Octopus Overlords

TheMix wrote: ↑Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:11 am I used a timer mod. It got rid of most of them (I think), and increased the number of turns on the few/handful it couldn't get rid of (I think). So, thankfully, that wasn't an annoyance that I ever had to deal with. The only ones it couldn't help with were where they were trying to destroy the transmitter. I still had to rush forward to engage on those. Hmmm.... I wonder if there is a mod that significantly ups the health of the transmitters so that you can slow down a bit...

Do you know what it's called? I searched for "timer" in WotC and came up empty.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Thu Jan 17, 2019 5:14 pm https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =616964599

Yup. That's the one I used. I don't have the expansion, though, so I had to use the base version.

They have another one..............."mission timer tweeks" if that's more your style.

"Timer Tweaks" is the one I was looking for. I don't want to eliminate them entirely, just add extra turns. Ahh, just found it.

Based on recommendations earlier in this thread, I'm playing the DLC missions first. I don't think I'm going to get any gold medals, and they're mainly whetting my appetite for the full game...but they also serve as a valuable re-learning tutorial.

Holy hell, these missions got hard. I comfortably got the silver for the first campaign, but after restarting the first two missions in the second one the bronze looks far away. This is why I don't play ironman.

Damn. I'm about to lose a game on veteran. That hasn't happened since the first game I played. I must have a really long streak of bad luck in this game.

My grenadier, even with a hit chance of 90%, misses most of the time. I had no access to facilities to take out early in the game and got to the countdown timer, and never got a reduce avatar progress mission as a covert option. I was able to take out a facility on the last day. I've had more missions with grave injuries than I've ever had before, so it is taking longer to get promotions for team members.

I just survived a chosen attacking the ship, but 2 gatekeepers getting activated at the same time and my grenadier not being able to hit the broad side of a barn means I could not shred their armor which opened me up to too many counterattacks. So I won the mission but my whole team is injured. I'm down to rookies for a week or more.

I'm pressing ahead but still have two chosen to take out and I can't get my team healed. may be time to skip some missions....just when I thought I had mastered the veteran difficulty after zero deaths last game..I get this anomaly.

Lassr wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:02 pm Damn. I'm about to lose a game on veteran. That hasn't happened since the first game I played. I must have a really long streak of bad luck in this game.

My grenadier, even with a hit chance of 90%, misses most of the time. I had no access to facilities to take out early in the game and got to the countdown timer, and never got a reduce avatar progress mission as a covert option. I was able to take out a facility on the last day. I've had more missions with grave injuries than I've ever had before, so it is taking longer to get promotions for team members.

I just survived a chosen attacking the ship, but 2 gatekeepers getting activated at the same time and my grenadier not being able to hit the broad side of a barn means I could not shred their armor which opened me up to too many counterattacks. So I won the mission but my whole team is injured. I'm down to rookies for a week or more.

I'm pressing ahead but still have two chosen to take out and I can't get my team healed. may be time to skip some missions....just when I thought I had mastered the veteran difficulty after zero deaths last game..I get this anomaly.

I won it. Lost 24 soldiers in the process. Wow, most I have ever lost but that was from having to use so many rookies. I only lost one mission though.

Lassr wrote: ↑Mon Jan 21, 2019 4:43 pm

Lassr wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:02 pm Damn. I'm about to lose a game on veteran.

I won it. Lost 24 soldiers in the process. Wow, most I have ever lost but that was from having to use so many rookies. I only lost one mission though.

Nice work!

I think the next time I get into this, I'm going to try hunting for the Ironman achievement.

My grenadier may have suffered a bug. When I attached a regular scope and then reattached the superior scope his hit percentage went up. It's like it wasn't recognizing the superior scope the first time.

I played the first 7 mission story. Got the silver medal. About 20K short of the gold. I think I needed to save more civilians to get the gold but could not get to them all in time.

Paingod wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:19 am

Lassr wrote: ↑Mon Jan 21, 2019 4:43 pm

Lassr wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:02 pm Damn. I'm about to lose a game on veteran.

I won it. Lost 24 soldiers in the process. Wow, most I have ever lost but that was from having to use so many rookies. I only lost one mission though.

Nice work!

Nice save!!

That was a really good expansion.

I killed the third Chosen tonight. With 12 colonels and all of the Chosen weapons, and only 2 pips on the avatar counter, the rest of the game will be a cakewalk. I think I'm going to quit here. I've already played the vanilla boss level four times, and a lot of the fun goes out of it when you can't level up anymore. Even though I'm ordinarily a compulsive completionist, I don't want to spend more hours riding the same old rails to a foregone conclusion (I assume the standard script takes over after the Chosen are all vanquished).

