Yes, Caine Key do have weird room layout, with the donout, but unlike the other 2 islands, minions waiting on the chopper, dont get caught in fights. Plus any doors makes AI fight quite weird and helipad has the only 2 none removeable doors.
Yeah I got to agree with you I think Caine Key is best, I mean he forgot to mention total area as well. The Caine Key has like ~70,000 sq m more than the crown royal, so even with the weird curves you don't really miss out on anything because of all the additional space, Also early expansion into a massive basement is great. and only one point to defend.
@@yashida1999 I've played through entirely with Caine Key now. I can say that is actually the biggest problem with this map. You end up with shoot-first, ask-questions-later agents going through your deception area instead of through your traps. It devastates your minion count every time they visit.
I picked Caine Key for the fact that not only is the helipad at the center of the base, but all intruders (in my experience thus far) have to come in through the casino entrance, so I'd only need to keep my eye on one specific spot to watch out for intruders. But tbh, I'm thinking of restarting my current Ivan playthrough and using Crown Gold for my lair
You clearly haven't played Caine Key yet, as your assessment is seriously off. There are very few constraints besides research into digging into harder rock.
That, plus in Crown Gold the Investigators mostly come in via the helipad route rather than the Casino, which means that when they run out of resolve, they'll try and leave by going through your base rather than via the front door. In my most recent playthrough on CG, this caused SO MANY FIGHTS - eventually my minions just auto-slaughtered Investigators in the late game because it was almost impossible to use the Casino to pacify them at all. The upper floors in CG suck, too.
Montanas is the best late game. It has more space than any other and the chokepoint can easily be defended... The Casino doesn't need to expanded at all. I made mine much smaller and it works like a charm. Only high lvl people get past it and immediatly get send back. Fights rarely happen... And when they do, the guards in the bottom area take care of it fairly well... Rooms can be very large! Especially once you get the first dig upgrade. Science can be moved lower as well as other areas with ease. Downside?: Digging to lvl 1 for the superweapon was annoying! And npc's get stuck from time to time... (bad coding, then again the game has some areas that are broken!)
I like Caine Key because I just like the way the island looks. Plus it has a few tactical advantages that others have already pointed out. I also like trapping the agents in endless casino mazes, so it is ideal for me.
Caine key for me is the best. If only the base construction is rated then the Crown Gold is better but it is also the most annoying start because it has high threat to most nations. Caine key however has two low threat nations so you could get cash rolling at the start.
Eh, Crown Gold has more than 60k less total space than the other choices. might be a good early choice but its the worst late game choice because you just CANT have as much in your base due to smaller size.
I understand what you're saying but I think efficient layout planning and smartly designed rooms are far more important than size. Having lots of space is nice in theory but it can spread your minions thin, which is not ideal. This is why the donut-shaped island is challenging to build in, even though if it has the most space. In my current playthrough, I finf it's inherently less efficient because you have to fragment your base
@@WiseG33k Absolut right. Donut base has way to much space and long travel times. Played Ivan in it and each havoc shot results in fires at random spots. A nightmare to get these fires under control in these set up, even with countless fire countermeassures.
@@Atomicnatio The main problem is that the minion AI isn't amart enough to select stat boosting items based on distance. I've tried to figure this out and have often seen/followed minions walk on the other side of the island to use a bed when there were a ton of free ones to use near their position. Something isn't right in the way it has been coded, the devs need to rewrite the selection priority of items by minions and work something out that discourage the use of items based on distance.
@@WiseG33k I believe the AI does choose the closest ( insert noun here ) but it may also be checking if no other minion is also traveling to that ( insert same noun here )
@@WillFixPlanesForMoneh Yes, it could be something like that too, where a minion essentially reserves a spot, which is why we don't see the item being used and minions skip past it.
Since I am playing red ivan, and soldiers are common visitors, having that extra time to prepare while they are roaming the casino is a great advantage
It's perhaps the best for Ivan since he can just dump the casino all together without looking back. Otherwise soldiers will kill a few valets on their way in unlike other maps, makes it very annoying to keep the minion counts high if you decide to keep the casino.
I picked the Montañas Gemelas as my first Island, I am a new commer to EG so I have no idea about the lay outs and Mining technique lvl, I just based on the Island's outer view which Monatañas is the best for me. I just realized later on the game by watching on youtube that Montañas is indeed the most difficult island layout to build with 😆. But it's ok, so far I have build my ultimate evil lair here and I love it.
