X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion

[NotAGolfer]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

 

[ArchAngel]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

Yes but you also get more troopers in first mission. EW slows down research a bit and fixes some irritating bugs and gives some more troop building options while also giving players totally OP upgrades. It introduces two new aliens and new missions vs human enemies.
It does nothing for air combat or anything outside of tactical maps. It add that one scripted base defense bullshit.

 

[Space Satan]

Paratrooping reinforcements was one of the dumbest decisions in X-Com. It was threating only once,and then everyone simply positioned soldiers to blast heavenly thin men to pieces on overwatch.

 

[Thane Solus]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

It repairs and improve many things from vanilla, but i still like EW with a few mods better, because LW added 8 man teams and to balance that they added tons of exalts and aliens, double their hp and it bassicly hp bloat with double numbers.

The new skills/perks are nice, the team fatique, officers and strategic battles are nice, but the tactical is kinda broken to me. It depends on what you like. For me, EW with some mods and Classic Difficulty Ironman is almost perfect, ignoring the game's flaws (fu strategic layer)

 

[Gozma]

Paratrooping reinforcements was one of the dumbest decisions in X-Com. It was threating only once,and then everyone simply positioned soldiers to blast heavenly thin men to pieces on overwatch.

LW makes drop-ins fall in random positions, and now in late b15 they fall into cover (which sounds insane to me, but I haven't played it yet). I think it's kinda trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear which is a situation LW runs into a lot, but they don't ever really cut anything from vanilla rather than trying to spruce it up somehow (see: air game).

I played EU and I found regular EW completely boring, had to go straight to LW.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

Yes but you also get more troopers in first mission. EW slows down research a bit and fixes some irritating bugs and gives some more troop building options while also giving players totally OP upgrades. It introduces two new aliens and new missions vs human enemies.
It does nothing for air combat or anything outside of tactical maps. It add that one scripted base defense bullshit.

Well problem is that I still have to learn the new stuff in EW. When I get bored I might give LW another try but for now the negative first impression sticks. Maybe it's just an issue I have in general with NuXCom. There's no sense of scale, the single base and stupid satellite coverage instead of radar (doesn't make sense too, real aliens would shoot those satellites down in seconds while radar installations could be concealed) and the way missions are forced upon you, it's all just so small and funneled.
Adding decision making layers like "decide if you want to win this one or retreat to fight another day" might not be my cup of tea in the linear corridor shooter equivalent of a strategy game.

Wtf, Firaxis, saves are not compatible between languages?!
Are you fucking kidding me?!!!

Switched to English because it got annoying how everyone talked in flawless High German, also the German voice actress of Dr Vahlen sucks donkey balls.
Is Dr Vahlen supposed to be German btw? That thick accent when she actually tries to speak German is ridonkulous.

 

[Thane Solus]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

Yes but you also get more troopers in first mission. EW slows down research a bit and fixes some irritating bugs and gives some more troop building options while also giving players totally OP upgrades. It introduces two new aliens and new missions vs human enemies.
It does nothing for air combat or anything outside of tactical maps. It add that one scripted base defense bullshit.

Well problem is that I still have to learn the new stuff in EW. When I get bored I might give LW another try but for now the negative first impression sticks. Maybe it's just an issue I have in general with NuXCom. There's no sense of scale, the single base and stupid satellite coverage instead of radar (doesn't make sense too, real aliens would shoot those satellites down in seconds while radar installations could be concealed) and the way missions are forced upon you, it's all just so small and funneled.
Adding decision making layers like "decide if you want to win this one or retreat to fight another day" might not be my cup of tea in the linear corridor shooter equivalent of a strategy game.

Yeah the strategic layer is kinda shit. Tactical i like it, even tho it has a lot of retarded things(cant pick up weapons), the free turn for AI, etc...

 

[NotAGolfer]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

It repairs and improve many things from vanilla, but i still like EW with a few mods better, because LW added 8 man teams and to balance that they added tons of exalts and aliens, double their hp and it bassicly hp bloat with double numbers.

