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[GlyphGryph]

So, working on long war team strats. (currently on fishing village mission, going well so far and... 3 zombies and 9 chrysalids dead? Will finishs it tonight probably, but while I am away from the comp...)

There seem to be lots of fun less-than-obvious strategies to pull here.

Strat one "Get Over Here"
Gunner - Suppression, Flush, Shredder, Danger zone, Ready For Anything Bring em On, Sentinel
Scout - Lightning Reflexes, Holo Targeting, Flush,  Ranger, Smoke and Mirrors Lock And Load, Vital Point Targeting
Infantry - Light em Up, executioner,  opportunist, aggression, Sharpshooter, Sentinel, Vital Point Targeting
2x Assault - Run And Gun, Close Combat Specialist,  Aggression, Close Encounters, Ranger, Sprinter
Scout - Lighting Reflexes, Flush, Lone Wolf, Ranger, Aggression, Squad Sight, In the Zone

So this team is built around the wonderful and versatile ability "Flush", which is a super-accurate  attack the forces the enemy to move out of cover, and all the ways to abuse it.

First up, and the obvious easy bit, is the one-two punch of a gunner with Flush, Shredder,  and Ready for Anything. This allows you to get in a super accurate hit followed by a full attack against an enemy out of cover. Getting them to sentinel means you get TWO attacks. Obviously you want to give this guy an LMG for maximum damage and good suppression options.

Next up you have a pair of assaults tailor made to wreck the heads of flushed enemies. Move them in, get your free attacks, flush the enemies that survive to get MORE free attacks, potentially against several enemies since you have plenty of people on your team to flush. If the enemy avoids getting wrecked, its probably because thhey fell back, leaving your pushed up assaults relatively safe.

Infantry is a geat flush supporter. Launch an attack against whoeve, maybe finish off the first guy you flushed, then drop into overwatch, and get two high crit chance high damage reaction attacks. Three shots in around, with a very high chance to crit? Yes, pkease.

You have two scouts here - one is probably the one you'll lead flushing with, and the other is there to clean up the mess. Remeber flush is super accurate! Great for picking off low health enemies, and aimed with a marksman's rifle they should be well equipped to clean.

Throw a Shiv in there with HEAT ammo to provide a convenient target and to help finish off shredded robots right quick (flush pretty much guarantees the shred is successful), and you're golden.

[TherosPherae]

I'm more interested in the lil' fishing village, myself. That gotta be fun.

It is, especially if you get it before you unlock lasers. It was actually the only mission I've savescummed on more than once thus far just because the Chrysallids just kept pulling off stupid line of sight and/or movement bullshit.

[GlyphGryph]

I ended up reloading that mission a couple times because of BUGS. Just went to black screen and bleeeeh.

As long as you're willing to fall back and let the chrysalids waste their moves getting close, you should be perfectly fine - at least on normal, there's only 2 pods on the map, and the only chrysalids that are particularly dangerous, even with ballistics (assuming you planned ahead and brought some decent dudes with battle rifles) are the two pod leaders.

[Skyrunner]

Personally that mission wasn't *too* difficult, but it was the most fun I had. I used pure ballistics with 2 shotgun assaults, 1 squadsight sniper, 1 support and 2 heavies. The support basically made a near-suicide dash to the button while the rest of the squad overwatched the whale. But I nearly lost a member because random chryssalids appearing from pods. >_> I also was too careful when retreating and made it to the skyranger with 1 turn left.

[varnish]

So, speaking of that mission, is it a thing with Long War to use mission maps like that for random missions? Because I got a terror mission in Argentina that was in the fishing village map. Which ended up being intensely frustrating, because all the civilians were clustered in the boat area, and it even had the triggered chrysalids coming out.

I finished it, somehow (Lost four out of my six people, and most of the civilians) but man, was it brutal.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, that's a thing for Long War, though the mission-special enemies sounds like a glitch.

