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[BunnyBob77]

Add BunnyBob to the list of names.  This looks like it has promise.

[Neonivek]

Go for Max!

I'd suggest you get the Matron... but she has a fatal glitch involved with one of her moves.

[Burnt Pies]

I'd suggest not getting Red Ivan. He's ridiculously good at friendly fire.


Also, given that I frequently had problems with groups of soldiers mowing down (All) my Combat minions (And construction workers too, the jerks) on Normal Difficulty, trying to keep them a worthwhile fighting force on Hard is just going to be horrible.

[Cuckoo]

He did not sleep the night, pacing across the study like a trapped wolverine. Short and stout, even comical at some occasions, his posture was somehow fierce; his very being emanated a purpose, a massive determination, which flowed out of it and seemed to infest every single thing around. It was the determination to dominate the world, to subdue all the people to his will at all costs.
Lighted by a single bulb, which flickered just a little every now and then, the room revealed pieces of crumpled papers casting ominous shadows on a massive study desk of a very simple, even blunt, design. Partially revealed chalkboard, covered in scribbles almost completely, disappeared into the darkness in the far corner of the room. Walls of bare stone were covered in unevenness — different rock formations stuck out of the generally more homogenous mass, contrasted with numerous cavities, which could not have been natural. Cut out of the womb of Earth herself, cut out crudely, without a second thought and refinement. No one here cared for such silliness. The heavy iron door opened.
— Everything ready, — a man, dressed in yellow, reported.
— Slip the cables! Clear the gangway! Full forward!
They both left the room immediately without so much as closing the door. A mess of blueprints and schematics left there lying around, settled after only the movement of these people had disturbed them, settled only to remain there still in the stale air, to be covered by dust until someone else makes use of this derelict space.

The harbour only known to few as Bay 12, seemed nothing more than a sandy beach with a few shacks. Normally, a random tourist would only see a fisherman sitting on the rocks at the shore, and nothing of interest, except perhaps an “authentic restaurant” — a small cozy place with a bar and a few tables, serving fresh fish, lobsters, and obscure rare dishes, like goat-cheeze shark fin steak. In reality, the nearby forest was swarming with masterfully disguised dug-outs, all connected between each other and with the shacks on the beach by an extensive network of tunnels. This was the city of Bay 12, built around an old undercover naval base and to utilize its infrastructure. If anyone lived here who was not supposed to know this, they would be very surprised to see a piece of rock open like a door and let out a small group of equipped men. If there was anything that could be called “underground”, it was this place.

Not far on the coast, sticking sticking out of a coastal hill, there was an enormous concrete pipe, complete with crumbling edges and a particularly abandoned look, no one would even doubt that it is a former sewage outlet, closed down after the worldwide ban on dumping raw sewage into ocean was put in effect. It was out of this pipe that a rumbling noise first escaped, followed shortly by a large white yacht. No one was held forcibly in Bay 12 and once in a long while someone would venture out to seek the fortunes in advancing whatever it is such people advance in the world.

So did Maximilian. He stood on the deck, staring intently into the horizon. It was time to find a new base of operations, one to support the devious plans he laboured on.

[Cuckoo]

Bought a whole mountain sticking out of ocean! That’s something. Unfortunately, that left Maximilian with only a quarter of a million to play with. But now there was a place to call “home”.

Maximilian sat down in a soft leather-holstered chair. Hours of planning and careful direction already started to show on his tired face. The move left him almost broke. Some couple thousand dollars in money was only enough to stock the vending machine with energy drinks. It’s good that there is no need to rely on power suppliers, so as long as you can siphon the fuel for generators. His new base of operations looked nothing out of ordinary on the surface, except perhaps being built inside a mountain. The layout of initial rooms was such that it managed to bore the first wave of investigators even with half the doorways standing empty and free to roam through.

The layout proved to work well so far, although the vacationing maid took a while to capture because minions were too busy installing all the equipment and manning it, and she herself kept wandering off to the far side of the island. As she was interrogated, he sent some of the personnel right into the midst of North American continent together with the samurai henchman to acquire more funding and blueprints of a library along the way. The money was not much, but every bit counted now. Since then, things have been quiet. Maximilian could afford to relax now that the plans were all in order and it would be some time before there is enough cash to start building the truly vital parts of his lair. Even with the tourists arriving constantly to the island and investigators snooping around, problems were at bay.



