XCOM 2 (PC)

[Happenstance]

 

Firaxis is working on a new XCOM game that's currently slated for PC only, and it's due out this November.

 

Simply called XCOM 2, it's the sequel to the warmly received XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which came out in 2012 and was itself a reboot of Julian Gollop's much-loved turn-based strategy classic.

 

XCOM 2 takes place 20 years on from its predecessor, at a time when aliens have established rule on Earth which must be broken by your team of specialists. Procedural levels and mod support are in, though for more substantial details we'll have to wait until E3.

 

"The feedback from the passionate XCOM community played an important role in the development of XCOM 2, driving us to push the visual, gameplay and replayability boundaries of what a strategy game can be," the lovely Jake Solomon said in the official blurb.

 

There's no word on console versions, although Feral Interactive is confirmed to also be working on Linux and Mac ports of XCOM 2.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-01-xcom-2-announced-for-pc-this-november

 

 

Really looking forward to this, I loved the last XCOM game.

[gaggle64]

It amuses me how the alien occupation looks like a shinier more organized version of the world we have now and XCOM seems to be an insane terrorist group.

[Sméagol]

Yeah, I thought we had a thread.. This is the first non-indie game I've bought close to launch in a long time.

 

First of all, I'm not playing Iron man mode. Yeah, boo hiss etc. haha. You don't get the option for iron man mode when you play the tutorial, and I wanted to play the tutorial because I want to see all of the game (it contains some story). I was expecting the option to turn up after the tutorial, but I didn't know when it ended, and apparently, it never does. Since I already had trouble with the 2nd tutorial mission, I decided to just keep playing with saves, and start a proper iron man mode after this learning experience.. I was adamant at playing iron man mode in the previous game, which is why I never finished it (yet), but X-com 2 seems to be harder.. Concealment is a nice new feature which makes things a bit easier, but then it throws a lot at you to over compensate, haha. The first mission in the previous game had like 4 or 6 sectoids or something? In pairs of 2? Here, the first mission thows several advent soldiers at you if you're not careful, plus a mind controlling sectoid..

 

Anyway, what are your favourite tactics? Moments? Classes?

 

- One tip I got was that mimic beacons are great. Mimic beacons are indeed great.. I now bring three along.

- I love superior repeaters for classes that don't really require more useful (not dependent on chance) weapon upgrades.. I love executing sectopods at full health. My best ranger and my 2 specialists have repeaters.

- My blademaster ranger is underwhelming.. It sounded cool, but I don't really see the point. My phantom is my hero on the other hand, I should train more.

- Can't decide between auto-loaders or expended magazines for my snipers.. Expended magazine is great with kill zone, but free reloads are handy in generall.

- Advanced warfare center is great, build one as soon as possible (before any other buildings). I built it a bit late, so I don't have many bonus perks, but the ones I got work wonders. Cover fire overwatch on one of my snipers, and chain shot on one of my specialists..

 

My current squad is a phantom ranger, a heavy gunner grenadier, 2 sniper sharpshooters, and 2 medical support specialists, although one of them is equipped to deal with hacking, the other is the actual medic. I'm considering retraining the hacker to choose some of the other hacking abilities, especially the one that lets you hack units. I should probably use grenades more though.. Didn't use them much last game, don't use them much now, though I have a grenadier ready specialised in demolition. It is funny to blow up a building and see enemies fall to their death. I probably should also try out the gunslinger, I heard great things about it.

 

Anyone up for a N-europe character pool by the way? I recreated myself in the game (as far as the options allow).. Might be fun to have a bunch of N-europe people on my ship (the few of you playing this).

 

 

Edit:

Fun fact: the cover is a nightmare for trypophobists. Personally, I love the cover.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Sméagol

[Shorty]

I won't play Iron Man because frankly the skewed percentages on the higher difficulties would just lead to constant unjust, unfair deaths that would make the game no fun for me. The number of times I miss at 70-80% is very frustrating.

 

Also find it very annoying when you're trying to pass even just a couple of days to heal up some teammates and you're constantly thrown into unskippable missions. I've had one squad member wounded for so long I must've been forced on ten missions while waiting for them to heal. I'm constantly being bugged to bring down the avatar score but I need supplies, try and get supplies and I get attacked. It's manic and occasionally frustrating.

 

Those aren't really negatives though - just part of the challenge. It's a fantastic game, worthy successor (to the last game if not the originals). All the different archetypes and upgrades have their place and are a tonne of fun to mix up.

