New Player - Quick Question need advice

[rayban87]

Hi guys,

Firstly just want to say that I got the game not long ago and am really enjoying it.
I've never been good at all at any kind of strategy games but that fact that soldiers can level up and can be customised was enough to satisfy my general tendency for RPG's whilst giving a strategy game a go.

Just a few things I wanted to ask if anyone is free to help me.
First off I am playing straight off with a Long Wars 2 v1.2 game as my friend was recommending I get it.
I know it's just been updated to 1.3 but there was a post saying to complete an entire 1.2 campaign first before trying this.

So far I've gotten 3 resistance locations set up and I managed without realising it, completed a liberation chain up to the point of infiltrating and attacking the headquarters.
Now the problem is I didn't realise until later that the strength was a bad thing.
LOL I know super noob but when it said strength I just naturally assumed it meant my resistance strength in that location.
A big NOPE haha.

So now that I'm trying to liberate this location, the advent strength is actually 7.
I'm pretty sure that's super bad and even with 200% infiltration the best I can get is "swarming".

Have I basically screwed myself up?
Is there a way to get the advent strength in that location down?
I thought maybe if I set up resistances near it and do more missions there that it might "spread" the strength to other areas?

Also on a side note, with the character pool.
I first created about 10 characters and I did see them in my soldiers list.
I saved, exited to the main menu and created about another 7.
When I loaded, the newly created characters weren't showing and so I did a couple of missions and still it didn't update.

Once you start a game with the existing character pool, can any new additions you create after starting a campaign still be added somehow or do you have to start a new game with the new characters already created?

Hopefully that made sense.
Anyway sorry for the long post and the noob questions.
Thanks guys.

[Clibanarius]

While 7 strength is relatively high, you actually can't, as far as I know, get the enemy activity in a Headquarters down below Swarming, so don't read into that too much, haha. In 1.3, they now have +s after Swarming to indicate how much worse than just 40 enemies it is.

That being said: If you've got a full squad infiltrated to 200% on the HQ, give it a shot. If you find you absolutely, positively cannot complete the mission, consider this campaign a learning experience, update to 1.3 as you were planning, and give a new one a shot! Nobody ever wins their first Long War campaign because there's a lot to know by experience that can screw ya up bad. Like going into a Snare mission.

On the other questions, you CAN get ADVENT strength down by both spreading out your Vigilance (a hidden factor that goes up as you do missions in a region and goes down over time, one point per week, equal to successfully completing a mission), which will cause ADVENT to want to move their legions around and, hopefully, out of your high-strength home region. You can also do any Supply Line Raid missions you see, which will kill off a moving legion, or do Ambush Troop Column missions, which will kill one in the region. Though doing both of those things causes ADDITIONAL vigilance, meaning you might end up worse off than you were initially.

[Tuhalu]

About the only way to get advent strength down is by doing supply raid and troop column missions in the region or by doing lots of missions in other areas and no missions in the region you want to shrink.

However, this is isn't strictly necessary. Advent HQs have a lot of troops in them by default. The least you'll see in there is very heavy (around 28). With care, you can manage to take on each group one at a time and take them out with very low use of consumables. Use a Shinobi to scout out the enemy patrol paths with their Phantom concealment. Position Gunners, Sharpshooters and Rangers to gun them down as they move into you. Once you get good at these strategies, there isn't much difference between 30 enemies and 40 enemies on the whole map because you'll never fight more than about 10 at once.

Any characters you add to the character pool will only become available as new recruits. In LW2, new recruits are found through use of the Recruit option in your Havens (the more guys on recruit, the faster they come).

LW2 is meant to be super hard. It's harder than the hardest base game difficulty even on the easiest difficulty. Expect to lose a few campaigns before you get good at it. It's totally worth starting a new campaign in 1.3 if you feel like things are going poorly and you know what you did wrong. The only reason not to update is you feel you can't throw away your current campaign in 1.2 for some reason.

[deaconivory]

About the only way to get advent strength down is by doing supply raid and troop column missions in the region or by doing lots of missions in other areas and no missions in the region you want to shrink.

Just a quick note to add that in 1.3 putting your Rebels on the Hiding job also reduces Vigilance in the region, or more technically speaking they don't contribute to Vigilance. So it is a small but not insignificant tool.

[rayban87]

Thanks so much for the replies guys really helpful!

Honestly lol I am a bit of a perfectionist so it's hard for me to accept even a death of my soldier.
I honestly have restarted countless missions and have multiple saves so that I can ensure every mission I complete is worst case scenario wounded but no deaths.

Also didn't know that at best it'll be very heavy so it's going to be a major slug but I'll keep in mind the other missions that help reduce strength for my other regions I have resistance bases at.

I'll definitely give this 1.2 a solid completion before 1.3 because I think it'll probably be a steep learning curve for me still.

Any ideas about the character pool thing?

[8wayz]

When you add/modify existing characters in the Characters' pool, the changes are available immediately in your campaigns.

If you start a new one, you will see the new soldiers straight off the bat. If you load an existing one, you will have to wait a bit, since there are 3 ways to recruit them:
- Via the Recruit option in Havens. Keep in mind that Havens will first generate soldiers with a nationality close to their region, for example India and Pakistan in New India.
- Buy them via the Black Market. This refreshes once per month, so you might not see them for a while.
- Rescue them from Jailbreak and Rescue VIP missions. This is probably the easiest way to get them, but you need to tick the mark Show as VIP.

My advice is start a new campaign in 1.3 when you feel you are ready and you will get all the new characters straight away.

[Antifringe]

Just a few things I wanted to ask if anyone is free to help me.
First off I am playing straight off with a Long Wars 2 v1.2 game as my friend was recommending I get it.
I know it's just been updated to 1.3 but there was a post saying to complete an entire 1.2 campaign first before trying this.

I don't remember anyone saying that and can't imagine why they would. 1.3 isn't really any harder or more complex, it's just more refined.

There have been lots of posts saying that people playing 1.2 will be able to continue their campaigns after the upgrade without having to restart, and I think maybe that is what you were reading. Which is a little different from "you should play 1.2 first," which doesn't sound like very good advice to me.