Don't undersetimate Caine Key, the casino front and helipad are close enough to circumvent any agent incursion. On Caine Key, agents will *ONLY* enter from those two spots.
I also went with Caine Key because of that very limited entry points for agents and with the total space available in the end you won't have a bit problem with the donut hole in the middle. Though as said having central rooms for easy access is not available here.
@@omlo9093 that helps a bit, but they really need to add a way to restrict minion access to certain areas. I built a lab with barracks and kitchen on the side opposite the entrance, but valets will use those beds even though there is more than enough for them just inside the main entrance
First base: basic standard base Second base: hardmode base Third base: ez mode base I personally liked the second base(montanas) because it offers a good challenge like less space for building and the floors are not so accessible early on. I hate the third base(Caine key) because it provides too much space for building(i.e can mine out most of the base with only advanced mining techniques and super agents tend to walk in the front door!) Which means, they will lose a lot of resolve and even skill if you have a lot of socialites and slot machines. So yeah it is ez mode base. Anyways good vid.
You glossed over the main advantage for Caine Key, all visitors have to go through the casino. the only Agents that get into the base another way is Sym and that is solved by making the vault in the basement with the stairs going right into the main Armory. The Donut is only restrictive in the very beginning but you can grow out of it with the right tech build.
Since you bring that up, I want to point out that you can do the same with the Arctic lair. It needs 1 or 2 digging upgrades, but the "back entrance" of the Arctic Lair can be walled off. But because the game demands there be a path for the back entry point, it actually allows you to dig the opposite way, rerouting it into the casino. In other words making the back entrance just a longer route to your casino entrance. 1 entrance.
Would love to get another dlc with a new genius and base. Currently playing on Crown Gold, and when I started digging in the basement I had to start with several small little cubbies to throw things I didn’t have space for. Only now once I got the max level digging have I started making tunnels connecting all of the rooms.
Played Crown with Max and now Caine with Zalinka. At Crown I didnt really need a second floor, all fits at Floor one if you want. Had the Quaters (1 big one for all minions at 2nd floor/ won´t do it again) cause had to go to Floor 2 and 3 for your Doomsdaymachine. Best solution for these pesky Agents I came up was redirecting the Helipad path to the front of the Casino, but that´s really long Traveltime for your minions too (cause some items even in late game they´re getting from the helipad and not the construction "machine"). At Caine I have no Probs cause´ all Agents are coming through the front door. Build my Arsenal between the Casino an Lair and my Fighters will do the rest without running allover the place. That´s a point wich is a huge plus and if you play as Emma your Distraction minions are better, so the most normal Agents won´t even reach the lair.
Montanas gets better with portal DLC - after second mining research you can dump everything in the basement and use the portal as a staircase straight to the top floor
My experience was that Crown Gold was the worst, mostly later in the game. Enemy soldiers and such will come in from the same door that your own minions are trying to go out when leaving for missions, and since it's outside of your base, you can't really do anything to defend against it, except carefully time when/how you send minions out, which is a lot of overhead. I found that I'd send minions out, and several times, I'd adjust my total minion count after. Then, I'd sit and wait and wait and the mission would never start. Well turns out, one or two of the minions got killed outside my base, and now I can never have enough to start the mission, and there's just a big clump of useless minions standing around my helipad taking up space. Anyway, the Oceans DLC expansion adds an Icicle Point, which is my favorite. Your helipad is almost completely private, and enemies can (usually) be kept from gaining access. The helipad has THREE points of access, floors 1-3, and so your minions have a pretty quick path there from any part of your base. For the original three, I like Caine Key, for the same reasons as the Icicle Point, the completely secure path to the helipad. I played Montanas Gemelas first, and initially thought the "defensible choke point" was good, and to some extent it is, but again, many agents come from the same pathway as your helicopter access, so you can lose a lot of minions if there is mis-timed overlap. Finally, all the base maps have an ambient temperature that's slightly pink, where Icicle Point has an ambient temperature that's slightly blue. This makes it a little easier to manage your hot rooms, as it requires slightly fewer air conditioners, and despite the cool temps, it's not "cold", so you don't need heaters (I don't use them ever, anywhere, I think they're mostly just aesthetic). As far as easy access and self-connectedness of your bases, all the bases have a placement area where a single stairway can