We've been listening, and we've been busy. With this update we have addressed core areas of feedback from you, the Evil Genius 2 community, ranging from progression issues to game pace, and as a result the length of a campaign can be significantly shorter for those of you who want to play more aggressively.
On the World Map, we've increased the amount of Gold earned from longer running Schemes, and ensured that this is earned over the Scheme's entire duration, allowing you to set a Scheme in motion and reap the rewards while your attention is turned elsewhere. These Schemes still add Heat to the Region, but you'll know how much to expect up front, allowing you more effectively manage the strength of the Agents you're willing to face.
Longer "Heat Reduction" Schemes still remove all Heat from a Region, but once they have done so they can either be cancelled, or allowed to continue running for an increased amount of time, preventing Heat from rising in the area. This keeps the Forces of Justice off your back while the Criminal Network continues to bring in its passive income of Gold. We've also increased the variety of Schemes at Tier 1 Criminal Networks, which will allow you to earn increased rewards for sending specialist minions out into the world earlier in the game, so while you'll still be able to rely on workers to bring in Gold in the early game, it can be beneficial to keep a supply of advanced minions on hand.
Additionally, a brand new Scheme Type has been added in the form of Intel Only schemes, representing activating contacts in your existing Criminal Networks by using Intel generated by Computer Consoles, or sourced from Agent Interrogations. These schemes can be run without sending additional minions from the Lair, allowing you to start a scheme instantly and reap enormous rewards. Be aware that setting some of these Schemes in motion will add a substantial amount of Heat to your Region, so be prepared for strong Agents if you activate one at the wrong time.
In the Lair, the first thing we changed was the speed that vehicles arrive and depart from your Island. This allows minions to get out into the World with greater haste, helping you keep your efforts of World Domination ticking over more readily. We've reduced some key training times for specialist minions to reduce stalls in the training room, and we've also taken a look at the messaging of some items of Lair equipment and added some key information, especially in relation to which items of furniture the Forces of Justice are going to be on the lookout for.
Your more valuable minions - despite being inherently less valuable than your own, nefarious Genius - will still expect to be paid for their time...while they're alive, of course. You'll need to keep a keener eye on your income and outgoings from now on, as the penalties for not doing so will be more readily apparent. We've added additional status effects and minion overheads to help you identify the problem cases in your Lair.
The Forces of Justice have also had some attention, with more dangerous Agent specialists now regularly visiting your Lair if you fail to turn away Investigators before they delve too deeply, and some rebalancing of Super Agents and the squads that accompany them. Be wary - the specialists sent by Investigators will always pose a more dangerous threat.
We've also taken care of a range of bugs too of course, addressing known problem areas with stuck or vanishing Super Agents, troublesome Schemes that decided a Region was too crowded to spawn in, and ensuring more players across the world are able to play out their dreams of dominating it, to name just a few. See the bulleted lists below for a few more details of the balance changes and bug fixes.
As always, thank you for your continued support of Evil Genius 2.
The Evil Genius 2 Development Team
Balance Notes
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.