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[UXLZ]

Is Long War procedural and the story is up to the player, or does it have an actual storyline that's been pre-set by the dev?

[RedKing]

Bit of both. There's an overall storyline progression but most of the missions are procedurally generated.

[crazysheep]

((probably better moving that to the XCOM thread, but eh, I'll bite. Long War is a mod for XCOM which doesn't actually change the storyline, but introduces a metric ton of shiny new things while retaining the original storyline of "aliens invade, you command humanity's last line of defence".))

[RAM]

Woo, I'm on the team. For a high combined value of death and glory!!! Or just hanging back and pew-pewing at things, either works...

[IronyOwl]

Oh wow. I just realized our team consists of two Gunners and a Rocketeer, Infantry, Sniper, and Medic. This whole mission is going to be nothing but carnage. Including the medic, because I don't think anybody on this team's got time to bleed.

[Darkening Kaos]

       We're gonna run out of air to fill with dakka.

[UXLZ]

Too Many Guns. Too Many Guns spoil the fun. Well, maybe.

'But sir, their bullets will block out the sun!'
'Then we shall fight in the s-*SPLAT*'
'Booom. Head shot.'

'Who would ever think to bring a knife to a gunfight? This plan is infallible.'
'People have thought of that before, sir. There's a good reason it never caught on.'
'Nonsense. Bring me all of my kitchen!'
'Very well sir...'
*shuffling(
'Ah, this will do nicely!' *picks up object*
'Sir, that's a butter knife. Made of wood.'

No idea why I wrote those. Anyway, good luck to the soldiers heading out on this dangerous mission.

[Powder Miner]

SPLOSION TIIIIME

[Mephansteras]

Spoiler: Sacred Gift (click to show/hide)

The squad exits the Sky Ranger onto a blasted highway. No sign of civilians, but we do spot a UN Soldier up ahead.


As we move up to speak with the soldier a pack of sectoids advances on our troops!


Ducking down behind an SUV raven speaks breifly with the soldier. It seems the VIP is pinned by aliens down in a collapsed section of the highway. We'll need to escort him back up and to the LZ.


Meanwhile, the rest of the squad starts fighting off the aliens. Kaos blasts one to bits first.


While Bruciare unloads half a clip from her SMG into another.


The last sectoid managed to stay ducked down enough to avoid being hit, and returns fire without hitting anyone in turn.


A new contact moves up to aid the sectoid. This alien is new. It looks...almost human, and is wearing a suit!? But that's clearly an alien weapon in its hand and it doesn't look friendly!


The squad opens fire on both of the aliens, but don't manage to land any hits. Haul keeps the new one suppressed since we don't know what it is capable of yet.


The aliens seem rather upset about that, and both fire at him to shut down the supression. Surprisingly, the suppressed alien manages to score a hit on him. Either amazing accuracy or luck, but either way we need that thing dead!



Raven pops out from behind the SUV to blow the head off the sectoid for us, but everyone else misses.


Fortunately for Kaos, the suited alien misses her as well.


And she makes a brave charge out from around the truck to get a clear shot on it!


With the aliens dealt with for the moment we take a little bit to reload. Raven patches up Haul and the squad moves closer, looking for the VIP.


Alien movement from ahead! We need to find the VIP, and fast!


The squad moves up to the edge of the collapsed section and catch sight of the VIP. Raven heads down make sure that he is well enough to move.


No sign of the additional aliens yet, but Van Doorne starts heading back to the LZ as quickly as he can. The squad prepares to cover his retreat while Haul escorts him back.


More of the suited aliens begin dropping down from above! Some sort of airlift from that alien craft, no doubt!


Raven quickly ices the first one.


And another drops down in its place!


While a second drops down on the other side of our troops in a clear flanking attempt.


It doesn't work out too well for the aliens.



Meanwhile, Haul has gotten Van Doorne back to the LZ!


We need to finish clearing out any alien units, so Raven scouts ahead and discovers more Sectoids lurking around some wrecked cars.


Space badly injures one of them and they scamper out of sight.