When they finally get around to Xcom 3, I hope they'll include two or three boss level variations. Even if there's still only one win script, some randomization would greatly improve replayability. When I know exactly how the game proceeds from here I don't have any reason to slog it out.

If Xcom3 doesn't appear in the next year or so, I might play WotC again at higher difficulty. It's just that good.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 3:02 am That was a really good expansion.

I killed the third Chosen tonight. With 12 colonels and all of the Chosen weapons, and only 2 pips on the avatar counter, the rest of the game will be a cakewalk. I think I'm going to quit here. I've already played the vanilla boss level four times, and a lot of the fun goes out of it when you can't level up anymore. Even though I'm ordinarily a compulsive completionist, I don't want to spend more hours riding the same old rails to a foregone conclusion (I assume the standard script takes over after the Chosen are all vanquished).

When they finally get around to Xcom 3, I hope they'll include two or three boss level variations. Even if there's still only one win script, some randomization would greatly improve replayability. When I know exactly how the game proceeds from here I don't have any reason to slog it out.

If Xcom3 doesn't appear in the next year or so, I might play WotC again at higher difficulty. It's just that good.

Great point, the game could of had a lot more replayability with multiple bosses/endings.

I think you should play the final level at least one time with the Chosen weapons. Just to feel OP.

I might finish it out of sheer inertia, rather than install and start something else. Like I said, I'm compulsive that way. But it really felt like Game Over when I killed the last Chosen.

I wish they'd saved some of that chosen stuff for the end game. Last time I went through it, I'd killed all the chosen and rulers and such, and then still had several in-game months of effortlessly demolishing the enemy with all the fancy guns and armor. On the one hand, it's nice to be able to steamroll some aliens, but, on the other hand, it gets a little boring too.

I still can't deal with "Long War", though. It's just, too... long.

You can leave the Chosen alive and include them in the final mission for variety. I had to do that in my fast game for the achievement. I think I only took one of them out before the final mission.

After cruising through a few easy game i have now run into another doozie of a game. I have 4 soldiers captured! 3 in one mission, they could not hit the broad side of a barn and led to 2 bleeding out (luckily I had the perk of bleed out instead of dying) and 1 mind controlled. I could attempt to save some as I rescued the VIP at the risk of more bleeding out or let them be captured but live to be saved later. So I let them be captured, and then my covert mission the next day resulted in a captured soldier. 4 of my higher ranked players gone.

I think that is why XCOM is still my favorite game, no matter how good you get, it occasionally throws you a change up that kicks your butt.

I have had missions where I rescued one of my captured soldiers.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2019 4:16 pm I have had missions where I rescued one of my captured soldiers.

I just rescued one. 3 to go.

Wait, what's this? New life in an old thread? Yup!

XCOM 2’s massive The Long War of the Chosen mod is nearly done

A huge community modding project for turn-based strategy game XCOM 2 is almost complete. XCOM 2: The Long War of the Chosen is a complete overhaul of both the base XCOM 2 game and the popular Long War 2 mod, and it incorporates the new mechanics introduced in the War of the Chosen expansion.

And it's done! From PC Gamer: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen gets its very own Long War overhaul

In 2017 we described the Long War 2 as "a must-play reinvention of XCOM 2" that changes up the brilliant turn-based strategy game in ways that both slow and deepen the campaign against the alien occupation of Earth. As the title suggests, it was a followup to the Long War, an also-excellent mod for the 2012 XCOM: Enemy Unknown. And now the sequel has a sequel, as Long War of the Chosen, a port of the Long War 2 mod for the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen expansion, is live on Steam.

That's right, there is a Steam Workshop page for it, called Long War of the Chosen. Pay attention to the "Getting Started" second for additional information and another mod that might be needed.

And I have two weeks off...

Installation is really easy. When you subscribe the main mod a window appears listing, with links, the dependent mods. Clicking each link brings up another window with the mod to be subscribed, or dependencies for that mod. It all works very nicely.

