I haven't seen any notes yet.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:24 am

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 11:33 pm My genius got killed trying to stop another super-intruder. Normally I'd have kept him out of danger, but I was rather low on guards at the time:

I'm starting to question your status as an evil genius...

Steam says I am 11.5 hours in. I've accidentally invited Agent X to my lair twice now. He thinned my ranks a good bit, but we recovered. I'm a bit annoyed that you unlock the tier 3 research stuff long before you actually can unlock the tier 3 research stuff (yeah I know it doesn't make any sense!). Hopefully one more loot side story will get me there. I want my shark tank!

My base is still all on one floor because I haven't really felt the need to expand it beyond that and I still have room on the first floor. I need to take the time to turn the back half of the casino into a trap corridor. I've done very little with traps and what I've done isn't remotely effective. It tends to kill more of my minions than the intruders. Those poor valets.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:26 am

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:17 am I agree about the global screen, knowing which regions are free without having to mouse over each of them.

The easiest way I have seen to tell what is available is the blinking light on the region. Fast blink means nothing going on, slow blink means scheme in progress.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:47 am

Not sure I have any business spending $50 but here we go. (Also I hate the DLC model, especially the instant DLC model) Should be finished downloading in time for the work day to end...

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:40 am

I'm sorely tempted to grab this, but Outriders unlocks in less than an hour, so I'm determined to resist the OO Effect and leave EG2 on the wish list until it goes on sale in the (hopefully near) future.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:46 am

Max Peck wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 11:40 am I'm sorely tempted to grab this, but Outriders unlocks in less than an hour, so I'm determined to resist the OO Effect and leave EG2 on the wish list until it goes on sale in the (hopefully near) future.

Yeah that hurts me a little bit. That 11 hours I have in EG2 may just be all as next gaming I do will certainly be Outriders and that's going to last a while.

My EG2 save is in a pretty good spot that should make getting back into it pretty easy whenever I get around to it. Around 100 minions (my base cap is at 111 and I've bounced off that a couple times) and $200k to spend is a decent cushion to land on.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:47 pm

coopasonic wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:24 am I've accidentally invited Agent X to my lair twice now.

Yeah, I invited one without understanding that this was a bad thing to do if you are hurting for guards

.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu Apr 01, 2021 3:50 pm

So, strategy question. Are there rooms where you don't bother placing doors? Barracks and Mess Hall are ones I'm not bothering with. Wrong? Right? Not really important?