The new skills/perks are nice, the team fatique, officers and strategic battles are nice, but the tactical is kinda broken to me. It depends on what you like. For me, EW with some mods and Classic Difficulty Ironman is almost perfect, ignoring the game's flaws (fu strategic layer)

May I ask which mods you add?

 

[Zeriel]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

It repairs and improve many things from vanilla, but i still like EW with a few mods better, because LW added 8 man teams and to balance that they added tons of exalts and aliens, double their hp and it bassicly hp bloat with double numbers.

The new skills/perks are nice, the team fatique, officers and strategic battles are nice, but the tactical is kinda broken to me. It depends on what you like. For me, EW with some mods and Classic Difficulty Ironman is almost perfect, ignoring the game's flaws (fu strategic layer)

6 soldiers feels fine to me, the problem classic has is that you can get fucked through no fault of your own until you get the squad upgrades, the game falls apart with 4 soldiers if literally anything goes wrong, and it will at some point due to RNG (I am not criticizing RNG, vanilla XCOM is fine, it just doesn't become balanced until 6 soldiers). Long War fixes this problem initially, but presents the new problem that eventually you will have 8 soldiers, and 8 soldiers trivializes everything.

I'm still not sure what the proper modded solution for XCOM 2 should be, I am toying with the idea of 6 soldiers baseline with no squad size increases, but instead allowing you to research temporary reinforcements (ala paratroopers like what the aliens get in 2).

8 soldiers might be more balanced with bigger maps which will be a possibility in modded XCOM 2, but I like the pacing and speed you get from 6 soldiers, 8 starts to feel bloated on any turn where you don't absolutely need them all. And cover starts to become a serious issue. Very few locations have enough good cover for 8 soldiers. It feels like schizophrenia is tearing the game between the original X-COM and nuXCOM when people mod in larger soldier sizes. If someone wants to go the direction of huge globs of expendable soldiers like X-COM, it almost seems like at that point you might as well do away with cover entirely.

 

[Jaedar]

LW makes drop-ins fall in random positions, and now in late b15 they fall into cover (which sounds insane to me, but I haven't played it yet).

It is insane. When a muton with infinate overwatches and opportunist drops into heavy cover, a few steps from flanking half your team... you're gonna have a bad time. Especially since it never drops alone.

I think this feature is a very good example of what is wrong with the game/mod. The problem was that "good" players memorized where all the drops were, so they were randomized. But this randomization would way too often just drop them in the middle of an open field as easy pickings, so they then tweaked it so they drop semi-intelligently into cover, preferably close to flanking or outside of sight range. Which is very unfair, because there is basically nothing you can do about it. Just have to hope they drop in manageable ways.

 

[Zeriel]

LW makes drop-ins fall in random positions, and now in late b15 they fall into cover (which sounds insane to me, but I haven't played it yet).

It is insane. When a muton with infinate overwatches and opportunist drops into heavy cover, a few steps from flanking half your team... you're gonna have a bad time. Especially since it never drops alone.

I think this feature is a very good example of what is wrong with the game/mod. The problem was that "good" players memorized where all the drops were, so they were randomized. But this randomization would way too often just drop them in the middle of an open field as easy pickings, so they then tweaked it so they drop semi-intelligently into cover, preferably close to flanking or outside of sight range. Which is very unfair, because there is basically nothing you can do about it. Just have to hope they drop in manageable ways.

Yeah, I don't think a change was necessary there. That's part of the back and forth of non-random maps, especially council missions. Council missions are VERY tough for new players because they have no idea where things will drop or what will happen, those pre-placed drops can absolutely slaughter new players who don't know what's coming. It's only a fair trade-off when experienced players can trivialize it. Of course the maps could be completely random, but trying to crowbar that randomness into a linear game just doesn't work very well. It's my biggest criticism of Long War: they achieved great things and the technical features are to be lauded, but they have a serious lack of restraint when it comes to stuff that just doesn't work. As a modder, my instinct is if a cool idea doesn't work, you scrap it and don't put it in, Long War just seems to decide "well, fuck it, it's better than vanilla :^)".