So far spent around 300 000 on the base. The two corridor squares in the freezer will serve as camera mounting points. Racks will come with the money, as will doors. The barracks leading to the strongroom from the bottom, the power room, the control room, and the training room out of frame below it are all temporary, and will change once there is money to do that. The idea behind it is to provide a small “surface” tier to the base, the second tier will start at the bottom of the corridor connecting barracks to the archives from the far ends. The feeble SMASH investigator took a while to crack the door in and out of the freezer a couple of times, then did a couple loops around the initial tier and was off. I expect good soldiers/infiltrators will be smarter. I planned the rooms to be small, but they turned out to provide decent support even to a sizable force. Although eventually the personnel count will be greater, and we will need really cunning tricks to keep them from wandering out. I'll grow a sanctuary right beside the strongroom and they both will only be accessible from the bottom, ultimately requiring to go all the way down through the base, then up again on the right.

Here are the first of local characters showing up:


Apparently, Cicero’s sister (or cousin?) decided to crash on our pad. Let’s wish her a good vacation and good luck at not getting freaked out at a giant walk-in freezer full of body bags.


The Euchre brothers have sent their first recruit. He’s faithfully tending to the wounds of those injured by blowing holes in rocks with dynamite.

[Phenixmirage]

Posting to watch.

I've enjoyed Evil Genius in the past, though I'm only so-so at it. I've also had the worst luck with losing my saves when I'm close to winning (it's happened twice.)  -_-

[Cuckoo]

A very quick update:
It’s alive, base is finished, though rooms are largely empty due to equipment not being researched and loot not being present. I'll update tomorrow evening or the next day. Right now I have to go rest and make a trip to a nearby city tomorrow for some ridiculous paperwork.

[Neyvn]

Do you know how to build a Vault room that allows Minions to grab a Briefcase without entering it and yet remains safe from anyone else doing so???

[Mr.Person]

Do you know how to build a Vault room that allows Minions to grab a Briefcase without entering it and yet remains safe from anyone else doing so???

That's quite clearly a bug, frankly. Not that it matters if you're allowing thieves that far into your base.

[Neyvn]

Do you know how to build a Vault room that allows Minions to grab a Briefcase without entering it and yet remains safe from anyone else doing so???

That's quite clearly a bug, frankly. Not that it matters if you're allowing thieves that far into your base.

Actually no its not a bug. Just clever room design...

V = Vault
D = Door
B = Briefcase
W = Wall
C = Corridor.

VVVVV
BBWDD

With the Door at high level, Henchmen will stand guard, your Minions can access the briefcases quickly and Sabs and such can't pop into the room due to the door (something I learned quickly when I tried to make it smaller). With this at the Front door, and having near 500k or what ever results in a FULL stack of Gold, you can build a second vault deeper where your minions will automatically take any stolen artifacts to, if there is space in the Briefcase room though, the minions would drop the Artifact at the Depo and make it easy for a FoJ member to retrieve it, (Also learned by mistakes)...

Having it like this means that your Henchmen are always nearby when needed to defend, your minons ain't yoyoing as they go and buy something, Start from location X which is normally in the middle of base or somewhere, go to Vault then go to depo. And are instead going from where they are located, to the briefcase and then to the depo without retracing any steps...

[Cuckoo]

Found a wireless network here! XD

Do you know how to build a Vault room that allows Minions to grab a Briefcase without entering it and yet remains safe from anyone else doing so???

Check out the high res screenshot of the layout a couple posts ago, and note how the strongroom meets the corridor. I purposely did not build a 1-square wide strongroom along the corridor, but instead put no wall bteween the entrance and the corridor enough to place four racks facing outside and the actual entrance door across on the other side of the room. It's a gambit really - plows minions easy access to money, but risks some high-profile agents blowing up the racks and getting to both gold and the sanctum. Normally, people would build a 1-square wide strongroom along the corridor, and put racks in it, but I thought it would be more fun this way.

[Mr.Person]

Do you know how to build a Vault room that allows Minions to grab a Briefcase without entering it and yet remains safe from anyone else doing so???

That's quite clearly a bug, frankly. Not that it matters if you're allowing thieves that far into your base.

Actually no its not a bug. Just clever room design...

V = Vault
D = Door
B = Briefcase
W = Wall
C = Corridor.

VVVVV
BBWDD

With the Door at high level, Henchmen will stand guard, your Minions can access the briefcases quickly and Sabs and such can't pop into the room due to the door (something I learned quickly when I tried to make it smaller). With this at the Front door, and having near 500k or what ever results in a FULL stack of Gold, you can build a second vault deeper where your minions will automatically take any stolen artifacts to, if there is space in the Briefcase room though, the minions would drop the Artifact at the Depo and make it easy for a FoJ member to retrieve it, (Also learned by mistakes)...

Having it like this means that your Henchmen are always nearby when needed to defend, your minons ain't yoyoing as they go and buy something, Start from location X which is normally in the middle of base or somewhere, go to Vault then go to depo. And are instead going from where they are located, to the briefcase and then to the depo without retracing any steps...