reach all floors, but there are drawbacks there too. Montanas Gemelas is the least connected and will absolutely require at least two stairways, both potentially with top-to-bottom access (but a VERY narrow available placement of that stairway), but you have to have two to get both "pillars". And, the smallness of the mid-pillar rooms kinda makes them hard to utilize properly, though it's doable if you are willing to move things around, scrap and rebuild rooms later. Caine key is accessible with a single stairway near your doomsday stack, but also, with max stone-cutting, most of the way around the loop as well, minus one small cutout on the top. Multiple stairways can leave your base very well interconnected for better or worse. The top floor of Crown Gold is very small, leaving only one small area available for a top-to-bottom stairway, but otherwise, self connectedness is quite good. It does have one side-room, which will require a second stairway that will open into an isolated room, but that could be a great place for a late-game vault relocation. Finally, Icicle Point has a similarly obstructed top floor, but a bit larger, with SLIGHTLY more freedom in the top-to-bottom stairway placement, or a very large area available for the B-to-3 stairway, with an additional isolated 3-4 stairway. The top floor of the Icicle Point is far too large for a vault, though... I used it as such anyway, and could hold an absolutely massive fortune there. BUT, by the time you can build it, you don't really need it anymore. Icicle Point also has another isolated room like Crown Gold, which can be a good jail or a vault. In both cases, you can also just ignore the isolated room and just use a single top-to-bottom stairway. So, some overalls: Big Casino: Icicle Point, or... just not Montanas Gemelas Defensible Entryway: Caine Key Max Space: Caine Key, or Icicle Point Heat Management: Icicle Point Overall self-connectedness: Crown Gold probably takes first here, though, I think Icicle Point is just as good. My overall ranking, best to worst: Icicle Point, Caine Key, Montanas Gemelas, and then Crown Gold. I just lost HUNDREDS of minions to the very unsecure helicopter pathway in Crown Gold, and would be very reluctant to retry that location outside of a specific challenge. I played Montanas Gemelas on the easiest difficulty first, and the rest on the hardest, so it's possible Montanas Gemelas also has the same flaw, but it's not as evident on easy (Possibly the same could be said of Crown Gold for easy).
In my opinion Caine Key is the best. I know the way it's shaped means that it's not as spacious as it sounds. But once you research the first mining technology, more space opens up then does on Crown Gold. Grown Gold may have more centralised space but it needs higher levels of mining. The Basement on Cain Key is HUGE so it's great for power plants. Also, you've only considered the shape and size of the islands. Caine Key offers overall less threat for the FOJ then any other island.
The Caine Key has the advantage that Agents only have one entrance you have to shut down. I'm running a game as Ivan where I just use a camera and a few guard tables. The Casino is actually trying (and failing at least in the sense of any significant amount) to make money :D Additionally Caine Key has the lowest threat level to South America which is by far the best money machine in the early game.
Yeah, why is the casino so bad at making money? I thought at first that it would be a large income source but I haven't gotten it to turn much of a profit in any of my campaigns.
Caine Key here. Crown gold makes the basement practically inaccessible for far too long (my preference for the generator area.) Also, not having a backdoor makes things a lot easier.
I was really hoping to use Montañas Gemelas for the "one side is clean and one side is dirty" strategy. But the layout of the mountains means you pretty much *HAVE* to have something juicy on the casino side. Which, ok, no big deal, I just have a big armory there and a trap corridor on the bridge. But... every single agent seems to want to go through the armory and down the stairs to the power station/vault, and not a single one is interested in crossing the bridge (toward control room, lab, and inner sanctum). I'm not sure if it's due to where my doors are placed, or if their AI always looks for certain types of rooms. Grr. I've thought about moving everything around, but it'd be hard to fit the "big" rooms on the second pillar. Anyone know how to get the agents to run down the trap corridor? Now that I've unlocked higher level mining, I *think* I can fit 2 corridors down the hallway (with it looping around at the far end), so that the *only* way into the base is to go through a trap corridor. I think this might be the way to go, but it's unfortunate you cant do this strategy until tier 3 research. (I was originally hoping the bridge would span 2 floors, so that you could force people to go down the bridge, then down stairs, then back up the bridge, etc etc)
Unfortunately agent ai does make them consistently take the same path through your base. If you want to go super insane on traps then you can block off one side of the hallway and make your base design -> down the hall -> down to the basement -> back up the other side. If you just want a lot of traps next to the casino entrance then caine key will give you more open space to work with.
