LW Rebalance - Economic Starting Bonuses
So many options...
There are 43 different starting bonuses in LWR. And remarkably, they are all very substantial and very different. To fully evaluate all of them, I would need to play through several months of a campaign with each. I am not going to do that. Instead, I am going to compare similar types of bonuses, and speculate about the weird bonuses that I haven’t tried, and maybe get a lot of this wrong, because I am thinking out loud.
In this post, I am just going to discuss the 16 economic bonuses. In other posts I discuss all the Tactical Bonuses, and the Rest of the Starting Bonuses.
The Argument for Economic Bonuses
Based on the 3 campaigns that I have taken to August or further at Brutal/Impossible difficulty, I have found that it is very possible to win at the tactical level in the early to mid game, without any special help from your starting bonus. The air game is another matter. In the March to May period, I have on multiple occasions failed to bring down scouts, and even had my interceptors and satellites shot down. And each catastrophe occurred despite having allocated significant resources to fighting UFOs. The air game requires a lot of money, and even then, victory is far from assured. With this is in mind I feel that an economic starting bonus is the most helpful, as it improves your ability to boost your hangar, which then leads to more downed UFOs, strengthening your barracks and your pocket book.
When comparing economic bonuses, it is important to consider the time value of the benefit, as well as the amount of cash it saves you, because the sooner you get the money, the better. I am primarily concerned with the economic benefits delivered in the first 5 months or so, because looking further out is much more difficult, and less meaningful. I have also neglected to consider many of the minor savings in resource cost reductions, or increased research speeds, that occur because a facility is built a month or so earlier. Those advantages exist, but are less relevant, and harder to compare. Many of these starting bonuses have other very significant benefits which must be considered, but cannot be strictly reduced to cash. For those benefits, we need to add an asterisk.
Simple Economic Bonuses
These starting bonuses are easy to evaluate and compare because most of their advantages can be translated into cash.
Wealthy Benefactor Mexico: $217 Starting Cash: $450 Bonus Cash: $1400 Payment Schedule: March Additional Benefits: None Comments: This is the simplest starting bonus, a lump sum payment of $1400 at the start of the game. It serves as a good baseline for comparison with other economic bonuses, but isn't good for much else. Most other bonuses are better. Xenological Remedies China: $375 Starting Cash: $450 Bonus Cash: $240? a month Payment Schedule: every month Additional Benefits: None Comments: This is also a very simple starting bonus, which offers less money upfront, but continues to pay dividends throughout the campaign. I am guessing that corpse sales will net an additional $240 a month (selling 40 corpses a month for an additional $6 each at Impossible difficulty), but that number could be way off. I am probably never going to choose Xenological Remedies as my starting bonus. I enjoy blowing up aliens with relative impunity, rather than preserving corpses; its faster, safer, and more fun. Foreign Legion France: $322 Starting Cash: $450 Bonus Cash: $1580 Payment Schedule: March, April, May, June, July Additional Benefits: None Comments: You get more total cash from Foreign Legion than you would from Wealthy Benefactor, but it is spent entirely on additional soldiers which is inefficient. Eventually, you should find a use for all that manpower, but not in March. The payment schedule for this benefit should be considered highly delayed, as these soldiers will not be fully utilized until maybe June or July. I don't really like this starting bonus. Jai Jawan India: $270 Starting Cash: $500 Bonus Cash: $1050 Payment Schedule: March Additional Benefits: 4 flight computers Comments: This is just an okay starting bonus. You get much less money than you would with Wealthy Benefactor, but with 2 more interceptors at the start of the game you don't have to worry about a disaster in March. And the early game bottleneck for flight computers will be diminished. Skunkworks Germany: $382 Starting Cash: $400 Bonus Cash: $2070 Payment Schedule: March, April, May, June, July Additional Benefits: -50% item production time. Comments: The elevators are worth $300, Fission Generators $120, Workshop $350, Repair Bay and Foundry $50 