Opium Trail

## Description

Opium Trail is the 8th map and the 3rd special map in the game. A major city sits at the top of the map while two towns lie close and far away from the major city respectively. The area is stretched by roads and highways connecting all 3 urban civilizations.

## Strategy

The worst things on the map could be as well as Opium generation, terrible roads, and clusters of insurgent spawns that are difficult to contain. In the early to mid game Opium can essentially grow unopposed as unless you have Warlord's National Soldiers (and a way to deal with their salaries) you will struggle to deploy units that can remove these efficiently. The combined reputation loss and insurgent capability boost can be extremely devastating as they snowball untouched.

Rather, it's much more helpful to stabilize as quickly as possible when opium growth is slow in the beginning. This is because opium will never grow in a stabilized area. Development Director, who is particularly short on troops, should definitely take advantage of this. Opium Trail is a map that is slow to stabilize due to high supporter requirements despite low hostility, so jobs that give you a significant boost in support for a relatively small value, especially rural jobs, are a great bang for your buck. Add to that some services(recommend education, as there is a lot of concern about it. Healthcare also performs well, so that's fine.), and universal justice, and you'll see stabilization quickly. As for roads, it's not too late to start buying them once the region is stabilized. Buying employment support programme immediately is always recommended, as you only pay a bit to void support losses in the zone.

Conversely, if stabilization starts to slow down, your operations will be crushed as the opium starts to grow faster and faster, and in larger quantities. This is especially true for Warlord. Warlord is also directly affected by military constraints, so he need to be especially careful in play.

Bravo Romeo stabilizes extremely quickly and has nearby areas with low hostile populations. Alpha Romeo provides easier access to the northeastern corner where opium fields tend be rampant and provides some of the stability benefits Bravo Romeo gets. Additionally, placing a headquarters in an Alpha Romeo will cause no opium to grow on the Alpha Romeo, which has the effect of permanently removing one opium source from the northeast dirt roads rural zones. Alpha Whiskey is relatively easy to follow up stabilization and has good access to the western front. Instead, first stabilization is very difficult and accessibility of eastern and northern zones is very poor.

On the northeastern side of the map there are rural zones with only dirt roads, forcing the operation to be careful with those, as Poppy Fields are harder to reach. Remote areas are on every single corner of the map, requiring good roads to be funded for outspeeding response for the insurgency threat. There are key vulnerable points that could easily be taken over by rebels, but in reality should not be taken over. The most representative ones are Alpha Yankee in the northeast, Echo Juliett in the west, and Chalie Lima in the east.

Opium Trail's rebel combat power is strong on average, and their aggressiveness is also very high, so if you don't end the fight quickly, they will end you. Therefore, if the battle seems to be dragging on a bit, you will need to provide support with other troops. This is true even if other areas are slightly attacked or opium grows a little.

Direct reputation reduction from opium only applies when opium is visible. Using this in reverse, minimizing intel can delay reputation decline due to opium for a very long time. In particular, it is worth considering a strategy of not purchasing the Regional Census, which collects intel across regions. Instead, areas where intel must be collected for various reasons must be scouted by the military.

### No advisor

You MUST continue to train National Soldiers at the cost of reputational damage due to corruption. This is because extending Coalition Soldiers three times makes the operation very, very risky. If you extend Coalition Soldiers only two times and want to clear it, you can simply rely on National Soldiers. It's going to be a horrifying experience.

At least the Civil Servant-like Governors - Economist, Banker, and Smuggler - can delay the training of National Soldiers. This is because when things get a little dangerous, you can train a fourth Coalition Soldiers to push back. The problem is with Governors who shouldn't.

The General, The Warlord: They don't have the money, the general has taken all the money for other policies, and even then there's not enough stabilization, and the roads aren't in place. Paying $17 for a brief reprieve in this situation is like borrowing money on a loan shark, and it's going to come back to bite you. On the warlord side, the coalition is asking for $23, which is absolutely unaffordable at *that* timing, especially given the warlord's tendency to retreat early, and it's a terrible price to pay.

The Tank Commander: He have the money, but it's a very bad idea to use up infantry to stop a few rebels in the middle of the game when you're going to need them to wipe out the rebels in the mountains later. And the National tanks are surprisingly helpful on this map.

The Development Director: You're essentially unable to recruit additional Coalition Soldiers, and this map will never stop the rebels with just two Coalition Soldiers. It's not even easy with three...

And while the Tank Commander and Warlord still focus somewhat on opium control, the General and Development Director can't afford to do so. They, in particular, should think about leaving Alpha Yankee's opium fields untouched - it's better to let it grow and take away your reputation than to let rebels take over key points.

There is a strategy for purchasing policies at the beginning of the game, which is as follows. This is a way to make efficient purchases while ignoring inflation as much as possible:

Development - Livestock Development - District Representatives - Outreach Office - Universal Justice - International Assistance

This will make things better, at least to the point where you can play. However, this is only a starting point, and it's still very difficult - you'll need to learn how to run soliders and when to buy policies in normal play. In particular, it's important to understand that you won't be able to buy airstrikes for a while - you can buy airstrikes, but they're prioritized less than garrisons, and you MUST NOT buy drones until you're just getting into the second half of the game. Here, drones are a truly useless ability that will only cost you money and reputation(opium visible).

## Exclusive Initiatives

### Government

* **Counter-Narcotics** - Allied military forces are authorized to destroy poppy fields. New poppy fields will no longer spawn in stable zones.
* **Employment Support Programme** - Poppy fields now deduct funds instead of generating hostiles when destroyed. Each destroyed field beforehand increases the cost by 1. Still takes away funds if Operation chooses to spray herbicides across the region to wreck the poppy fields (and many other agricultural plants as well) on the random event decision despite not stopping the support level penalty.
* **Opium Crackdown** - Temporarily reduce opium production and gain 1 reputation. Poppy fields will have reduced output by **65%**, has no effect on growth speed.
* **Enhanced Surveillance** - Drones now scan the target zone and a random zone next to it each time they are dispatched.

## Opium Crisis

Poppy fields can spawn in Rural regions (or any in Mega-Brutal) and will slowly build up to 100% (grows at 20% of the rate on Remote Zones). This gives plenty of opportunities for opium trade. Fully-grown fields will gradually reduce the player's reputation, increases corruption risk, as well as boosting insurgent capability. Unchecked opium industries will cause the international community to turn on you, potentially damaging your reputation or catastrophically decreasing support Level. It's best to take them out before they get the chance.

## Trivia

* There are 254,489 total people in this region.
* Common major concerns in this region are: Schools, Jobs, Telecoms.
* The internal codename for this region is "opium".
* If this region had a structure like that in Azure Dam, convoy trucks would enter from Alpha Papa, Echo Juliett, or Bravo Papa. There is no arrival destination set.
* The soundtrack for "Opium Trail" both for PC and mobile is reused from "Distant Steppe" soundtrack.
* Poppy fields near rivers or within insurgent controlled zones grow 10% faster. This bonus stacks.
* Poppy fields can spawn in zones with Garrisons if they are unstable, but grow 20% slower.
* Tanks are at least three times as effective in removing Poppy Fields.
* The achievement "Modern Farming", along with the Tank Units' increased efficiency against Poppy Fields, may imply they merely run over such plantations to destroy them.