@@TeddyNinja Frustrating. :( Couldn't they have included a random number generator to help the agents make decisions? Grr. I'll keep working on the design and if I come up with somethin cool I'll post about it here ;)
Caine Key is nice because all agents must go through casino, but if some agent start a shootout, many of your casino staff will be killed. Also you need more micro-management, especially if you like to put automatic "Deceive" order on casino room. Never use Aurora Borealis trophy here, because rogues *will* steal it. Also, it's a good idea to hire IRIS as henchman because she can quickly call help via her "camera mode" if situation become critical. And don't ever use Incendio here, he always hangs out at casino and gladly joins the fight, but his AoE blasts will burn and wreak you casino equipment to bits. Montanas is good because it's easy to catch agents in a single corridor of doom, which has entrance from both the casino and agent spawner. However, you start your base at the top level, so you will need to drill all down to level 1 to start your doomsday device construction. Crown is great, but you can experience a mild difficulty protecting both entrances (casino and agent spawner), they are quite far from each other.
Much of the space in these islands is so unnecessary, you don't even have to really spread your base all over it. A compact base means that minions will get to places faster, which means their stats will decrease less, and increase, more. I don't even use all of Caine Key. A single and central corridor, will mean that enemies will find themselves likelier to find themselves suspectable to traps. Also, if you just researched stairs, much of the base can be applied at the basement, making some of it uninfluenced by the donut-shape effect. Finally, it has no backdoor unlike the rest of the islands, which means no flanks from heavy waves of agents.
Caine key is excellent because all intruders enter through the casino and will have to go down a singular corridor which is easy to defend and fill with traps and almost no enemies make it in
At least you should mentioned that Crown Gold is the smaller map of the 3 , and their is nothing wrong on like something even is the meta is inferior, just explain why you prefer something don't hide fact. Also the extra money on the basement as it is mostly hard stone will get in game when don't matter anymore , because you cash introit will be way higher.
Nah, Crown Gold is the smallest map and most of my rooms are just corridors anyway. Caine Key is way easier early game due to all threats coming from the casino entrance, allowing you to concentrate all your forces in one point (yeah this map has better choke point than montanas gemelas go figure), is way larger for endgame and It's easier to play with the verticality of the map (this map basement is easy to dig early game to store all your power generators and things like that). Sorry but let's agree to disagree. I think Crown Gold was designed for new players who like to make big squares to discover the game slowly. Doesn't mean it's the better map IMO
Do you actually play the game? Two of the bases has a pretty MAJOR drawback, it allows agent to come in through the casino and helipad. With the central helipad bases that don't allow agent and super agents to have a backdoor into the base, you can turn off those stupid doors... Think about the time saved from not having to open those doors million of times, not to mention having only one attack vector is priceless.
Just wondering if you have actually played the game because the donut as you call it is by far the best you can fit your entire bis the entire base and then some on that 1st donut without even having to expand upper down and complete the game easily
Hmm I have 336 hours in the game. If you wanna see more with the bases check out my speedrun competition with Easy Builds, I play the donut map there. Also my end game base video shows off Crown Gold in all it's splendor :)
Having used the second island for my first playthrough it is simply god awful when compared to Caine Key. Once you get the digging upgrades then it is literally THE best island because it has the fewest bedrock obstacles(which can't be dug out...fuckin annoying) that fuck with your lair building.
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Yes, Caine Key do have weird room layout, with the donout, but unlike the other 2 islands, minions waiting on the chopper, dont get caught in fights. Plus any doors makes AI fight quite weird and helipad has the only 2 none removeable doors.
Excellent note on the minions at the helipad getting caught in fights or not, it's not super common, but it comes up more and more later in the game.
You can unpower the 2 non-removable doors, they ll stay open
Yeah I got to agree with you I think Caine Key is best, I mean he forgot to mention total area as well. The Caine Key has like ~70,000 sq m more than the crown royal, so even with the weird curves you don't really miss out on anything because of all the additional space, Also early expansion into a massive basement is great. and only one point to defend.
Caine key was my 1st playthrough and turned out a lot better than I expected. That huge basement really helped with power and control room
The best part is Agents can't flank you on the helipad they had to enter the casino
@@yashida1999 I've played through entirely with Caine Key now. I can say that is actually the biggest problem with this map. You end up with shoot-first, ask-questions-later agents going through your deception area instead of through your traps. It devastates your minion count every time they visit.
agree
I picked Caine Key for the fact that not only is the helipad at the center of the base, but all intruders (in my experience thus far) have to come in through the casino entrance, so I'd only need to keep my eye on one specific spot to watch out for intruders.
