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Long War Strategy (2949 comments)
Tips from the LW 3.0 readme (as of Beta 9)
- Many players have reported this mod to be more difficult than vanilla X-Com. A number of strategic game elements are more random, and no longer are the parts of the strategy game that drive the narrative forward so simple to accomplish: They take meaningful amounts of time and resources, even as the aliens gain additional tools to beat you. Be prepared to abort missions and lose satellites and countries. Improvements in soldiers and technology will often be incremental rather than transformational. There isn't some dominant strategy deliberately embedded in the settings for you to root out; instead, you'll have to mix both long-term preparation with short-term flexibility to deal with crises.
- Expect to lose some battles. A key part of tactical play is knowing when to retreat to preserve your force. Save-scumming to win extremely difficult missions can have a dramatic impact on the rest of the game and deny you the full Long War experience.
- You may attempt to retake alien countries by defeating the alien base there. You'll need to orbit a satellite over that country to find it, and the aliens will do everything they can to shoot it down! You'll also need a new skeleton key for every additional attempt.
- Your interceptors now have a chance to detect UFOs on their continent in countries where no satellite is present. If the aliens seem to be concentrating on a country where you don't have a satellite, stationing interceptors nearby will give you a chance!
- Council nations will now hit you with many more requests for items than you can possibly fulfill, so be selective. Every request you fulfill gives that a country a better chance to resist panic (as indicated by the filling in of the small shield in the Situation Room).
- Any soldier can attempt psi training, even if they have failed in previous attempts. A greater will score makes you more likely to succeed. Note that Psis cannot become officers, however.
- Armor-piercing aircraft weapons are necessary to down certain UFOs, even early in the game.
- Satellite spam is no longer an effective strategy; you'll fall too far behind on research. Labs are now vital.
- Keep a spare satellite on the launch pad. You can't get every UFO, and the survivors will sometimes send hunters after your birds.
- Plan ahead! Everything takes time to build now. Minimum Engineer requirements may also be more of a factor.
- You'll find you'll usually want more than you can afford; be prepared for shortages in cash, meld and alloys, in particular, in the early and mid-games, and weapons fragments and Elerium late game. Selling alloys and elerium may come back to haunt you later. Landed UFOs are a terrific resource.
- With the long injury recovery times and soldier rest requirements you should maintain at least 30 troops in your barracks.
- Interceptor buffs are much more useful than in vanilla, but don't expect to bag every enemy UFO. You can still keep panic at bay by at least making an attempt.
- UFOs will blow up entirely more often if you use high-damage weapons for the final hit.
- SHIVs are no longer a sideshow, but a crucial part of your team from the start. MECs are something you won't be able to field until midgame.
- In the late summer months, casualties of experienced soldiers may mount. Look for projects that help you maintain the ability to field a powerful combat team.
- You absolutely must have HEAT weapons (either via perks or the SHIV item) or chem grenades to take on Cyberdiscs and Sectopods. They will be very difficult otherwise.
- Enemies with area-of-effect weapons can be hindered with suppression, poison, mindfrays and flashbangs, all of which reduce their range.
- In emergencies, you can take fatigued soldiers on missions, but they will suffer the equivalent of a light combat wound (from all the drugs you had to juice them with plus overexposure to alien chemistry.)
- Both low and high cover provide more protection than in the past, and a measure of damage reduction from most weapons. Low cover is now 2/3 the value of high cover in many respects (instead of half).
In addition, a wealth of advice and discussion is here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/LongWar101/
The following second wave options were included: active war, friendly skies, strength, improved information, new economy, hidden potential,
save the bastard, the maximum effect, aiming angles and a pumped-up school of officers (I forgot how it is called)
Also, some corrections in the "DefaultGameCore" were made: I considered that is really stupid and unreasonable , if soldier’s rest period of 6 days so I reduced this period by 75%. Yes, this made the game really simpler and I didn’t need to have 150 soldiers in the barracks, but honestly, who would refuse to go to serve the army if the real work week was like 1/7 (sry I got distracted) However, I left untouched the indicator of injury and fatigue from gene modifications, ranks and psionics.
