Long War's difficulty has been balanced around making players feel constantly uncomfortable, and forces them to make many difficult choices. A few small mistakes can quickly snowball out of control and derail an Iron Man campaign which can be very frustrating. Hardcore players love this level of difficulty but it can make the game very frustrating for new players.

This is my attempt at putting a bit more fun back into Long War while still keeping it challenging. This is by no means an "easy" or "casual" mode mod - it just gives you a little more breathing room. It tweaks a few of the settings on the strategy side of the game to make things less costly and take less time, while keeping the tactical side almost completely unchanged. 

There are currently versions for Long War beta 15d2, and for beta 15e TV4, beta 15e, beta 15f and 1.0

INSTALLATION

To install this mode, first make a backup of your existing DefaultGameCore.ini file. It's normally located here:

<SteamApps>\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config\DefaultGameCore.ini

The downloaded zip file contains sub-folders for different versions of Long War. Replace your DefaultGameCore.ini with the file appropriate for your version. Make sure you use the correct version or there may be unwanted side effects.

The following changes were made:

• Starting soldiers increased from 40 to 50
• Soldier cost reduced from 25 to 20
• Psi training hours reduced from 192 to 144 (8 days to 6 days)
• Fatigue time reduced by 20%
• Max hours wounded reduced from 1320 to 960 (55 days to 40 days)
• Hours of fatigue per officer level decreased to from 12 to 9
• SHIV repair hours reduced from 24 to 18
• Starting steam vents increased from 2 to 4
• Max interceptor repair time reduced from 600 to 450 (25 days to 16 days)
• Interceptor rearm time reduced from 168 to 72 hrs
• Items will no longer require repair via repair bay. Repair bay still required to augment soldiers
• Chance the aliens will hit the highest-panicked adjacent country on several mission types reduced from 75 to 40. This will spread the panic around.
• Time/Alloys/Elerium/Meld requirements for building items (including MECs) reduced by 20%
• Mobility penalty removed for small items: ammo types, scopes, targeting module, plasma stellerator, motion tracker
• Drums mags mobility penalty reduced from 2 to 1
• Facility building costs and times reduced by 20%
• MEC armour cash costs reduced by 30%
  
  

Beta 15e/f changes:

• hours extra fatigue after missions PER critical wound a soldier has suffered in the campaign reduced from 24 to 12
• battlescanner may be used by any class (not just scout/engineer)
  

For maximum fun I also recommend the following mods:
Enhanced Tactical Info - Shows soldier XP, mobility, DR and active alien counts on the soldier info screen during batlle.
Motion Scanner - Enables the motion scanner radar for all missions
Meld Alarm - makes it easier to tell when meld is about to expire
Maximum Carnage - doubles the force applied to aliens when they are killed at close range - FUN!
Enable UFO Scanners at Start - Enables the UFO damage display without having to complete the foundry project