X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion

[nimateb]

Actually LongWar mod fixed shitload of EU and EW crap and made game closer to original classic.

Hadn't played nu xcom mostly because of the complaints i've been hearing, is this mod good?

 

[Space Satan]

Hadn't played nu xcom mostly because of the complaints i've been hearing, is this mod good?

It's quite massive. Separate branches for ballistic and beam weapons with laser, gauss, plasma working differently. Rework of genemods so mymetic skin would not be a win option. Multiple alien base assaults and aliens assaulting your base. Reworked alien skills and tactics, panic reworked. Aliens now came in different stacks, for example 2 sectoids and 2 drones. etc ANd so on and so on, the list of changes is too long to state here. EW LongWar is still beta but doing good already.
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

raise undead!

i felt like throwing my money away but burning it wasn't enough, i wanted to do something extreme, so i bought xcox + enemy without.
then... a miracle! i put the long war mod on top.
i sincerely couldn't believe such a job could be done on such crap, but the mod delivers. hard and strong.
maybe it's a bit too hard (i'm getting mutons when i still have to research stun rods, and soon the whole europe will abandon me because for the month it takes to build satellites it takes 5 minutes to some invincible ufo to destroy them) but now i have many tactical options, my roster of 40 men is not enough, soldiers die and aliens aren't completely retarded anymore.
the game changed, a lot, and for the better. i'd never expect it.
and again, a modern firaxis game has been saved by a late expansion and an amazing mod, only this time i though it'd have been impossible.

 

[Black]

I only just watched someone play LW but to me it seemed too repetitive and slow when it comes to the global scale, making it more tedious war than long war.

 

[KoolNoodles]

And then it just turns into....

Spoiler

 

[Average Manatee]

I've been playing Long War recently too, and it is indeed great.

I only just watched someone play LW but to me it seemed too repetitive and slow when it comes to the global scale, making it more tedious war than long war.

I agree, but there is a "Not so long war" option which supposedly cuts out the grind. Haven't tried it myself since it's apparently buggy in the current version, but from what I played of the mod without it enabled it improved the gameplay quite a lot.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

well, yes, it's grindy and of course it's absolutely not x-com, yet it's enjoyable, which vanilla xcom wasn't. huge step ahead.

 

[SmartCheetah]

raise undead!

i felt like throwing my money away but burning it wasn't enough, i wanted to do something extreme, so i bought xcox + enemy without.
then... a miracle! i put the long war mod on top.
i sincerely couldn't believe such a job could be done on such crap, but the mod delivers. hard and strong.
maybe it's a bit too hard (i'm getting mutons when i still have to research stun rods, and soon the whole europe will abandon me because for the month it takes to build satellites it takes 5 minutes to some invincible ufo to destroy them) but now i have many tactical options, my roster of 40 men is not enough, soldiers die and aliens aren't completely retarded anymore.
the game changed, a lot, and for the better. i'd never expect it.
and again, a modern firaxis game has been saved by a late expansion and an amazing mod, only this time i though it'd have been impossible.

Am I the only one crashing in Long War every now and then? I've played like 5-6 missions, saved the game and after loading the save it mostly takes one-two missions to crash. Sometimes I got this problem in the base alone. @.o

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

stability isn't its main selling point.
luckily there's a "autosave every turn" option.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't know what it is but certain missions just like to crash halfway in (consistently, like even after reloading it has a 90% chance to crash next turn). Might be hitting a memory limit or something since lowering settings to minimum seems to fix it. Base game was entirely stable for me.

 

[Misconnected]

Is FiraXcom 4GB enabled?

 

[Raghar]

I don't know what it is but certain missions just like to crash halfway in (consistently, like even after reloading it has a 90% chance to crash next turn). Might be hitting a memory limit or something since lowering settings to minimum seems to fix it. Base game was entirely stable for me.

Oh yes moders. They add stuff without even thinking about RAM needed, or if it will crash GFX card...

 

[bert]

So I'm playing LW on the suggestion of the people here and all I have to say is: WTF?

Exalt missions are not worth doing at all, since Exalt forces now have at least 7 HP minimum on your first mission and not only that, but they come in huge swarms. Making a defensive position is useless as well, cause now they have rocketeers which absolutely devastate your troop and any cover that they might've had. They also tech up over time, which gives them even MORE HP and better weaponry to rape you with later. WTF were the devs thinking?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

think of misery 2.0.
today's modders like to make people suffer.