Yes, I know what the layout is, the issue is that it makes no sense whatsoever. How are your minions grabbing cash that they cannot reach? This tactic is also clearly cheese. It gimps the (already bad) AI and bypasses the whole point of the room. Investigators can't get into the room, I'm not even sure Saboteurs can see anything in there with the door blocked. The whole point is that you're supposed to decide if you want it close to your entrance for easy access or far inside to secure it.

The issue is that minions only need to be able to grab briefcases while agents are accessing the gold brick stacks. Also, the briefcase rack doesn't activate the game's usual "can't access" mechanic that blocking access usually entails. In other words we're looking at a bug, not feature.

[Neyvn]

No no no no...
The Briefcase is pointed towards the corridor.
Agents COULD get into the Vault if they get past the Henchmen guarding the door and pick the lock while standing in a heavily operated corridor.
Briefcases do block access. Don't know what your going on there.

[Cuckoo]

As the tabletop turned back over and concealed the strategical model, Maximilian turned around his chair and sighed. World domination is stressful, but it’s worth ever last bit of the body to go for. Just one look at a confused investigator’s face is worth a lifetime of plotting.

The base layout is finished, the ranks are swelling with able-bodied men trained in handling rifles and the technicians are skilled. Some unfortunate incidents still happen, but it has been generally calm since the installation of security cameras and loudspeakers. There was time enough to go over the memorabilia and reassess the base of operations.
The first photograph in the album from the top drawer of the very impressive black avant-garde desk was of one of the Euchre brothers on duty:

You know, it is so untrue that evil people do not care about those, who carry out their will. Max knew he depended on these people, even if they were easily replaceable and you had to kill one or two every now and then, there was never a chance in a lifetime to do anything consequential without them. They are the ones who make things possible. Old veterans and loyal servants deserve this credit.

Although, many of them are prone to desertion:









Did Fikes name one of his grandchildren after Cicero? Really?

(Unfortunately, it turns out that the game does not care for capitalization in names, and Marcus Tullius gets his second name to start with a small letter).

This was a rather often sight until some of the most impressive works of art and engineering marvels have been acquired from abroad. Just being near these things seems to make people feel like they are working for a cause.

Once the prison was built, people became less prone to defect, probably because of its extensive use.



Never mind the dissidents, they never get past the sharks anyway, the work is productive still. Just seeing people rumbling in a giant mixer calms the nerves. If others watch it long enough, they start to understand what will happen to them if they defect. And if it is a person inside, who professes to be a criminal mastermind — all the more pleasure to watch and listen to their confused screams.



(The weird afro-wearing criminal from St. Petersburg of Russia, Nikita Leonov, making it through a round of rattling around a bowl like he were dry peas.)

But it was not without casualties.
Cicero’s another relative got indeed freaked out by a walk-in refrigerator full of body bags:



She made it back to the refrigerator and passed out on the floor freezing to death. Our condolences to her family.


But enough memories, must work. MUST WORK!

The base plan...
Maximilian immediately spread out the blueprints all over his desk.



Now that more people know about the endeavour, we can afford to remove one of the locker rooms, very good, that will be increased security for the west entrance. (Top here, north to the right.

The freezer...



Max started scribbling with a red pen right over the schematic: “*BETTER TRAPS!* — Soldiers start shooting at floor plates as soon as they see one, all hell breaks loose and minions start dying.” Must rethink.

The entrance corridors could use a couple more doors. Order. Check.

The first tier of base.



Working very well, most infiltrators make between five or seven rounds across it before either returning back to their headquarters or walking in the midst of a well-staffed armory. Few minions ever come here, they have all that is needed in the inner base. Note to self: “find better doors”.

Energy.



Reliable, accessibility: low. Maybe some traps will be beneficial.

The minutiae of the last meeting were of little importance. Everyone was generally approving of the plan:



One person, however, was not very agreeable.



“Too bad,” thought Max, “now I will have to find a replacement and install them in London.”
Seeing his fate, however, made everyone pledge readily that they will free up any resources we need to advance the plans of mass terror and destruction.

The general consensus was to acquire research equipment and train better technical personnel. Out of question, that is of highest priority.

[RedKing]

Oh man, how did I miss this earlier? I love Evil Genius...severely underrated game.

Please add my name to the list for minions, if it's not too late. Should be interesting with Maximillian...he's my least favorite Evil Genius. I'm all about the Shen Yu (and not just because he's Chinese...the agent reduction allows you to save money early on by not needing nearly the defenses or guards, and it can be an absolute lifesaver later in the game when the Heat is coming hard and fast and your island looks like a Secret Agent convention).