[varnish]

Thought so. I didn't really mind the map, but having even more chrysalids pop out just as I was getting near to the ship... I almost gave up there.

On the other hand, having a soldier run up next to a chrysalid and blast it in the face with a shotgun may not be the wisest thing, but it is incredibly satisfying.

[BFEL]

Yeah, I'll be perfectly honest, I've revised my position on Long War a bit. I LOVE the tweaks to the strategic aspects, It just makes so much sense for an XCOM game to have missions that you know damn well you shouldn't go on because they are out of your league, and it's also amazing what they did with the fighters to make it less "always send fighter= always win air battle"

However, I have found that the vast majority of the tweaks to the tactical gameplay are at best unneeded and at worst outright idiotic. Perhaps I'm just not the best player, but I feel that its a bit much to have to agonize over every single move and/or savescum every turn just to deal with a pack of drones for fuck sake.

I liked the changes they made to enemies, specifically the Outsiders, as they needed a boost and boy did they provide it, but turning off the ai cheating for the player and generally getting rid of an easy mode is starting to look like a bad move from my perspective. After a while the game just stopped being fun because I felt like I had to play it absolutely perfect for every move or I would lose the game before I even get lasers.

I haven't gotten anyone past...Lance Corporal I believe? Level 3 basically, because I simply can't deal with the swarms of enemies moving to flank me and thus get free criticals. And naturally while my dudes are totally precious and invaluable the enemies have reserves and I've actually seen them use the strategy of "run straight behind your point man for free flank crit with absolutely no care that they'll get destroyed next round" and that is just...incredibly frustrating.

[GlyphGryph]

I think it sounds like part of your problem is that you are still playing like vanilla EU, and its punishing you for it. Similiar to how adopting a sat rush/do everything attitude will punish you on the geoscape, using vanilla strategiess willl punish you in the ground game.

First off, most important, retreat! Just like the strategy game, the ground game now has many situations where you dont want to engage until you are prepared - the enemy AI is a lot more aggressive, so use that to fall back, pull them forward out of their cover. Make them close until you are ready. As you pull back, set up flanks in uncovered territory safely instead of risking triggering more pods.

Also, easy mode is an option in the second wave menu called "Cinematic" - enable that if you are still having trouble.

[Lightningfalcon]

Not that I know of.  If possibly try to avoid putting up satellites until the very end of the month, as put them up in countries that you are about to lose. 

[Sonlirain]

You can bring back countries in Long War by attackign bases. However in vanilla and EW... nope it's dead Jim.

[Vactor]

So enemy within is on sale this weekend on steam, anyone have any thoughts on its value at $10?

[Flying Dice]

I think it sounds like part of your problem is that you are still playing like vanilla EU, and its punishing you for it. Similiar to how adopting a sat rush/do everything attitude will punish you on the geoscape, using vanilla strategiess willl punish you in the ground game.

First off, most important, retreat! Just like the strategy game, the ground game now has many situations where you dont want to engage until you are prepared - the enemy AI is a lot more aggressive, so use that to fall back, pull them forward out of their cover. Make them close until you are ready. As you pull back, set up flanks in uncovered territory safely instead of risking triggering more pods.

Also, easy mode is an option in the second wave menu called "Cinematic" - enable that if you are still having trouble.

This basically sums up my thoughts on the matter. Playing Long War like vanilla gets troopers killed in the tactical game. Because, y'know, it's actually moderately tactical, and because it doesn't automatically become EZwins once you hit lasers.

Moreover, if you play the strategic game like vanilla, you're going to lose hard. Spamming satellites is less important, and you need to have a large roster of trained soldiers rather than a single A-team and a mediocre B-team.

And yes, if you want easymode, go for Cinematic, which drastically increases the chance to hit for everything you field.

[GlyphGryph]

So enemy within is on sale this weekend on steam, anyone have any thoughts on its value at $10?

Worth it for Long War alone.

[WillowLuman]

Worth it for vanilla EW alone. LW is just an unimaginably large bonus.