XCOM 2

[sherbz]

Yeah, it was close, but I pulled it off w/ an August win. I had a really small roster as many of my up and coming backup troops got killed. In the end, I had just six colonels, one of whom got within one health bar of dying in the penultimate mission. My team for the final mission was two rangers, two snipers, a support, and a grenadier. I would have rather had two grenadiers and one sniper, but it worked out fine.

Base Building

Someone mentioned wanting some tips for base building. Here's my strategy.

As far as I can tell, you always start in a corner on the first row. If start in the middle, this may require some adjustment (or not). For the purposes of this, I am going to assume the upper left corner starts open, if it is upper right then just mirror the system. There seems to always be two power spaces, both located on the lower two rows.

I start with a workshop in the open space. The workshop lets you staff an engineer who can then supply two gremlins to staff orthogonally adjacent rooms. An upgrade to the workshops lets you staff a second engineer for two more gremlins. Without an engineer, the workshop is useless so getting an engineer is a top priority.

Once you have an engineer, use him to build and staff the workshop then use the gremlins to start digging out the two adjacent rooms. Once they are dug out, build an AWC in the top floor opening and a power coupling in the other. Use your second engineer to clear out the last room on the top floor. Once that is, build the GTS in that space. Clear out the remaining rooms in the second floor, starting with the one under the GTS. I like to put the Proving Grounds on the right column of the second floor, under the GTS. Once the middle one is cleared, I will demolish the first workshop and rebuild it under the AWC. Upgrade that and staff it with two engineers and you can easily staff the AWC, Proving Grounds, power coupling, and use a gremlin to dig out the floor under the second workshop. This gives you four gremlins to staff the AWC, power coupling (you'll want two there eventually), Proving Grounds, and whatever is under the second workshop.

Priorities from there include resistance communications, the psi lab, and the Shadow Chamber. I like building the Shadow Chamber over a power chamber and using the second power chamber for another power coupling.

This base building strategy allows you to double up on your engineers early on, which is pretty valuable in base building. You can get your base up and running much more quickly by leveraging the workshop. It also allows for a fair amount of flexibility early on as you don't necessarily need to staff the power coupling and AWC so once you have those up you can pull the engineer from the first workshop and reassign him.

However, there are a few weaknesses as well. This strategy is costly, not just in terms of workshop initial costs, but also in upkeep for the workshop. I often get the low income warning when doing this. It also delays the GTS for a bit longer. You probably wouldn't have a unit w/ a high enough rank to unlock squad size five until a few days before the GTS is done so you might have to do a mission or two w/ four instead of five units. Not that big a deal. Finally, this strategy does delay resistance comms a bit. If that's an issue, just replace the Proving Grounds w/ a resistance comms and Bob's your uncle.

If you happen to land on a continent w/ the "fire when ready" bonus, you may want to move the Proving Grounds away from the second workshop as well, probably replacing it w/ resistance comms. An engineer is still useful for the Proving Grounds for armor and other projects, but if you have fire when ready you may not need an engineer there full time.

A key takeaway here is that you do not want to wait until you've drilled down to the power blocks to put up power couplings. Your base can only run two or three facilities w/o a power coupling. It is tempting to drill down to the power blocks first prior to building a power coupling, but in the end it isn't worthwhile b/c it delays your building so much.

Im going to go out on a limb here and disagree. I think first building you want is GTS. You need this for the squad upgrade, wet work and vulture upgrades. Then you want as many engineers as possible as quickly as possible. Assign all of them to dig for your first power coil. You have one spare room. Optional here, but I would build one resistance com. Proving ground is also viable. Once power core is dug, Rush build with engineer. This should be month 2 sometime. You want the workshop in the third tier down middle row preferably. This should give access to at least one power core and if you build it right, another resistance com. The advantage of this is that it's probably the most efficient strategy in terms of power and supplies, you also get GTS straight away. The disadvantage is a late proving ground.