Also, the interceptor repair time was reduced by 50%, the installation of weapons and the transfer from the location set to 12 hours. You have two options to simplify fights in the air, in addition to the option of the second wave, it is to reduce the cost of interceptors or reduce their repair time. During the first attempt, I noticed that a lot of money is spent on maintaining the interceptors and the conquest of a new continent can lead to default (this does not mean that it is impossible to win, rather it just takes VERY long time). Thunderbolt build time was also redused to 60 days. Time was still cripling but easier than 160+ days.
At first I got burned and I set the missile deflection rate to 0.5 because I thought that the pumped-up special force unit who had passed the Afghanistan / Iraq / Iran / assault on zone 51 could not miss the rocket launcher, but when I cooled down a bit and correctly pumped the rocketeers, I returned the indicator back . Yet cheating already took place.
So, now let's move on to more specific tips. Sorry if I confused the timing of the upgrade, everything was very approximate but I tried. I started in America for a bonus on interceptors and took a bonus on elevators (Mount Rushmore like or something like that) and began to research weapons. In the first month I ordered a satellite node and two satellites, tore up the remaining squares. In the second month I built a heat generator and a laboratory. These two months, my military successes have been positive. I have not lost a single battle (and besides, I have not yet cheated with saves) I got 3 snipers, 2 rocket men and a pack of other guys. I did not lose a single interceptor but missed 3 UFOs. South Africa was the first to leave (well, f*** out of here, beggar). I decided to use more reconnaissance and assaults because I chose the crit options from the flanks. I also replenished the barracks with SHIVS.
I got laser rifles and snipers and switched to alien research. The next month I tried to get to the prison, built another workshop and it seems like a laboratory. A month later (this is already 4) I built another node and ordered two satellites. During the 4th month, I covered America, bought the interceptors aaaaaaaand...
I sucked for the next 2 months. They shot down my satellites, crushed my interceptors, I even lost one attack on a UFO (I decided to shake the newcomers, huh). In fact, it was not even so bad, just when I reread this opus, I decided to add color to that part of the story where it was still not so boring. These 2 months were really long, full of battles. It seems like they even stormed the base for me (I just did not record the first assault) In 2 months I: opened an isolator, captured a sectoid, a flier, a muton, built a foundry and a genetics laboratory and gave snipers a buff on the eyes, built a school for officers, made myself a couple of officers, snipers, attack aircraft and engineer got the maximum rank and almost got to the cyborgs (I just love them very much).
Nevertheless, I was almost always aground, again, my satellites knocked me down, the soldiers were killed (I still did not cheat with the save), and the terror missions led to the maximum panic in the country.
Somewhere at the end of the 6th month the game made fun of me and the opponents began to receive very high-quality buffs. I noticed that I’m getting into uncomfortable situations more often and can no longer afford to often capture opponents or open more than one alien pack. At the same time, I switched to Gauss weapons and even managed to order a couple of rifles and a sniper (as I said, then switched back to cyborgs)
Further, in fact, everything became rather boring, because as soon as I developed a dangerous course for cyborgs, there was nothing more to investigate except weapons and interceptors. I spent another month on the Thunderbolt and it was high time, because I began to suck on almost all the fights in the air.
You are a hero if you read trought here. My personal general tips will be as follows:
- always build workshops and laboratories (4 of both will be enough)
- Further priority will be nodes and satellites.
- research weapons and xenobilogy to get an early advantage and then switch to interceptors. do not repeat my mistakes; do not get carried away with a cyborgs. You will somehow get to these skills, since the research in them are related, you just get a couple of months later.
