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I have played XCOM eu. Now for xcom 2, should I play vanilla or long war 2 for my first playthrough ?

Hmm, good question. I played a lot of vanilla XCOM 2 before LW2, but I'd have to say that LW2 can stand on it's own. You are going to have to learn a lot of tactics, tricks, etc, to get good at LW2 but frankly I'm having to unlearn stuff I picked up in vanilla that works different in LW2. So I'd say go for it, go with LW2 right away. It's a gas

go rookie difficulty on LW2. Xcom2 and LW2 is different.

bingo12345 wrote:go rookie difficulty on LW2. Xcom2 and LW2 is different.

does the rookie mode ave tutorial ?

Play vainilla xcom 2, it is a very good tutorial for lw2

I'd say they're 2 different but related game modes. Vanilla XCOM 2 plays more akin to vanilla XCOM 1 where you have your "elite" squad that blows their way thru the aliens. Kind of like an action flick. LW2 plays on a bigger scale, as in managing a large rebel operation. Go for Vanilla first, it's a bit more fun, but you're gonna have to unlearn some stuff later for LW2, for example, biggest difference is that you can't no longer reliably destroy cover at the beginning unless you have a specific perk for a specific character, which means the "destroy-cover-shoot-aliens" mechanic that's so prevalent in Vanilla no longer applies.

I'd say go straight for LW2. It's just better. In particular it's better balanced so there is no walkover strategy.

Caveats: it is not a casual experience, you have to not mind losing, it is long, it is complicated.

Play 1 or 2 difficulties below what you think would be right for vanilla.

Swagata wrote:I have played XCOM eu. Now for xcom 2, should I play vanilla or long war 2 for my first playthrough ?

You know, once you play LW2, it'll be hard to play Vanilla and have as much fun. It'll be like having two fun games, and throwing one away if you play LW2 first. I'd definitely try Vanilla first unless it's not fun enough and you're just dying to play LW2. I think Vanilla was great fun at the time, but I probably can't play it after LW2.

XCOM 2 is a very good game on it's own. Long War 2 likely has more staying power, but there's nothing at all wrong with XCOM 2. You'll have a lot of fun playing through it.

While you might have to unlearn some things from Vanilla when playing Long War, you'll pick up on plenty of perfectly good tactics. A quick way to tell whether or not you'll have to unlearn something is how unfair it feels. When you realize (or just get flat out told as I'm saying here ) that grenades solve all problems in Vanilla, you should take that as a sign of something that is nerfed in Long War. However, even with multiple Vanilla games under my belt, I don't feel I had to relearn much. I just heard "Grenades don't reliably destroy cover without sapper" and that was it.

I do have more things to learn, of course, but mechanics that were present in Vanilla still function more or less the same in practice.

So start with Vanilla. You'll get a rough idea of some things that await you in Long War, and still have a good time of it on it's own. And given how much time you can lose with a failed Long War campaign, it's best to learn whatever you can ahead of time anyway

Play vanilla. LW2 is amazing but vanilla is great too.

Think of it like this, Vanilla will prepare you for LW2.

Before I started playing Xcom EU; I searched whether I should play vanilla or long war 1 for first playthrough. All the people in fact told to play the vanilla first since the long war is hard, no tutorial. But the fact is that I wont play these games twice. After i finish xcom ew and eu, I wont play long war 1. Again, if I play vanilla xcom 2, I dont think i'll put effort again in playing long war 2. Whatever overhaul it may do; it's still the same game and I dont play a game twice. so, should i play vanilla or long war 2; for my first and only playthrough ?