Should I restart campaign?

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Razor
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2017 4:59 pm

Should I restart campaign?

Post by Razor »

(Note: I posted same topic in LW2 Steam forums as well - just trying to reach broader field)

Playing on veteran difficulty:

I have four regions, and Advent strength is 5 in two of them and 2-3 in others. I have laser weapons for my "top" squad but still ballistics for all others - money is a serious issue for me. I'm doing okay with Guerrilla Ops that are "Extremely Light", but any liberation missions, smash and grabs, or convoy missions when I'm faced with large numbers at tier 5, I have no chance.

I feel like tactically I'm doing okay, but my forces are just not strong enough to take on pods of eight muton centurions/vipers/mechs at a time in the tougher missions. I was doing great the first two months, but now I'm in mid-July and I feel like I'm woefully behind on the tech curve, and routine missions are getting increasingly more difficult.

Should I just restart my campaign, or is it salvageable? If so, what should I be focusing on? My income is horrid, I keep spending my monthly allowance on weapons and the occasional upgrade. I really need to get Advent strength down below 4-5 but it's hard when I can't defeat them in supply raids or ambushes. The only tier 2 liberation missions are always less than two days, so it's been impossible for me to liberate anywhere.

Any tips are appreciated.
aedn
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:12 am

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by aedn »

without more information its hard to say. you can sell items to the black market to get the supply for more laser weapons, and you do not need laser on every person in the squad.

Generally, you want to focus on boosting rebels in havens, getting supply via smash and grabs, and getting intel packages early. There is less need to focus on liberation missions imo, unless you get a good infiltration on them. you can do them, and they are useful, but getting higher rebels in a region pays off more early game, and allows you to do the liberation missions at higher advent strengh ratios. As strength rises, you have to expend intel and over infiltrate to get better advent numbers to get optimal missions both of work better if you have high rebel numbers on intel in a region. You can also set some rebels to supply if you have double digit rebels in a region, allowing you to build up extra supply easily without having to liberate a region.
ginyu549
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 29, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by ginyu549 »

If you are facing muton centurions and mecs with just lasers and you are so far behind money and tech wise you are probably hosed. I'm betting you'll be game over soon from the Avatar project creeping along behind the scenes. I've lost several campaigns that way.

If you can I would try expanding to other regions. There have to be some other regions that have lower strength for you to run missions in.

Unfortunately as global strength goes up and more powerful aliens/troops start showing up you'll probably end up getting muscled out of being able to run missions with your lower-ranked troops since you really need high level perks (and higher tier tech) to deal with them.

Personally I prefer to try and play a campaign until I win or lose, but I can't say I've never quit a campaign and started over before. Good luck!
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by Psieye »

Yes. Lasers at mid-July is a symptom of "you've lost the strategic layer". Welcome to the learning experience.

My last Veteran campaign (after several campaign restarts) reached Coilgun by July. I hear that's not impressive a date.

The first hurdle is liberating somewhere reasonably quickly (say, around June). The second hurdle is getting to Coil by August. The third hurdle is finding facility leads (read: aggressively succeeding in <4 day Hack/Item Retrieval missions) to keep Avatar under control. That last one means either a 2-man high rank stealth squad or an 8-man GOp squad and plenty of Intervention.

See this thread for how to start a campaign. In short: the first research is Res. Comms and the first purchase is a scientist. Your first building comes after that scientist, possibly even after the 2nd scientist.

You mention a monthly income - why do you have a monthly income at all until you've liberated? Until then, you have no stable income. It all comes from selling Elerium cores, datapads and whatever you don't need. That and the occasional hack reward, S&G crate or PoI. You can buy all the pre-August buildings, research, proving grounds projects and gear without ever setting a rebel on the supply job.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Razor
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2017 4:59 pm

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by Razor »

Psieye wrote:Yes. Lasers at mid-July is a symptom of "you've lost the strategic layer". Welcome to the learning experience.

My last Veteran campaign (after several campaign restarts) reached Coilgun by July. I hear that's not impressive a date.

The first hurdle is liberating somewhere reasonably quickly (say, around June). The second hurdle is getting to Coil by August. The third hurdle is finding facility leads (read: aggressively succeeding in <4 day Hack/Item Retrieval missions) to keep Avatar under control. That last one means either a 2-man high rank stealth squad or an 8-man GOp squad and plenty of Intervention.

See this thread for how to start a campaign. In short: the first research is Res. Comms and the first purchase is a scientist. Your first building comes after that scientist, possibly even after the 2nd scientist.

