Are you having trouble starting? Or having trouble min-maxing your hard playthrough? Need a refresher course for the best course of action?
This guide is for you if you answered yes to all, some or even none of these questions because you are either interested in evil genius 2 or have the game and are reading this!
Phase 1: The Beginning
Starting from the main menu, both your lair and genius is all up to personal preference, or to what you feel like playing that run.
For our examples, we will use max and the starting island. Starting out, I have found this to be the most effective build order:
- Generator room (With plenty of space to expand into)
- Bunk Room- Bunks only for now, as we need a vitality and morale recharger for our starting workforce.
- Mess hall with two mess tables. This will allow a constant and steady roll through of minions to pass though, recharge their smarts, and get back to work right as another minion comes on over.
With the basics done, we sell all the broken items in the cover operation area, and we now build our operations center.
Reserve an equal amount of space as a generator room and have roughly a 60/40 to 65/35 split on radio repeaters and intel stations respectively. You will want to aim for 7 radio repeaters and 3 intel stations at this point. Try to prioritize the radio repeaters.
Now that those are built, we need to ask: Where do we start our criminal empire? What regions will be subjected to our evil villainy, where shall we S.M.A.S.H South america.
Early game the “Large” schemes provide 40K gold. One full sceme can max out our pre-existing gold storage. This will prove doubly useful later in the game as SMASH will be our sugar country, giving us more dough than we could ever dream of.
Connect to each SMASH controlled region, and watch the money flow. What do we do with it? Simple. We move to phase 2
Phase 2: The Build-Up
We have solved our largest issue within the game: Money
Now where do we go? We begin with the better minion recruitment. Build up a interrogation chamber and a prisoner cell and start with a scientist. Why not muscle or valet? We need the research to automate the whole “Distract the agent” process!
Once we have the scientist captured. interrogated, at least 8 trained (4 if you are playing as zelika) and a science lab with 4 whiteboards. As tempting as it may be, wait on the impact analyzer until after you build a vault.
With an excess of money and plenty of research going on behind the scenes, you’ll want to build up a decent sized vault. An ultimately temporary one, but a vault nonetheless. Aim for 6-10 gold pallets. This will tide you over until you have both the stairs and Tier 1 harder digging for a better and permanent vault.
Now is when you want to set up the impact analyzers. At this point you’ll want to aim for tier two region connections. More on this later, but rush this once you have finished the distract zone research.
Now, The tossup between valet and muscle is up to personal preference. However, I choose muscle to unlock the armory. In case the heat decides to all max out at once and send a wave of soldiers as a result.
Now, skipping the guard capture, interrogation and training, we build some minion lockers! Why? Because at this point we have our first minion dump. The muscle of the operations. Necessary to keep the baddies from running our master plans into the ground thanks to a lack of firepower, but i digress.
Build up to roughly 90-120 minion capacity. You’ll have the money for it at this point if you play your cards right. However, build this locker room in a separate and easily expandable area away from the bunk room! The minions will only visit this room on two occasions. Arrival, and upon completing a training. Hence, not a critical room.
Now, to accomidate the new arrivals, we need to expand the bunk rooms and mess hall to 20 bunks and 5-6 tables. Also, now is the time to build an archive lounge to allow your scientists to recharge sooner.
Next, the amount of muscle you’ll want. 20 guards will be bare minimum at this stage. If you’re playing hard, bump that up to 30. Build the armory in front of the cover operation connecting it to the rest of the base. Save a lot of room for this as this is your main defense. Overcompensate if you need to and go 40/60 split on cover and armory if need be.
Once that’s all finished, get the other two minion types with valet first and then technician. You’ll want 1 valet for each cover operation equipment you have built. For technicians, you’ll want at LEAST 5 at this stage if not 10 as they will keep the world and your base from burning down without your approval.
Now? Phase 3.
Phase 3: Operation Snowball
For those unacquainted with nerd speak, the snowball point is where the player’s power becomes greater than the game challenge’s power and they in turn grow exponentially in power since they don’t have much stopping them. Much like the cartoon trope of a snowball rolling down a hill and becoming comically large at the bottom.
Hence, snowballing.
How do we harness this cartoonish power of the snowball? We speed past where the game expects us to be with the strength of a million suns! Or in this case, we level up our SMASH region to level two before we even have our first henchmen!
First off, we build up a 5 by 5 square to set our evil genius’ impressive desk, and set them there to recharge and brood. We will have 25/64 tiles built of our inner sanctum, and thus will not move past our first stage in the story so long as we don’t build any more. This leave the FOJ and the super agents to spawn only through regional heat conditions, giving us plenty of time to work.