 

[bert]

This mod is pretty fun and all, but it seems to really like swarms of HP bloat while you're still stuck with a 6 squad cap with laser rifles at best.

 

[not an artichoke]

Damn these LW modders. DAMN THEM

So much time spent playing this. So few productive things done.

Exalt guys are tough, but the missions are doable if you position your people well. Make them come to you slowly on the defense missions. Set up a perimeter and fall back a bit after a turn or two to lure them in to get blasted by reaction fire, etc. In my experience on Normal they do use rockets and grenades but not to extremes. I will admit to an occasional reload, but I try not to do it more than once or twice per mission.

 

[bert]

Are laser cannons for crafts viable? I've only been using the starter missiles and it's like almost the end of April. Needless to say, my satellites tend to get shot down because I don't have the firepower to bring down the UFO (I have like fucking 6 interceptors and they didn't do shit)

 

[not an artichoke]

In my experience laser cannons are the only way your interceptors will have a chance past the first 3 months. And the good news is that they remain viable for a long time, since a pulse laser tech will upgrade them rather than requiring replacements - if I'm reading it correctly.

Another important thing to know about interceptors in LW is that they get vastly more effective with experience. It pays off to farm kills on 1 or 2 of your interceptors by letting the others get a hit or 2, retreat before taking too much dmg, then finishing it off with your pilot of choice. Caps at 10 kills I believe, and you can see the difference it makes by looking at weapon info on the different interceptors.

It's worth digging through the LW strategy thread on the Nexus - lots of valuable tips like that

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Does the soldier get XP from enemies dying of a vehicle explosion the soldier caused (immediate and delayed)?

 

[Thane Solus]

Damn these LW modders. DAMN THEM

So much time spent playing this. So few productive things done.

Exalt guys are tough, but the missions are doable if you position your people well. Make them come to you slowly on the defense missions. Set up a perimeter and fall back a bit after a turn or two to lure them in to get blasted by reaction fire, etc. In my experience on Normal they do use rockets and grenades but not to extremes. I will admit to an occasional reload, but I try not to do it more than once or twice per mission.

I played a few good months, but while the overall mod is fracking great, they are several issues, like Exalt missions, and the numbers of aliens on ships which is fracking huge, hopefully they will tweak it in time. XCOM doesnt play with reload, XCOM is made for ironman, otherwise is simply another game, a very bad one

 

[Matalarata]

Decided to swallow this up. I played vanilla at release, not removed from inventory, liked at first. Raged at inane design later...
Now I heard praises for this mod up and down and since I'm aching for some turn-based squad, I bought the complete package. Could someone post impression about the classes? Do you guys have a broad team or multiple (identical or tweaked) copies of some really effective build?
I'm having a look at the skill tree on the wiki and it appears they really did a good work here...

 

[SmartCheetah]

MEC's are OP if you'd ask me. Some classes are simply "worse" versions of MEC troopers. Squad consisting of snipers, MEC's, maybe one support and one soldier/heavy should do very well.

It looks totally different when playing with Long War mod.
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?
With this mod game gets actually kinda satisfying and more difficult (therefore, more satisfying) so I highly recommend it to you. Even despite the fact that the last version I used (Pretty long time ago) was one big buggy mess.

 

[Matalarata]

MEC's are OP if you'd ask me. Some classes are simply "worse" versions of MEC troopers. Squad consisting of snipers, MEC's, maybe one support and one soldier/heavy should do very well.

It looks totally different when playing with Long War mod.
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?
With this mod game gets actually kinda satisfying and more difficult (therefore, more satisfying) so I highly recommend it to you. Even despite the fact that the last version I used (Pretty long time ago) was one big buggy mess.

That wasn't the question bro
I have no problems with vanilla build, but I won't bother with it. I'm going straight for LW and was asking about that...

edit:sorry if original post wasn't clear

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Decided to swallow this up. I played vanilla at release, not removed from inventory, liked at first. Raged at inane design later...
Now I heard praises for this mod up and down and since I'm aching for some turn-based squad, I bought the complete package. Could someone post impression about the classes? Do you guys have a broad team or multiple (identical or tweaked) copies of some really effective build?
I'm having a look at the skill tree on the wiki and it appears they really did a good work here...

snipers with squad sight.

 

[Matalarata]

snipers with squad sight.

Are 30-36 snipers with squadsight enough?

Spoiler

edit: again... talking about LW mod. Squadsight is a forced pick for snipers. git gud trolling