X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[jackofshadows]

Should I play this, Battle Brothers or Jagged Alliance 3?

I'd say BB > subj > JA3

 

[Grunker]

If you haven’t played BB yet I’d definitely play it. It’s truly unique and a must play for tactical fans.

I’m becoming more and more impressed with LWotC though

 

[Socrates]

https://xcom.com

Spoiler

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06...+twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--2K and Firaxis Games today announced that XCOM® 2, the sequel to the Game of the Year* award-winning strategy title XCOM®: Enemy Unknown, is currently in development for Windows-based PC. Developed by Firaxis Games, XCOM 2 transports players 20 years into the future, where humanity lost the war against the alien threat that has established a new world order. The secret paramilitary organization known as XCOM is largely forgotten, and must strike back to reclaim control of Earth and free mankind from the aliens’ rule. XCOM 2 is currently scheduled for release in November 2015. The game will also be coming to Mac and Linux via Feral Interactive.

“Firaxis proved they could reimagine a beloved franchise with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a Game of the Year award-winning title”

In XCOM 2, the roles have been reversed, and XCOM is now the invading force. They are hampered by limited resources and must constantly evade the alien threat in their new mobile headquarters. Players must use a combination of firepower and stealth-like tactics to help XCOM recruit soldiers and build a resistance network, while attempting to expose the evil alien agenda and save humanity. XCOM 2 will introduce gameplay features such as procedurally-generated levels, which will make each experience unique to the player, as well as offer a much deeper level of modding support. Additionally, XCOM 2 will offer a variety of new content including five updated soldier classes, increased soldier customization, more alien and enemy types, evolved tactical combat and more.

“Firaxis proved they could reimagine a beloved franchise with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a Game of the Year award-winning title,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “With XCOM 2, the team is breathing new life into the series by adding an epic narrative and challenging players to overcome near impossible odds.”

“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,” said Jake Solomon, creative director of XCOM 2 at Firaxis Games. “We’re thrilled to implement long-time fan requested features such as procedural levels and modding support, as well as adding more of what makes XCOM great like new aliens, enemies and soldier classes.”

For more information about XCOM 2, visit IGN.com, where the game is featured as the IGN First title for the month of June. In the coming weeks, IGN will reveal exclusive details about XCOM 2, including gameplay impressions, in-depth analysis of alien and enemy types, new soldier classes and combat tactics, story-focused insights and more.

XCOM 2 will be available for PC and is currently scheduled for release in November 2015. XCOM 2 is not yet rated by the ESRB. For more information on XCOM 2, please visit www.XCOM.com, become a fan on Facebook, follow the game on Twitter using the hashtag #XCOM2 or subscribe to XCOM on YouTube.

*XCOM: Enemy Unknown was named 2012 Game of the Year by the following outlets: GameTrailers, GiantBomb, and Kotaku.

Firaxis Games is a 2K studio. 2K is a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO).

All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.

WOTC took XCOM 2 from a very good game to a great game. Chosen still crush my balls on legendary though.

 

[Ironmonk]

So, I installed the most recent AML 1.5.0 and it crashes after trying to launch the game, while the game still loads but without mods.

Tried to deactivate all mods and its all the same.

Tried the older version 1.4.1 and it works fine, AML remains working after I launch the game and mods are also working.

Interesting to note that I tried both at Windows 7 and Ubuntu and both have the same result.

Decided to use 1.4.1 but still run into issues...

Linux Issues:
- The "Expand/Collapse Categories Grouping" feature on both 1.4.1 and 1.5.0 doesn't work on linux (Without this, managing a big mod list becomes a nightmare)
- I can't copy/paste into the config files opened at the AML 1.4.1 (didn't try with 1.5.0 but I guess its the same), CTRL+V doesn't work... but dragging from the window with my .txt to the AML config file works.
- after a couple edits, AML crashed when I was editing a file.

I really wanted to have a smooth experience with linux, but I guess, I will have to use windows 7 while steam still works there.

So frustrating all of this.

Edit.: I was using Proton 6.3.8 since the guide I got recommended it (better game performance)... I'm trying 8.0.5 now to see if its any different...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

LWotC is fucking amazeballs. Not at all what I expected. I expected a kind of broken systems-oriented mod that might be scuffed but had the upside of complexity and build depth.

That's not what LWotC is at all in my opinion. It is straight up just a better game. Once you understand how infiltration and the strategy layer works - which honestly took me one 6 minute YouTube video and a couple of hours play, because it is actually a fairly simple dynamic - it is an easy to learn, fun to master systems that have a ton of turning gears and you can manipulate all of them.