- SHIVs are cool and even cooler with "heat ammo"
- officers are better off being an engineer, medical officer, or, in extreme cases, foot soldiers
- you do not have to give corpses to countries, in fact, I never gave corpses of sectoids, flyers, and cyber disks
- rockets with shred shells are required
- shredder ammo are also cool
- the best genetic mods are a buff after a miss and targets to snipers, the rest is optional
- My cyborgs, assault and engineer. Assault with skills purely for close combat, an engineer for items, grenades and a double shot. I chose the MEC protector and devastator for them. The last girl were from reconnaissance she got devastator too.
- Take captive every time you can, for the plasma weapon i done about 3 assaults on base, since there are very rewarding on resources, because i got outsiders captive often
- snipers are devastating, still best class in game. reconnaissance kinda there too, but meh
- dream team - two snipers, one with mayhem, second with double tap, 1 rocketeer, 1 foot men, 1 medic, 1 gunner, two mecs
Well, that’s basically all, I’ll try the higher difficulty.
feel free to screw on me because i am noob, just 300 hours in game
First, thanks for the great mod and all.
Second, in a bit of a quandry; I have the game beat (just have to enter the Gallop Chamber and take down the Temple Ship) but I feel like I am losing because of what I am trying to accomplish. (More on this in a bit)
Third, background noise. When I first tried Long War (one or two mod updates ago), I saw a lot that I just loved. But I saw a few things that just irked the hell out of me. 3rd play through (first was just trial run to see what was different and 2nd I only got one steam vent prompting another restart.
I must say, one of the things that prompted my restart was like month three and terror missions where just stupid with tangos and after a couple of days of save scrumming, I realized that I was not a masochist and took a good look at the forums to get an idea of what to do and promptly did the Second Wave options that halve the numbers of aliens, as well as Commanders Choice, Cinematic, No EXALT and Conquer All, and a couple of other ones. (No Red Fog or full crits, I feel those two hurt you just as much as they hurt the bad guys. And a lot of the bad guys self Heal!
I started in Canada and promptly lost Argentina. Because I had a decent idea of what to expect, I have been able to keep the save scumming to a minimum (I do a modified Iron Man save, basically so long as I don't do a major f*#@ up and the puter doesn't cheat, I take whats I get. One exception, yes, I can change the ini file but instead one area I save scum is stunning (more masochism here, tango down to one bar and I only have a 57%, screw that noise).
So, it is like July 2017 and aliens have no countries (haven't for a while, lost Argentina a second time and Egypt but took both of those back. The air war is a mostly a losing area still (twice I have had technological advantage but aliens jumped ahead of me). I have lost about 20-30 fighters (last one I got back came back as Raven-50. I have also lost about four or five Firestorms (not a fan of Firestorm haviing half life and then getting critted but hey, it happens).
Army wise, I have around 148 (about 60-70 Sgts, 7 Shivs, worth their weight in gold as Meld Runners more than anything else) in the barracks and all of the countries shields are full (I have over 300 plus missions) but my Memorial also has over 50 names attached (including two Captains, three LTs, 2 MSgt and two Mec pilots (top 10 guys had well over 200 kills between them, Ethereal Bolts and Leviathan were responsible for most of that bunch).
Oh, reading here and wiki failed me when it came to figuring out how to get Gallop Chamber (and final Psi ability) read that I had Mind Control an Ethereal... How? Every chance came back 0%, same with Sectoid Commmanders. Regular Sectoids I have only had 23% chance at the most (with no fatigue Psi suit). Because I was being silly and let the Argentine base last for close to two years (not understanding fully [still don't actually] alien resources and research), I left it alone thinking it was a breeding ground for me to feed off of. Wrong there. Once I took Argentina, Gallop Chamber was available.
So my quandry: I am mostly losing the air war (as soon as they shoot down a sat bird, I pop another back up and always have 2-4 in storage. I have 11 Firestorms (two can take a battleship if I have Dodge and Aim modules (run out of those way too fast) with serious downtime) and but I haven't really lost a ground battle (alien bases and large ships with 30-40 tangos I just go REAL slow. Have tons of MSgt's and 5 guys with Mind Control.