each, and excavations $1200. For a grand total of $2070. Wow. That is a huge amount of money. There is going to be some inefficiency in the base layout, but that is a small quibble, for such a huge economic boost in March, and a very nice reduction in item production times as well. The value of the excavations will not be fully realized until about June or July, when you will finally run out cheap real estate. The only concern I have with Skunkworks is that if the steam vents are on the far left or right, you will need to excavate much of the 4th floor anyways, which diminishes the value of having the full 3rd floor excavated in advance. Also this bonus diminishes the opportunity for a free room excavation. Baumeister Germany: $382 Starting Cash: $400 Bonus Cash: $1620 Payment Schedule: March, April, May, June, July Additional Benefits: -85% facility construction time. Comments: The elevators are worth $300, Fission Generators $120, excavations $1200. For a grand total of $1620. Like Skunkworks, this is a huge payout early on, but where much of the value is derived from excavations, and so must be prorated over several months. It also has an additional benefit of reduced construction time. Very compelling. Like Skunkworks, Baumeister is diminished greatly if the steam vent is hard to reach, and there is less opportunity for a free room excavation. Advanced Preparation Canada: $255 Starting Cash: $400 Bonus Cash: $2040 Payment Schedule: March Additional Benefits: None Comments: The soldiers are worth $700, elevators $300, workshop and lab $350 each, fission generator $40, and excavations $300. For a grand total of $2040. The money is spent on a variety of projects, and you get all this value in March, which makes this is a great starting bonus. Special Warfare School United States: $435 Starting Cash: $300 Bonus Cash: $1045 early, $2230 later Payment Schedule: April, May, June, July, and later Additional Benefits: XTPs provide 60% more experience Comments: This is a huge amount of money, but doesn't start arriving until late in April and May. The slowness of the savings, is offset by the increased effectiveness of the XTPs, which seems very good to me. Cheyenne Mountain United States: $435 Starting Cash: $300 Bonus Cash: $1960 early, up to $1600 later Payment Schedule: March, April, May, June, July, and later Additional Benefits: Comments: In the first 6 months I try to excavate the full 1st and 2nd floor and sufficient room on the 3rd and 4th for a lab block and to reach the Steam Vent. With Cheyenne Mountain you will save $1960 on excavating that real estate, assuming there were no free excavations. This saves you a huge amount of money, and these savings arrive steadily throughout the campaign. Public Heroes Argentina: $210 Starting Cash: $900 Bonus Cash: ~ $150 a month? declining over time Payment Schedule: March, April, May, June, July, and later Additional Benefits: Extra Scientists, Engineers. Comments: I didn't include Public Heroes in the list of economic bonuses when first publishing this post, not realizing how significant the increase in cash could be. Having reconsidered it, I now think it qualifies as a solid economic bonus. With Public Heroes you will be getting +130% more money from abductions which would be an extra $156 if you had 2 abductions that would otherwise have offered a $60 reward each. You won't always be selecting the cash reward, but because this bonus also increases the amount of scientists and engineers you get from abductions, it will be more feasible to choose the money more often because you will get adequate staffing from fewer abductions. You also start off with $900. This bonus looks pretty strong once you consider it carefully. Global Networking Japan: $405 Starting Cash: $450 Bonus Cash: ~$150? a month + another ~$300 a month starting in Jun Payment Schedule: March, April, May, June, July, and later Additional Benefits: Increased chance to sight landed/downed UFOs. Comments: As with Public Heroes, I completely missed the significance of Global Networking as an economic bonus. Its actually very strong even though it doesn't really kick in till June, at which point you will save about $300 a month on Intel Scans. The 30% increase in gray market prices will yield some extra cash as well. The 3rd benefit is harder to analyze. What does it mean to having "sightings on landed/downed UFOs occur twice as often"? I am not sure, though I would guess it refers to UFOs landing in countries without satellite coverage?
Economic Expansion Bonuses
These bonuses will enable rapid economic expansion, which is very difficult in LWR, even with these bonuses.
