So you wanna get good at XCOM 2. You should. With 4.5 million squaddies dead after the first week of release, it’s clear there are many, many ways to die. It’s a tough game up-front, and can be even less forgiving than that over time — enough small mistakes and suddenly you’re doomed.
Let’s avoid those mistakes! First at the strategic layer, then at the tactical.
- First Thing You Do, Feel Out The Battlefield. XCOM 2 has a “Fog of War” effect that keeps you from seeing the full battlefield, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a sense of how thing.
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- Jan 21, 2018 XCOM 2 Mods and Modding ↳ Long War 2 ↳ Long War 201 ↳ Long War 2: Strategy ↳ Long War 2: Bug Reports ↳ Elevated Bug Reports ↳ Resolved Bug Reports ↳ Modding Long War 2 ↳ Long War of the Chosen Development (Community Adaptation) ↳ Pavonis Interactive's standalone XCOM 2 mods ↳ General Discussion ↳ Modders' Forum.
Strategic Tips
Don’t Panic About the Avatar Project. Your main goal in XCOM 2 is to stop the mysterious “Avatar Project,” which is represented by a meter at the top of the strategic map. Free lagu boomerang kisah seorang pramuria. Fight night champion keygen safe. That meter fills up quickly, and can make it look like you’re losing in a hurry. Don’t worry too much, you’re not. First, even once the meter fills up, the game isn’t over — you’re given two weeks to knock it back down. Second, there are multiple ways to knock it down, most notably, completing plot missions in combat (like using the Skulljack) and also raiding enemy black sites.
As long as those are available to you, it’s possible to play through XCOM 2 doing very well even as the Avatar meter constantly hovers around the top. Keep your options open, know how quickly you can get to a black site, and you’ll be fine. On the other hand…
Tips for playing Long War 2 #1 Intelligence is Key. It should be no surprise that the key to getting your early game ball rolling is effective. #2 Expand your Land. In vanilla XCOM 2, you contact new regions to reach ADVENT Blacksites, Facilities and Story. #3 Go Hard and Fast, or Smooth. The XCOM organization in XCOM 2 takes a decidedly different approach to dealing with the alien menace than it does in XCOM: Enemy Within.Instead of bunkering down in an underground base, the scrappy alien fighters stay safe from gray-skinned baddies by taking to the skies in.
Panic When You Can’t Win Missions. You’re not going to win every mission, even with reloading saved games. Sometimes the map and enemy combinations just don’t work. But if you find you’re constantly struggling to win missions, filling your ranks with brand-new rookies, and especially if you’re behind on armor research to the point where your characters are being killed in one hit, you’re probably too far behind to win this campaign. Best restart.
![Xcom 2 Long War 2 Tips Xcom 2 Long War 2 Tips](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/16/feb/codex.jpg)
Understand the Strategic Map. There are four things you can do on the strategic map: scan for resources, make connections to other regions, respond to alien missions, or do plot-critical missions. That’s roughly the level of importance as well. From least to most useful: Scanning is mildly useful but not worth worrying about. You definitely need to expand when you have the Intel to do so. Eventually you’ll learn which combat missions you can skip, but in general you can try to do them all. And the plot missions are obviously necessary, but can be held up until you’re confident in your squaddies — unless you need to knock the Avatar Project down right away.
Research Armor ASAP. It doesn’t take long to get to the Plated Armor research option, but chances are the first time you see it, it’ll be an imposing 20 days long or so. It may still be worth it, but there’s a better way: head to the Black Market and spend intel to cut that time in half. This will double your squaddies’ hit points — it’s the biggest single leap in the game. Although you can mess it up easily, so also…
Keep Your Corpses. With money tight, it’s tempting to go to that Black Market and just unload all of the enemy corpses you’ve accumulated in your bloody return to XCOM glory. This is a bad idea, and if done to extremes, potentially game-ending. See, you need those corpses for research and item-building — for example, Viper corpses are used to research the improved Nanomedikit. If you need the cash infusion, you can certainly sell those rotting bodies. But don’t go below four on any of types of enemies.