Imo you can build the awc last, or not at all. It's too situational and not really very good.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I really should try to finish this game this week. I've been slacking on it because the farther in I get the less stable it seems to become, but I should be near the end now, I only have a couple more regions to make contact with and then it should be a simple matter of running through the final series of missions.

I recently replaced my sniper entirely with a second psi-ops and I have to say I don't miss her. She was a decent mech killer with the bluescreen rounds but that ammo type allows any class to do that. Current A team is shotgun focused ranger (who is also the officer), combat specialist, 2 explosive spec grenadiers, and 2 psi-ops. Really excellent team, plenty of flexibility, mech killing power, and crowd control for when things get out of hand. 2x stasis makes most pods completely trivial, only worry is if you move wrong and activate too much stuff at once.

Also, mind controlled gatekeepers ftw.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Finally got around to finishing this, it was hella challenging to slog through the final mission because it was laggy. as. hell. Probably going to wait for some optimization patches before I take this up again.

 

[ArneHD]

Finally got around to finishing this, it was hella challenging to slog through the final mission because it was laggy. as. hell. Probably going to wait for some optimization patches before I take this up again.

You can remove the lag by setting anti-aliasing to off and turning off vsync. Saw it originally on a youtube video, but I tested it and it worked for me.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

You can remove the lag by setting anti-aliasing to off and turning off vsync. Saw it originally on a youtube video, but I tested it and it worked for me.

I'll give that a shot, thanks. Especially since after posting that I went home that night and started a new game because I am stupid.

 

[sherbz]

I think it runs a lot better since the hot fix went live. And also if you do as ArneHD says as well. Its the first time in years that i have had to tweak all of my video options in order to get something to run decently. And its also the first game where i had to settle for the "low" category. It looks spectacular if you run it on ultra settings. But you must have to have an absolute beast of a computer in order to cope with it. I need to upgrade my GPU. My GTX 580 just doesnt cut the mustard these days.

 

[Acken]

Xcom2 has performance issues. It's really not that pretty at high settings and run worse than prettier games.

It's playable for sure, especially by turning off some options but it regularly drops in frames here and there (especially during transitions). You can still enjoy the game for the most part but it's not a smooth experience for many users.

 

[sherbz]

Winner! Completed on commander ironman. Only lost one soldier, and even that was very very bad luck. Might have a crack at legendary now. Found the last mission a lot easier this time. I killed all 3 avatars within 4 turns. The trick is to not go into the room, stay outside, and have a ranger with rapid fire and also a grenadier with hail of bullets. That way even if the avatar goes behind full cover and is miles away, you can still shoot and shred him with your grenadier. Then if he teleports next to you then you can run and gun and rapid fire with your ranger. If you have tachyon rounds then you can score 18 damage critical hits. So you only need to hit once with your grenadier and then rapid fire with your ranger assuming the avatar doesnt dodge. Blaster launchers are also useful. My final team was a medic (which was actually very useful due to an attack by a gatekeeper which wrecked my team. So i used restoration), a sharp shooter, a ranger, a psi op, and 2 grenadiers - one with a blaster launcher and one with a shredstorm cannon.

Spoiler :

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Are the types of aliens you face in missions related to how close you are to stopping the Avatar Project? It would make sense from a story telling perspective if the aliens start bringing out their big guns the closer you are to stopping them. Plus, it would make sense that the aliens would have their tougher units protecting the inner sanctum of the avatar project.

In one campaign, I did the first two shadow chamber projects (black site vial and the codex brain) before getting plasma weapons or warden armor. Before the shadow chamber, the missions were easy. I got a bit overconfident. I tried to do a black site mission because I needed to delay the avatar counter. But the black site was protected by a sectopod, a gate keeper and several adromedons, not to mention some vipers, sectoids and advent soldiers. I had never encountered a sectopod or gate keeper before. My 5 man squad that still had magnetic weapons and predator armor was completely outmatched and got wiped out. One big lesson I learned is to make sure you keep pace with modernizing your squad.