But tbh, I'm thinking of restarting my current Ivan playthrough and using Crown Gold for my lair
You clearly haven't played Caine Key yet, as your assessment is seriously off. There are very few constraints besides research into digging into harder rock.
That, plus in Crown Gold the Investigators mostly come in via the helipad route rather than the Casino, which means that when they run out of resolve, they'll try and leave by going through your base rather than via the front door. In my most recent playthrough on CG, this caused SO MANY FIGHTS - eventually my minions just auto-slaughtered Investigators in the late game because it was almost impossible to use the Casino to pacify them at all. The upper floors in CG suck, too.
Montanas is the best late game.
It has more space than any other and the chokepoint can easily be defended...
The Casino doesn't need to expanded at all. I made mine much smaller and it works like a charm. Only high lvl people get past it and immediatly get send back.
Fights rarely happen... And when they do, the guards in the bottom area take care of it fairly well...
Rooms can be very large! Especially once you get the first dig upgrade. Science can be moved lower as well as other areas with ease.
Downside?: Digging to lvl 1 for the superweapon was annoying!
And npc's get stuck from time to time... (bad coding, then again the game has some areas that are broken!)
I like Caine Key because I just like the way the island looks. Plus it has a few tactical advantages that others have already pointed out.
I also like trapping the agents in endless casino mazes, so it is ideal for me.
I've wondered what kind of crazy casino maze I could cook up, but haven't gone all in yet because I've been worried about my valets getting to jobs.
Caine key for me is the best. If only the base construction is rated then the Crown Gold is better but it is also the most annoying start because it has high threat to most nations.
Caine key however has two low threat nations so you could get cash rolling at the start.
..threat literally has zero effect on anything.
@@crystaldazz nope.
@@Turquoised Maybe not anymore. 8 months ago, when I made that comment, it was a true statement.
Eh, Crown Gold has more than 60k less total space than the other choices. might be a good early choice but its the worst late game choice because you just CANT have as much in your base due to smaller size.
I understand what you're saying but I think efficient layout planning and smartly designed rooms are far more important than size. Having lots of space is nice in theory but it can spread your minions thin, which is not ideal.
This is why the donut-shaped island is challenging to build in, even though if it has the most space. In my current playthrough, I finf it's inherently less efficient because you have to fragment your base
@@WiseG33k Absolut right. Donut base has way to much space and long travel times. Played Ivan in it and each havoc shot results in fires at random spots. A nightmare to get these fires under control in these set up, even with countless fire countermeassures.
@@Atomicnatio The main problem is that the minion AI isn't amart enough to select stat boosting items based on distance. I've tried to figure this out and have often seen/followed minions walk on the other side of the island to use a bed when there were a ton of free ones to use near their position.
Something isn't right in the way it has been coded, the devs need to rewrite the selection priority of items by minions and work something out that discourage the use of items based on distance.
@@WiseG33k I believe the AI does choose the closest ( insert noun here ) but it may also be checking if no other minion is also traveling to that ( insert same noun here )
@@WillFixPlanesForMoneh Yes, it could be something like that too, where a minion essentially reserves a spot, which is why we don't see the item being used and minions skip past it.
Caine Key is my favorite. Casino bottleneck, easy access super weapon.
Since I am playing red ivan, and soldiers are common visitors, having that extra time to prepare while they are roaming the casino is a great advantage
It's perhaps the best for Ivan since he can just dump the casino all together without looking back. Otherwise soldiers will kill a few valets on their way in unlike other maps, makes it very annoying to keep the minion counts high if you decide to keep the casino.
@@ArmoredNeko Don't set the casino with the distract flag - Soldiers, Super Agents and higher tier investigators will aggro when distracted.
I picked the Montañas Gemelas as my first Island, I am a new commer to EG so I have no idea about the lay outs and Mining technique lvl, I just based on the Island's outer view which Monatañas is the best for me. I just realized later on the game by watching on youtube that Montañas is indeed the most difficult island layout to build with 😆. But it's ok, so far I have build my ultimate evil lair here and I love it.
Same here
Don't undersetimate Caine Key, the casino front and helipad are close enough to circumvent any agent incursion. On Caine Key, agents will *ONLY* enter from those two spots.
I also went with Caine Key because of that very limited entry points for agents and with the total space available in the end you won't have a bit problem with the donut hole in the middle. Though as said having central rooms for easy access is not available here.
