Whats your plans?

[Stidji]

Ive been playing the game for a while now, trying to figure out how this work and how to use the new mechanics. Never tried Long war 1 so this is all pretty new to me, especally the strategy layout of having multplie teams going in. And so far i enjoying it very much!!
but i do lack of some real plans as i wont know what is decent start and what's a shitty start nothing that tells me to be honest..

1. What's your goals? let's say the first 3 months? for example, how fast will you try to liberate a region?

2. Will you focus on region at the time or will you start doing missions in every region you can make conctact with as you go?

3. What kind of rooster do you have? what soldiers do you prefer to use?

4. how do you prioritize the missions, what goes first and last?

Thanks in advance for all input

[wei270]

1. Well for me the goal for the first 3 month is to control advent strength, you can't win the game like that but it lets you have a easier time if advent global strength is not as high. This can work because you have the best int gathering in your starting region which means you can find those advent reinforment missions. so i tend to want to raise vigilance in my first region as much as possible and hit as many advent reinforcement as i can then liberate the region. You should liberate one region relative early to get information on avatar progress, advent global strength, and avatar progression rate.
(i got lucky with my game wthere i hit like 3 ufos in the first two month, no only did it give me alot of resoures but it also greatly reduced advent strenght for my campain, that 3 ufos is 4 advent global strength, so when i liberated my first region in the beganing of month 3 advent global strength is bearly 20)
2. After i liberated my first region i wanted to expand as many region as i can to be able to counter as many Darkevent as i can. However i am now questioning this approch as i was only able to stop 2 permanent DEs out of like 8 maybe 9, i was able to stop ALOT more non permanent DES thought not that these matter very much. The problem with mass contract is that you don't have good quality int in any of the region and your are relaying on your lucky to find good mission. And at this point what you really need to do is find the resources you need to upgrade your guys so you can do your real quest line, you don't want to delay that for too long cause enemy is only gonna get stronger with time.
3. As for rooster am in late July and i take ALL the soldier i can get, literally ALL of them. but for rookies i mainly train them in to ninjas and specialist. i wanted a specialist in every mission for hacking opportunities. Supplies are very hard to come by and good hacking is covering like 20 to 25% of all my supply incoming and that is alot.
4. For the mission ambush troop column for me is always a high on the list, i would like to said the same for reinforcements but they can get very risky after first 3 month when alien as more tools,
then is it jailbreak, and vip rescure.
but really the real limiter is mission time, basically if i have enough time with a mission i will do it.

[trihero]

1) Immediately research comms, get maxed out contacts ASAP (don't spend intel to boost early missions). Set all rebels to intel and scan with avenger (ignore black market until all your troops are out on missions). Goal is to get your troops some initial experience points and turn rookies into something else. GTS takes too long to wait for, so I will make a 5-6 rookie squad with SMGs + double frags and send them on something easy like a jailbreak.

I try to liberate my starting territory after I have contacted 3/3 regions, because you have to liberate something at some point and the steady supply income is very helpful in the long run.

2) you should watch this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Px0bIe6cQ

What you learn is that the highly rewarding missions (extra/rescue VIP for an engineer/scientist/soldier) are on a 21 day cooldown and disappear with high vigilance. So what you should do is drill hard on intel in one region until you pop this mission, then forget about that region for a while since you can't get that good of a result in the short term and rotate intel to another region and drill again for the rescue mission. This way you get those super critical scientists/engineers/extra soldiers (not jailbreak rookies, like actual fighters)

I set all rebels to recruitment mode when I'm not looking for missions in a region (either due to cooldown or all troops are gone); it greatly speeds up getting max rebels.

3) really depends, but you should try to have 3-4 stealth shinobi/specialist pairs to nab those easy stealth missions that pop up very frequently, you'll probably want about 4'ish of all the other classes to build down different paths and for redundancy in case of wounds/deaths as well as fishing for good AWC combos.

4) refer back to the video in 2). It doesn't talk about everything but is a great starting point. Rescue missions are highly rewarding, and you want to transition into troop ambushes. He doesn't talk about liberating, but he has already beaten LW2 on L/I more than once. He doesn't go liberation crazy, only like 1 or 2 regions.

[Jacke]

I'm still learning a lot about LW2. Had played XCOM 2 on Legendary but not to the finish. Decided to play LW2 Legendary non-Ironman because the game changes too much when the difficulty shifts and I don't want to learn bad habits. I do want to be able to back up a bit in both strategy and tactics if I make a major mistake, because that makes the game more fun to play. Some mistakes I live with though.

