xcom long war 2

I'd just play vanilla first and then move on to lw2 if you feel you need more. lw2 makes the strategy layer really tedious.

>>383487695
Play vanilla first. LW2 is neat and adds a lot of good stuff, but like LW1 it has its share of nonsense and it's way slower and more punishing.

>>383487695
XCOM2 is good enough on its own. Long War 2 is very bloated and just unpolished.

>>383488547
How so?

>>383488727
A lot of features, most of them not good.
It was a good mod in the original because it added some much needed depth to the tactical layer, but XCOM2 does not suffer from this problem.

Long War is designed for people that already have played and exhausted all of Vanillas gameplay. Even on easiest settings the mod assumes you already played and know all

Definitely play vanilla first to learn the ropes before jumping into LW.

>>383489446
This, pretty much.

You need to know how the game works before trying Long War 2.
There is also a lot of things the game doesn't tell you about and are vital to win.

I'm near the end of 2 second campaign and I really like it, but is not a game/mod you can rush. In vanilla you do mission after mission, with pretty much the same team unless someone gets wounded.
In LW2, you'll need 4-5 teams by the mid-late game.
There are more classes, more skills, more weapons, more enemies, you need to infiltrate a place before starting the mission, they add the leader mechanic, etc, etc.

Overall, play Vanilla on medium-high. If you thought it was easy, play LW2.
Start at easy for the first missions cause you won't have a fucking clue about what's going on and eventually increase difficulty.

btw, accuracy is bullshit in LW2. You will fail the 70% but enemy will be alright shooting you at only 30%

Does LW2 still have the massive stat inflation problem with enemies that have 100 aim even on veteran difficulty?

>>383487695
God no. Long war 2 is shit and made to be as hard as possible. Long war 1 took over 150 hours to beat and almost nobody except for the top 1% could do it.

Play XCOM 2 normally, download XCOM EU, play through it normally then play Long war 1, it's much better anyways.

If you like LW1 after 50 hours pick up LW2 and prepare for disappointment

I played Xcom 2 on release and that was a long time ago by now. I have the urge to replay, is Long War 2 managable if I already completed the main game but don't know many mechanics of it anymore by now?

>>383492080
lw2 is more micromanagement than anything

OP, I'm currently playing through LW on Legendary, which isn't as hardcore as some youtubers who play on Legendary Ironman or even as impressive as Commander Ironman, but it's my first playthrough so I wanted to get familiar with the mechanics.

The issue a lot of people have with LW2's difficulty is quite understandable, because it's difficulty through obfuscation:
many of LW2's key mechanics aren't explained very well(if at all) and the way to approach them in an optimal fashion can only be be gleaned from watching mod play-testers like Xwynn on youtube.

If the game did a better job of explaining these mechanics, then I feel people wouldn't feel that it's "unfair" or "ridiculous". In fact since I have the time I can explain them to you:

Infiltration: This is one of the most straightforward ones but not obvious sometimes.
You always want to infiltrate until enemy activity is Extremely Light in the early game, and even later onwards. They should be attempted with minimum 5 soldiers, while Very Light should be attempted with 6 soldiers.
Light or higher level missions should only be attempted if they are missions like Troop Columns or Supply Raids, where you can send in 8 soldiers.

Scouting: You need a Shinobi who will stay in concealment for the whole mission until the very last pod. Basically there are no exceptions. The reason why is explained next.


Sound: Weapons make sound. Grenades make ALOT of sound(and also don't destroy cover by default anymore, so the old vanilla strategy of blowing up cover becomes almost worthless in the early game).
If an patrolling pod hears the sound of your weapons, they will go from Green Alert to Yellow Alert.
The difference is that when a Green Alert pod discovers you, they will do things like go into Overwatch, but a Yellow Alert pod will RUN TOWARDS YOU AND SHOOT YOU ON THEIR TURN. This is one of the key "unfair" mechanics people complain about, because they are used to the "Beaglerush" strategy.

