You feel a lot more like a resistance army leader. You have to coordinate your headquarters. You now send squads into infiltrate sites and so you can have multiple missions on the go at once. Well worth checking out!
It looks awesome!
Definitely going rookie the first time around. ;p
Here’s an intro to the mod that might be helpful: Introduction to Long War 2 - Infiltration Guide, Gameplay Tips, Legend Let's Play for the XCOM 2 Mod - YouTube
I played it all last night. I love it. You feel so much more like a resistance commander as you control different cells and squads now. It is a lot more like the original XCOM. The AI is improved. Cover being resilient to explosions is a massive tactical change. This mod is like the chocolate syrup and sprinkles on a sundae, it makes a good thing oh so much better.
I normally play Commander but I bumped down to Veteran, and I’m glad I did. It is much harder. No deaths so far, but I’ve had numerous injuries and two soldiers captured.
Probably anyone reading this thread has the game but…
You can get XCOM 2 (plus six more games to be announced) for $12 for another 13 days from the Humble Monthly. You’ll get a Steam key for XCOM 2 now and the other six games when they’re revealed in about two weeks.
So, I just subscribe for 1 month and then cancel 14 days from now and I’ll get the games (including XCOM2) for 12$?
Did they fix the netcode from the 1st game where you’d order a unit to make a simple move and it’d count as a double movement?
I just finished a mission. Time was, on Commander, my goal was to kill everything, loot everything and have no injuries (let alone deaths). Now, I’m happy if I accomplish the goal and everybody escapes alive. Loot is now totally optional. And injuries, hey chicks dig scars. 
Calling the Skyranger now takes 5 turns. It is so brutal trying to hold your ground, waiting and waiting and waiting for it to arrive. And since enemy reinforcements now come, you’re going to be fighting until the very end.
That’s exactly what my friend did yesterday. He didn’t see anything about a minimum number of months. And what’s nice is you get XCOM2 immediately.
Sounds like those old Columbia House record deals.
I’m playing Witcher 3 now, and probably have another month or two on it–but when I finish (or get bored and quit), XCom 2 is sitting on the back burner. Would y’all recommend the first play with or without this mod?
It is an undeniably good game without the mod. I would consider playing it once without the mod to get that experience, especially if you enjoyed the vanilla XCOM experience.
Missed edit window.
Also the mod does make the game a lot harder so starting off with the mod could be frustrating. Unless you’re some kind of XCOM god.
I find it a lot easier than stock XCOM 2 so far. The extra items, the free 2 HP, and the less dangerous enemies makes the early game virtually risk-free.
I’m also largely underwhelmed by the general design. Sometimes more is less, and this is a great example of it. Having 15 units each taking low-value actions is…not an improvement. Feels like the ratio of important decisions to rote busywork has skewed in favor of the latter.
The micromanagement on the strat layer is a chore, too, and they say this campaign runs for 100+ missions with 5-6 squads instead of my current two? Eesh.
This would be better as a mod to Xenonauts, or even the classic Xcom, rather than the Firaxis ones.
My first death of the “Long War”. R.I.P. Corporal Mike “Spook” Mitchell. He died a heroic death saving the squad from utter annhilation. What happened was a sectoid had mind controlled one of my soldiers and unfortunately it was a soldier with a rocket launcher. With only him left to act (and no flashbang) he charged the sectoid, sword in hand and slew it. Although this left him in cover he was highly flankable and a muton did exactly that. The flanking shot hit his square in the face (critical hit), killing him instantly.
I am jealous of yuse guys.
I wup vanilla XCom2 on “recruit/easy”, but vanilla XCom2 wups me on on “veteran”.
Long War wups me on “easy”.
No pie for me.
To quote Jamie from Mythbusters: “When in doubt, C4”.
I’m not sure whether this applies to you or not, but one of the keys to success in XCOM 2 is copious use of explosives and flashbangs. In the vanilla game, you can use explosives to destroy cover and then get no cover shots (i.e. basically flanking) on the now exposed enemy. If for some reason you’re not in a position to kill the enemy then limit their ability to shoot you successfully with suppression fire and especially flashbangs. Flashbangs are especially powerful because they remove the use of all abilities.
It is almost always, like 99.99% of the time, better to kill an enemy with explosives and lose any loot then take an 75% shot, inevitably miss from time to time, thereby allowing them to shoot back. Always check all of your soldiers each round. Whoever has the worst chance to hit and still has an explosive or flashbang should go last as your failsafe.
Not having played, maybe I shouldn’t even ask this, but I’m curious: if you’re using explosives to destroy cover, wouldn’t you want that person to go first?
Definitely applies to me. I got my squad wiped in the first blacksite and now I’m in a death spiral.
Am I meant to go for the blacksite early? Before magnetic/gauss weapons?
Flashbangs and explosives are usually in quite short supply though, at least in the early game.
Typically your moves are:
- Destroy cover with explosives with soldiers with bad shots.
- Kill the enemy with the best shots.
- Leave 1 soldier with bad shots as a fail safe to kill a dangerous enemy.
Never rush the main story line. Definitely get upgraded weapons first mainly for the improved accuracy.
You don’t need to blow up everything. You kill the enemy two ways:
- Blowing up their cover and kill them.
- Just flank them and kill them.
To accomplish the 2nd, you need to remove any overwatches (combat protocol is great for this as it is guaranteed damage). Once the overwatches are gone you can flank the enemy naturally and kill them. Again, also leave one soldier who has no good move with a flashbang as your fall back. Run and gun is very effective for this, especially with lightning reflexes (ignores reaction shots). A shotgun at a range of 1 almost always has 95%+ chance to hit and does massive damage (put critical enhancers on it). If the enemy is dead there’s no risk to the soldier (although try telling that to Mike “Spook” Mitchell hehe).
There’s a learning curve, but once you get good at these approaches you’ll actually find that the enemy almost never gets to shoot back or if they do shoot back it is with low accuracy shots.
Oh and one last thing, don’t be afraid to hunker down a soldier in a risky spot if there’s no good move. A hunker down is often better than taking a 22% shot, missing and then losing the soldier.
I’m glad I’m not alone here; I haven’t messed with Long War 2 yet, but this is EXACTLY how I felt about the original Long War - it feels like it added a whole bunch of stuff for me to do, without add any additional payoff from all that doing.
I use grenades, but there is a limited supply of those (one per soldier). Also, throw range is limited.
I am always scuttling from cover to cover, but the bad guys seem to have much fewer problems sniping me than vice-versa.
I don’t know what I am doing wrong, but I think the game is great fun (once I calm down from rage quitting). I used the Steam Workshop to load additional weapon skins (to include current day weapon models, like the AK-74), and this adds more customization options.
One thing I notice is the distinct lack of foreign language (Asiatic) options. My dudes can come from dozens of different countries. They added Italian and French, but no Chinese, Japanese, or Korean voice acting? Hmmmp.