@@TheYdyp Get around that by making multiple small barracks rather than one big barracks.
@@omlo9093 that helps a bit, but they really need to add a way to restrict minion access to certain areas. I built a lab with barracks and kitchen on the side opposite the entrance, but valets will use those beds even though there is more than enough for them just inside the main entrance
First base: basic standard base
Second base: hardmode base
Third base: ez mode base
I personally liked the second base(montanas) because it offers a good challenge like less space for building and the floors are not so accessible early on.
I hate the third base(Caine key) because it provides too much space for building(i.e can mine out most of the base with only advanced mining techniques and super agents tend to walk in the front door!) Which means, they will lose a lot of resolve and even skill if you have a lot of socialites and slot machines. So yeah it is ez mode base. Anyways good vid.
There is definitely something to be said for picking set ups you know will challenge you... you are after all a genius :)
You glossed over the main advantage for Caine Key, all visitors have to go through the casino. the only Agents that get into the base another way is Sym and that is solved by making the vault in the basement with the stairs going right into the main Armory. The Donut is only restrictive in the very beginning but you can grow out of it with the right tech build.
Since you bring that up, I want to point out that you can do the same with the Arctic lair.
It needs 1 or 2 digging upgrades, but the "back entrance" of the Arctic Lair can be walled off.
But because the game demands there be a path for the back entry point, it actually allows you to dig the opposite way, rerouting it into the casino. In other words making the back entrance just a longer route to your casino entrance. 1 entrance.
Would love to get another dlc with a new genius and base.
Currently playing on Crown Gold, and when I started digging in the basement I had to start with several small little cubbies to throw things I didn’t have space for. Only now once I got the max level digging have I started making tunnels connecting all of the rooms.
Played Crown with Max and now Caine with Zalinka. At Crown I didnt really need a second floor, all fits at Floor one if you want. Had the Quaters (1 big one for all minions at 2nd floor/ won´t do it again) cause had to go to Floor 2 and 3 for your Doomsdaymachine. Best solution for these pesky Agents I came up was redirecting the Helipad path to the front of the Casino, but that´s really long Traveltime for your minions too (cause some items even in late game they´re getting from the helipad and not the construction "machine").
At Caine I have no Probs cause´ all Agents are coming through the front door. Build my Arsenal between the Casino an Lair and my Fighters will do the rest without running allover the place.
That´s a point wich is a huge plus and if you play as Emma your Distraction minions are better, so the most normal Agents won´t even reach the lair.
Montanas gets better with portal DLC - after second mining research you can dump everything in the basement and use the portal as a staircase straight to the top floor
For sure, I actually call that out in my review of the portal DLC :)
My experience was that Crown Gold was the worst, mostly later in the game. Enemy soldiers and such will come in from the same door that your own minions are trying to go out when leaving for missions, and since it's outside of your base, you can't really do anything to defend against it, except carefully time when/how you send minions out, which is a lot of overhead. I found that I'd send minions out, and several times, I'd adjust my total minion count after. Then, I'd sit and wait and wait and the mission would never start. Well turns out, one or two of the minions got killed outside my base, and now I can never have enough to start the mission, and there's just a big clump of useless minions standing around my helipad taking up space.
Anyway, the Oceans DLC expansion adds an Icicle Point, which is my favorite. Your helipad is almost completely private, and enemies can (usually) be kept from gaining access. The helipad has THREE points of access, floors 1-3, and so your minions have a pretty quick path there from any part of your base.
For the original three, I like Caine Key, for the same reasons as the Icicle Point, the completely secure path to the helipad. I played Montanas Gemelas first, and initially thought the "defensible choke point" was good, and to some extent it is, but again, many agents come from the same pathway as your helicopter access, so you can lose a lot of minions if there is mis-timed overlap.
Finally, all the base maps have an ambient temperature that's slightly pink, where Icicle Point has an ambient temperature that's slightly blue. This makes it a little easier to manage your hot rooms, as it requires slightly fewer air conditioners, and despite the cool temps, it's not "cold", so you don't need heaters (I don't use them ever, anywhere, I think they're mostly just aesthetic).
