evil genius tips

Here is a quick reference chart for stats:
color  | stat      | minions recover in    | interrogate a captured agent with
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
red    | health    | infirmary             | interrogation chair, bookcase, laser, impact-stress analyzer, environment chamber
blue   | loyalty   | loot items*/boss aura | ---
yellow | smarts    | archives              | mess hall mixer, brainiac machine, brain washer, biotanks
purple | attention | staff room            | shooting range stall, centrifuge, AI supercomputer, greenhouse
green  | endurance | barracks/mess hall    | ---
(*loot items can offer various stat auras, but blue/loyalty is the most common one)

Intro/Super Agents:
- The game has two islands and you spent quite some time on both of them, the first island is not a quick tutorial.
- Not much does change when you go to the second island, except for having to build an entire new base. You retain your notoriety, money, number of minions, henchmen, stolen loot items and progress on the world map. You can only miss out on optional objectives.
- Super Agents (heroes) will make their first appearance based on your Notoriety, but repeat appearances seem to be random. It doesn't matter if you've got Heat and it doesn't matter in which regions you are active, they will show up.
- Be really careful with Super Agents. They are the only things that can permanently kill off your Henchmen (they get 3 lives). You'll recognize Super Agents when you see/hear them. Neutralizing and incarcerating them should be your number one priority. Especially John Steele, while inside a building he can use an ability that randomly switches the alarm and sets all doors to level 1. The former stops when he is knocked out, you'll have to reset the doors manually (you can pause for that).
- You gradually unlock optional objectives to get rid of Super Agents, but that is on the second island. So while you are on the first island prevent your notoriety from getting too high. Go for Acts of Infamy that have some kind of reward, avoid the ones that only raise your notoriety.

Henchmen:
- The more Notoriety you have, the more henchmen that can be recruited on the world map. You have multiple choices each time, and the ones you don't pick will still be available later. Don't pick somebody because you just happened to come across them first.
- Jubei (Maxmillian has him from the start): A really solid fighter, he can take out Super Agents on his own if you use his two special abilities in conjunction to get the drop on them. Make sure that you tag the target before teleporting, otherwise Jubei will stop attacking after using Eviscerate.
- Lord Kane (Shen Yu's starter): Kane has a special ability called Smooth Operator, which is a social attack. Once a social attacks begins, the target will be stuck until it finishes. On top of that Smooth Operator is glitched and it will FREEZE the target until Lord Kane has reached him/her. This allows even basic minions to knock out Super Agents.
- Eli Barracuda (Alexis' starter): A decent fighter, uses a gun when at range. He is good at backing up minions and other henchmen.
- The Matron: Her special ability makes another henchman's abilities recharge faster.
- The Butcher: An amazing fighter, especially when dealing with squads of agents.
- You probably want to avoid Red Ivan: He uses a rocket launcher and he WILL blow up parts of your base. If you do recruit him you want to keep him on the world map, because he is excellent at stealing money.

Building:
- Avoid making parts of your room inaccessible/blocked. Agents will use those to tunnel in your base and start destroying things. Having objects that block each other also means that they can't be repaired and researched by science minions.
- Don't trap your main entrance. It only takes one inattentive minion to set off a chain reaction that sees half your work force dead or dazed. Instead, build a small secondary base, fill it with non-lethal traps and seal off the outer door. Agents go in, spend ages in there, and by the time they get out they are ready to leave the island.
- You can also have two corridors connected to your main entrance: one long hallway that leads toward your base, with two level 1 doors followed by two or three level 2 doors (and then a camera pointed at that final door to spot intruders). The second hallway will be shorter and has four level 3 doors. Agents will usually go for those tougher doors and will spend ages trying to open them.
- Build shacks outside and then just put a door on them. This will attract agents and keep them occupied. Put the shacks in corners of the map, but don't put them in the path between your base and the depot/helipad.
- Plonk loot in heavily used areas like the Training Room or the Control Room to ensure maximum Loyalty boost. Plus a lot of loot gives boost to other stats. An Endurance booster can keep minions training for longer before collapsing.
- The totem pole pieces (optional objectives on the first island) will drain stats until the pole is completed, so store them in the Freezer until you have all the pieces.
- Try to keep the island free of body bags, and build the more incriminating rooms (Control Room, Freezer, Power Plant) far away from the base entrance.
- Have your Armory and Freezer next to each other, and build cells so they open onto the Freezer. That way, you can issue capture orders for troublesome agents, chuck them into a Death Cubicle, order a termination, and the body bag will be one step away from a Freezer, removing the nasty Loyalty drain.
- Sometimes minions get stuck dropping off an agent in a holding cell. Temporarily move the cell to a different spot to fix it.

