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So this was my first real go at LW2 - I was playing on Veteran but save scumming outrageously - I mention this because was pretty much taking every mission with longer than a 3 day infil and winning all of them - I apologize for nothing! . It was about the 8th month of the campaign maybe a bit earlier - I had basic mag weapons, Advent was bringing typical stuff - had just seen my first Andromedon in previous mission.

All of a sudden, the Advent speaker movie is playing and I get the campaign failure stat breakdown.

I dont mind losing but I honestly have no idea why I lost - I had not lost a single haven, nor failed at retaliation mission, no ufo attack... nothing. Just game over. Any ideas? With no Avatar countdown or anything of that nature I am mystified as to how it decided I had lost. Any help greatly appreciated.

You need to liberate a region to be able to see the Avatar Project tracker, but it's still there, even if you can't see it. Eventually, it fills up and then you lose the game.

Next time, try liberating a region earlier. Trying to get one by June or July is a good goal.

Am I the only one to think it is a buzzkill to have this feature? Whatever you say, the fact is that many people spend one hundred hours in the game and lose with a roster full of ready-to-fight soldiers. At least there should always be a 'last chance mission' where if you succeed, you remove some pips.

And also: each and every avatar pip or dark event should be 'attached' to an actual facility in the world, and these facilities should be reach-able from day 0. Except that if you have not contacted the region, something severed apply, like no more than 100% infiltration.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. Losing, and the unknown elements are a large part of the strategic layer of this mod. Just try, try, try again.

I agree with Mooncabbage. And with the upcoming more detailed descriptions, it will be even more clearer that you have to liberate your first region ASAP. Approaching a new game (which LW2 is from a strategic point of view) without exploring its features is a flawed approach.

my question would be: all those missions and he wasn't given the chance to liberate a haven? is that due to bad luck?

>I was playing on Veteran but save scumming outrageously
>It was about the 8th month of the campaign
>I had basic mag weapons

look, I hate to be that guy, but....

"my question would be: all those missions and he wasn't given the chance to liberate a haven? is that due to bad luck?"

no, not bad luck.

like other said before in the thread, 'try, try, try again'.

Jackal wrote:my question would be: all those missions and he wasn't given the chance to liberate a haven? is that due to bad luck?

I did know that it was possible to liberate regions (I didnt deliberately NOT liberate) from some earlier reading at other sites that kind of hinted at the process. I had done many missions to "Find a lead" (all successfully as I was cheating with saves). I had ambushed a number of advent columns etc. but for the life of me I can't think of any mission I might have skipped that even seemed to suggest it was somehow on the path to region liberation. I had established contact in 7 regions as that point....

Any text or mission type help of what to look for would be appreciated. In the general timeline what "month" should you definitely be trying those missions I apparently missed for your first liberated region? I know "find a lead" comes early but what comes next? I doubt it will ever come to this but it seems like the mission selection screen for these very important missions should somehow indicate its a liberation path mission.

It really kind of was a buzzkill - my soldiers were finally coming in to their own and I was just starting to get to try those top level skills. Thanks for the info. Guess its back to try again.

Zyrrashijn wrote:http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Missions_(LW2)

Funny I already had that tab open in my browser

I assume the assault missions are either the end or near the end of the process - it would be nice if that chart indicated which other missions were like "step 2" or "step 3" situations. I'd guess I might have skipped a step 3 mission because the timer looked awful or I had my 20+ troops all out infil on other missions.

look a bit lower, there's a section about the whole Liberation chain.

Zyrrashijn wrote:look a bit lower, there's a section about the whole Liberation chain.

Hmmm according to that I must have missed the "Rescue Defector" mission as I can't recall doing one like that. Well at least I know what to look for now.

Many thanks

Fizpez wrote:

Jackal wrote:my question would be: all those missions and he wasn't given the chance to liberate a haven? is that due to bad luck?

I did know that it was possible to liberate regions (I didnt deliberately NOT liberate) from some earlier reading at other sites that kind of hinted at the process. I had done many missions to "Find a lead" (all successfully as I was cheating with saves). I had ambushed a number of advent columns etc. but for the life of me I can't think of any mission I might have skipped that even seemed to suggest it was somehow on the path to region liberation. I had established contact in 7 regions as that point....

Any text or mission type help of what to look for would be appreciated. In the general timeline what "month" should you definitely be trying those missions I apparently missed for your first liberated region? I know "find a lead" comes early but what comes next? I doubt it will ever come to this but it seems like the mission selection screen for these very important missions should somehow indicate its a liberation path mission.

It really kind of was a buzzkill - my soldiers were finally coming in to their own and I was just starting to get to try those top level skills. Thanks for the info. Guess its back to try again.

I am at the same point in my own campaign, and I rather suspect I'm about to lose. I'm not salty about it though, I've made a LOT of mistakes on my first run through. Took far too long to expand into new regions, didn't farm enough supplies, etc etc etc. I've got a bunch of mods though, and one of them lets me save my favourite characters to the character pool, for next time. So I'll see them again, and this time, I'll get their skills assigned properly

PS. Didn't realise you needed to do hacking missions, I have been skipping them in favour of bodies, warm and cold, plus supplies for the most part.

