X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[Galdred]

Phoenix Point (2018)

I don't think 2 AP system can warrant a good tactical game in any situation. It's just too limiting. At least they are bringing back things that could be easily coded like 20 years ago in orig. XCOM -bullets that are real entities.

Most wargames use 1 Move + 1 Attack. Temple of Elemental Evil or Knights of the Chalice can also be considered 2AP games. Descent (board game) certainly is too.

 

[ArchAngel]

I had some strange missions. In some it seemed game decided my campaign should end so it threw shit like 2 pods almost next to my troop spawn point that got activated by Lost. Then on advent turn first of them moves to spot one of my troops and then both pods proceed to rape my squad..
..guerilla mission with way too OP enemies and a Chosen where I lose 2(one being my Skirmisher lieutenant) and 3 go back injured..
..then a mission with Savage sitrep where all Berserkers attack advent they are in pods with and eventually murder them. I end up cleaning up 3 berserkers and 3 faceless only..
..now I am stuck on doom timer at one day to completion, doing the blacksite mission with subpar team expecting to lose..
..game fucked me over by giving me hard supply raid missions and I was stuck too long without having 60 alloys for predator armor making me lose way more troops than I should have and preventing me from getting an earlier Captain and a 6th squad member.

 

[Galdred]

I had some strange missions. In some it seemed game decided my campaign should end so it threw shit like 2 pods almost next to my troop spawn point that got activated by Lost. Then on advent turn first of them moves to spot one of my troops and then both pods proceed to rape my squad..
..guerilla mission with way too OP enemies and a Chosen where I lose 2(one being my Skirmisher lieutenant) and 3 go back injured..
..then a mission with Savage sitrep where all Berserkers attack advent they are in pods with and eventually murder them. I end up cleaning up 3 berserkers and 3 faceless only..
..now I am stuck on doom timer at one day to completion, doing the blacksite mission with subpar team expecting to lose..
..game fucked me over by giving me hard supply raid missions and I was stuck too long without having 60 alloys for predator armor making me lose way more troops than I should have and preventing me from getting an earlier Captain and a 6th squad member.

I find the expansion much harder than Enemy Within was for XCOM actually:
I was able to complete Enemy Within in I/I much faster than I did XCOM:EU (around 60h for EW), while I am still struggling with this one.

 

[Jasede]

I am not very good at the game. Took me 21* tries to ironman Classic (or whatever the third difficulty is).
Legendary is... basically, out of my reach.

*21 is not as much as it may look, 10-12 of those were aborted after Gatecrasher or 3 missions in.

 

[Mark Richard]

Of all the things I miss the one thing I actually do miss isn't squad size or having to buy individual grenades -- what I miss is individual bullet physics. It's still somewhat in the game but-- see, in UFO/TFTD you could do things like... force-fire on a wall with auto-fire so that the wall would be destroyed in the first shit and the next two hit the alien behind the wall. That was really cool. You might think that's a very specific thing but I ended up doing that multiple times each campaign; it was very useful.

Uh huh. X-COM 2 can add all the elaborate destructible architecture in the world, but you're stuck interacting with it in the same way. Though to be fair allowing guns with unlimited ammo to purposefully target walls would cut into the grenade's turf and breed much animosity between the two. I'm not getting in the middle of that quarrel.

 

[Stavrophore]

I find the expansion much harder than Enemy Within was for XCOM actually:

I am not very good at the game. Took me 21* tries to ironman Classic (or whatever the third difficulty is).

Just need to approach the game like puzzles. If you have problem with arranging a kill sequences, just take a pen and paper, and write combinations. After some time, and after memorizing skills you will know what to do in an instant. And finally, just manage to the late game -enemies will stay the same, but your squad will be a bunch of demigods. With introduction of AP points, you can really make some beasts. Covert OPS will give you health, dodge, aim and you can make super soldiers. Have one ranger with 18 base mobility, 14 health, and 40 dodge. With sneak suit, and regen armor, hes invincible, its normal for him to get few hits per mission, most of those are grazes.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am not very good at the game. Took me 21* tries to ironman Classic (or whatever the third difficulty is).
Legendary is... basically, out of my reach.

*21 is not as much as it may look, 10-12 of those were aborted after Gatecrasher or 3 missions in.

Gatecrasher on L/I is all about breaking LOS and setting traps. Basically you first scout the 3 pods and what their patrols look like. Then use your concealment to get close enough to isolate and grenade either dangerous pod (officer + 2 troopers, or sectoid + trooper) and close range flank the survivors. Then when concealment is broken you gtfo hide behind buildings and overwatch trap the remaining pods. Your strategy may be slightly different depending on whether you went with L&A and if not, which faction hero you chose/rolled. Getting a reaper means being able to delete the officer pod in an alpha strike combo of claymore+grenade.