 

[Thane Solus]

Installed Long War after only playing through XCOM EU (played through X-COM and Apocalypse though, both were not that hard with easily exploitable stuff to give you leeway in screwing up) and with no experience in the EW addon.
So I can't let the mod show tutorial help about the new EW stuff, great...
Started a new game on normal with only Save Scum and Commander's Choice toggled under Second Wave options and the first mission has me surrounded by alien groups.
Don't like where this is going, seems like the usual make everything hardcore(tm) instead of just repairing a dull vanilla game modding approach.

Uninstalled again. Will try out EW unmodded now, maybe it already improved enough of EU's shortcomings.

It repairs and improve many things from vanilla, but i still like EW with a few mods better, because LW added 8 man teams and to balance that they added tons of exalts and aliens, double their hp and it bassicly hp bloat with double numbers.

The new skills/perks are nice, the team fatique, officers and strategic battles are nice, but the tactical is kinda broken to me. It depends on what you like. For me, EW with some mods and Classic Difficulty Ironman is almost perfect, ignoring the game's flaws (fu strategic layer)

May I ask which mods you add?

- Corpses remain longer on the ground
- Display XP_PSI_XP_Mobility
- Geoscape Pause - Pauses Geoscape after notification pop-up. Works with all events like soldier returning to active duty, excavation complete, ship transfer complete, etc.
- Hunker Down Overwatch - DESCRIPTION=Set Hunker Down and Overwatch actions delay time
- Minimal_Delays_EW - very short overwatch time
- SkipRevealCinematicEW.txt

Look for them on nexus, there is a tiny utility that has these mods for you to install and more.

 

[Invictus]

Got the tablet version over the weekend since I was stuck watching over my gf's grandma at the hospital and I must say I had forgotten simply how entertaining it is; yeah it is not hardcore X-Com but loads of uncomplicated fun and Enemy Within adds an extra layer of depth. As other have mentioned if you dont like the game the expansion is not going to change your mind but to me it was a godsend this weekend... Hell even the gf is getting into it right now
Definetly looking forward to the sequel
Edit: Oh and that alien whale scenario was fantastic... Even lost an operative who sacrificed himself while everybody fleed the scene

 

[cvv]

XCOM vanilla is bad. With EW it's a good game. With LW it's potentially great but LW is...problematic. Worse still the more the Ruskis improve it the more flawed it seems to be. Right now the air war is utterly obnoxious and one failed mission can fuck up your entire campaign more often than not.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

that's because you all have been feeding this utter nonsense of "losing is fun" during these years. now lose!

 

[baturinsky]

Long War 1.0 released 6 hours ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/3yk4jp/long_war_ew_10_released_for_pc_mac_and_linux/

 

[sser]

The only changes from RC3 to 1.0 are some minor localization fixes in Spanish and Polish.

 

[Average Manatee]

Motion detectors are insanely OP in the current versions. Build 2-3 of them and by week 2 tactical combat is immediately and forever trivialized by opening with rockets. I have no idea who the hell thinks they were a good balance move, completely takes any feeling of xcom-ness when you can easily spot enemies before they spot you.

Air war basically requires you to rush lasers/pulse in an optimal fashion along with the NA bonus. It's pretty dumb IMO that difficulty doesn't affect the air battle difficulty, only gives the AI (massive) tactical bonuses + reduces your income slightly.

 

[cvv]

I have no idea who the hell thinks they were a good balance move, completely takes any feeling of xcom-ness when you can easily spot enemies before they spot you.

This is pretty illustrative example why the "pod discovery" mechanics is a necessary feature. If aliens didn't rush to cover as soon as you spot them the game would be stupidly trivial.

