XCOM 2

I came back to it a bit ago after discovering Long War also. My campaign is early November, and I feel like I have a decent hold but it's tenuous at times. I've let a few missions pass by because my roster just couldn't handle it at the time (fatigue/wound issues). Just finished Alien Biocybernetics, so can build MECs now. Have a full complement of gauss tech including sniper/rocket, and about 8 interceptors with laser cannons and evade/aim foundry projects.

My guess is I'll get smashed if/when the aliens raid my base. I watched Beagle's entire 122 episode Long War B14 campaign (most recent episode ~2 weeks ago, I think he's busy with B15 stuff), and the base assault seemed fucking brutal. I also have been slacking on my exalt, not fully understanding the mechanics, and have let 3 successful exalt missions come through so far, not counting the first automatic one. I just didn't realize they were so aggressive, I'd never played EW. As such, I'm still 3-4 clues away from being able to run the exalt base assault to remove that factor.

I think I'm just going to keep going and see how it plays out. I'm on Classic/Ironman, and it feels ok at times, but also fucking absurd at times. I've alt-f4 scummed a few times when I feel like shit is just fucking stupid, or when I'm retarded and activate too much pre-scouted stuff while I'm still learning activation ranges. Specifically re: fucking stupid, I had a bomb disposal council mission on the cemetary/mausoleum map, and holy fucking shit. It started me in the middle on an edge, with 5 pods of thin men/seekers surrounding me and no way to not activate 3 of them immediately. On top of that, one of the bomb nodes ended up being bugged and un-clickable, and it took me forever to find the bomb. Needless to say, I alt-f4'd that shit constantly, because fuck if I was going to lose my entire A-team to that bullshit.

Met my first Muton Elites tonight, so that's pretty much everything except Sectopods. Dreading those, ugh. I'll probably eventually fall to attrition due to my roster not being big enough and/or advanced enough. The Beagle series I watched was on Impossible (beta 14), and the entire time he was more advanced than I, which I just don't understand. Some of it is balancing stuff re: alloy costs and such between 14 and 15, but I still don't get it. Perhaps it's because I shot down too many NOE UFO's (and got unlucky rolls on full-destroy, like 3 in a row one month) without understanding the UFO mission mechanics fully. Turns out, most NOE's will land and let you assault them for big monies!

Dunno, the extractions scare the shit out of me. I'm worried I'll lose some A-teamers in them. The data recovery are quite easy after learning the AI mechanics and abusing the hack terminals, but the amount of exalt in the extractions, and the fact you only ever have two hacks is just... ugh. Plus the exalt are really starting to get beefed up, I think the earlier I do the assault, the easier it will be.

Same here, assault with sprinter. The map I got this last time around was absurd though, it had one fucking guy on high ground IN SIGHT on the first turn. Doing anything at all activated him and his group, and after resolving that turn, NINE guys from the left (literally one tile away from activating the first round) came in as well. I couldn't avoid taking a hit (small, only 2 HP after armor) on one of my guys, but overall it wasn't bad. They're just so fucking tight, I'm patiently awaiting the extraction mission that's just too silly to complete without a loss or two.

Yeah, funny enough, I got the by far the easiest extraction map just now. Literally no combat engagement, out in 3 rounds. My operative activated a pod of ~7 exalt, but they all sat outside LOS except for two of them, and those two simply stood still and reloaded.

Have my first MEC Paladin armor building, and just built my Gene Labs. The late-game advancement stuff is pretty neat in Long War, the MEC stuff is especially fleshed out. No clue what's good in B15, but my first person to be chopped up as a scout (So Pathfinder, I think?). We'll see how she does.

I never played EW, so I have zero experience with even vanilla MEC or Gene stuff. PSI stuff was, if I remember correctly, pretty shallow in vanilla EU, so most of that will be new too I think.

Just had a swarming terror mission in mid-Nov with a HUGE mechtoid with like 40 HP. Man, he was hard to take down, I think if I didn't have my disabling shot sniper with me, I'd have gotten destroyed by him. He also had some bullshit reactive something that allowed him a free shot against my gunner when my gunner shot at him, even though the Mechtoid wasn't on overwatch? Luckily it missed, but man it was close, almost didn't finish him that round, and I had basically my entire squad out in the open because I had to chase his ass after he ran away while he was diabled.