There's a lot of details that interact with each other. I like to study and plan ahead to avoid painful lessons as much as possible. I've restarted my campaign twice because certain decisions early on can limit or hurt you for a time until you fix them. But I'm going to push on now.

1. What's your goals? let's say the first 3 months? for example, how fast will you try to liberate a region?

Be sure to read everything in the XCOM Archives in the Commander's Quarters on the Avenger. Lots of good info there.

To start, expand and establish everything, troops, Avenger, resistance, research, missions.

You need a plan for each of those items. And they depend a lot on each other. Resistance gets you the missions in enough time to infiltrate well. Avenger and research prepares the troops. Missions give experience to the troops, provides troops and advances the resistance and the story.


1. Troops. Takes several months to get a good roster and more to train them.

You will need several Shinobi and Specialists, as stealthing, scouting, and hacking are a major part of most missions. Grenadiers and Technicals are important as pod crackers with their AoE attacks. Rangers and Gunners are the direct fire killers including overwatch and suppression and area suppression. Sharpshooters are the distance killers and holotargeters, often having a concealed Shinobi to spot for them. Assaults, Shinobi, and Rangers all have good close quarters attacks, but in LW2 that's very dangerous as it can activate another pod unless you've stealth scouted and know there's none. Psi Ops (after building a Psi Lab) currently are less useful but should be buffed in later LW2 versions. If you have the DLC Shen's Last Gift, you will get SPARK's as well.

You get more troops either from the Black Market (one a month Squaddie or higher rank, worth the supplies) or Rookies you free in free VIP missions or buy for supplies (eventually will need to). Never consider Rookies disposable.


2. Avenger. You need a plan to excavate and build out the rooms. I posted here about it.

You need to built the GTS first, to train up Rookies into particular soldier class and to train officers, later to buy various New Combat Tactics, like Wet Work to improve experience from killing ADVENT. After a month or so every mission should have an officer to add their special perks. After that, when you get Engineers (freeing them in various free VIP missions) you can start excavating the rooms. Next room will be the AWC so when you have a Scientist (free another VIP) troops will heal their wounds faster. As well you


3. Resistance. You start with the resistance Haven in one zone. The rest of the world you need to expand the resistance to.

You have a number of resistance members under your control in each zone expanded to. They do various jobs on a daily basis: Hiding to avoid drawing ADVENT's attention, Supplies to gather for XCOM, Intel to gather for XCOM and to learn of possible missions with longer expiration times, Recruit to find more members. You can also get more of them in free VIP missions. Some of them could be Faceless spies. You can also assign an advisor, best a Squaddie or better ranked troop or officer to recruit and lead others if they find a spy. Later you can use Scientists or Engineers as advisors.

Eventually in a zone you will find a mission labeled as part of the Liberation Chain. That's a series of 5 increasingly diffuclt missions to free the zone from ADVENT control. The last two, the Network Tower and the ADVENT HQ, are particularly hard missions. Lots of good info on them in these forums. You need to free at least one zone to progress the story and win the game.


4. Research. Learn more to do more, make your troops stronger, and advance the game.

You will need a certain number of Scientists (free the VIP...) for some techs and to research faster. As well, you will eventually need to build and upgrade a Laboratory in the Avenger. Later will come the Proving Ground and the Shadow Chamber.


5. Missions. Found with resistance doing Intel. Infiltrate to get troops into action.

Free VIPs, train the troops, get loot (under a lot of restrictions), and advance the story. Special missions will require different squad troops and different tactics. Some special hard missions advance the story and eventually win the game.

2. Will you focus on region at the time or will you start doing missions in every region you can make conctact with as you go?

Even on Legendary, I research Resistance Comms first and expand to a 2nd zone. Do the missions that you can infiltrate a right-sized team and benefit from by succeeding and getting out without wounds and death. If it's too tough and there's not enough time, pass it up (although some missions can be done by small teams, even just 1 or 2 Shinobi). Most missions don't have a penalty for ignoring them.

3. What kind of rooster do you have? what soldiers do you prefer to use?

What I mentioned above under Troops. As I've planned it, I have multiple builds for all the troop classes except Rangers and SPARKS.

You will need ASAP about 3 to 4 Shinobi and about the same number of Specialists for stealthing and hacking. The First Rule of XCOM Club is "Don't get hit", but you will need a Specialist Medic for the tough missions as soon as April, so I'd train the first Specialist as a Medic. A fire base of eventually 5-6 Gunners can be used on the very heavy missions like Troop Ambush and Supply Raids. You will eventually need troops as Haven Advisors; I and others use LCpl/2Lt Technicals. For Squad Officers, I use Shinobi and Holotargeter spec'ed Sharpshooters, as they can most spare the actions for commands. Other troops as mentioned above.