 

I focus on snipers mostly, they're very satisfying to use and get great perks, looking forward to levelling them up to that awesome degree so they never miss and you can used Deadshot all the time.

 

I've installed a mod called "Stop wasting my time", it's pretty good, just speeds things up and cuts out random delays.

 

Re your edit: Tryphophobia type images bother me a lot, but the cover doesn't in the slightest.

[Sméagol]

Crap, they nerfed mimic beacons.

 

I hacked one of those security scanner things once.. Got to hack a sectopod as a reward .

[Sméagol]

Finished this yesterday on normal iron man after various attempts (never finished the first game).

 

Must say I spoiled myself and already knew roughly what to expect in the final mission, otherwise things could've been different (those avatars are tough.. and harder than the single avatar you encounter earlier in the game).

 

I also bought all the dlc during the last steam sale. Not sure if the price was worth it (probably with a better discount), but had fun with it regardless. The weapons are good, the 3 rulers are fun to battle (though I can imagine them being frustrating on timed missions), the armors are great.. Well 2 out of 3 look ridiculous, but functionality-wise they're great. The 2 story missions are also fun. It's only the cosmetic dlc that's disappointing. It's not much content, so that's why I'm not sure if it's worth it, but what you get is generally good.

 

Rulers specific:

Yeah they're fun to fight. I guess I was incredibly lucky, and they didn't mess up my timed missions much. The first viper king is actually pretty doable early game, I had an iron man game where I first enabled the dlc, and tried the mission. Got a scare there where it knocked out Bradford (who comes along with you on the mission), but he wasn't killed. Took me 3 missions to kill him I believe (the rulers have a large amount of health, but they flee if you damage them enough, then come back in another mission. But they keep their current healthpoints). Unfortunately even after succesfully dispatching the first ruler I had an unfortunate early avenger defense mission, where things got bad.. Then the game crashed and the save was simply nowhere to be found. So another restart.

 

Then in my last iron man game, I waited until late-game before I started doing the dlc missions.

Both the ruler story mission and the shen story mission actually are too easy when doing late-game, they fit better in early-game, were it not for the fact that I wouldn't want the other rulers that early during the game in certain side miisons (anything with a timer). But since I did them late game, and I apparently got lucky, I never had a problem with them. I actually executed the first 2 rulers during the first encounter (same soldier with an advanced repeater). That's simultaneously satisfying and disappointing, but made sure they wouldn't bother me anymore and gave me access to their armors. Only the Archon ruler gave me a little trouble, but I got him in the end. I was doing very well against that Berserker ruler, before I executed him anyway.. It was on a retaliation mission, which are pretty good missions for rulers.. With scanning protocol and 4 battlescanners, I was already aware of its existence and its locaitons, so he never stood a chance anyway. He managed to stun one soldier with a melee attack before he got executed, though I've done some considerable damage already at that point.

 

Apart from their looks, I love the ruler armours. Well, the Archon armour actually looks pretty fucking cool, but that's the only one that actually looks like an armour and not some animal skin. I already had an A-team of soldiers, but decided at that point (again, it was late-game) to train several extra soldiers I didn't have at that point, equipped with the dlc stuff. I suspect they're not the most usual builds, but I had fun with:

 

- A swordmaster ranger using the berserker armour and axes.

- A gunslinger sharpshooter using the viper armour and that shadow gun.

- A psi operative using the archon armour and boltcaster.

- I also trained a Spark.

 

Some people find the Spark disappointing, and although I can see that, I loved it just for the rainmaker ability.. I actually took one on the final mission with me, and I got an achievement for gunning down an avatar with a Spark.

 

I've come to appreciate demolition expert grenadiers.. I never used them much before, but I do now. I generally used the heavy gunners more. I'm also more adamant at using hacker specialists, the scanning protocol became my default opening move, and hacking MECs is always great. Plus the little rewards you can get from towers, is hard to pass up.

When I started playing Xcom 2, I used (phantom) rangers more than I did at the end. In my last iron man game, I used a demolition expert grenadier, a sniper, a hacker specialist and a healer specialist, with the 6th being variable, usually whatever I was training, but often a 2nd sniper or demo expert. After training the more exotic builds, my team for the final mission were: the hacker specialist, the healer specialist, the demo expert, the flying (archon armour) psi op, the viper gun slinger, and sparky.

[Sméagol]

 

Looking forward to this!

 

Edit:

 

https://xcom.com/news/entries/xcom-2-expansion-war-of-the-chosen-pc-xbox-playstation-august-29

 

Sounds good!