I also don't feel like the game is treating me unfairly at all, which came as a huge surprise. I understand the very recent big Patch 1.1 nerfed some unfair enemy things and the chosen, but so far I feel like the game is very, very challenging but never in a way where I didn't have a choice (even if that poor choice was a cascading result of earlier poor choices).

How stable is this? I might give it a spin once I actually beat the base game.

 

[Grunker]

LWotC is fucking amazeballs. Not at all what I expected. I expected a kind of broken systems-oriented mod that might be scuffed but had the upside of complexity and build depth.

That's not what LWotC is at all in my opinion. It is straight up just a better game. Once you understand how infiltration and the strategy layer works - which honestly took me one 6 minute YouTube video and a couple of hours play, because it is actually a fairly simple dynamic - it is an easy to learn, fun to master systems that have a ton of turning gears and you can manipulate all of them.

I also don't feel like the game is treating me unfairly at all, which came as a huge surprise. I understand the very recent big Patch 1.1 nerfed some unfair enemy things and the chosen, but so far I feel like the game is very, very challenging but never in a way where I didn't have a choice (even if that poor choice was a cascading result of earlier poor choices).

How stable is this? I might give it a spin once I actually beat the base game.

Haven’t had a single crash and I’m running about 15 QoL mods and 200 playing with dolls mods on top of the standard LWotC package.

You need to run it though the mod launcher, though.

 

[Jaedar]

Once you understand how infiltration and the strategy layer works - which honestly took me one 6 minute YouTube video and a couple of hours play, because it is actually a fairly simple dynamic

Guess you're a bit thick then if it took you hours and a video tutorial to grasp it

LWotC is fucking amazeballs. Not at all what I expected. I expected a kind of broken systems-oriented mod that might be scuffed but had the upside of complexity and build depth.

How autistic is it? Is it same as original long war where you can expect a campaign to run 100s of missions? And does it try and restrict you to using 1 or 2 soldiers per mission? I seem to recall something like that from long war 2.

 

[Grunker]

Once you understand how infiltration and the strategy layer works - which honestly took me one 6 minute YouTube video and a couple of hours play, because it is actually a fairly simple dynamic

Guess you're a bit thick then if it took you hours and a video tutorial to grasp it

Maybe I am. I don’t have a perfect understanding of most systems after playing with them for just a couple of hours. YMMV, but for me, a 6 minute tutorial and a couple of hours gameplay is pretty low :shrug:

How autistic is it? Is it same as original long war where you can expect a campaign to run 100s of missions? And does it try and restrict you to using 1 or 2 soldiers per mission? I seem to recall something like that from long war 2.

For the first, I have no clue, I haven’t finished it. Most online sources say 120 missions average, but I’ve been enjoying it so I haven’t minded that there are a lot - it means you have to have a deep and diverse roster and I really enjoy that.

For the second, that’s definitely not the case. It’s balanced quite cleverly so that bringing more than 4-5 comes with a cost you need to offset in other ways, but there are many ways to do it. So I mean bringing one or two is an option if you want the minimum amount of enemies always, but it’s bad play, because you can get that or close to that with 5-8 if you play well. My average missions have 6, then 5, then the rest I do sometimes.

Essentially, the more people you bring, the harder it will be to keep enemy count down. Rather than an annoyance I find this system to be the best part of the design, because it forces you to way a lot of your resources - you have multiple ways to bring down enemy count even with many soldiers - time, items, intel, different squad setups (yes different types of soldiers and even what equipment they wear will heavily affect this) - so you end up having to make actual choices when setting up each mission, which I like.

It's definitely not for everyone though. At the end of the day it's just more XCOM2. You don’t like that, you won’t like this.

 

[Zombra]

Who even does that?

"I'll mod my game to make it 10x as long and then even make it more repetitive by using 2 soldiers for 600 hours pressing the basic attack button over and over and over and over" Ahhh gaming at its best

 

[mediocrepoet]

Who even does that?

"I'll mod my game to make it 10x as long and then even make it more repetitive by using 2 soldiers for 600 hours pressing the basic attack button over and over and over and over" Ahhh gaming at its best

Sounds like at least a few Codexers tbh. Especially if you change the last comment to: "This game is shit! DECLINE!"

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Who even does that?

"I'll mod my game to make it 10x as long and then even make it more repetitive by using 2 soldiers for 600 hours pressing the basic attack button over and over and over and over" Ahhh gaming at its best

Every game is just pressing the same buttons over and over, so fucking everyone does that as a baseline.

 

[Ironmonk]

Well, its been a couple of days since I started to rebuild a new modlist for myself at the same time that I try xcom2 on linux through proton...