My issue is that I am trying to field the optimum group for the eventual Temple Assault but the tactical matches aren't walk throughs and the 30 days wounded is a killer because once you open the Gallop Chamber, your wounded guys are stuck there. And I need those Mind Controllers to help out the swarming terror and abduction attacks but they can't stop getting wounded.
I guess the answer is to do without the Mind Controllers for a month (so the rest can heal) then do Gallop, forsaking whoever if left in there). Do you agree?
Also, is this delaying strategy doomed to fail because the aliens will continue to get stronger even without a host nation?
Final thoughts are on MEC's and a perk that has saved my bacon more than any other.
MEC's, if they got nerfed, I haven't noticed much of a difference, When I was able to field Paladins and Defenders they were fine. However, my reading of the wiki didn't really helped because I quickly went from Paladin to Valiant to Vindicator. Devastator is ok (slow and one less secondary weapon but no Jump Jets. And Vindicators are definitely cream of the crop, I almost think it was too easy to get it. Got Vindicator long long before Devastator and only use the Dev when I run 3 or more Mec's (have 1 each of 7, 6, 5 and 4). Only Mec class that doesn't do much for me is the Guardian, big MEH there. All the other ones are solid in their designed roles.
Finally the perk that has saved my arse more than any other. In The Zone. Plain and simple it rocks on the Scout/Pathfinder and Sniper/Jaeger. Between the flyers and those that can't take cover (pods/oids, beserkers and Chryssalids), I have everyone pepper them so those with ITZ can go on a roll.
Food for thought and thanks for your time.
Edit:
Oops didn't mean to post this here. Wonder if some one will ever see it?
Forgot one other question, who do I send to the Gallop Chamber, Zhang (from Slingshot, he was the go to guy in Vanilla or Cleopatra (the chick you save on the dam)? The other three psi that I rescued are already in the Memorial for biting the dust prematurely. Was kind of peeved when I figured that out, Rescuing those three were a pain in arse, one of the harder missions for me.
If you decide to mind control an ethereal anyway, the way to go about it is to buff your will with items and abilities first - combat drugs, mind merge + psi inspire (you need to use mind merge first for that combo to work), vortex armour, and I think there are a couple of small items as well. Helps if you buff up two soldiers and then mindfray the ethereal before you try to gain control.
As for having a team ready, I think the strategy most people use is to just stop doing missions altogether when they are preparing to end the campaign - the aliens aren't going to win the game before you're prepared to go, though they might toss a last second base defence your way.
Thanks for the reply. I had read previously about that combo but since I don't use the combat drugs perk, never really paid any attention to it. Guess only one of my 5 mind controllers will have the vortex ability, probably will send Cleopatra in the chamber.
Since I have 70 Sgts, I will probably use the bulk of them on the missions for the month I am healing everyone else, since they are essentially throw aways.
Thanks again.
Hit ratio. Yeah that's right. I just don't understand how the sectoids in early game have like 200+ base aim, because even with a 25% chance to hit my guys, 1 out of 5 shots hits my guy, doing 4+ damage no matter what. If their hit rate is over 30% then forget it. Your guy is dead. I just don't understand how the enemy NPC's have such over the top, incredible aim. My guys can't hit the broad side of a barn, even with a base of 65 aim plus the laser sight, bringing it to near 70% aim. So the 70% aim, plus an 85% chance to hit, and my guys STILL miss every time.
I realize the readme says to expect losses, to expect to have to retreat. But seriously, I have to save scum every mission, no matter how good my strategy is. The sectoids not only have GODLY aim but also other abilities. I loose 2 troops every mission no matter what. Is this normal? I go home from every mission with minimum 2 dead, and that's with majour save scumming because otherwise, it would be a total wipe. How can I complete this game when my troops cannot hit a damn thing? If it wasn't for this one thing, I would push through the brutal grind that is apparently ahead of me. But it looks like I'm going to be stuck with rooks the entire time, because my guys constantly get their asses handed to them, even behind full cover, through 3 walls with a 15% chance to hit. And yet they still manage to get killed.