As far as easy access and self-connectedness of your bases, all the bases have a placement area where a single stairway can reach all floors, but there are drawbacks there too. Montanas Gemelas is the least connected and will absolutely require at least two stairways, both potentially with top-to-bottom access (but a VERY narrow available placement of that stairway), but you have to have two to get both "pillars". And, the smallness of the mid-pillar rooms kinda makes them hard to utilize properly, though it's doable if you are willing to move things around, scrap and rebuild rooms later. Caine key is accessible with a single stairway near your doomsday stack, but also, with max stone-cutting, most of the way around the loop as well, minus one small cutout on the top. Multiple stairways can leave your base very well interconnected for better or worse. The top floor of Crown Gold is very small, leaving only one small area available for a top-to-bottom stairway, but otherwise, self connectedness is quite good. It does have one side-room, which will require a second stairway that will open into an isolated room, but that could be a great place for a late-game vault relocation. Finally, Icicle Point has a similarly obstructed top floor, but a bit larger, with SLIGHTLY more freedom in the top-to-bottom stairway placement, or a very large area available for the B-to-3 stairway, with an additional isolated 3-4 stairway. The top floor of the Icicle Point is far too large for a vault, though... I used it as such anyway, and could hold an absolutely massive fortune there. BUT, by the time you can build it, you don't really need it anymore. Icicle Point also has another isolated room like Crown Gold, which can be a good jail or a vault. In both cases, you can also just ignore the isolated room and just use a single top-to-bottom stairway.
So, some overalls:
Big Casino: Icicle Point, or... just not Montanas Gemelas
Defensible Entryway: Caine Key
Max Space: Caine Key, or Icicle Point
Heat Management: Icicle Point
Overall self-connectedness: Crown Gold probably takes first here, though, I think Icicle Point is just as good.
My overall ranking, best to worst: Icicle Point, Caine Key, Montanas Gemelas, and then Crown Gold. I just lost HUNDREDS of minions to the very unsecure helicopter pathway in Crown Gold, and would be very reluctant to retry that location outside of a specific challenge. I played Montanas Gemelas on the easiest difficulty first, and the rest on the hardest, so it's possible Montanas Gemelas also has the same flaw, but it's not as evident on easy (Possibly the same could be said of Crown Gold for easy).
I like doughnut because it gives me a very clear area to battleground
As well as a good basis to zone own my rooms
In my opinion Caine Key is the best. I know the way it's shaped means that it's not as spacious as it sounds. But once you research the first mining technology, more space opens up then does on Crown Gold. Grown Gold may have more centralised space but it needs higher levels of mining. The Basement on Cain Key is HUGE so it's great for power plants.
Also, you've only considered the shape and size of the islands. Caine Key offers overall less threat for the FOJ then any other island.
The Caine Key has the advantage that Agents only have one entrance you have to shut down. I'm running a game as Ivan where I just use a camera and a few guard tables. The Casino is actually trying (and failing at least in the sense of any significant amount) to make money :D
Additionally Caine Key has the lowest threat level to South America which is by far the best money machine in the early game.
Yeah, why is the casino so bad at making money? I thought at first that it would be a large income source but I haven't gotten it to turn much of a profit in any of my campaigns.
Only seen slot machines make any decent money so far, but I have not finished game yet.
Caine Key here. Crown gold makes the basement practically inaccessible for far too long (my preference for the generator area.) Also, not having a backdoor makes things a lot easier.
Nice video. You explained everything well
Thanks @Martin H hope the base you build is amazing!
I was really hoping to use Montañas Gemelas for the "one side is clean and one side is dirty" strategy. But the layout of the mountains means you pretty much *HAVE* to have something juicy on the casino side. Which, ok, no big deal, I just have a big armory there and a trap corridor on the bridge. But... every single agent seems to want to go through the armory and down the stairs to the power station/vault, and not a single one is interested in crossing the bridge (toward control room, lab, and inner sanctum). I'm not sure if it's due to where my doors are placed, or if their AI always looks for certain types of rooms. Grr. I've thought about moving everything around, but it'd be hard to fit the "big" rooms on the second pillar. Anyone know how to get the agents to run down the trap corridor?
Now that I've unlocked higher level mining, I *think* I can fit 2 corridors down the hallway (with it looping around at the far end), so that the *only* way into the base is to go through a trap corridor. I think this might be the way to go, but it's unfortunate you cant do this strategy until tier 3 research.
(I was originally hoping the bridge would span 2 floors, so that you could force people to go down the bridge, then down stairs, then back up the bridge, etc etc)
Unfortunately agent ai does make them consistently take the same path through your base.
If you want to go super insane on traps then you can block off one side of the hallway and make your base design -> down the hall -> down to the basement -> back up the other side.