 

[baturinsky]

Motion detectors are insanely OP in the current versions. Build 2-3 of them and by week 2 tactical combat is immediately and forever trivialized by opening with rockets. I have no idea who the hell thinks they were a good balance move, completely takes any feeling of xcom-ness when you can easily spot enemies before they spot you.

Is it what you actually do, or it's just theorycrafting? Because rockets suck balls in Long War even when you fire at visible target.

Air war basically requires you to rush lasers/pulse in an optimal fashion along with the NA bonus. It's pretty dumb IMO that difficulty doesn't affect the air battle difficulty, only gives the AI (massive) tactical bonuses + reduces your income slightly.

I always play with "Friendly Skies" on, air combat is hard enough even with it.

 

[Average Manatee]

Motion detectors are insanely OP in the current versions. Build 2-3 of them and by week 2 tactical combat is immediately and forever trivialized by opening with rockets. I have no idea who the hell thinks they were a good balance move, completely takes any feeling of xcom-ness when you can easily spot enemies before they spot you.

Is it what you actually do, or it's just theorycrafting? Because rockets suck balls in Long War even when you fire at visible target.

Steadying your rocketeer greatly improves their aim to the point that scatter is max 2-3 tiles unless you are really unlucky, are you doing that? One of the nice changes about Long War, since it rewards placing your rocketeer in a good position before battle like original X-Com did, but gamebreaking when you can spot the enemies before they spot you. Indeed I used to call the Long War gameplay "broken" by mid-game when you could carry 4+ battle scanners (requiring you to move slowly, intelligently listen for enemies and only use the scanner for tough groups that needed it), nowadays you can manufacture 3 uses of motion scanner per item slot from the beginning of the game, and motion scanners are arguably more OP for scouting (also reveals meld which is fantastic). Still need battle scanners for cloaked enemies of course.

I've tested it to be excessively effective until I burned out due to too many missions around August/September. Heat warheads massacre most mechanical enemies (Floaters being by far one of the most dangerous long war enemies, seekers and drones being a PITA), while sectoids/thin men are pretty fucked in the first place. Only Mutons and Outsiders have the HP to survive and still remain a decent threat and even then opening with shredder is priceless. That said I always play with Red Fog since I consider it mandatory for a game to be called X-Com, if you play without that and units left with 1 HP are still fully capable you'll probably find it slightly less gamebreaking (though most pods can be killed in the opening turn if they don't run away, so it rarely matters much). Of course for the single big enemies like Mectoids and Cyberdisks your similarly steady-aimed sniper fires disabling shot and ruins their whole next turn.

 

[Zeriel]

Is it what you actually do, or it's just theorycrafting? Because rockets suck balls in Long War even when you fire at visible target.

Someone never stacked aim to ludicrous levels on their heavies. Actually, Long War makes rockets MUCH better than vanilla, it just takes a while to reach the apex form.

 

[Average Manatee]

Checked the formula, scatter is ~8 tiles * (1 - aim/120). Rocketeers can start with around 70 aim, +20 for steady weapon = 2 tile standard deviation of scatter for the first day of a rocketeer's job. There's a few other factors that affect it (being closer helps, can't get much farther without the later bonuses, movement really fucks shit up without snap shot), but that's a pretty obtainable figure in most instances. Of course its standard deviation so there's a decent chance of being up to 2x as far away, but results are still heavily clustered around a mean and when firing at a packed pod group your first 2 tiles of scatter is usually going to simply hit another target on-point.

 

[Zeriel]

That's even better than I thought it was. My vague memory was that once you stacked all the relevant bonuses and later items like gunsights you could do silly shit like move and rocket and still have low scatter, which was a HUGE improvement over vanilla's treatment (can't move and fire).

 

[Average Manatee]

Definitely. For reference, movement normally doubles scatter but snapshot reduces the penalty to only +25%. If your base scatter is already low then you can pretty much move and shoot at will. The biggest obstacle is overcoming the lack of steady aim's bonus. Moving does reduce the maximum range though (50% for normal, 25% for with snap shot).