It was the aftermath of one of the Reggie and Yogi missions, you kick them out of your house and they pitch up a tent in the garden. You then get access to the caretaker (just a golden path chap who sits outside).
Oh, I didn't complete the Y+R missions or the Shangri La (sp?) either. I'm actually short on cash because I spent it all on weapons that I rarely/never even use after trying them once. :-(
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
Same deal with royal palace: wiped out minions including 4 heavies (with the aid of handily-emplaced mortar and HMG, since I didn't bring an RPG). One alarm set off, no choppers, no capture, so I looted it and left. I did get Yummy's fort on 2nd try though, chopper came after I sniped/bolted the locals, and I got it with on-premises RPG. Cool thing about the palace is there's no way in except to fly over in a buzzer (improbably not drawing anyone's attention) and crash-land on the cliff behind it.
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
Got Min's fortress (not the "Royal Palace") on the 4th try: 2nd try the buzzer was detected, alarm tripped and I was killed by a sniper shortly after landing on the cliffs behind. 3rd ditto, killed by helicopter which arrived after a long while during which I sniped/bolted a ~half-dozen minions. 4th and success (buzzer not detected), I brought a rocket launcher, but only used it on two heavies (after killing the other two with the on-premises mortar), setting off no alarms so no choppers. So now I got my first(and only) fast-travel point in Northern Kryat, at the far end.
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
Nitro .700. Great fun, absolutely the wrong gun to bring to an outpost capture, unless you want to re-enact the same, spectacularly bloody battle over and over, and I do.
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
I'm gonna have a change around in my load out after sticking to the same ol' each time.
I unlocked that gun some time back and just haven't added into my collection as yet.
I'm trying to get all the Shangri-La missions out of the way. Being armed with just a bow and knife after all the weapons available in the main game makes things very tricky. I've done 3 out of (I'm guessing) 5 and although they look great, they're not fun to play. I much prefer the R + Y missions where they get you high and you're tearing around the landscape with heightened senses accompanied by some of the best in game music I've heard in a while.
I've found the best way to beat those Shangri-La levels is
to take it really slowly. Only take out the enemies as they appear, you can soon be overwhelmed. There are some large mani wheels that need to be spun to progress in the levels and the enemies that haven't been dispatched will gang up on you, still attacking while the animation is playing for spinning the wheel. You don't have any time to turn, target and shoot before they've beaten you to a pulp. There are some big firebreathing heavies who can be taken out by siccing the tiger companion on them, then back stabbing while they're temporarily distracted by fighting off an angry tiger, however you can take a lot of fire damage from residual flames they spread, so it's best to take them out with arrows from a distance. Arrows seem plentiful which is good. I don't like the whirlpool things that launch you into the air, to get to distant platforms. The flight mechanic is like the wingsuit, but doesn't seem as responsive, and the first thing you hit completely wipes you out.
Haven't got that far yet, I'm taking down the radio towers in the north before I move onto the missions proper. That said, I've done the first Amita task in the north, it just involved meeting up with some Golden Path members and hiding in a basement while the elite guard poked their noses in. If you're siding with Sabal you might have a different set of missions, so potential spoiler ahead: While hiding in the basement you gingerly lift a trap door to see Pagan Min interrogating some locals, he storms off after having them killed and you give chase out in the open. Flying a buzzer you track him down and I took him out with grenades while flying around. You then get a call from the real Min complaining that you've destroyed one of his impeccably groomed body doubles.
I tried out the nitro gun and it's a lot of fun and packs a punch even from a distance. :J
Ah, I tried that mission, but I didn't bring the one-armed grenade launcher so I couldn't complete (actually I couldn't even keep up). I checked a walk-through after which didn't disclose it was Min's double so I was scratching my head, if Min's such a big deal why does the story off him halfway through? Does it do flashbacks? (no worries about the spoiler, I don't really care about that sort of thing). So, big reason why I decided not to complete the mission and move on to the fortress and outpost caps etc. Well, also it was loads of fun to go deep into 'uncharted' territory in the buzzer, which really only took a few minutes from S. Kryat. And I wanted to do the forts full strength (not 'weakened' after the boss dies).
So anyway after capturing the outpost nearest to Min's fort I tried out an assassination mission, the kind where you MUST use specified weapon because the survivor's a bit neurotic about that, and I kept capping dudes with wrong weapon before checking their status, it confirmed a big difference between FC3 and 4: in 4, Min's bots don't venture beyond the defined bounds of the mission (visible on the map) whereas in 3, they would chase you all over hell's half-acre. In this one, they'd walk to the end of the driveway, I was crouching behind a rock, and I'd shoot 'em in the back when they gave up and walked back. Then the one's I hadn't shot come right back, rinse, repeat.
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
I think the homebody inclinations of the guards are unique to the assassination missions. In standard base-taking missions they seem to follow you to hell and back if they get a proper sniff at you.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked." James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
Yeah, maybe if you let them maintain line of sight. The minute you break it, they turn back (or stand around having a chat/passing around a j). I just found they were far more relentless in 3.
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
Do the Shangri-La missions count towards the Reggie and Yogi ones? The first one kicks off as part of their campaign, but the others are started from the thanka pickups around the map.
I'd have to go back to 3 to remind myself. Generally, 3 was tougher than 4 - the bosses were bastards. Two was fairly easy (given, at least, that you couldn't win) and the end of 1, as I remember, was hard as bloody nails.
I found Primal pretty easy, though I was methodical about acquiring all the skills and goodies I could before tackling bosses.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked." James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
No, they're discrete mission strands. The reward for completing the Shangri La missions is an additional health bar, which would be useful to acquire before starting the last Shangri La mission, as it's a complete sod - the second-hardest part of the whole game for me; maybe even the toughest. It's one of those 'magical' boss levels where you have to work out a syntax of actions in order to beat it.
"We all have flaws, and mine is being wicked." James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks 1951
I can't think of any game I've played where the combat AI was up to par with the graphical realism, it's either far more difficult and expensive, or considered of lesser importance. Oddly, the animals in 4 seem to fare better in that department.
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
The difficulty certainly ramps up when you venture north. The random encounters on the roads usually involve a heavy of some kind, and when you get shot at the enemies are either more accurate or hit harder as you seem to lose health more rapidly.
I've not done any base assaults in the north yet, but am anticipating they're going to be harder to capture than the previous ones. I've not yet got the skill upgrade for completing a base takeover without alerting anyone (need to do it twice to unlock the perk). Re-doing the base assault after you've completed it once doesn't seem to count towards it. :C
Yeah, the random encounters seem have better AI (though I've seen flame-thrower equipped heavies set the woods on fire -- the woods they are standing in). On first play-through the AI seems sort of plausible, but you soon learn to recognize repetitive tics (such as a path they are glued to on a tight timetable) that are very easy to exploit. Also there are gaping holes in their outpost defenses, completely undefended sides, usually conveniently overlooked by hills. But this is on 'normal' difficulty. I'd expect some of that to be different on higher. The most dangerous things in the North so far are the freakin' snow leopards.
“Man caught poaching deer ordered to watch Bambi for a year”
I've got the markers for the last two missions in Shangri-La. I'll give those a go tonight and get them out of the way. They're my least favourite part of the game so far - as Smiffy mentioned the AI and combat mechanics is where the game is at its most funnest. These bolt on missions taking you away from the core of the game are a bit staid. That said there must only be about 5 of them in total, so I'm really bitching over nothing. :/