Engineers > Scientists Early. Scientists are good for research, but with diminishing returns on their bonuses — it only takes a couple until your buffs are like 17% speed improvement. That gets better if you build a laboratory, but that requires money, space, and construction time — all of which are improved by engineers! You’ll eventually need scientists — some plot-critical research requires four of them — but engineers are much more important early on.
Android studio ide. Build to Your Power Coils. Speaking of engineers, you should have at least one cleaning up your Avenger’s rooms at all times, and they should be pointed at the nearest power coil. You’ll need power pretty early in the game, and these give huge bonuses.
Armor/Weapon Upgrades Are Permanent. In XCOM 1, any time you researched a new kind of armor, you then had to spend time and money build it. In XCOM 2, once you research it, you only have to buy it once. One purchase, and every squaddie has Predator armor; another, and every rookie has a magnetic assault rifle.
Get Special Grenades and Ammo. Heading into the tactical section of the game, it’s critically important that you have tactical options. The Proving Ground room — which is necessary for the plot, so you’ll be pushed into building it — gives you that chance. In particular, look for stuff that will help you bust through alien armor. Armor Piercing ammo and Acid Grenades are great for this. It’s random, but it’s rarely useless. Also, once you do the Faceless autopsy, you can build Mimic Grenades. These can save your ass. Take at least one on every mission.
Tactical Tips
Use Every Class. It may be tempting to just go with the classes you’re comfortable with in XCOM 2 — the Sharpshooter and the Ranger can seem dispensable, in particular. Resist this urge. Each class, and many of the subclasses, can be tremendously useful, and absolutely necessary in certain situations. Sharpshooters can tear through multiple weak enemies, while sword-focused Rangers can single-handedly win missions where the aliens deploy Chrysalids.
Having, and knowing, all the classes and subclasses can be critical. Making one of each of the eight subclasses should be enough to do that, but especially…
Use Specialist Medics. If there’s one class you should always have, though, it’s the Specialist focusing on healing. Being able to send a drone across the map to heal any unit, four times per mission, will prove essential.
Don’t Panic At Psionic Attacks. Two early enemies, Sectoids and Codexes, will drop Psionic attacks on your troops. This is scary! Sectoids will mind control your squaddies, or make them panic, while Codexes will drain their ammo in a psychic exploding whirlwind. And yet both of these things can be blessings in disguise: they’re not killing your potentially exposed troops. Use that.
If Sectoids are using Mind Control or Panic, aggressively take them out as quickly as possible. This won’t just free the characters, it’ll free them right away. In fact, killing a Sectoid to help a panicked character who took a shot means that you’ll have gotten a free shot for nothing. Same with Codexes: the ammo drain attack will knock Specialists out for a turn, but a Ranger can charge it with a sword, a Grenadier can launch a grenade, and a Sharpshooter can use her pistol.
Be Careful Using the Skulljack. Speaking of the Codex, the first time you meet it will likely be during the plot mission to use the Skulljack. Same with the Avatar, later in the game. Both of these things will immediately suck up all your squaddies’ time, energy, and possibly lives. So if you’re on a mission with a tight time limit, best wait for more comfortable points to try to accomplish that plot mission.
Blow. Shit. Up. The destructive environments in XCOM 2 are a huge improvement over those of the 2012 XCOM. This is cool to watch, for sure, as plasma weapons and grenades knock walls and cover down. But it’s also an essential tool in your arsenal: blast aliens out of cover to expose them to killing fire, or push them retreat. Open gaping holes in fortified alien positions, and send your squaddies through. One of my favorites: when alien turrets are on top of roofs, a single grenade will make them fall and immediately be destroyed.
