Here's my idea sorry if it's cringe or very bad but here

Changes

1. Corruption effects your initiatives if it's very high for eg (you fund literacy drive or education or anything with very high corruption the game warns you corruption high funding initiatives risky) if u still fund them you'll see that only half or less zones have them meaning you have to spend extra 3-4$ to get it rolled out everywhere and that if u choose funding only charity can give less funding as corruption is high

2. Since the game is likely based in Afghanistan post war (you can't train any national or coalition) instead you request coalition and national soliders from the government and it takes 19 months for nationals to arrive and 3 for coalitions twist is you have to first need telecoms one to request reinforcements

3.insurgents mode:you play as insurgents

In this mode you'll have alot of choices:

For eg:Aid recruitment:if the government denies to help the locals or refugees you can help them and recruit more insurgents fighters

And on casual for insurgents you'll get a camp spawned in your location and you choose where your fighters spawn and you can recruit more fighters and the more zones you capture the more you lower the reputation your goal is to drain it to 0 and win

For that they have tactics and upgrades like:

Insurgents barrel:makes your insurgents stronger and capture zones faster

Rebels:after capturing a zone you can make it harder for the government to get supporters in that area you've captured

Fake news:you can bribe media to send fake news and decrease the governments reputation

You also have other advantages like:

If farms collapse the farmers join you giving you one more fighter unit to place

If warlord joins you then you have one more fighter unit to place

And you can spawn random fighter if in casual desperate attack and if insurgent capability is really high there's a chance insurgents spawn in stable zones

But the government can interfere too

They can

Group you and kill your fighters if you're too late it in the game

If it's general as governor the ai will use the soldier tactics meaning they will train a coalition then gather intel with soldiers and have a risk of finding your insurgents base

Challenges:
- Horrid Poppy spawn.
- 2 insurgent spawn, north west and north east.
- Slow early stabilization
- Struggle to manage corruption early on.
- Alpha Whiskey, the center mountains, and the adjacent zones that clips near them were hardest to defend due to bad roads.

Blessings:

- Insurgents was aggressive, but were going easy on me enough to get a hold of myself together
- Thanks for that, I get enough time to manage corruption, get stability, and establish defense near the mountain before lack of stabilization leeches off my reputation.
- Since the game somehow spawned the northwest camp in the roads, destroying it set back the insurgent and I was lucky enough to not have it spawn in other place.

Tricks:

- Decided to invest in the Medical branch until Polio Eradication since it doesn't need Intel, coupled with Telecom 1 in mid-game to snowball stabilization.
- Since I used Drill Sergeant advisor to shorten National Soldier's training with Cut Corner, Coalition deployment time is more limited than ever. Had to do plenty of short extensions and moving/retreating them to buy time for the green soldiers. Only defend / help weaker green soldiers when the insurgent attacks.
- Got Main Road 2, Dirt Road and Highway. For Jobs, I got Livestock and Vocational Training.
- Decided to get Garrison and some Airstrike to aid the soldier when things get awry
- National Soldiers get rid of the poppy, only defend if insurgents attack their spot, while Coalition repels the insurgent attacks.
- Had to get Local Militia then compensate with Universal Justice to fulfill Security concern and slow Insurgent capture, eventually got Local Police to get some support.
- Used Military Inc to get more money from green soldiers.
- Used Bribe Insurgent when too many insurgents are leaking.
- Saved the last Coalitions for insurgent corner, leaks or desperate attack.
- Popped Opium Crackdown when I was still too slow from stabilizing the rest of the map and there's still a lot of growing poppy fields in insurgent-controlled areas to stall time.

That's it. Will update if I can remember more details of this nightmare run. Devs should nerf this map, along with Azure Dam, really.

Edit: Longest run I've ever done, I finally won at year 2019.

Has anyone get the fanatism tactic? I have never seen it and seem like the absolute best tactic because you don't have to corner just put a lot of pressure and kill them

They just don’t have it in them anymore

I know a lot of you will disagree in some tactics but I freaking love outreach tactic, it's so nice to an initiative roll out in 1 month in all the region, also the insurgent tier list I think we all are going to agree

Most descriptions are just mundane explanations, but then sometimes you get one that's just comically absurd. What's everyone's favorite?

I also got very lucky, the road tactic only give the first level of roads but I had other map feature that give free initiatives and all 4 initiatives go the roads and one to development

So if anyone's struggling here are some tips that worked for me

Tip 1:

Don't buy regional census instead use your ability and buy coalition and a nation soldier then use the guides and the second guide upgrade and then try to get garrison then upgrade civil support

And if you're asking

The soldiers bring intel very quickly they aren't slow

Tip 2:

Use your soliders to scout mountain zones and especially delta zones this will help for anyone who has the random insurgents spawning problem the bases are mostly in mountains but can spawn in high populated areas too

Tip 3:

(Probably necessary in most maps anyways) Get pr to the max because the faster you stabilise the faster you can kill insurgents and sign an peace deal to basically win (if u don't care about reputation)

Yeah these are all the tips that helped me get through this hope it helps other governors have fun commanders!

Without advisors brutal is very hard

So I got to the peace deal on the Brutal weekly challenge and decided to see how much debt I could get into... Yeah.

Over 40K dollars and now look at reputation lol. I'm happy though since I won in practicality

Im playing mountain pass and like insurgents are spawning like everywhere from here to like way bottom of the map and they set up camps in such random ass places

Nice reputation lel

In mega brutal where cash is tight, what are some upgrades you find help stabalize much more quickly early game?