Victory! Finally finished X-Com2 vanilla that I got on the Steam Winter Sale. I know that some of you guys are breezing through LW2, but for me this is an achievement
Phenomenal game! Everything said about the first one dialed up is true. I figured since I actually managed to beat the first game a couple of times, I would dive into this one totally blind and on Ironman from the beginning. What a rush! This was my first campaign and I honestly thought I was going to lose, and I had to bury quite a bit of high ranking soldiers along the way. Some highlights that stood out:
- My only combat hacker on the squad dying from a first-time encountered Andromedon acid grenade.
- My killboard leading ranger discovering the hard way not to melee Muton's.
- His even better performing replacement learning that not only do Andromedons come back to life (surprise!), they get an action right away. Which meant even though you pulled the squad out of the fire with your fancy sword, you were about to chow down on a giant steel fist as your reward: RIP.
- First encounter with a Gatekeeper, and while wondering what it could do, it annihilated my wounded grenadier with a psychic vortex and raised her back as a zombie all in one move... she had to give her life twice to liberate the Earth.
- My only medic getting captured by aliens trying to get to a VIP; I thought he was lost to us for sure, but I was very surprised to rescue him on a mission many weeks later! He stayed with the squad the rest of the way until the end, and often it was thanks only to him that we didn't lose more soldiers than we did.
Many more fell along they way, but we never gave up, pulled back and sent new recruits out into the field to keep bringing the fight back to the aliens.
I finished the game with the same type of squad as the first X-Com, with a pair of double long range snipers (both from Germany, same as in my X-Com 1 coincidentally enough). These two ladies dominated the killboards and put down more aliens than the rest of the squad combined.
It's a mark (to me) of a really great game that after spending
so many hours to finish it, my very first thought is to dive back in with a new squad. I'd love to try Psi Ops this time, I didn't even build the facility on my first playthrough... and I've heard really good things about Gunslinger snipers. Now that I've finished the vanilla game I'm also real excited to get back in there with some mods (I don't think I'm ready for LW2 just yet!) and maybe even get the Spark DLC.
So finally got this thanks to the humble bundle monthly and WTF!?!! The difficulty for this game makes no damn sense and I'm just on mission 2. I'm playing on the second option and for the life of me I can't make out what I'm doing wrong. The only conclusion I can come to is that the randomness of the attacks makes no sense or is completely in favor of the computer.
I need help. I want to get through Xcom 2 on veteran in iron man mode before I go installing the long war mod. I realize its suppose to be hard but I seem to be making bad choices that makes it impossible after taking out the first black site. I can't seem to keep people alive long enough to get up a few ranks. I'm either too cautious, and I end up taking too long and failing most missions. Or my best soldiers are taking out and I end up sending out waves of rookies only to get completely slaughtered.
My missions started going much better when I started following a few basic tenets:
1) When you encounter an enemy pod, freeze. Do not advance past your furthest soldier in any direction unless it is critical to do so. It is imperative to avoid activating any new enemies.
2) Respond to each encounter with maximum lethality: don't try and "save" consumables for when they are "needed". Unless you soldiers are in high cover and selecting from a pile of 90%+ shot chances, use those explosives. Don't try and kill aliens with them (that's just a bonus when you can do it), use them to destroy the aliens cover to give your squad the best shot chances they can get. The most important thing is making sure your soldiers don't take wounds.
3) Kill at least 1 alien a turn, more if you can. Don't spread out your damage, aliens hurt you just as badly if they have 10 hp left, or 1... if you have to use up a 14 damage sniper shot in a single health alien to take it out, do it. The only way to ensure your squads safety is to make sure nothing is alive to shoot back at them.
4) Flashbangs and Mimic Beacons are life savers, don't leave home without them. I disregarded flashbangs at the start because I thought it was better to do damage... the real power of the flashbangs is in removing enemy special abilities for a couple of turns.
5) Unless there is simply no other choice, don't take a shot that is under 70% (and even then... X-Com gonna X-Com). If you have a shot less than that, in my experience overwatch is a more successful strategy.