Concealment Isn’t That Helpful. In most missions, you start in “concealment” which gives the opportunity to construct an ambush that will knock out alien patrols. This can be great at times, but the difference between good and great isn’t that huge, while the difference between having five turns to fight through every alien and six turns can be. As soon as you’re comfortable, launch your attack — don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Hold Rangers In Reserve. Speaking of ambushes, since you can’t control which enemies your squaddies on Overwatch will attack, you may end up with them focusing on the wrong enemies, leaving a few around to cause problems if they actually get to another turn. This is why keeping a Ranger around to charge and slash any stragglers is incredibly helpful. The Ranger class, especially at early levels, can be difficult to keep alive if you use them as vanguards, charging every new enemy. But if you use them as backup, mopping up weakened aliens? They’ll get strong and become essential squad members.
Aliens Are Aggressive. The bad guys make their goal killing your squaddies, not keeping themselves alive. This can be good in that it makes for a better game, as enemies push back on your squad’s attempt to beat the time limit. It also makes it easier to kill enemies, at times. But it can also mean near-suicide attacks intended to kill your troops specifically, particularly when the Stun Lancers show up. Fuck those guys. Expect them to charge suicidally — and effectively against low-health rookies.
Learn Proper Spacing. This may be the toughest, but most important XCOM 2 lesson of all. Your squaddies need to be far enough from one another that enemy grenades can’t immediately weaken two or three of your troops. But they need to be close enough to one another that they can aggressively push any enemies threatening specific soldiers, particularly, as discussed above, Sectoids and other enemies with mind control.
Will this be enough to win a campaign? That’s up to you — but hopefully it’ll prevent you from surprise disaster.
With the recent War of the Chosen DLC expansion for XCOM 2, several new structures are available for construction on the Avenger. This has been leaving many players wondering about the best build order for the Avenger and its structures.
While I don't believe there is a truly incorrect method in how you start building, there are certainly some strategies that are more useful than others. Despite every structure being important, I'm a huge proponent of the idea that you can make nearly any build order work. But it's worth keeping in mind that the first several structures you work toward will set the tone for your whole campaign.
In this XCOM 2 guide, I'm going to go over a streamlined build order for the Avenger that should suit your playstyle and goals for the WotC campaign. (Want to skip the rundown and jump straight to the finalized build order? Click here.)
Things to Consider Before Starting Your Build Order
Before you can know what an 'optimal' build order for the Avenger is, there are several things you should consider first:
- Your play style
- The difficulty you're playing on
- Whether or not Ironman is enabled
- Random possibilities (not friendly ones)
Personally, I prefer a high risk, high reward style of play for my A team. I like to utilize two rangers and their melee abilities. In WotC, I support these rangers with a Skirmisher, Templar and a support specialist. I also play on Commander difficulty. As a result of this team style, it's quite common for my soldiers to get injured. So my priorities would be different than someone who takes a slightly safer or more standardized approach.
The final consideration -- those random possible that can and will affect your game -- will likely be heavily dependent on Dark Events and what strengths or weakenesses your Chosen enemies have. You'll often have to play these by your ear and adapt quickly.
Personalizing your build order is going to be a large part of developing your system to get what you want out of your early game. However, the first two buildings on the avenger will usually be the same in every play through.
What to Build First in XCOM 2: WotC
The first three buildings you choose are potentially the most important factors in how smoothly your early game runs. Assuming you've skipped the 'Lost and Found' tutorial to War of the Chosen, the list of buildings you can construct immediately after your first mission is as follows:
- Guerrilla Tactics School
- Resistance Ring
- Training Center
- Laboritory
- Workshop
- Power Relay
Embed excel in onenote 2016 for mac. This list is in descending order based on importance -- which means the GTS (Guerilla Tactics School) and Resistance Ring should be your first two buildings. There are a number of reasons for this that I'll outline below.
Squad size is an extremely important factor in deciding fights against ADVENT, so starting with the GTS is possibly the best option for everyone. It allows you to send more squadies to flank around enemies, scout more efficiently, and potentially deal much more damage. Additionally, the GTS has other bonuses you can unlock that will further increase your soldiers' ability to fight.