Here are my findings so far (didn't play the game yet, only barely initiated it to see if mod initialization and a few customization mods are working):

Proton 6.3.8
- According to what I have read is the best performance wise
- Both AML 1.4.1 and 1.5.0 have serious issues running... example: the game not running with mods, etc.

Proton 8.0.5
- Performance unknown
- AML 1.5.0 works best, but "Expand/Collapse Groups" doesn't work in either... as a matter of fact all combinations of tests I did, it never worked.
- AML 1.5.0 need to save after a couple of mod activation or category changes, because it crashes from time to time (maybe too many changes without saving leads to the crash?)
- Importing from my 2021 profile lists caused many duplicates, I had to unsubscribe ALL mods and resubscribe one by one.
- Copying text from Config Files freezes and crashes the AML and also doesn't copy anything.
- [GOLD] AML 1.5.0 lets you keep unsubscribed mods saved on your mod list, so you can still use tags to identify why you uninstalled, but still worth keep tracking it.

General Notes:
- There are many new mods that superseded older mods and its not easy to find. Check the 3 links below before dealing with mods!
https://www.reddit.com/r/xcom2mods/wiki/index/superseded_mods/#wiki_list_of_superseded_mods
https://www.reddit.com/r/xcom2mods/wiki/index/problematic_mods/
https://www.reddit.com/r/xcom2mods/wiki/index/mods_with_fixes/
[WOTC] Core Collection:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2165341111

And one thing I avoided 99% of the time: customization mods (voice and skins)
I did manage to discover a few competent individuals that managed to get voices and visuals at reasonable file sizes, like:
- Asthye (get skins from Fortinite or whatever its called and create individual skin mods - from various sources - with file sizes around 12mb)
- PsyCHo (gets voices from somewhere and create individual voice packs with file sizes around 4mb)
- Max (gets cosmetics mods created by modders that didn't care about performance and downsize file sizes by a LOT, examples:
- Capnbubs Accessories - WotC (190mb) to 47mb
- This [WOTC] Claus Hero Cosmetics Compendium 147mb compiles 5 mods which original sizes combined would reach 669mb

Due to AML 1.5.0 instability on linux, I'm getting all my mod configs exported to "my mod" so I don't need to look for each Mod Config individually and copy/paste manually one by one... this way is much more effective, example: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2692821840

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Who even does that?

"I'll mod my game to make it 10x as long and then even make it more repetitive by using 2 soldiers for 600 hours pressing the basic attack button over and over and over and over" Ahhh gaming at its best

Every game is just pressing the same buttons over and over, so fucking everyone does that as a baseline.

Someone should develop a game based around never repeating the same combination of buttons. Relying just on the 26 letter keys, 10 number keys, and 12 punctuation/math keys yields 4.7 million possibilities when pressing 4 keys simultaneously.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Who even does that?

"I'll mod my game to make it 10x as long and then even make it more repetitive by using 2 soldiers for 600 hours pressing the basic attack button over and over and over and over" Ahhh gaming at its best

Every game is just pressing the same buttons over and over, so fucking everyone does that as a baseline.

Someone should develop a game based around never repeating the same combination of buttons. Relying just on the 26 letter keys, 10 number keys, and 12 punctuation/math keys yields 4.7 million possibilities when pressing 4 keys simultaneously.

Why stop there? Use all them special buttons so players get mad when the specified special key isn't a part of their keyboard.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Who even does that?

"I'll mod my game to make it 10x as long and then even make it more repetitive by using 2 soldiers for 600 hours pressing the basic attack button over and over and over and over" Ahhh gaming at its best

Every game is just pressing the same buttons over and over, so fucking everyone does that as a baseline.

Someone should develop a game based around never repeating the same combination of buttons. Relying just on the 26 letter keys, 10 number keys, and 12 punctuation/math keys yields 4.7 million possibilities when pressing 4 keys simultaneously.

Why stop there? Use all them special buttons so players get mad when the specified special key isn't a part of their keyboard.

Part of the interface could be choosing what sort of keyboard you're using both for language and layout. Is the required combination of W0B× in QWERTY or DVORAK? What if it starts having accents and umlauts in it? Or wing dings?

 

[agris]

I'm enjoying my vanilla + Shen's run through X2. I'm shocked at how well this game performs with all settings maxed using a 14 year old(!!!) CPU with a modest 1080 GTX at 2560x1600.

I remember at the time people talking about their brand new 2016-era rigs getting crushed, it must have been the GPU.