In my current campaign, I am doing better. I purposely delayed the shadow chamber projects until I was able to equip my squad with plasma weapons. Then a bit later, I got warden armor and WAR armor for my grenadiers. I had better equipped soldiers and I was still facing "weaker" opponents making the missions super easy. After I completed the shadow chamber projects, I started facing tougher opponents but now my 6 person squad of mostly majors and captains, all with plasma weapons and warden armor are more than capable of handling themselves. I saw my first gate keeper but I was able to dispatch it pretty easily.

I also know that there are dark events to give the aliens more armor so maybe the correlation is with dark events and it is a coincidence that the aliens ramped up in strength at the time when I completed the shadow chamber projects.

 

[PhilBowles]

Aliens appear in a set order by month, just as in XCOM.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Aliens appear in a set order by month, just as in XCOM.

Thanks.

 

[sherbz]

Just wanted to put forward a few thoughts on an opening strategy for legendary difficulty. Im currently working my way through the campaign on legendary at the moment. Im only at the beginning, but in general I would say that the beginning is tough. Much tougher than commander. Eventually I would like to work up to legendary ironman. But I am a ways off that yet. There are a couple of observations though. Namely:

Magnetic weapons or Plated armour – I think you might have to go for magnetic weapons first. The buff in damage means you can kill troopers in one hit and most other aliens in 2. You also start to see enemies like mechs, vipers and stun lancers sooner. Or that might just be because everything takes so much longer. But one caveat here is that you could skip the GTS and go straight for proving ground. Then you could use your elerium cores to upgrade your ammo. That should buff enough to enable a delay in magnetic weapons. Then instead of a resistance com you could build the GTS second. Then a power core, then whatever else. Downside here is that you will only have 3 communication slots for quite a while. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I am quite impressed though that the same strategies used on commander do not work as well on higher difficulties.

The AWC is also an interesting debate. I have had to re roll a number of starts because the injury times are so severe. I guess the easy answer is don’t get hit. But that isnt always possible.

I think for a successful legendary ironman run you will have to have a healthy dose of luck. Sometimes things work out. But quite often in early missions you end up having to run a string of 90% shots in order to survive. And sometimes your damage just isnt enough and you have to leg it. Especially during guerrilla ops.

 

[Senethro]

GTS is mandatory as first build on Legend. Squad size and Wet Work are the cheapest, earliest and best upgrades to your combat efficiency that you can buy.

While the AWC is nice it will not stop the Avatar project. If you don't do the Black site mission early then you will be on the clock by early June, and you'll still need to be able to access your first ADVENT facility mere weeks after that or else the countdown will start again.

Resistance Comms and Proving Ground will keep you in the game. And then of course the Psi lab appears and even the Shadow Chamber might be more tempting than the AWC.

The solution really is to not get shot. If you're taking wounds then your best squad is missing XP and you'll be really slow to get Squad Size 2. You definitely want a Captain before Mutons and Tier 2 ADVENT troops can use their grenades to force wounds on you.

 

[sherbz]

I struggle in retaliation missions. The others are OK usually. But faceless wreck you. And without either scanning protocol or battle scanners there isn't much you can do other than studiously avoid all civilians and hope you kill the pods before they kill too many. Best I can manage is like 2 wounded. But they can also insta kill your soldiers if they crit.

I think to get GTS before mutons and enough experience you need to be fairly lucky with injuries. Maybe the better option is rushing proving grounds and then rushing the GTS. By the time you have built the GTS you should almost or already be at the required rank. And with early proving ground you have access to either heavy ammo or grenades. Which negates the pressing need for mag weapons or grenades (and you can use rounds on rookies). Then you can skip mag weapons and research armour instead, which provides either an ammo type or a nade. As you have another slot.

The point basically comes down to order. You can rush and get a GTS in good time. But what you want is the squad size perk. And my point is that you struggle or cannot get to it unless you are lucky or make a total play on trying your sniper on every kill (as they are less likely to get injured).

Proving ground seems a more versatile strategy to me. As you can cope better with injuries. And if you are aiming for an ironman legendary, then maybe that might be the best option.