We have the minions, we have the inner sanctum to recharge, and now we snowball. Bbuild up your scientist count to 12, for reasons I’ll touch on in a moment.
First, we build up our operations center to have a total of 15 radio repeaters. 12 for the SMASH region to all be at level 2 and 3 for the main and side story(s). Next our intel stations. Build up to 10 stations, and have a surplus of intel in the bank before the next step.
Keep in mind, that for the extra 3 regional connection strength, you’ll be destroying those a LOT, so think of those as flexible and not static. Use them as a means to an end and not as a static position.
For SMASH, by now you’ll likey have generated enough heat to bring out the blue saint. Look at the region he is in, and accept he’s gonna be there (mostly) forever now. Good news is the rest of the regions will be free reign until the other super agent comes out and “Shakes” things up. You’ll know them when you see them.
For the other regions that Blue Saint (Blue henceforth) is leaving alone, level them up to two and look for a green money scheme. And no, you’re reading it right. 305,000 gold on normal. Costs 20 intel and 6 scientists, hence the large amount of intel stations and 12 pre-trained scientists.
Now we build up to every level in the base with stairs to open up the option for expansion later, a substantial and permanent vault aiming for 800K for storage, and research everything until we need to “Progress the story”
Also, build in some clubs and handgun racks in the armory. 50/50 split for each one is preferable.
Optional:
- Max out the locker room to house 300 minions.
- Build up the guard numbers to 40.
- Build up technician count to 20.
- Build up the valet count to 20.
- Build a dead-end trap hallway before the armory but not connected to it nor the base and lead investigators by it with walls, as they will be inclined to check there first. Any that survive should be hanging on by a thread. Traps and their combos are personal preference.
Now? Phase 4.
Phase 4: The Result
Now we are in the endgame right out the gate. Armory with enough muscle to shove back a small assault force, and enough money flowing in and in the bank to make a country weep in shame.
Now, we build up our large money reserve and minion reserve and progress the story. Super agents will weep in inadequacy, knowing that not even they can stem the tide of minion devastation!
Now, for henchmen.
Go for any which one that isn’t “The fan” as having a fighting minion is the best option early on. IRIS or “Recruit your computer” is my personal preference as the small base makes her slow movement less of an issue, but keep in mind she loses effectiveness the larger the base you have, but by the point it’s an issue you’ll have enough minions and henchmen to obliterate the world.
Now, you play as you want. However, some tips to make the path to world domination easier:
- If you have a game where blue is hopping from region to region and making your schemes in SMASH a pain in the evil behind, start the death mote side story and get miss fugu as a henchmen and connect to the ANVIL region while staying at level 1 connection. Do this when you’re at the second story step of getting loot and new minion types. She has schemes that will take little intel and minion count for 120K gold and 45 heat, and thanks to anvil’s regional quirk any heat dissipation scheme will take less money. Not as powerful as 305K but much more accessible. Also, be warned, miss fugu’s free -75 heat dissipation is counted as an illegal scheme and will alert any super agent, unlike the normal heat dissipation schemes.
- Save the super agent missions for much later in the game, as they will remain a nuisance in spite of the missions completed and will only be a needless drain on resources. “Crime lord” missions are much more profitable as they will give their rewards sooner than later. A new henchmen to be precise. Do your research here and grab whatever henchmen tickles your fancy! Each one is only a meat shield for your genius at the end of the day anyway.
- EXPAND. Don’t think you have to remain cornered in the small spaces you started with. You have access to a near endless supply on gold and 5 total floors, so don’t be afraid to expand and upgrade as need be!
- TAKE. YOUR. TIME. Don’t rush anything! the only lose condition is your genius dying! Be willing to lose your entire base so long as you don’t lose your genius!
- Be heartless! Kill whoever you please! Remember, death is a faster alternative to distraction or morale breaks!
- For muscle minions, keep a small reserve of guards for mercenary training and schemes, but once you have mercenaries unlocked, upgrade most of your guards. sit at a 10-15 guard and 30-40 mercenary number. This will change to 10-15 guards, 10-15 mercenaries, and 25-35 of the upgraded and better guard classes.
- For scientist minions, the previous rule is a no go. You need scientists, biologists, AND physics. Each one is connected to a research much like a station is. My suggested amount is 14-16 scientists, 8 biologists, and 8 physics.
- Deception minions are the least necessary within this game. However, 20 valets and 10 of each other class is a good standard to hold.
- Finally, loot. Either grab everything you want, or only what you need. They provide mild bonuses and will only further your power, with the investments being equal to the returns.
Guide by Aim of Potato.