So yeah, great work, I'm sure this took the devs months to complete. But this one thing alone is so absolutely and utterly game breaking for me. I cannot continue. I just shake my head how my guys, 2 tiles away, flaking, and with a 90% chance to hit, still manage to miss their target. EVERY TIME. I'm sorry but a 5 year old kid can shoot better than these apparently "world's best elite" troopers. I own guns and I can shoot better than these guys, blindfolded, and with both hands tied behind my back.
Thanks but no thanks.
That's why !
Try this in your DefaultGameCore:
Section B in the screenshot change drastically your chance to be hit when cover, but remember it's the same for enemies !
At least you'll find the game less challenging.
Feel free to change others settings as you want to test it and play for fun
The other reason is because sectoids are stupid. They are a hive. They don't have the intelligence to flank. In the base long war, they literally group up and snipe my guys from 10 tiles away with their pistols. They don't move to flank. So they don't have scopes or aiming reticles on their pistols. However my guys have laser sights, scopes, and all kinds of other gear. You would think a guy with a scoped automatic rifle would have a hell of a lot better chances to land a hit than someone that's trying to snipe from 100 yards with their pistols. It just makes things a little more realistic and easier. That, and sectoids tend to hang out in large groups. Their strategy is forces in numbers. I also decreased their sight range to 20. The reason for this is because you would think the worlds greatest soldiers actually would have things like infra red and night vision. Xcom also has satellites and all kinds of other surveilance systems to track the enemies. This information would be relayed directly to the soldier, as it is in real war. So once in a while, just once in a blue moon, my guys will actually get the jump on a group of sectoids when they just come in to range just enough to see them first and get a first strike against them. It makes sense. When your soldiers come up to a group of sectoids what are they doing? They are totally engrossed in injecting their victims with whatever it is and hanging around their pods. They aren't even paying attention. Like I said they are dumb.
So the changes I have made doesn't make my troops overpowered. It just makes them sensible. I had to start a new game of course, but in my first UFO crash I still lost 4 of my troops and had to retreat. So it's not easy. But it's not impossible, either. My guys tend to hit their targets a little more often. I still have to work up the flank shots and get into good positions, but they aren't typically missing those 80% shots. Which is would one would expect, realistically speaking, from the world's best.
Note that 20% is actually a very high chance, especially when the enemy has much more firepower. Assuming that you have activated 2 pods with 6 sectoids total, they are generally guaranteed to land a hit if all of them fire, even if all your troops are in high cover. This also mean that you should almost *never* engage in direct firefights, since you will mathematically take more damage than you deal and have intolerable casualties. Use grenades, use smoke, hunker down, flank - do whatever it takes to get a significant edge over the aliens. This was actually much worse in the original game's Classic difficulty mode, where all aliens received +20 AIM and could destroy most covers with a single shot. Long War is much more fair in this regard.
Also, note that even a 99% shot has a 1% chance to miss, and sometimes it will happen. Assuming all of your shot would be 99% you would miss it roughly once in two missions. So never engage without a backup plan.
I also don't understand, when to retreat. How do you realize you lost? When you fight a battle you're supposed to win because there just half the amount of aliens in range than you have soldiers, and then they evade 5 80% shots in a row and land 3 out of 4 25% shots, which kill your 3 most experienced soldiers? And you know there are another 20 waiting for you. You need several rounds to run back during which they can continue to shoot at you. How is your team supposed to get strong? If I restart the mission, it happens again.
And they need to practice and get strong, because XCOM soldiers are leftover amateur rookies straight from the academy. Experienced best of the best, yeah right! They'd have half the skill tree unlocked, if that were true. No, they're idiots who couldn't hit anything at the shooting range, unwanted by the government.
Neat, good to know, thanks! That's a nice feature missing from the vanilla game.