 

[Senethro]

You begin the game with 6 spare power. If you build PG/GTS then you're not building Res Comms. Or if you are, then you're doing it by pre-building a relay as early on as you can and being forced to put Engineers on excavation instead of rush building or enhancing your combat effectiveness in any way.

Meanwhile, you need to be just as lucky with wounds.

If you start building a GTS on Day 1 then you can have a Sgt. by about your 4th/5th mission if you buy Wet Work early. I just don't see how you can beat that for speed or value.

 

[PhilBowles]

I struggle in retaliation missions. The others are OK usually. But faceless wreck you. And without either scanning protocol or battle scanners there isn't much you can do other than studiously avoid all civilians and hope you kill the pods before they kill too many. Best I can manage is like 2 wounded. But they can also insta kill your soldiers if they crit.

I had a crippling Retaliation mission in my current Classic playthrough - cost me three soldiers, one to a Faceless and two to an aggressive Muton punching them. And Scanning Protocol in retaliation missions is a risk in itself when it sets you up facing two Faceless early on.

I think to get GTS before mutons and enough experience you need to be fairly lucky with injuries. Maybe the better option is rushing proving grounds and then rushing the GTS. By the time you have built the GTS you should almost or already be at the required rank. And with early proving ground you have access to either heavy ammo or grenades. Which negates the pressing need for mag weapons or grenades (and you can use rounds on rookies). Then you can skip mag weapons and research armour instead, which provides either an ammo type or a nade. As you have another slot.

Where are you reliably getting the elerium cores? GTS is much more reliable, and you do need the squad size upgrade - also not insignificant that you can train backup soldiers to squaddie in the classes of your choice.

As for the AWC, I'm playing without it right now and finding injury times debilitating - just played a supply drop mission in which I had to concentrate hard to avoid losing any of my soldiers, and then I had to call in evac so that my Grenadier could carry my specialist to safety before she bled out (naturally, the downed soldier was the medic). I'm now facing a retaliation mission with only four levelled-up squad members, and only one of my Grenadiers, because everyone else is out of action for 11-12 days. And unlike the last XCOM, field treatment with medikits doesn't reduce convalescence time at base.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

And unlike the last XCOM, field treatment with medikits doesn't reduce convalescence time at base.

I'm pretty sure it didn't do that in the last XCOM either. Sure you're not remembering that wrong? Unlike XCOM 2, in the last XCOM, if you had on armor that gave you 4 health and you took 4 damage, you would not be injured at the end of the mission, maybe you're thinking of that?

Or maybe I'm wrong and it was Long War that changed that.

 

[PhilBowles]

I'm pretty sure it didn't do that in the last XCOM either. Sure you're not remembering that wrong? Unlike XCOM 2, in the last XCOM, if you had on armor that gave you 4 health and you took 4 damage, you would not be injured at the end of the mission, maybe you're thinking of that?

Or maybe I'm wrong and it was Long War that changed that.

Checking the XCOM wiki you're correct - I was going by the item description in game, which from recollection did indicate that it reduced recovery times.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Built my first psi op soldier. I really like the stasis ability. I have used it very effectively to help me defeat the powerful alien units like the gatekeeper and the sectopod. I basically put them in stasis, so that I can focus just on the other alien units, then on the next turn, my entire squad can focus just on the remaining gatekeeper or sectopod when it comes out of stasis. It works really well especially now that I have a 6 man squad of colonels with warden and WAR armor and plasma weapons, and cool experimental ammo including blue protocol and talon bullets. My favorite squad is 2 grenadiers, 2 rangers, 1 sharpshooter and 1 psi op. The amount of firepower that a late game xcom squad can bring to bear on the enemy is truly awe inspiring.

 

[Senethro]

Anyone tried proximity mines? Because you should try proximity mines. You should try a Salvo grenadier placing 2 proximity mines beneath an unaware Gatekeeper, and then moving a soldier into its vision.

But stand well back.