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I can't wait to try Long War 2, but considering it's a much greater time investment I'd rather get the difficulty just right the first time. Would you say Long War 2 is harder or about the same as vanilla XCOM 2? Particularly on Commander. Thanks!

I would say start on Veteran and that should be around Legend in Vanilla, approximately.

Beware that Long War is notorious for throwing big pods and huge numbers against you, so depending on your experience you might be looking at an even longer campaign as you will need to abandon some missions.

A quick reminder, anything on and above Veteran hides the ADVENT reinforcement flares during Battlescape. Thus, you might want to consider starting on the lowest setting if you require some of the helpful features from original XCOM 2.

You can change mid-campaign if you need to, but I'd recommend no higher than Veteran to start out. Veteran is probably about on par with vanilla Commander once you learn the ropes, but there will be a learning curve.


Be sure to read the Long War 2 entries in the ingame encyclopedia in the Commander's quarters! They explain new mechanics and you'll not have any idea what's going on without reading them unless you've been watching LPs or something.

Thanks for the replies! Looks like I'll have to swallow my pride and bump the difficulty down to Veteran. No way I'm doing Rookie to get those reinforcement flares, I want to play it the way it's meant to be played

Duplicate Post Removed.

Lorkenpeist wrote:Thanks for the replies! Looks like I'll have to swallow my pride and bump the difficulty down to Veteran. No way I'm doing Rookie to get those reinforcement flares, I want to play it the way it's meant to be played

I find it hugely more difficult than vanilla. Here's a screenshot: it was my first mission post gatecrashers and literally impossible.

Rookie difficulty campaign, mission was flagged as "Extremely Light" enemy activity and offered 30 intel as the only reward. I had sent two rookies and was 85-ish% infiltrated when time ran out and I had to launch or abort. There were 14 enemies on the map, 10 of them standing on top of the mission target: a console I had to activate before the timer ran out. The other 4 were patrolling in two pods of 2.

No way to fight, there were too many enemies, I mean 7 to 1 odds is considered "extremely light" enemy?

Couldn't stealth the objective with 10 guys standing on it.

Couldn't lure them away (tried multiple times) as they were too spread out especially with the patrols on opposite sides of me, and the map was too small. Plus, the timer was too short to waste many turns.

I'm not sure if that last ~15% infiltration would have reduced their numbers down to a fightable number even if I'd sent some of my squaddies instead. it was only 3 days into the first month, it's not like I really had much to work with. And again, this was Rookie difficulty (the easiest) and a Very Easy mission (I assumed the lowest difficulty mission) and almost fully infiltrated.

My actually harder missions (second and third) wiped out all but two of my starting troops before I could evac because despite being 100% and 120% infiltrated both missions left me again in similar impossible scenarios.

I've won commander vanilla. It was far easier than this.

EDIT: on my second campaign, my first mission was 200% infiltration again Rookie difficulty and "Extremely light" alien activity. 9 enemies on the map, had to destroy a com tower. Then squads of 4 reinforcements started showing up every other turn starting 2 turns after I fired my first shot. In Vanilla that would have been a 6 to 8 total enemies.

Im one of few who was crazy enough to finish LW1 on hardest difficulty. So ill try on Commander ( i know im dead ) for first time, then push for Legend.

What starting number of soldiers you recommned for Commander diff ?

Starttttinng!! Been waiting for this for sooo long!

redsky14 wrote:What starting number of soldiers you recommned for Commander diff ?

Starttttinng!! Been waiting for this for sooo long!

All the advice I have read from testers says "as many as you can get". Seems they run 30 to 50.

You start with 20 and in addition to simultaneous missions you need to drop off soldiers at each region as guards, plus I've seen the warning "never have fewer than 10 soldiers onboard avenger if UFO is hunting you".

I find myself wishing for 50 in the first month