Anyway, finished my stealthy run. Hired Shadow around Cambria, captured the entire Arulco and pushed for the capital. I traveled along the shoreline, then I encountered the first sector occupied by the enemy and bam - I picked spawnpoint right beside the enemy tank. It's fine since I left the location on the same turn. I didn't engage in any fights in the Airport, travelling along the beach between the mines. Now, hedge maze - and with stealth it's fun; the location really lends itself for stealthy approach. Cleared all the opposition except the tanks - I wanted to blow up some for lulz, but the game says "path is blocked" despite my guy crawling around the tank without any problems. Now, I cleared the bunker but no Deidranna around. I went up to the palace, was greeted by the Joe - he starts combat and of course he wins the initiative all the times. It was the only time I was unavoidable shot at in the entire Meduna. Cleared the palace and was left only with the throne room. I blown up the door, shot just one blackshirt - and then for some reason Deidranna ran outside to personally welcome me - and die right there. Really stupid move.
But one thing that kills my enjoyment of the game is the stupid initiative system. Example:
There one last blackshirt camping in the area where the cursor is. The firefight happened on the Paulie side and it's logical that enemy expects me there. So I send Shadow to flank: open the closed door, remove the mines. Enemy should be surprised, right? No, of course blackshirt wins the initiative and shots my guy. All the times.
Now, what actually worked is even more bollocks. I sent Paulie a little back, prone, and made some blind shots through the window at approximate position of the blackshirt; what this means in reality is that I effectively compromised my position, but in the game this allowed Paulie to open the door and win the initiative.
I started another run and since I was interested in how enemy AI works I activated cheat-mode and show all command. Well, this is really bollocks. Regular redshirt, around Drassen, stands with his back turned to me. My guy crawls up to him; as soon as we are in each other field of view redshirt wins the initiative, does one-eighty and headshots my guy. Another case: my guy is hidden prone in the bushes, looking in the direction of coming enemy. Redshirt casually walks forward right in my sights, spots my guy and makes a first shot. I checked, my guy and redshirts had the same range of night vision, so no "who spotted whom first" game.
So, there's no actual directed field of vision - every character is essentially can see in 360 radius; no "last known position" as in Silent Storm, and the direction from which you come is not relevant to initiative rolls since it's all about the stats and level. This works in opposite direction too: a lot of times I was coming in from the same direction as several times before and still, enemies weren't able to shoot me first because my guy had higher stats. Somewhere in the midgame I realized that changing the approach of stealth - flanking enemies - is redundant.
Not to say that the system actually punishes initiative (other meaning of the word) and favors campers. You can go forward and risk to be winged by loosing initiative roll, or just sit tight, wait for the enemy to come and enjoy interrupts.