Actually it is more effective to find high ground near the objective. Use it to grenade and overwatch kill first squad and then you overwatch camp until second pod comes. For third one you will need to go find them.

 

[Parabalus]

Just had the Assassin capture my soldier on an op - the problem is, she's dead, along with her mates. Funny since she chimes in to taunt you from beyond the grave.

I wish they changed something about Hacking and how snowbally it is. If you hit the +20 permanent increase early, everything becomes so much easier, and you can farm subsequent increases. My main specialist has 250 Hack and the rest have about a 100 less. Wish they did something about it.

 

[Jasede]

Funnily enough, on Classic, I never hacked, and I never used any Psionics. Maybe I am able to do Legendary after all if I do use both.

Alternatively I can buy the pay to win Frost Bomb DLC...

 

[Galdred]

Funnily enough, on Classic, I never hacked, and I never used any Psionics. Maybe I am able to do Legendary after all if I do use both.

Alternatively I can buy the pay to win Frost Bomb DLC...

Psionics are very hard to get any mileage out in LI, because of the doubled construction times.

 

[Parabalus]

Psi rush is harder now than in vanilla when you could conceivably go GTS-AWC-Psi before needing a power upgrade, meaning you delay proving grounds upgrades and resistance comms expansion until after. Now psi rush means GTS-Ring-Psi-Power, delaying infirmary and training center as well! Personally I'm leaning toward infirmary for #3 since you can always use the better roster and you will definitely want to get rid of dangerous phobias asap.

Psi is such a huge investment up front (research project, facility/power, elerium crystals, training time) for a soldier that could be mostly useless for a while depending on how you roll abilities.

I did GTS-Ring-TC-Power-RC-INF-SC this time od Legend, but if I was redoing it I'd switch TC and INF like you said, and instead of SC build PSI. Built PSI as the last building so I never got to play with them, and since you don't really use the SC before the end, it comes down to enemy preview vs earlier training. Don't think I got a lot of mileage out of the preview since outside of sitreps the enemy is pretty varied.

Funnily enough, on Classic, I never hacked, and I never used any Psionics. Maybe I am able to do Legendary after all if I do use both.

Alternatively I can buy the pay to win Frost Bomb DLC...

Hacking is really meh unless you get to stack it on one character, but then you have to protect him or gg.

The DLC is worth it I'd say, the rulers are fun to deal with. Wouldn't be surprised if somebody moded the items in tho.

 

[Daedalos]

What mods are absolutely essential for the expansion? If any?

 

[ArchAngel]

Somehow I managed to survive my Blacksite mission on L/I. I only had 5 man team with magnetic weapons and predator armor. 2 Grenadiers, 2 rangers, 1 specialist. 1 Lt, 2sgt, 1 cpl and 1 sq. And 1 mimic beacon :D
I really expected to fail badly. And when Chosen assassin appeared I was sure that was it.
But somehow I managed to beat everything (mutons, mecs, specters, lots of sectoids, advanced troopers, advanced officers, advent priests and the reset) without losing any troops and with only two injuries. A combination of abusing high ground as much as possible and a bit of luck.

Seems my L/I campaign gets to continue. But for how long?
If I don't get a Captain soon and a 6th squad slot not for long.

 

[Mazisky]

Somehow I managed to survive my Blacksite mission on L/I. I only had 5 man team with magnetic weapons and predator armor. 2 Grenadiers, 2 rangers, 1 specialist. 1 Lt, 2sgt, 1 cpl and 1 sq. And 1 mimic beacon :D
I really expected to fail badly. And when Chosen assassin appeared I was sure that was it.
But somehow I managed to beat everything (mutons, mecs, specters, lots of sectoids, advanced troopers, advanced officers, advent priests and the reset) without losing any troops and with only two injuries. A combination of abusing high ground as much as possible and a bit of luck.

Seems my L/I campaign gets to continue. But for how long?
If I don't get a Captain soon and a 6th squad slot not for long.

Seems like you are having fun with a triple A commercial product. Neat

 

[ArchAngel]

Somehow I managed to survive my Blacksite mission on L/I. I only had 5 man team with magnetic weapons and predator armor. 2 Grenadiers, 2 rangers, 1 specialist. 1 Lt, 2sgt, 1 cpl and 1 sq. And 1 mimic beacon :D
I really expected to fail badly. And when Chosen assassin appeared I was sure that was it.
But somehow I managed to beat everything (mutons, mecs, specters, lots of sectoids, advanced troopers, advanced officers, advent priests and the reset) without losing any troops and with only two injuries. A combination of abusing high ground as much as possible and a bit of luck.

Seems my L/I campaign gets to continue. But for how long?
If I don't get a Captain soon and a 6th squad slot not for long.

Seems like you are having fun with a triple A commercial product. Neat

A bit yes. Performance improvements really impact the enjoyment of this product. And as I said earlier, I would prefer if they patched those into vanilla Xcom 2 so I can play LW2 with them.
But again WotC seems to crash more often than Xcom 2 did.

