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[PanH]

So, I've started a Long war game (mainly because I read what you guys wrote in this thread  ). I never finished my vanilla game, but I decided to go for it nonetheless. It's pretty fun for now, I lost India after 3 days, but completed 3 missions without a death, and shot down 2 UFOs, so things are good for now (I'm playing Normal difficulty).

Edit : also, anyone remembers the song that was posted in this thread about xcom ? Can't find it. It went something like "Xcom, xcom, oh we're xcom, shooting aliens ... " or something like that

You're looking for this

Thank you ! Bookmarking as well.

[Sirus]

Bookmarked.

Last night I played the XCOM HQ Invasion for the first time, and good lord was it brutal. 14 Sectoids, a Sectoid Commander, 2 Mutons, 3 Cyberdisks, 3 Drones, and 6 Mechtoids. Two of the Mechtoids were in the first wave that dropped from the ceiling directly into the starting room, the rest showed up later on. I lost two operatives and all of the Base Security troops, and was down to nothing but snipers by the end of it.

[Sheb]

Which difficulty do you play on? I got quite a few losses in Base HQ attack too, but that's because my top-ranked soldiers were not equipped with stuff, and fighting with ballistic weapons is not fun.

[Sirus]

Normal difficulty .__.

[Shadowlord]

Having them equipped with proper armor and weapons makes a huge difference. All but one of my officers who got sent in were fully equipped, and I only lost one officer and the security personnel. Notably the one who lacked equipment survived since that one showed up last - the one who died was one of the first three repelling the initial attack, and was in low-cover and got flanked by a heavy unit (a sectopod, I think).

[Sirus]

All of the initial soldiers were equipped with laser weapons and carapace armor. The problem is that every single reinforcing soldier was a sniper, and I only had the one laser sniper rifle. I lost my second-best support (the best was in the medbay) and what was at the time my only assault.

At least everyone was wearing carapace armor. Both of my losses were to the final wave of enemies, which consisted of two mechtoids, a cyberdisk, a few sectoids, and the sectoid commander, which could simultaneously mind-control one of my soldiers and provide a shield to the mechtoids. We simply couldn't damage the mechtoids quickly enough to save the dead, especially not with security personnel panicking every couple of turns.

[Shadowlord]

Most of my top six troops were heavies at the time.

[Sharp]

FML, same thing which happened to me in Vanilla happened in Long War, 4 pods all hanging out by each other in one part of the map right next to the starting zone, except it wasn't all sectoids like last time but 6 seekers, 3 sectoids and a muton and 2 floaters....

I'm pretty sure im going to have to sacrifice the SHIV but all the seekers could strangle the rest of my troops.... ugh I'm going to let future Sharp deal with that later, at least this time I have rockets.

[PanH]

FML, same thing which happened to me in Vanilla happened in Long War, 4 pods all hanging out by each other in one part of the map right next to the starting zone, except it wasn't all sectoids like last time but 6 seekers, 3 sectoids and a muton and 2 floaters....

I'm pretty sure im going to have to sacrifice the SHIV but all the seekers could strangle the rest of my troops.... ugh I'm going to let future Sharp deal with that later, at least this time I have rockets.

In Long War, just use Battle Scanner against Seekers. You can kill a few before they went in Stealth mode, and when they do, the battle scanner will make them visible again.

[Sharp]

I know, but it's going to be hard to win this fight let alone the mission, there is another pod on the map unless the teleport glitch is still there but this is a lot of firepower im facing, I think my rocketeer has HEAT ammo though but I'm not sure.

Seekers don't strangle if they aren't stealthed do they? Might be able to buy me some time but still going to be hard, just have to hope my rockets don't scatter.

[EnigmaticHat]

During my first Base Assault one of my characters was a mission reward support I never brought on a mission, who thus had two grenades and a ballistic rifle.  With this rifle suppressed a Mechtoid at close range.  It didn't move, or shoot twice.  No, it overwatched.  Two turns in a row.

[Jacob/Lee]

Goddammit Long War. I can handle supply ships that have both a four-member Seeker and four-member Chryssalid team in the same room triggered at the same time. I can handle fighting the massive Sectoid swarms that happen because two squads stack on the same spawn point. I can handle all the Thin Men under the sun. But this is just ridiculous.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[umiman]

Move all your guys one tile back so they lose vision of the enemy but can still cover the door.

The alien AI will then go through the door in order to chase you, but they can only pass through one at a time. Also, because they are unable to see you, more than likely they'll waste both their movement options just to run up to you like morons. Kill them one at a time. If for some reason you can't handle this, retreat to a stronger position and lure them one by one to it.

If for some other reason you are out of movement points, LOLOLOLOL2BADFORYOULRN2PLAYNUB.

I'm fairly certain this is one of those Long War "you're not supposed to win this yet!" missions unless you're an XCOM master like my glorious self.

[crazysheep]

So I caved and grabbed LW 14f. Since this sounds like a total conversion, what should I look out for that's significantly different to vanilla EW? (besides the many, many points raised in this thread re: fatigue)

[i2amroy]

So I caved and grabbed LW 14f. Since this sounds like a total conversion, what should I look out for that's significantly different to vanilla EW? (besides the many, many points raised in this thread re: fatigue)

A few things:
1) Long war will, at times, throw missions that are virtually impossible to beat. These are the missions that you will want to turn down or retreat from, and learning when you need to perform a tactical retreat is an important part of the mod. Some missions just aren't going to be able to be won until you are much more developed.
2) Meld, while still fairly important, isn't necessarily a "you must grab the canisters" thing. If they are grabbable then grab them, but don't put yourself in a bad situation trying to get one. Long War is much less forgiving than default and you can easily get wiped, which can severely hurt you in the long run as well. Meld will show up just passively from gathering corpses in long war, and the farther behind you fall the more the canisters you do grab will contain, so don't sacrifice the mission for the meld.
3) All the SHIV's. Use them, love them, upgrade them. They are very, very useful when addressing fatigue problems.

So Brazil just got hit by a terror mission (and will probably end up leaving XCOM unless I get an abduction or something to drop the panic there). I start the mission, take a few turns, then trigger every single enemy on the map simultaneously. The three chryssalids trigger my close combat specialists and are insta-wiped, but the remaining forces consist of 2 drones, a Cyberdisc (when I forgot to bring HEAT ammo), some 8 floaters, 2 mutons, and a muton berserker. The next turn the floaters deal a bit of damage, and the berserker charges in and instakills my sniper (he was a gift from Brazil in exchange for a floater prisoner) through the cover, causing my lead assault troop to panic while she's standing in the (now coverless) area.

Fully expecting a wipe at this point (heck, the cyberdisc alone could do it at that point) I annihilate the berserker, when the weirdest thing happens. All of the aliens just sort of... stop . The only one that is doing anything is the cyberdisc, which is still going on overwatch every turn (but doesn't have covering fire). They aren't even shooting at my coverless assault troop. Not wanting to ruin a good thing, none of my guys move except for my two troops with laser rifles, who proceed to take the next 25 or so turns to kill every single enemy while they just stood there, not even on overwatch, shooting gallery style. I like to think that the Brazilian sniper sacrificed himself to buy a miracle from his country.