4. how do you prioritize the missions, what goes first and last?

Have the troops to send the right squad to do the mission. Need to have enough infiltration time. Early campaign tend to send small teams, especially around 1-3 troops, tailored for the mission. Not enough time, not enough troops, don't go. Only some missions have consequences for ignoring them.

When the Avenger is threaten by a UFO searching for it, that's when you need your 12 best troops as tailored for that mission on the Avenger. Recall them if needed. You lose the Avenger Defence Mission, you lose.

[Devon_v]

Make contact with as many adjacent regions as you can early, IMO. Set them to Recruit. You can get all the missions you need from your starting region, and the other areas will be "leveing up" for you. Once ADVENT strength starts to go up in your main region, start running missions in the other regions, keep them off guard.

Liberation is best saved for when you have a team ready to hit the tower no sweat. It really doesn't matter if you can see the doom track early in the game, you know it's there, you know it's going up. Until you've expanded your reach you can't get to the Blacksite anyway. So long as you're making forward progress you're fine.

[Dwarfling]

Early game:

1. Switch everyone in your starting Haven to intel.
2. Scan home region ignoring Black Market while researching Resistance Comms and building the GTS.
2.5 Try to do missions using rookies with average stats while leaving edge cases (high aim, high mobility) for GTS.
3. Once Comms comes online, contact the region with the largest haven while switching to Modular Weapons.
4. Once region is contacted go back to scanning home region. 2nd region split between recruit and intel.
5. Once GTS is done train more Shinobi and Specialists.

[Bluescreen]

What' next in this situation: veteran diff, june. I have two liberated region, and another contact. I have a black site location, i have to expand to reach it. Have codex brain too. Should i set everyone to supply in liberated region + put engineer to it? Expand and scan the new region(s)+ set to intel the resistance in theese (non liberated ones)? Thanx for advice.

[Darvon]

Trihero is the man.

[Drax40K]

Just recently started playing Long War 2 and LOVE IT. I actually had to quit my first play through because I was doing it on Ironman and really wasn't prepared for just how difficult the game is and I was down to my last 13 soldiers, had very little in the way of supplies, despite having a decent income of supplies (didn't realize that I had a mole stealing everything). Read some strategy and tips forums, and read the information in the Avenger Commanders lounge pertaining to Long War so now I have a much better grasp of how this version of the game works.

1) FIRST PRIORITY-Soldiers. Everything that you have, and everything you can do to stop ADVENT is all predicated on your Soldiers. They are without any doubt your most valuable resource. It is through missions you gain access to the supplies you can use to buy/research and build new tech. They are your prime resource for getting additional soldiers/scientists/engineers. They allow you to recover the resources you need to start new research projects. So, before every mission you must ask yourself, what do you stand to gain for risking the lives of the soldiers you are sending in? So, it pays to be picky on your missions. I learned that it pays to devote the majority of your resistance personnel to Intel as this is how you can find more missions with longer infiltrate times allowing a) you to take more troops, and b) facing the smallest possible number of enemies.

I have adopted some standard protocols when I send out a squad on a mission: 1) Can I reach 100% infiltration with at least a 5 man squad? If No, I don't go, UNLESS the reward is worth the risk of the soldiers I'm sending. I.E., what am I getting? Priority is-Rescuing more soldiers, then Engineers, then Scientists, then Resistance Personell. Second is advancing towards the End Game objective, and lastly Intel or 'Getting ADVENT attention'. Frankly I'll be very picky before I will risk a single soldier for Resistance members or a Scientist, I will consider for an Engineer if the need is great or I don't have the supplies to hire one from the Black Market. I will send in Soldiers for a higher risk mission if it means getting a soldier of equal or greater experience then the ones I currently have at my disposal. Therefore, I will always only send 5 or more squad members. I don't know if this is viable as the war drones on, so this may be modified.

My next protocol for sending Soldiers into the field, is at least two of them will carry medkits in place of Frag grenades until such a time as I can get a properly trained up Specialist with medical skills. Frags to me early on are of limited use. Having 2 with medkits means there are still 3 in the squad with Frags (Grenadier will always carry a 1 or more frags) and maximizes the chances that if a squad member gets hurt, there is someone who can fix them up and at least help them survive the mission.