Which is the strategy where you run into the open with your squad on OW, the enemy discovers you on their patrol route but don't get to shoot.

Except this doesn't happen in LW2. The enemy can and WILL shoot you on their turn if you're not careful with weapon/explosive use.

Haven Management: This is a completely new aspect of LW2, with things like Vigilance level and Advent Strength level and rebel jobs to worry about.
The gist of it is to play like a real Guerilla force: do lots of missions where ADVENT is weak, and when they come with reinforcements go somewhere else.
You also need to worry about Haven Advisors, and the game doesn't exactly tell you that Sergent-level(level 3) officers are optimal for the job of detecting Faceless infiltrators.

OP/Super-strong abilities/mechanics: The Technical's flamethrower ability is really overpowered but overlooked by newcomers. Setting enemies on fire prevent them from doing just about ANYTHING in LW2 with very few exceptions.

Incendiary Grenades are similarly OP for locking down enemies in this fashion. Grenades and Rockets are pretty bad since they make a lot of noise and draw extra pods to the fight.
Officers are a MUST on every mission because they have Command - which is equivalent to the Inspire ability in Vanilla Psi-Ops.

Stealth: You can do many missions with just one or two people, especially if it involves hacking. You need one Specialist to throw evac flare and do the Hack, then a Shinobi Officer to command them to run to evac on the same turn since now enemies will come running.

Not doing stealth missions mean you have to give up on a lot of missions due to force under-strength.

>>383494070

I thought they nerfed stealth enough that such missions are now impossible.

>>383494170

No. Still very much possible in 1.4, at least for the hacking missions that I've tried.

Typically these missions have 8 turn timers.

You spend 2-3 turns running in an indirect line to the objective to avoid most of the pods.

Throw down the evac flare with your Spec, provided nothings in sight. Then you hide to the last turn.

You hack and get out. If you need an extra move your Shinobi officer provides it.

Extremely efficient source of intel and exp.

>>383494510
interesting strat i will have to try it

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>tfw poor and neet
>no dx10.1 gpu
>cant play

It's long

LW2 a shit. LW1 was great though.

Lw2 is fucking HARD man, that's all you need to know. Go vanilla first.

>>383494510
>attempt 2 man stealth mission
>run into 2 drones covering the entire corner I start in turn 1
How do I deal with this shit? I swear drones have spoiled the majority of my stealth attempts.

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DLC comes out next month, how are you guys passing the time? It looks kinda meh tbqh but as long as it adds decent content it might be worth it

>>383496274

You can combat protocol the Drones. Your specialist gets revealed but that was gonna happen anyway.

Alternatively if your Spec has Trojan, you can hack the drones and they'll die later - without blowing concealment.

The point of "stealthing" is that you have a Shinobi staying in stealth making sure there aren't any pods within sight range of your Specialist.

Your Specialist's meant to be out of stealth anyway the moment he throws the evac flare. Its up to good scouting to make sure he doesn't actually get discovered.

>>383496632

I probably won't play it since I'll still be slogging through LW2.

I'll try it when it gets integrated with LW2. Otherwise I suspect it'll be a snorefest like Vanilla was once you figured out the optimum strategy

>>383496632
>It looks kinda meh

I don't know what you're looking at. DLC looks great and is adding tons of features.

>>383498456
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un82oWqA6yA

>zombies
>all three new factions look generic, one looks like something straight out of destiny with the electric magic blade warlock shit
>new threat doesn't look alien or interesting

>>383498912

I agree, the Chosen and new classes look like overpowered ruler 2.0 garbage. I'm expecting the worst with these guys.

The zombies are fine and seem like they'll add a lot of tactical depth. I think you just have a personal problem with zombies.

The new fatigue, soldier relationship, and SITREP system look amazing. This is what I'm interested in. And new campaign options at the start so you can choose things like timer length and campaign length.