If you just want a lot of traps next to the casino entrance then caine key will give you more open space to work with.
@@TeddyNinja Frustrating. :( Couldn't they have included a random number generator to help the agents make decisions? Grr.
I'll keep working on the design and if I come up with somethin cool I'll post about it here ;)
Thanks for sharing! Good info!
Caine Key is nice because all agents must go through casino, but if some agent start a shootout, many of your casino staff will be killed. Also you need more micro-management, especially if you like to put automatic "Deceive" order on casino room. Never use Aurora Borealis trophy here, because rogues *will* steal it. Also, it's a good idea to hire IRIS as henchman because she can quickly call help via her "camera mode" if situation become critical. And don't ever use Incendio here, he always hangs out at casino and gladly joins the fight, but his AoE blasts will burn and wreak you casino equipment to bits.
Montanas is good because it's easy to catch agents in a single corridor of doom, which has entrance from both the casino and agent spawner. However, you start your base at the top level, so you will need to drill all down to level 1 to start your doomsday device construction.
Crown is great, but you can experience a mild difficulty protecting both entrances (casino and agent spawner), they are quite far from each other.
No. It's Caine Key.
on my 5 saves
Caine Key-Red Ivan
Montanas Gemelas-Emma
Crown Gold-Max
Crown Gold-Zalika
Caine Key-Emma
Much of the space in these islands is so unnecessary, you don't even have to really spread your base all over it. A compact base means that minions will get to places faster, which means their stats will decrease less, and increase, more. I don't even use all of Caine Key. A single and central corridor, will mean that enemies will find themselves likelier to find themselves suspectable to traps.
Also, if you just researched stairs, much of the base can be applied at the basement, making some of it uninfluenced by the donut-shape effect.
Finally, it has no backdoor unlike the rest of the islands, which means no flanks from heavy waves of agents.
I call Caine key the devious donut.
Caine key is excellent because all intruders enter through the casino and will have to go down a singular corridor which is easy to defend and fill with traps and almost no enemies make it in
At least you should mentioned that Crown Gold is the smaller map of the 3 , and their is nothing wrong on like something even is the meta is inferior, just explain why you prefer something don't hide fact.
Also the extra money on the basement as it is mostly hard stone will get in game when don't matter anymore , because you cash introit will be way higher.
On caine key it has a big basement
how to mine the Gold veins? i haven't tried it and in game there is no hint how to do it
You just have your minions dig them out as any room type and you will make money instead of lose it
@@TeddyNinja okay, thanks! :)
Nah, Crown Gold is the smallest map and most of my rooms are just corridors anyway.
Caine Key is way easier early game due to all threats coming from the casino entrance, allowing you to concentrate all your forces in one point
(yeah this map has better choke point than montanas gemelas go figure), is way larger for endgame and It's easier to play with the verticality of the map (this map basement is easy to dig early game to store all your power generators and things like that).
Sorry but let's agree to disagree.
I think Crown Gold was designed for new players who like to make big squares to discover the game slowly.
Doesn't mean it's the better map IMO
You didnt mention the justice threat level for each map.
You're right, I've played through every map and I don't think they matter :P
@@TeddyNinja ah, cool. I did wonder, I hadn't noticed any difference either 😂
What about the new dlc
Do you actually play the game?
Two of the bases has a pretty MAJOR drawback, it allows agent to come in through the casino and helipad.
With the central helipad bases that don't allow agent and super agents to have a backdoor into the base, you can turn off those stupid doors... Think about the time saved from not having to open those doors million of times, not to mention having only one attack vector is priceless.
You also have no room for traps unless you're prepared to slaughter alot of your own minions in the process.
The best lair is now the Arctic one.
Just wondering if you have actually played the game because the donut as you call it is by far the best you can fit your entire bis the entire base and then some on that 1st donut without even having to expand upper down and complete the game easily
Hmm I have 336 hours in the game. If you wanna see more with the bases check out my speedrun competition with Easy Builds, I play the donut map there. Also my end game base video shows off Crown Gold in all it's splendor :)
Having used the second island for my first playthrough it is simply god awful when compared to Caine Key. Once you get the digging upgrades then it is literally THE best island because it has the fewest bedrock obstacles(which can't be dug out...fuckin annoying) that fuck with your lair building.
This game needs one-way doors
montanas gamelas is the best island. more space late game
I‘m the 100 abbo
I think so at least
Crown Gold is gold indeed ;)