Second, and this is especially for early on and may change depending on the importance of the mission and state of the War, if a soldier goes down....Squad is to fall back and call in for an Evac. Soldiers are just too terribly valuable, especially in the early game. I will also accept surrender and capture (IE turtle until the mission timer is over) then foolishly try to make a last stand (unless this is changed in LW2 there should be opportunities to rescue captured soldiers).

2) Engineers-Engineers are the next most valuable Human Resource. They are typically expensive when purchased from the Black Market but are fairly valuable rescue mission objectives. I will always take a mission to rescue an Engineer if I can get full infiltration with a 5+ squad. If the Infiltrate time drastically increases I probably wouldn't risk any less then 4 on a mission to recover an Engineer unless I got something else as well (not counting Resistance Personnel). I would do it for a soldier or multiple scientists.

3)Scientists-Scientists are great and all, and I will try to get them where and when I can, but again, I'm not willing to risk too much for them. Science is a clock, so inevitably you will finish any project you are working on, though some may incur a cost in resources, but all scientists do is make this clock run faster (which is great), but as long as you keep at it you will finish the research. Some things simply cannot be done without an Engineer which makes them more important, and again, the resources required for some lines of research, alloys, cores, cyrstals, are all acquired by soldiers out in the field. You lose soldiers, no resources, no matter how many scientists you have, you won't get anywhere.

Again all of this is based on my view of the first 5 months of the Long War. I'm not sure if this will change as I get more experience at playing the game. My first failed play through shaped these strategies, and so far it seems to be working in my second play through, but only time will tell.

I'm absolutely open to constructive criticism and advice on the strategies I've highlighted above.

[Jacke]

My views are based upon Legendary in my play and watching others' videos. May be very different on other difficulties.

Some research needs a minimum of Scientists on staff; example, you need 1 Scientist to research Laser Weapons. Some Proving Grounds projects need a minimum of Engineers on staff. That's why there's research projects for science and engineering; they count as 1 of those staff for purpose of unlocking access.

The important thing with your soldiers is you need a lot and you need them trained up. And of course, the First Rule of XCOM Club is Don't Get Hit.

There are some missions in which you will have to fight, when there's a pod or two right around the objective. You can't quite master making noise to draw them off and you don't have a Shinobi of sufficient stealth to pull it off even with smoke dropped. Rescue from vehicle and hack workstations are often this way.

But you won't win just by sending fighting squads on missions planning to fight. You will risk too much, get too little return, and get troops wounded and killed. Stealth is a powerful tool and not just for setting up the first ambush. You will have to run almost pure stealth missions too when appropriate. Some missions are better stealthed, like Extract VIP from City, where the VIP and everyone else without Phantom start revealed.

This reddit post has links to xwynns videos where he pulls off stealth missions (and flamethrower ambushes) in his Legendary campaign.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/ ... difficult/

In LW2, your soldiers that complete a mission get experience based upon the number of enemy in the mission. Each gets an equal share of that pot of experience, except when there's one or two, those one or two still get one third of that total experience. That means stealth missions without enemy kill experience are best run with no more than 3 soldiers. Sometimes to get a quick infiltration or due to the nature of the mission, you still only send one (usually a Shinobi) or two (two Shinobi or often a Shinobi and a Specialist).

You want to run those stealth missions to get their rewards, VIPs: Engineers, Scientists, Resistance members, soldiers, sometimes with supplies or intel thrown in, all quickly and cheap. Unlike soldiers, Engineers and Scientists are far too expensive at the Black Market for most of the game.

And you should be running your Resistance Havens to get just enough and a bit more supplies but mostly intel. You need the intel income and you need to detect missions with plenty of expiration time left. And get enough of them to keep your troops busy. You will still have to pass up missions, either for too little time left or not having the right troops to send.

However, like you, I often pad up missions like Jailbreak which can be run well by 3 troops to a 5 or 6 soldier squad if there's time available. This means I will need to take on the risk of ambushing and killing enemy to get their experience for the mission up. I wonder if that's right. Maybe for early on, when I took 3 Rookies on a 6 troop mission just to get them to Squaddie (and help kill a pod at the objective).

Starting out I get about 1 mission a week. Seeing that a Legendary campaign should be done by November and a bit over 100 missions, that means it should quickly get to 2 to 3 missions a week. With soldier's out for wound recovery and training (and R&R if playing with Grimy's Moral Mod, as I am).

Small squad stealth missions can be run for shorter infiltration times yet still get over 100%. That means when you run them without injury, those soldiers can go right back into rotation for the next missions. This can be key to being able to do enough missions.