 

NEW FACTIONS & HERO CLASSES

 

Three additional factions have emerged to strengthen Earth's resistance – the Reapers, Skirmishers and Templars – each with its own unique abilities and contrasting philosophies. These factions provide powerful hero class soldiers to aid in missions and new opportunities for the strategy layer.

 

THE CHOSEN

 

The Chosen are the most cunning enemies XCOM has ever faced, each with unique strengths and weaknesses that will be introduced with each new campaign. The Chosen are on the hunt for the Commander and will kidnap, interrogate, and kill XCOM’s soldiers to complete their objective. The Chosen can also invade the strategy layer and ravage XCOM’s global operations. Find and raid the Chosen’s strongholds to defeat the enemy for good.

 

NEW ALIEN & ADVENT THREATS

 

A deadly new alien known as the Spectre, capable of creating dark copies of XCOM soldiers, has snuck onto the battlefield. Adopt new tactics to counter it as well as the explosive attacks of the ADVENT Purifier and the psionically charged ADVENT Priest.

 

NEW ENVIRONMENTS AND MISSION OBJECTIVES

 

Engage in tactical missions across new environments from abandoned cities devastated by alien bioweapons during the original invasion, to underground tunnels and xenoformed wilderness regions.

 

ENHANCED STRATEGY LAYER

 

Manage XCOM’s relations with factions and counter The Chosen’s operations from the Avenger. Employ new Resistance Orders to prioritize your personal strategy. Soldiers, scientists, and engineers can now be deployed for Covert Actions that award supplies and boost faction favor if successfully completed.

 

GREATER CUSTOMIZATION & REPLAYABILITY

 

Soldiers can develop bonds with compatible teammates for new abilities and perks. The SITREP system dynamically adds new modifiers to the tactical layer to make sure every mission provides a unique challenge. Advanced campaign options allow for finer adjustments to game length and difficulty.

 

CHALLENGE MODE

 

Utilize the perfect strategy in new regular one-shot community challenges to claim the top spot on the global leaderboard.

 

SHARE THE RESISTANCE

 

Customize and pose your soldiers, then add filters, text and backgrounds to generate your own unique resistance posters that appear in-game and can be shared with friends.

Edited June 12, 2017 by Sméagol

[Sméagol]

After 2 years I finally got the War of the Chosen dlc in the Steam wintersale (along with Disco Elysium, it's been a while since I bought something on Steam). I refused to pay full price for it at launch.

It takes some getting used to. It's been a while since I played this.. And I remember Xcom 2 being more difficult. Plus I now have unknown stuff to deal with. Started a new normal iron mode again, but restarted a few times already. I had a short run where I lost.. 2 soldiers I think, on the first mission (which is a bit updated compared to vanilla xcom 2), kept going on, but then had a mission where I needed to destroy something within 3 turns. Forgot I had to be agressive in xcom 2 with these things, but while I had no one dying (yet), I failed to reach that thing in time, so restarted.

Current run I had some luck. Took a risk in the gatecrasher mission by having a soldier pick up a goodie in the open, but managed to hit the last enemy with a 20 something % chance. The luck continued (.. for now), as the next mission wasn't timed like the other run. Got some damage, but no one killed. Then it was my first experience with the actual new content. The mission with the Reaper and Skirmisher meeting, and fighting off the lost. Got a bit lucky yet again.. I had some lost run up top a soldier, but miss. Though they don't do much damage, so I'm not sure how much danger there was. I also forgot explosions instantly spawn new lost. I've seen this in videos at launch, but forgot, so had to learn for myself. Anyway, I got all soldiers to the meeting point.. And it was time for my first scary confrontation with a chosen. I forgot everything about them as well, though I did know I had to change up my tactics, though I didn't know how yet. I vagelue recalled overwatch wasn't going to work.. And it didn't. But she was vulnerable to explosions and reapers, so I had my reaper shoot an claymore, had another soldier shoot it, and this did the trick. Got all of them out of there. Well except for Mox of course.

Wasn't sure what to do with the facilities and research. I got a few "breakthroughs", but I'm reading I shouldn't always follow up on those. It's a shame though, I had a nice one in my failed run, one where I could use more modules on sniper rifles. As for facilities, I insticttively built the guerilla training center first, which still seems to be the best thing to do, but after that I built an infirmary. Looks like that new Resistance ring should be priority, so I'll build that next.

But now I've just started my first panic mission (I forgot what they're called, the first one where you have to help the (generic) resistance, and where you get to meet your first mimic. I may have made my first mistake here.. I'm already in the mission, but I didn't bring Elena the reaper. And I potentially have that chosen to deal with..