You mention a monthly income - why do you have a monthly income at all until you've liberated? Until then, you have no stable income. It all comes from selling Elerium cores, datapads and whatever you don't need. That and the occasional hack reward, S&G crate or PoI. You can buy all the pre-August buildings, research, proving grounds projects and gear without ever setting a rebel on the supply job.
Some interesting points here, thanks! First, as far as income is concerned, even though I haven't liberated a region, I occupy four regions, and I put four rebels on supply. I think I remember reading that you never want more than four on any task or it will cause a spike in Advent presence, but that might be an older build now. I usually have 4 supplies, 4 intel, and a couple on recruit until my haven hits 12. Then I put the extras over 12 into hiding. I also tend to hoard my loot, such as corpses and extra PCS units. Most gun mods get claimed right away. I also never sell alloys or elerium crystals (although if I build up a surplus of cores before my research requires them, I may sell 1-2).

Your early campaign tips are helpful, and I'll look into that. Telling me that I'm way behind on tech because I'm still using lasers in mid-July is very useful! I think part of the problem is that I have a TON of soldiers, and I always want to upgrade most of my soldiers before moving up to the next tech. Spending cash and resources on a stengun for my shinobi who almost never will use it is probably a waste. Same for my technicals and grenadiers, who may only use their guns a couple of times per GOp. You mention coil gun (I've never had a campaign in LW2 last that long), is that after magnetic?

I think my final problem is that I get attached to certain "strats" and not want to let go. For example, I like having nice, neat squads of eight, with one soldier from each class. My female soldiers always take the left side of the skill tree (with a few exceptions) and my men soldiers take the right side (with exceptions) - so that I can easily see what skill sets I have when sorting through barracks. This leaves me with probably some less-than-ideal squad makeups for certain missions. I think when I restart I will have one top squad that is dedicated to liberation missions and smash-n-grab missions. The other squads will be focused on specific GOps, such as high mobility/stealth for VIP, shinobi/sharpshooter combo for relays, etc.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by Psieye »

Razor wrote:I think I remember reading that you never want more than four on any task or it will cause a spike in Advent presence, but that might be an older build now. I usually have 4 supplies, 4 intel, and a couple on recruit until my haven hits 12. Then I put the extras over 12 into hiding.
Yeah that's for an old build. The threshold now is 2 for a given job. That's useless for the supply and intel jobs though I could see an argument for 2-man recruit. The opening meta for haven jobs is to go 100% intel until you've detected every mission there could possibly be, then switch to 100% recruit until those missions are about to play out, then swap back to 100% intel. When you have ridiculous Str (like, 9) regions you can go 100% supply to bait out supply mini-retals (I hear it's an easy mission for EXP).

While accurately determining "every mission there could possibly be" beyond the earlygame is a headache in spreadsheets (read: so I don't ever switch out of Intel in midgame), a useful rule of thumb for Str 1~2 regions: 2 GOps and 1 Lib (ask if you're not sure which missions are GOp). When you have a mid-game region with like Str 5 then 100% intel with 12+ rebels, radio tower (hopefully from Lib4) and possibly also a scientist is the setup to fish for UFO missions. Strategic DEs that can seriously cripple you only spawn from Str 3 regions so again going full intel lets you spot them while they're in development and stop them.


Yes, coil is T4 - between mag and plasma. Up to a point, I can sympathise with wanting to upgrade most soldiers at each tier. Only certain classes need upgraded guns. Laser is the only upgrade the low priority soldiers of weapon-dependent classes 'need'. I do hear there comes a turning point in a Legend campaign where the number of missions you go on reduce in number because you have a limited number of good soldiers with good gear and enemies just get too dangerous even for GOps. Some users on this forum prefer investing in big meaty upgrades over weapon upgrades - EXO suits and incendiaries.

If you want to afford extra gear for lots of soldiers, learn to fish for Troop Column missions: get a region to Str 4 and some 4~5 intel rebels. If you go full-throttle Intel while jacking vigilance up, you might luck into a supply raid with a decent timer on it. Way later on when you have overwhelming gear and soldiers, you can even take down the command pod of under-infiltrated supply raids. Oh and rush for Vulture - make a point of trying to kill most enemies in the early/mid-game to get those loot drops. It's not unusual for me to finish a mission with 4 Elerium cores ($80 right there).

Getting attached to "strats" isn't bad so long as you try out different ones with each campaign restart. Certainly you should have different compositions for untimed missions vs timed missions and the latter can be broken down further into "really quick hack missions" vs "get in and out before endless reinforcements activate".


