1st Play through- Any way to tell if I am behind or on pace

[LegoMaster]

Commander/Bronzeman, mid-June, I have yet to discover a lead. I have 3 regions, none liberated. And a day or so away from lasers. I just finished skull jack and looking for an officer on my next pod.

Two regions are are 4 advent strength, and they are getting really hard. Shield bearer has 2 armor and a ton of HP leading to their entire squad being pretty tough.

I know the avatar project is hidden but still going on. I have heard of people getting a Base Defense mission in this month which scares the HELL out of me.

How am I doing?

[GavinRuneblade]

I always think of the "looks clear" scene from pitch black when I ask myself this question.

[8wayz]

Not finding a lead is definitely a sign that you are either doing way too few missions or just staying away from anything that is above "Light".

As a point of reference, my current campaign:
Current date: 2nd of May;
Difficulty: Regular Commander;
Number of regions: 2;
Strength of Advent: in HQ region is 6, in the second is 3 (and steadily rising);

I am currently on the 3rd step of liberation of the first region (find HQ) and as we speak am infiltrating the next mission in the liberation chain.

And by my standards am taking my time, since I was not aware of a few ticks and tips during the first month (like put more people on Intel gathering).

I would say you are falling behind and need to pick up on those missions. Though Long War 2 seems a lot more forgiving than Long War 1 in this respect.

[LegoMaster]

Thanks for the reference. I have been very selective, I don't know how selective interms of % attempted, but you hit the nail on the head. I have not attempted anything above light.

I hope you are right that the game is more forgiving... I would hate to invest so much time into a futile run.

[8wayz]

Well, the Enemy presence indicator gives you the raw numbers and you can influence with Infiltration and boosting it with Intel.

Make sure to read what the mission is about and if you see Liberation, please try to access whether with a possible boost you can actually get over 100% before the time runs out.

I did one of the Liberation missions (save VIP from convoy) with 5 soldiers, 3 of them rookies (since my main two squads were already somewhere else). It was quite hard, even if I managed to drop the mission to Light with the boost.

I managed to escape with the VIP being chased by 9 Advent troopers, 4 of them from the reinforcement squad.

From what I have read, there are players who suggest to try to liberate two different regions at the same time. This will allow to juggle with the Advent strength and when it rise in on region, you just put most of the fighters on Hiding and focus on the second one.

In this regard Long War 2 is indeed more forgiving, but you will need at least 1 liberated region to be able to make good revenue from monthly supplies.

[LegoMaster]

Question- just saved the game and said fuck it, to see what happens/what I am looking for.

What type of mission triggers the 1st step the Libertaion process? I have 13 people + avenger scanning in this one zone for 2 months and coming up with nada, atleast from what I can tell.

I just did an "intel package" mission and I didn't get anything. I was expecting intel or some liberation progress. Also the only other mission I have yet to attempt is "enemy materiel" and "unhindered operations" which I don't know what that means, and the baseline has always been "light" so I didn't really prioritize it.

[LeaderEnemyBoss]

Question- just saved the game and said fuck it, to see what happens/what I am looking for.

What type of mission triggers the 1st step the Libertaion process? I have 13 people + avenger scanning in this one zone for 2 months and coming up with nada, atleast from what I can tell.

I just did an "intel package" mission and I didn't get anything. I was expecting intel or some liberation progress. Also the only other mission I have yet to attempt is "enemy materiel" and "unhindered operations" which I don't know what that means, and the baseline has always been "light" so I didn't really prioritize it.

I am at the same point, already had some "find a lead" missions, but never got further on my quest for liberation. However i can tell you what those two mean. "Enemy Materiel" missions as far as I know are supply raids and troop columns. Both should be done, if you have good troops even if the remaining time is low. They have no timer (so you can do them slowly), lots of enemies and lots of loot that youll need (corpses, alloys, eredium, supplies). "Unhindered operations" was my reward for a Haven siege retaliation, dunno what it means, but you should do them if you dont want to lose your civs.

[Arcalane]

Question- just saved the game and said fuck it, to see what happens/what I am looking for.

What type of mission triggers the 1st step the Libertaion process? I have 13 people + avenger scanning in this one zone for 2 months and coming up with nada, atleast from what I can tell.

Keep at it. Eventually you'll dig up missions that have "LIBERATION:" as a goal - the first is usually to rescue a Defector. These have always had extremely short timers (2-3 days tops) in my experience so you need to be focusing on Intel if you want to find an opportunity with a good window.

I just did an "intel package" mission and I didn't get anything. I was expecting intel or some liberation progress. Also the only other mission I have yet to attempt is "enemy materiel" and "unhindered operations" which I don't know what that means, and the baseline has always been "light" so I didn't really prioritize it.

Enemy Materiel means you will receive Supplies, Elerium, Alloys, and Corpses - unlike the vast majority of regular missions. If you do NOT intervene with these supply trains, regional ADVENT Strength increases by 1. Unhindered Operations I believe drops the regional ADVENT Strength by 1.

[8wayz]

The others explained above what those two mission types stand for.

You need to be looking for "Find a clue" or "Liberation" missions. The latter do have shorter timers, so you should use your Intel on them.

The mission I described above was exactly Rescue Defector - it started as Light-Moderate with a 3-4 day timer, and after boosting it dropped to Light.

There were 15 aliens in 3 pods on that mission.

[LegoMaster]

Thanks guys for the input/tips. I am a lot clearer on the how the early months work.

For anyone else who eventually finds this thread, the 1st path to liberate a region is in the OBJECTIVE (not the reward/green section) "Find a Lead". I guess I had been skimming that section too quickly.

[Zavek]

my tip is to focus on the missions that give
Leads staff convoys raids and ambushes

if the mission has get advents attention in its reward list it generally means you going to see more advent troops going to that region.

as for falling behind you didnt say if you got officers and stable squads assinged to those officers.
having that your going to see a huge change in your missions