The "Rescue Defector/Neutralize Dark VIP " missions which is step 3 has a lower infiltration window and is usually a risky proposition if you do not have 4-5 trained soldiers on hand.

I have seen more than a few players stay away from it and just go and easier missions.

How can you play 8 months in game and not liberate a single region? That's a feat in and of itself.

Anyway, time to start over and play with better focus.

A part from the initial 'Find a Lead' mission, the liberation missions do all say "Liberation" on them, so look out for that. Also, I wouldn't take the wiki as gospel, as there are a number of possible missions for each step (so e.g. it says Lib 2 always starts out of concealment, but actually you can get the Rescue a VIP from ADVENT cell mission as Lib 2 as well).

Daergar wrote:How can you play 8 months in game and not liberate a single region? That's a feat in and of itself.

I guess he's like me - trying to play "Long War" instead of intended "Rush-to-
finish-in-3-months War".

Some people prefer to drag out their campaigns if they enjoy the game, even if the game is designed to be a 5 hours experience.

8wayz wrote:The "Rescue Defector/Neutralize Dark VIP " missions which is step 3 has a lower infiltration window and is usually a risky proposition if you do not have 4-5 trained soldiers on hand.

I have seen more than a few players stay away from it and just go and easier missions.

For neutralize dark VIP I just send solo sq shinobi on suicide runs and put a new rookie into GTS for training

azarga wrote:

Daergar wrote:How can you play 8 months in game and not liberate a single region? That's a feat in and of itself.

I guess he's like me - trying to play "Long War" instead of intended "Rush-to-
finish-in-3-months War".

Some people prefer to drag out their campaigns if they enjoy the game, even if the game is designed to be a 5 hours experience.

I think that summarizes why I was so surprised - I assumed the "Long" part was like, really long - it certainly didnt feel like I was dragging my feet although I knew I had basically wasted the first 2 months because I was unfamiliar with the Haven mechanics and had lots of people Hiding instead of working.

I thought I read as part of some review that LW campaigns would likely span 100+ missions. I knew I was science slow (I had like 8 engineers but only 3 scientists). Supplies were a constant bottleneck and looking at the cost of GTS projects and Proving Ground items that it seemed I would be at war for YEARS, not months when the campaign ended.

This thread helped a noob out a lot - hopefully I'll know what to look for next time. I also hope that the Long War really is long and I just lost early because I basically fast tracked myself to about the fastest loss possible while winning missions left and right.

Once you liberate a region, you will no longer have issues with supplies. With a Radio tower, some 2nd or 3rd level rebels, you may get up to 500 supplies per region/month if you are greedy. If you have at least 3 liberated regions you may gain up to 1000 net supplies per month.

You were winning on the tactical layer, but not on the strategic one. Thus you were only delaying your own demise.

The war may be as long as you would like. As long as you keep the doom counter in check, you can literally continue playing for years.

8wayz wrote:Once you liberate a region, you will no longer have issues with supplies. With a Radio tower, some 2nd or 3rd level rebels, you may get up to 500 supplies per region/month if you are greedy. If you have at least 3 liberated regions you may gain up to 1000 net supplies per month.

You were winning on the tactical layer, but not on the strategic one. Thus you were only delaying your own demise.

The war may be as long as you would like. As long as you keep the doom counter in check, you can literally continue playing for years.

OK, well that really changes the dynamic - I had assumed a fairly slow progression from 100 to 200 supplies a month and that all those GTS projects (excluding every other thing to spend supplies on) meant years of battling and a slow climb through the tech tree.

I also really hamstrung myself in that I NEVER pulled weapons off wounded soldiers - basically everyone had their own personal private weapon that only changed when I upgraded them a tier. I guess I dont enjoy re-outfitting them before every mission - I liked knowing that a certain soldier had the gear I specifically made for them and that selecting them for a mission automatically had the proper loadout.

"That's great, just fecking great! Now what the feck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty sheet now man! That's it man, game over man! Game over."

One of the main problems with the Liberation missions is the "Find a lead vs. Find a Lead" nonsense, which is completely confusing unless you've been reading around the forums. The whole Liberation mechanics are thoroughly obscure without external reading, and it's key to advancing the war effort. Many players miss these subtleties and end up losing otherwise successful campaigns.

Thankfully I found out in time, and should be okay if I get a couple of liberations going soon. But let's hope they intend to fix this ASAP. For instance, adding a clear "Liberation: XXXXX" description to every mission involved, at least.

On a less chastising note, can the war really go on indefinitely if facilities are periodically destroyed, setting back the doom counter? Is there a limit to how powerful the aliens get or can Dark Events stack up endlessly? I heard you can buy time destroying facilities and the like, but that the main alien HQ periodically adds progress to the counter, and that can't be undone.

Shadow86 wrote: On a less chastising note, can the war really go on indefinitely if facilities are periodically destroyed, setting back the doom counter? Is there a limit to how powerful the aliens get or can Dark Events stack up endlessly? I heard you can buy time destroying facilities and the like, but that the main alien HQ periodically adds progress to the counter, and that can't be undone.

You cannot play indefinitely. The main HQ will eventually accumulate pips that you don't have a way to remove.