Oh and just in case: consider 4 simultaneous infiltrations with 5-man squads to be the norm by around April/May. That number (simultaneously infiltrations) will fluctuate but if it's as low as 2 often you're in danger of losing at the strategic layer unless this is lategame.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Exquisitor
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed May 10, 2017 4:50 pm

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by Exquisitor »

Razor wrote:I think I remember reading that you never want more than four on any task or it will cause a spike in Advent presence, but that might be an older build now. I usually have 4 supplies, 4 intel, and a couple on recruit until my haven hits 12.

I also tend to hoard my loot, such as corpses and extra PCS units. Most gun mods get claimed right away. I also never sell alloys or elerium crystals (although if I build up a surplus of cores before my research requires them, I may sell 1-2).

I think part of the problem is that I have a TON of soldiers, and I always want to upgrade most of my soldiers before moving up to the next tech. Spending cash and resources on a stengun for my shinobi who almost never will use it is probably a waste. Same for my technicals and grenadiers, who may only use their guns a couple of times per GOp. You mention coil gun (I've never had a campaign in LW2 last that long), is that after magnetic?

I think my final problem is that I get attached to certain "strats" and not want to let go. For example, I like having nice, neat squads of eight, with one soldier from each class. My female soldiers always take the left side of the skill tree (with a few exceptions) and my men soldiers take the right side (with exceptions) - so that I can easily see what skill sets I have when sorting through barracks.
Re workers: Intel drives the early game, so put your resistance workers on intel to get valuable missions. I usually run 3 regions with full intel until they're liberated or Advent strength goes above 4.

Re resources: keep strategic resources, sell the rest. These all get sold: suppressors, stocks (except for those on sharpshooters), several worthless implants (focus, macrophages, ironskin), troopers (after the first one and the officer are researched), drones, faceless, even some elerium. Don't make laser or mag weapons to equip the whole team, just get them on rangers and sharpshooters, then rotate the new weapons in as needed. You can run ballistics into early June, but a few lasers really help. Get incendiary grenades asap.

Re your barracks: I rarely build straight down (or up?) a tree for any class. If you want to try different builds, just rename the nicknames on the troopers that have the build of interest or give them color coded uniforms :-). I think it's possible to have too many troopers early on. I shoot for 4 of each class by June. You can add in more as you need them for haven advisers or replacements. I build 2 or 3 squads with 6-8 in each squad, then I use the "free agents" to fill in for mission type, wounded replacement, cadres, extra missions, etc. One of each class per squad is OK, but I find that I often drop the technicals and gunners if I'm doing a GOp, so you could have 6 per squad with techs and gunners as "free agents".

You may be having trouble with your Avenger build. I used to go GST>ASW>Power relay>workshop>Proving Ground... but lately I've been experimenting with Laboratory>GST>other. It gives a very quick start to research. I've found that I tend to build my Avenger a bit too quickly at the expense of weapons and armor. There's a trade-off here that you'll need to find. For example, I'm in late June in my current game and I'm definitely needing to build more mag weapons, but I built the AWC and Resistance Comm in lieu of weapons. I've had to turn down several missions in the strength 4 area because I only have 2 squads that can approach it at this time. I play on Veteran and Commander. I prefer Veteran for more relaxed games.
ginyu549
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 29, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by ginyu549 »

Sounds like you are using a lot of bigger squads on missions?

I personally try to do every mission I can, since that raises vigilance, which also slows down the Avatar project. I've lost too many times getting ready for golden path(story) missions and not doing other missions while waiting for my larger squads to infiltrate or my soldiers to heal or whatever, while the Avatar project ticks over in the background. If vigilance is low then the Avatar project moves along much faster.

Doing a ton of missions also helps level up as many troops as possible for later in the game.

To do as many missions as possible I end up sending out a lot of 4-5 man squads early on. Later it turns to 5-6 man squads, but regardless my advice would be to do every mission you (safely) can, especially early in the game.

Also, don't neglect expanding to new regions. IMO you need to be able to do a few "get advent's attention" missions once in a while to move the Advent strength out of a region for strategic purposes. You can't do that unless you have a few "extra" regions to run operations in. If you get trapped in 3 or 4 regions early the Advent strength will build up in those regions until you slowly get muscled out of a viable game.

I've had the best experience just playing a balanced strategy and not rushing for any one thing. It's difficult, and you have to take things as they come, but you need to 1) build up the avenger, 2) do research, 3) expand to new territories, 4) get better equipment for your troops, and 5) liberate at least one region. Personally I don't think you need to liberate especially early, as long as you are expanding to new territories (and doing tons of missions to keep Avatar progress slow). Eventually you will find an opportunity somewhere that looks good rather than being forced into it in one of your "home" regions.