Management:
- Your minion cap is increased by: (1) the amount of lockers you have in your barracks, (2) your notoriety. In the beginning you want A LOT OF LOCKERS. Minions don't interact with them, so you can create multiple small rooms with just lockers.
- There's a config file that lets you adjust the maximum number of minions (by default it's 100). Increase that to make the game a little easier. Or just cheat and give yourself money, that way you can focus on your island instead of having to look at your minions on the world map every 2 minutes.
- If you're getting swamped by aggressive agents from a certain continent, check your Heat on the world map screen and consider laying low for a while in that region.
- Valets and the associated minions are good for distracting agents from penetrating too far deep into your base.
Spin Doctors are your most useful agent defusers. They drain Smarts, which lowers the agent's suspicion back to "carefree" level. If they leave the island with that blue ring around their feet, they actually lower your heat. Diplomats are also useful, as they drain Loyalty, but they can't calm down tourists. Playboys are more useful in the field than in your base, as they're the only social minions capable of stealing.
- If a minion deserts due to low Loyalty, you can capture them, release them from their cell after a few seconds, and they'll go back to working for you. They run at max speed when deserting, but if you double click them they'll stop to salute you, even as twenty guys beat them up. This doesn't work for minions who desert because of a certain Super Agent ability.
- The game doesn't explain it, but once you've researched freaks, you can create them by tossing body bags into the Biotanks. If you want to get rid of them, tag them for weakening. They kill every agent they see, tagged or untagged, but they're handy if you've got waves of soldiers coming to your base.

Research:
- The key to research is obtaining research devices: (1) You steal one of three research devices on the world map. (2) You research the other two research devices in your base (so the ones you didn't steal). (3) Once you've got all three devices and have stolen the Mercury Mirror loot item (a mission in Australia), you will EVENTUALLY research the fourth research item, Biotanks. It can take a while. (4) At the start of the second island you are given research item #5, 6 and 7.
- For some reason your scientists might not study the right buildings to get all three original research devices. This means you will miss out on the fourth research device (and a lot of improved items). For me this "bug" fixed itself on the second island, but just in case here is reference to which buildings the scientist need to study to obtain these research devices. Impact Stress Analyzer -> a normal door. Giants Laser -> a security camera. Centrifuge -> a power generator. You can put a door and camera in your Laboratory so your science minions won't miss them. The power generator can be trickier, and that is why I recommend stealing the Centrifuge on the world map to start your science adventure. I don't remember in which territory it spawns on the world map, but keep looking for it.
- Research early on requires just one research device. Later on you will need combinations of multiple research devices and the game won't tell you which one. You can repeatly use trail and error, spend money to narrow down combinations OR simply use a research FAQ on the internet. So basically you either waste time, waste money or take the easy route.

Moving to the second island:
- Once you've completed all the main objectives on the first island, you'll be given a button on the world map that starts preparing your minions to travel to the second one.
- Your minions will pack up your loot items and run towards the depot. Make sure the loot items are in rooms your minions can access. So the security doors are level 2 or lower and loot items aren't blocked by anything.
- There seems to be some kind of hard limit to the amount of loot items you can transfer, so hopefully you didn't steal all of the loot items at that point already. Otherwise you might be missing one or two of them on the second island.
- You don't want your minions to get murdered while they are moving towards the depot. Make sure there are no Super Agents or aggressive agent squads wandering your island before you click that button.
- In general you want as little Heat as possible before the move. That way you don't have to deal with that much agents at the end of first island AND at the start of the second island. Basically avoid the world map for a while so all the Heat has died down, so you can make the move in peace.
- Having a lot of money before you leave the first island is a great boon. You can build the second island base of your dreams (press P to pause so you can design in peace) and will get to keep spending money on speeding up research. Having 4 million in the bank will last you quite a while. Note that you won't have all that money at the start of the second island, you need to build a separate store room inside your new base for that money to start appearing.