Long War really does have no "hump" you reach where it becomes easy-mode like vanilla. It's just fucking brutal from day 1, never easier.

Gavinmad_sl said:

That's the single greatest thing about the mod, because that's the single worst thing about the base game.

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Oh believe me, it's one of the main reasons I'm addicted. This mod is just beautiful all around. XCOM 2 isn't looking that great to me simply because of the premise swapping around, unless it very quickly involves you taking over a big base from the aliens and becoming real XCOM again. Small-scale guerilla shit just isn't XCOM to me. But the saving grace will be the fact it's PC exclusive, and will be designed with modders in mind. So these LW geniuses can go to town in the XCOM 2 engine, yay!

BrotherWu_sl said:

I've got 48 hours into the mod now and and am only coming up on the end of the 2nd month. I had a couple of missions in there that I really struggled to beat.

For example, I was repeatedly getting hammered on a terror mission and so I changed my tactics to be a fighting retreat and ended up killing the remaining x-rays no problem. The last couple of missions have actually been a little easier so I was hoping that I was starting to get into a good groove but it sounds like there is no groove, maybe just a little luck.

I'm not sure I have the balls to make it all the way through this thing.

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Are you on Normal? I'm playing on Classic because I ignored their warnings thinking I was good enough haha. If I crash and burn at some point on this campaign, I'll likely restart the next one on Normal just to get through an entire campaign to have that under my belt. I think most of Long War's ground game (what with being a mod) is about complete and thorough knowledge of the game, including as much map knowledge as possible, combined with likely pod locations. It's all about proper activation, both numbers (only ever 1 pod if possible), and in the best cover/range circumstances. Also knowing exactly what classes/loadouts to bring along, based on map/mission type.

At least that's what I've gathered from watching Beagle's Impossible playthrough. The guy somehow only has like 4 KiA's into January 2nd year (and even rarely takes a health wound), after an exalt raid and base defense. On top of that he's more technologically advanced than I am, despite being two difficulties higher with the accompanying strategic resource nerfs. But I've realized he has encyclopaedic knowledge of the map database, among all else.

Raes_sl said:

I'm pretty optimistic. From the interviews it sounds like they've tweaked quite a bit based on player feedback and popular mods. Plus, as you mentioned, PC only and modder friendly. I do hope the campaign is a bit longer than EU was.

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Yeah, I'm still plenty optimistic. I just hope they simply haven't released enough information yet, because I'm having a hard time seeing how what they've laid out in the gameplay/premise preview is XCOM. Part of the beauty of this game is the excellent mash-up of large scale strategy and smaller scale tactics. It's not XCOM without base resource management, air game, etc, and I don't know how that works in XCOM2's premise, unless like I said, you take a base back from the aliens very early on, like after 1-2 tutorial missions.

If it goes much beyond that, it'll really annoy me. Heroes of Might and Magic 5 comes to mind... the first few missions weren't even full-scale, they were bullshit scaled down tutorial type missions where in some cases you didn't even have a base/town. I was like "so when does this become HoMM?" Same with Starcraft 2, there were too many missions where the focus was on gimmicky bullshit rather than what SC did best (in campaign), which is build a fucking base, build a fucking army, and crush the opposition.

I got curious and looked around,found this interview.

Doesn't give me much hope, the way he dodges some questions makes it sound very much like this is a completely different game. Bleh.

I get the impression they went too flashy-triple-A with it. Flashy gimmick stuff.

Raes_sl said:

I dunno. I just watched that interview, sounded good to me. And he does mention that the strategic layer (base, etc) was something he wasn't allowed to talk about yet. Sounds like that aspect is still being developed and is just not near enough to completion for them to discuss. I think if they were just going the flashy route they wouldn't have made it PC exclusive. Just my opinion.

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Well, it seemed to confirm no air game, no MECs, and the way he dodged around stuff in context with the other stuff seemed fairly clear to me he dodged because they just aren't ready to let loose that bomb yet. I get the distinct impression this game will be even smaller in scope than EU was, with entire portions of a normal XCOM game absent. And by flashy, I meant stuff like the cinematic cutscenes, and such a focus on story and whatever.

But yes, the modders will make it what it needs to be if necessary. The problem is, they perhaps won't even be able to if stuff like air game and MECs aren't even in the game at all. Correct me if I'm wrong!