Another thing about expanding is it helps you find dark even counter missions. You can't counter dark events if they take place in regions you haven't contacted.

As far as supplies in the early game, I agree with some of the posters above that you should be farming Intel with your havens as much as possible early and just selling the loot you get on missions. Early on you don't really need elerium cores or datapads and they are worth good money at the black market. Vulture helps with that as well (It pays for itself rather quickly once you have it).

I disagree a little about switching rebels to recruit job though. Early on you should do a lot of jailbreaks. These both build up your havens rapidly (so you can put more rebels on Intel and find more missions with better time to infiltrate) and give you rookies to help build your soldier pool. Once you have about 10-13 rebels then you can afford to put a few on recruit or supply, but still keep most on Intel. (IMHO)

Also don't forget to put a soldier in your haven as an adviser. This will generate faceless missions which are an invaluable source of corpses. You especially want those Advent Officer corpses so you can build incendiary grenades.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by Psieye »

ginyu549 wrote: Another thing about expanding is it helps you find dark even counter missions. You can't counter dark events if they take place in regions you haven't contacted.

I disagree a little about switching rebels to recruit job though. Early on you should do a lot of jailbreaks. These both build up your havens rapidly (so you can put more rebels on Intel and find more missions with better time to infiltrate) and give you rookies to help build your soldier pool. Once you have about 10-13 rebels then you can afford to put a few on recruit or supply, but still keep most on Intel. (IMHO)
Tactical DEs can spawn outside your contacted regions, but strategics can't. Tacticals you let slide - the game is balanced around the assumption the aliens have all of them. Strategics seriously hurt you.

Switching between Recruit and Intel is about taking advantage of the few days when Intel job is worse than hiding - there are times when all the missions have been detected and no more are around to be detected. Requires in-depth knowledge of mechanics to tell as the game won't ever simply give you that information. But in those periods, there is no reason to be on Intel. Your progress is saved if you switch out of Recruit before finding anyone, so by cycling jobs during downtimes you can squeeze in extra recruits faster.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by Zork »

Gee what a rush, is this really requested at Veteran level? Thanks the team made the Easy level, I would not want be forced to some precise rush with exact approach.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by stefan3iii »

Disagree with advice about not generating supplies early. I start doing supplies as soon as I can generate about 4 simultaneous missions. That's only about 2.5 regions on Intel. Not unusual to be able to get a good supply drop in May or early June.
ginyu549
Posts: 26
Joined: Sat Apr 29, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by ginyu549 »

stefan3iii wrote:Disagree with advice about not generating supplies early. I start doing supplies as soon as I can generate about 4 simultaneous missions. That's only about 2.5 regions on Intel. Not unusual to be able to get a good supply drop in May or early June.
One of the reasons I love this game. There are lots of viable ways to win, and tons of variance in how the game plays out.
Zork wrote:Gee what a rush, is this really requested at Veteran level? Thanks the team made the Easy level, I would not want be forced to some precise rush with exact approach.
I don't think you NEED to rush anything, but you CAN rush something if you want to. You do have to keep up with escalating Advent HP/armor/alien progression though, or you will get stomped later in the game.
Psieye wrote:Switching between Recruit and Intel is about taking advantage of the few days when Intel job is worse than hiding - there are times when all the missions have been detected and no more are around to be detected. Requires in-depth knowledge of mechanics to tell as the game won't ever simply give you that information. But in those periods, there is no reason to be on Intel. Your progress is saved if you switch out of Recruit before finding anyone, so by cycling jobs during downtimes you can squeeze in extra recruits faster.
For me, knowing too much about the behind the scenes mechanics leads to min-maxing or making slight adjustments based on things the player shouldn't know. I like to play the game, not game the game 8-). Unfortunately I feel like I already know too much about it just from lurking around these forums, and I'm the kind of person who can't help himself min-maxing or gaming the system even if I don't want to ;).
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Should I restart campaign?

Post by Zork »

ginyu549 wrote: I don't think you NEED to rush anything, but you CAN rush something if you want to. You do have to keep up with escalating Advent HP/armor/alien progression though, or you will get stomped later in the game.
As LW2 Easy is somehow a bit more easy than XCOM2 Veteran, I was expecting LW2 was a bit more easy than XCOM2 Commander. But I checked a table of differences, and it's a lot of stuff, so probably more on the edge than I suspected.

About that I'm disappointed that LW2 Rookie adds a global Aim bonus of 120%. I don't thank the team for that, it's typical bad design making you unlearn a game, sigh.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
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