Raven takes a nasty hit while trying to catch sight of where they moved to and is forced to fall back.


Since we can't see them, Bruciare launches a rocket towards their last known position. No visible results, though.


Vilelmina bravely ventures forward to get eyes on the aliens. She barely dodges an attack as she gets into cover.


But with their position know, Bruciare lands a shredder rocket right on top of them!


The explosion killed one and flushed another two out of hiding that we hadn't seen yet.


Velhelmina guns one down and the squad advances on the alien position.


Where Bruciare finishes off with her SMG what her rocket started.


And Haul brutalizes the final alien in a hail of gunfire.




A few injuries and no promotions. Not as good as I'd hoped, but a solid mission regardless.


The rewards are solid, at least, and to our surprise and pleasure General Van Doorne is so impressed with XCOM that he decides to join us!

As the troops recover from the mission the egineers are hard at work finishing up our new power generator


We'll need to decide what to work towards next.


All of our aircraft are in fighting condition once again. It's nice to see the hanger full and ready for action!


Russia contacts us about trading them some weapon fragments for a skilled engineer. We have enough to spare, and more engineers are more than welcome!



With the extra pair of hands the new Satellite uplink is finished up just that much faster!


Not long afterwords we pick up the signature of an alien scout craft


Flash is ordered to take it down with extreme prejudice


Unfortunately, despite doing heavy damage to it the alien craft is just too fast for our interceptor to keep up with


A second interceptor is launched to try and cut it off, but the scout is just too fast. At least we scared it off from whatever mission it was on.



Germany follows Russia's lead in requesting alien weapon fragments from us. We agree to this request as well, but Dr. Vahlen warns us that we do need to keep a stockpile for our own research efforts. I'm not too concerned, however. I imagine we'll get pleny of opportunity to aqcuire more soon enough.


As we near the end of the month we take stock of our situation.



Of course, the Aliens weren't going to leave us alone for long! An abduction attempt in the United States stirs the base up in a hurry.


We prepare a squad to deal with the alien threat. Mostly rookies, since we still have soliders who haven't seen combat against the aliens yet.


And so, Operation Silent Vanguard beings...

[RAM]

Phew, I was worried that I was going to die with no noteworthy actions, but all's good now. Too bad about the lack of promotions...

[IronyOwl]

Curses. Still, 0 poisonings is a good start.

[UXLZ]

Good to see no one was killed.

[Darkening Kaos]

     "Hey!  It's a hippy liberal Alium.  Have a face full of bullets!  And, have a nice day"

[Mephansteras]

Operation Silent Vanguard


The troops return, exhausted and somewhat shaken. The mission was rougher than any previous mission. The aliens showed improved tactics, with two squads sticking together at all times. In addition, the sectoids seem to be sending more and more psionic users against us. Time and again they pinned the troops down using psionic attacks to shake their will or damage the mind. By the end of the mission even point blank shots were far from a sure thing, and it took a concentrated effort by the soldiers to win. And even with that, we suffered our first KIA of the war. I fear it will be far from our last.







The next few days are uneventful. We finish up construction of the Satellites, Scopes, and Marksman Scope.

We also trade in a few more weapon fragments for Engineers. This time to China.



Finally, as we reach the end of the month, we are faced with a decision. Where do we put our 2 Satellites?.

We could:
  Put them over North America to start working towards the Air War bonus, which would help pay for the second fleet of Interceptor's we'll need if we expand out of Africa
  Put them over South America to gain the Power bonus, which would make our Steam generator considerably cheaper to build and maintain
  Put them over the rest of Africa to add to our income without needing to acquire any more Interceptors.







Silent Vanguard was such a pain! My computer crashed once and the game crashed twice trying to play this mission. Which was also brutal and quite difficult. Also, the poor scout was apparently doomed. She died in every playthrough of that mission. Pity, too, as she was quite effective against the aliens. Up until the end, where she missed a shot against a flanked sectoid who turned around and blasted her face off through cover.

I'm just glad it's over.

[RAM]

I vote South America.