 

[Jimmious]

Didn't have any crashes so far personally. But yeah the performance improvements are impressive. It takes 1-2 seconds to load each map!

 

[Mazisky]

I had lot of crashes then i did all pendant windows updates and all crashes disappeared, maybe this can help someone

 

[Galdred]

What mods are absolutely essential for the expansion? If any?

RPS List is pretty reasonable actually.

I use:

Fixes
Brutal Fix
stocks insider knowledge fix
Revival protocol Fixes
Not enough skirmishing (to buff the skirmisher to a reasonable level and correct one ability bug)
Better Repeater because they are really cheesy (replaces them with + crit damage)

QoL
Blackmarket usage to know what the stuff for sale is used for
Smart Overwatch all
Los Preview Ability
Quick Solder Info
New Promotion Screen By Default
Stop Wasting my Time
Gotcha Again
Evac All
Show Health Value
Edit: Free Camera Rotation

Cosmetic
Stenchfury Modular Helmets
Stenchfury Modular Armors
Capnbubs Accessories

Pick the WOTC edition for each mod for which it exists.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

So if I wanted to get into this game, is it recommended to play Xcom 2 vanilla, then load up the expansion? What's the deal with the DLCs (is the deluxe version worth it)? I ask because I could pickup the base game on sale, play it through, then pick up the expansion when it ends up on sale later.

Just wrapped up my Xcom 1 Enemy Within play through (got it forever ago, but wasn't interested in replaying at the time) and am hankering for some more Xcom action. Not really a Long War type player, but I might give it a shot at some point.

 

[Parabalus]

So if I wanted to get into this game, is it recommended to play Xcom 2 vanilla, then load up the expansion? What's the deal with the DLCs (is the deluxe version worth it)? I ask because I could pickup the base game on sale, play it through, then pick up the expansion when it ends up on sale later.

Just wrapped up my Xcom 1 Enemy Within play through (got it forever ago, but wasn't interested in replaying at the time) and am hankering for some more Xcom action. Not really a Long War type player, but I might give it a shot at some point.

They all work well together, the campaigns are pretty long so unless you want to play them back-to-back and have a lot of time I'd go for the full package. Be sure to check the story missions and not integrated, so you don't miss out.

 

[Galdred]

So if I wanted to get into this game, is it recommended to play Xcom 2 vanilla, then load up the expansion? What's the deal with the DLCs (is the deluxe version worth it)? I ask because I could pickup the base game on sale, play it through, then pick up the expansion when it ends up on sale later.

Just wrapped up my Xcom 1 Enemy Within play through (got it forever ago, but wasn't interested in replaying at the time) and am hankering for some more Xcom action. Not really a Long War type player, but I might give it a shot at some point.

I think the DLC work better with the expansion than with the base game, as they were rebalanced/patched for the Xpack, but not the base game (because... code change...)

 

[GrainWetski]

What mods are absolutely essential for the expansion? If any?

RPS List is pretty reasonable actually.

I use:

Better Repeater because they are really cheesy (replaces them with + crit damage)
Blackmarket usage to know what the stuff for sale is used for
Not enough skirmishing (to buff the skirmisher to a reasonable level and correct one ability bug)
stocks insider knowledge fix
Revival protocol Fixes
Smart Overwatch all
Brutal Fix
Los Preview Ability
Quick Solder Info
Stenchfury Modular Helmets
Stenchfury Modular Armors
Capnbubs Accessories
New Promotion Screen By Default
Stop Wasting my Time
Gotcha Again
Evac All
Show Health Value

Pick the WOTC edition for each mod for which it exists.

You play without Free Camera Rotation? Must be a fucking nightmare as soon as there are any buildings at all.

 

[Jasede]

I don't use it either; has never been a problem.

 

[GrainWetski]

I found the game completely unplayable without it. No idea why the game only has 4 angles by default.

 

[ArchAngel]

What mods are absolutely essential for the expansion? If any?

RPS List is pretty reasonable actually.

I use:

Better Repeater because they are really cheesy (replaces them with + crit damage)
Blackmarket usage to know what the stuff for sale is used for
Not enough skirmishing (to buff the skirmisher to a reasonable level and correct one ability bug)
stocks insider knowledge fix
Revival protocol Fixes
Smart Overwatch all
Brutal Fix
Los Preview Ability
Quick Solder Info
Stenchfury Modular Helmets
Stenchfury Modular Armors
Capnbubs Accessories
New Promotion Screen By Default
Stop Wasting my Time
Gotcha Again
Evac All
Show Health Value

Pick the WOTC edition for each mod for which it exists.

You play without Free Camera Rotation? Must be a fucking nightmare as soon as there are any buildings at all.

Funny enough, that is only mod I use with WotC. Nexus currently lacks most of the good updated mods for WotC.