There is a wonderful visual line of sight mod called idle suppression, it's a fantastic way to liven up the firefights and give good at-a-glance readability of LoS.

idle suppression

like the name implies, when units are idle they play their suppression fire graphics if they have (a) ammo and (b) LoS. it doesn't do anything mechanically, it's purely visual.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Finally beat the thing on veteran. I had fun, but I guess the difficulty takes a solid nosedive once you get a squad full of veterans and quality gear. Ranger was the dude I made use of the most, and 320 kills ain't no joke, especially when seeding place has only 97 kills. I wonder if the expansion would be better without have faction heroes in addition to the regular joes you field, would probably keep things ingesting without going overboard with powering up the player.
Oh well, had fun, can't complain.

Spoiler

And started a commander run right immediately.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

And dammit, the tactical legacy pack soundtrack should've been the default.

 

[Cael]

Finally beat the thing on veteran. I had fun, but I guess the difficulty takes a solid nosedive once you get a squad full of veterans and quality gear. Ranger was the dude I made use of the most, and 320 kills ain't no joke, especially when seeding place has only 97 kills. I wonder if the expansion would be better without have faction heroes in addition to the regular joes you field, would probably keep things ingesting without going overboard with powering up the player.
Oh well, had fun, can't complain.

Spoiler

And started a commander run right immediately.

My sniper had the most kills courtesy of Icarus Armour, Quickdraw, Fan Fire and Face Off.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

And dammit, the tactical legacy pack soundtrack should've been the default.

Agreed 100%, the regular soundtrack for nuxcom 1 and 2 always sounded corny.

 

[ind33d]

XCOM would be more fun if you were the aliens

 

[Socrates]

Finally beat the thing on veteran. I had fun, but I guess the difficulty takes a solid nosedive once you get a squad full of veterans and quality gear. Ranger was the dude I made use of the most, and 320 kills ain't no joke, especially when seeding place has only 97 kills. I wonder if the expansion would be better without have faction heroes in addition to the regular joes you field, would probably keep things ingesting without going overboard with powering up the player.
Oh well, had fun, can't complain.

Spoiler

And started a commander run right immediately.

Commander ironman is no joke. The game starts getting "real" at commander and legendary ironman requires exploitation of the games mechanics to the max to not end badly. I feel retarded that it took me so long to realize how vital frost grenades are with dealing with the Alien rulers assraping my squads.

 

[Cael]

Finally beat the thing on veteran. I had fun, but I guess the difficulty takes a solid nosedive once you get a squad full of veterans and quality gear. Ranger was the dude I made use of the most, and 320 kills ain't no joke, especially when seeding place has only 97 kills. I wonder if the expansion would be better without have faction heroes in addition to the regular joes you field, would probably keep things ingesting without going overboard with powering up the player.
Oh well, had fun, can't complain.

Spoiler

And started a commander run right immediately.

Commander ironman is no joke. The game starts getting "real" at commander and legendary ironman requires exploitation of the games mechanics to the max to not end badly. I feel retarded that it took me so long to realize how vital frost grenades are with dealing with the Alien rulers assraping my squads.

When dealing with alien rulers, that line where it said "Extra chance to get stunned"? Yeah, I started packing stun stuff en massed.

 

[Grunker]

My Long War playthrough continues. This is just a great game. Typical missions have 5 soldiers minimum, often 6, sometimes 7 and a few times 8. There is a huge variety of mission types with all the special missions on top of the basic ones, and the infiltration system is fantastic.

What I love the most is that this is an XCOM-like that actually forces you to use an incredibly deep roster of varied soldiers built very different. This is my current roster:

Spoiler

You need all those guys because you'll want to be running 2-3 ops at any given time + you need soldiers for very tasks like covert ops, haven advisors etc.

The above roster has even been cut down some since I just had a fairly catastrophic mission leaving my memorial like this:

Spoiler

Because I'm playing completely blind on Ironman, I lost a few guys.

Anyway, huge fun. Can recommend. Very polished.

 

[ArchAngel]

My Long War playthrough continues. This is just a great game. Typical missions have 5 soldiers minimum, often 6, sometimes 7 and a few times 8. There is a huge variety of mission types with all the special missions on top of the basic ones, and the infiltration system is fantastic.

What I love the most is that this is an XCOM-like that actually forces you to use an incredibly deep roster of varied soldiers built very different. This is my current roster:

Spoiler

You need all those guys because you'll want to be running 2-3 ops at any given time + you need soldiers for very tasks like covert ops, haven advisors etc.

The above roster has even been cut down some since I just had a fairly catastrophic mission leaving my memorial like this:

Spoiler

Because I'm playing completely blind on Ironman, I lost a few guys.

Anyway, huge fun. Can recommend. Very polished.

You are so many years late but better late then never. This is how I felt right after Xcom 2 release once first version of Long War 2 was released.