OK, first of all, I'm going to use the abbreviation LWOTC (Long War of the Chosen) to save my sanity. I've also updated the Subject line of this post so folks who jump in will know I'm talking about the Long War Mod to WOTC. If there is enough interest I might start a new thread. By the way, the last time I played XCOM2:WOTC was September 2017, so I might be a little rusty

I installed the mods and started the game and played a while, but it was the old WOTC. I restarted and this time got the right starting screen, which looks like this:


Down at the bottom left the "New Game" button will be replaced with "Long War (LWOTC)". I also got that red error message on the bottom right, about not having X2WOTCCommunityHighlander installed. I do have it installed, but it is the version the mod installer asked for, so I guess that's OK. That screenshot I posed was the latest of the 3319 screenshots I've taking in XCOM2 according to Steam

I've only played the start default battle, which gives you eight troopers with the object of eliminating the enemy soldiers on the map. Even though I haven't played for four years, I picked it up quickly. Still, I'm playing on Easy right now, since I'm expecting to make a mess of things at first... and later too

Thanks, and love this game. I downloaded all the mods today, and will try it out soon. Have some time off coming up, so will play this then.

Speaking of that red error message, turns out that there is a plug-in for the Highlander mod that needs(?) to be installed if you have the DLC Alien Hunters installed. The plug-in is [WOTC] Alien Hunters Community Highlander v1.23.1. Note that if you do not have Alien Hunters installed, do not install this mod as it could break things. Of course I ran LWOTC without the plug-in, and then with the plug-in, and everything seemed the same

I found Long War for both Xcom 1 & 2 to have too much of everything. Just not my cup of tea.

Installed and ready to go, thanks! As soon as I need a break from Halo, I’ll start a new campaign.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 7:26 pm I found Long War for both Xcom 1 & 2 to have too much of everything. Just not my cup of tea.

In the interval since I last played a Long War mod, it does seem that I'm not as interested in such a big challenge as I used to be, but I'm giving it a try. And I'm sticking with the Rookie difficulty.

Oops, a rookie killed on his first mission... by another rookie

And my first attempt goes down in flames. Because of a bug. I just wish I'd stopped earlier. So now I have to start again. At least I learned a few things that might come in handy.

It's been a few years, and I thought I'd look at this one last time, just because I loved the first game so much. So I have to ask: does anyone know of a mod that changes the core gameplay to make it more like XCOM: EU/EW? IE - something that makes it into a tactical game instead of XCOM Souls?

Sorry, I don't.

I just go back and forth between the two! Play EW. Play 2. Play EW. Play 2. Play EW. Play 2,

And since you lost me at "XCOM Souls", I don't have an answer. I know you've explained it before, but it simply wasn't something I even noticed. I thought it was fine as a tactical game.

TheMix wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 10:21 am And since you lost me at "XCOM Souls", I don't have an answer. I know you've explained it before, but it simply wasn't something I even noticed. I thought it was fine as a tactical game.

XCOM Souls: It involves either failing and reloading repeatedly, or going into each fight with full knowledge of what to expect. I like thinking on my feet. I don't like replaying something over and over until I figure out which trick the developers want me to use.

Tactical: I found it to be more puzzle game than tactical game, mostly because most tactics wouldn't work most of the time. Sniper on overwatch? Nope - sniper pulled out of his nest and into close combat. Lanes of fire? Nope - enemies teleport behind you. Good tactical positioning? Nope - gas clouds on all the cover. It felt like I was being punished for using good tactics. It was more puzzle like. A little like the Brothers in Arms series - it had the trappings of being a tactical game, but it was more about implementing the choices that the developers intended than actually planning and adapting as you went (which is how XCOM 1 played.)

It wasn't a bad game, and I'm not criticizing it, it's just an entirely different sort of game than the first one. Given how busy the modding scene is, I was hoping that someone knew of a mod that would make it (to me) a fun game.

See... that's not my recollection.

From the Long War game I played fairly recently, I don't think I remember a single time where my sniper had to engage in close combat. They never moved from their "nests" until I moved them.

I do get the annoyance at the teleporters, but I didn't have too much trouble with them. I don't remember them appearing behind me. Or, if they did, I was ready for them.

And I don't even remember gas clouds being an issue at all.

However, on the other side of the coin, I don't remember XCOM: EU/EW at all. So it's not like I have anything to compare XCOM 2 with.

Oh... one thing that LWotC has going for it... stealthed Ninjas!

TheMix wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 10:41 am See... that's not my recollection.

From the Long War game I played fairly recently,

I wasn't talking about Long War. This was a regular XCOM 2 thread before the title change (and that's the problem with title changes that 'reassign' a thread.)

Long war is... long. And I think it may have memory issues.

But did I mention ninjas?

Oh, man. I just remembered one thing that drove me crazy with XCOM: EU/EW... melee. The better your chance to hit, the more you were guaranteed to miss. Did they ever fix that? Talk about frustration. Running up to an enemy with a 99% chance to hit and then whiffing? I think I ended up simply never using melee attacks.