The Resistance Ring is a new structure added with War of the Chosen. Covert actions can be executed from this ring -- and these actions come with many possible rewards and outcomes. From the Resistance Ring you can begin to track down the Chosen, counter their attempts at sabotage, and lay the groundwork to rescue captured XCOM operatives. There are also potential material rewards for covert actions, and even permanent stat increases to soldiers who participate in these actions.
For those reasons alone, starting with the Resistance Ring is just as viable as starting with the GTS, depending on what approach you want to take. But either way, you'll want to consider building these two structures on your Avenger before worrying about anything else.
Everything else on the list above is not as useful to rush as your first or second building. The Training Center is something you will definitely want to build -- but only after you've entered the mid-game and have build the Resistance Ring and GTS. If you build it any earlier, you won't have enough ability points or even enough soldiers of the appropriate rank to utilize the Training Center to its maximum potential.
Workshops and Laboratories are even less useful early on due to the low number of Scientists and Engineers. But with the Resistance Ring, recruiting Scientists, and Engineers becomes a lot easier.
Finally, you simply don't need to rush a power relay. You'll start out with plenty to get going on your campaign against ADVENT.
What To Build Later On in XCOM 2: WotC
After you have a few wins against ADVENT under your belt and you've researched a couple of technologies, the next two structures you build are going to be important: The Proving Grounds and the Infirmary.
I won't delve into a detailed explanation of why the Proving Grounds is an important build choice, but I will say that it's going to be a requirement for the skulljack -- so you need it to complete the main story.
Much like the Resistance Ring above, the Infirmary is a new structure in War of the Chosen that allows for faster healing. And it also lets you staff soldiers with negative traits so that they can lose one of those negative traits every five days. Staffing an Engineer in the Infirmary lets you heal wounded soldiers at twice the rate, which is a huge boon at certain points in the game. Essentially, building the Infirmary should be a priority because it's vital that your XCOM squadies are ready to fight.
Complete Build Order for XCOM 2: WotC
Like I said earlier, the 'best' build for your Avenger in War of the Chosen is one that aligns not only with your play style, but also with the game's mechanics.
You may have noticed my omission of support structures such as Power Relays and Workshops or Laboratories. That's because there isn't really any point in the game where you simply must build them. I've finished XCOM 2 many times without ever building some of these support structures. While you should opt to build Power Relays over Exposed Power Coils for maximum output on your Avenger, you should do this according to when you actually need additional power -- not any specific timetable.
Resistance Comms are also omitted here, as they're another structure that you should only build when you really need it.
With all that in mind, a finalized, optimum build order that works for most players is as follows:
- Resistance Ring
- Guerrilla Tactics School
- Infirmary
- Proving Grounds
- Training Center
- Psi Lab
- Shadow Chamber
XCOM is generally far less brittle, and far more devastating when you build the Avenger in this general order. You unlock the ability to send soldiers on covert actions early on -- allowing you to establish early access to the three resistance groups, their soldiers, and their abilities.
An early Infirmary build means you can staff an Engineer in the structure and cut the healing time for your XCOM soldiers in half, while opening up a staffing option that can remove their negative traits. An upgraded Infirmary allows you to create Hypervital modules, which removes any wounds or fatigue on a soldier for one mission so that you can make use of them. (Just remember that you can only use this once per soldier for the entire campaign.
Building the Proving Grounds is useful once you're in the early mid game so that you can construct the skull jack for the primary story mission -- and later on it's great for working on sparks and other extremely useful equipment.
Later on in the mid game, the Training Center is useful when you finally have enough ability points to utilize it and improve your soldiers. How to install ocarina cheat code manager mac.
And last but not least, the Psi Center and Shadow Chamber are useful toward the late game, and should be focused on last because their requirements bar you from constructing them earlier in the campaign.
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Xcom 2 Long War 2 Strategy
There you have it! That's the best build order for the Avenger that I've discovered in my time playing War of the Chosen. If you have any questions or build order suggestions of your own, leave them in the comments below! And be sure to check out the rest of our XCOM 2 guides for more tips and tricks that will help you through the WotC DLC.