Roscosmos Russia: $270 Starting Cash: $600 Bonus Cash: $1100 or $800 depending on strategy Payment Schedule: March, April Additional Benefits: 40% discount on satellites Comments: Roscosmos looks stronger than it probably is. With a Satellite Nexus at the start of the game, you can launch an extra satellite to grab Germany and its $327 in revenue. Then with your second uplink you will perhaps grab France and the UK which gives you an additional $600 over the alternative scenario where you only grab France, because of the continent bonus. Also you save $200 on the 4th satellite for a total of about $1100. The big problem I see with Roscosmos is that satellite expansion triggers the aliens to retaliate. You should expect to lose a satellite if you try to maximize the economic advantage of this starting bonus. Of course, with reduced satellite costs you can replace it, but this means the economic benefit of Roscosmos occurs later in the campaign, rather than sooner. Assembly Line China: $375 Starting Cash: $450 Bonus Cash: ~$1200. Then more from expansion? Payment Schedule: March, April, May Additional Benefits: 20 Engineers and 50 Alloys. Comments: It grants 2 Workshops, and two 1st row excavations for a total of $800. Also, with 20 extra engineers you can start building a satellite uplink immediately, and so launch satellites in March, and so gain an addition $675 supposing you expand to Japan, and India. However the upkeep of workshops is $120 a month each, and you will not be spending enough money on items to justify the additional upkeep until maybe June. The second Workshop is actually a liability until then. With 30 engineers at the start, it should also be possible to build your 3rd uplink in April. This is an interesting bonus. Like Roscosmos, it gives you a path to rapid satellite expansion, and with it, the same problem of alien retaliation. Ring of Fire Japan: $405 Starting Cash: $450 Bonus Cash: 150 per Thermo generator; ~ $1270 up to July, then $330 a month after that, and perhaps more. Payment Schedule: April, May, June, July Additional Benefits: None Comments: This is one of the weirder starting bonuses and is thus much harder to evaluate. Expanding your revenue by building Thermo generators is going to be safer than expanding via satellites because UFOs cannot shoot down your generators. On the other hand, Ring of Fire is less lucrative than satellite expansion, does not deter alien expansion, and may also turn your base into a congested mess, with less efficient connections. I haven't tried Ring of Fire, so I can't be sure, but it looks okay but not great. If you get your first thermo generator built quickly it will be roughly equivalent in cost to building 3 Fission generators on the 1st/2nd floor, and provide about the same amount of power. You will have access to cheaper excavations having only used one room, which should be valued at about $400, and then additional income of $150 a month, and reduced maintenance of $30 (the cost of 3 fission generators). Two thermo generator is enough to power your base through the mid game, and so you should expect to gain about $300 per month once you reach your required power consumption, probably in July. Until the late game, building more thermo generators would only be done to provide income. At a cost of $350 + excavation (maybe $200?) they would need 4 months to simply pay for themselves, which is exorbitant considering how tight money is throughout the campaign.
Foundry Upgrade Economic Bonuses
These bonuses grant significant foundry upgrades.
Sukhoi Company Russia: $270 Starting Cash: $600 Bonus Cash: $680 Payment Schedule: March, June Additional Benefits: Big savings on resources, UFO components Comments: This is a better bonus that it appears. It grants 3 Foundry projects; Improved Avionics, Penetrator Weapons, and Elerium Afterburners. The money saved ($680) is nice, but not as big as other starting bonuses. But Sukhoi also saves you a ton of resources, and you have the additional advantage of increased air power during the early game, which means you can delay interceptor purchases a bit longer. Their Finest Hour UK: $300 Starting Cash:$450 Bonus Cash: $700 Payment Schedule: March Additional Benefits: Big savings on resources, UFO components Comments: This is very similar to Sukhoi Company, but not quite as good. Its worth about the same amount of cash, and it offers a comparable edge in the air game, but it doesn't save as many resources.