I just started Long War 2, having never played it before.  It's very difficult to get into.  I didn't realise that you need to infiltrate before the mission actually starts before going in, otherwise that 'extremely light enemy forces' turns out to be 4 groups of 5 guys continuously appearing out of the fog and wrecking my whole crew.

I'll restart for the third time with this knowledge and maybe it'll show the gold lining.  I've heard very good things about LW2 and I don't have the funds for War of the Chosen yet.

Been playing this and enjoying it a lot. Game runs like a dog on PS4, unfortunately, even with patches, and I’ve done a restart now that I kinda understand what I’m doing.

Have a B&B squad which is cool. But it makes losing anyone absolute torture. It also means I’m RPing people - I really wanted to give g.man holotargeting for that sweet team aim bonus, but I knew there’s no way he’d turn down Heavy Ordnance in real life.

Standard. Still a mess. Can’t imagine how bad it used to be.

Yeah - it’s a real shame. It’s a fantastic game, and I’m muddling through despite performance issues. But I’d probably actively discourage anyone from getting it, despite how good it is.

Have you got an advanced warfare centre? if not then try and prioritise it and put an engineer in there.
There are a few things that really make a big dent in the initial difficulty on this. That's one of them.

Coincidentally, Xcom2 is on offer on Steam for 16€. Good deal.

(Tish)

The main trick is not to move anyone beyond your furthest forward character towards the end of your turn. When not in combat, I'd usually move a couple of characters quite far forward at the start of a turn, and if they don't trigger anything then bunch the other characters up behind them, and put a few on overwatch.

When you're actually in combat you've still got to be careful. I wouldn't, for example, send a ranger running further into the map for a melee kill unless it's the start of a turn and I think I could handle triggering more enemies (and unless you know there aren't any more on the map, of course).

Also, at the start of a mission, when you're in concealed mode, enemies walking near you won't set off your overwatch and can actually flank you. It's an odd one to get used to, but basically it's better to attack first and blow your cover than let them get too close.

I had a read back through the last few pages and saw you and Tempy on about the same stuff earlier. Just got to get used to the cheapness of it I suppose.

Stuff like the ranger slash, I need to get used to how that works again. Am I right in thinking that any attack ends your turn, even if you have two actions available? I'd quite like to shoot then move, shoot twice in one turn, use slash then scarper into cover etc.

Talking of bullshit, after setting up an ambush on a couple of guys, two on overwatch when the grenade goes in, both miss their 68% shots? Then a third miss later on in that mission. Had to use another 'nade on that sucker, literally unshootable.

Extra squad positions are definitely top of the list, but what else is a priority? Don't know anything about the base stuff.

Paul the sparky wrote:

Talking of bullshit, after setting up an ambush on a couple of guys, two on overwatch when the grenade goes in, both miss their 68% shots? Then a third miss later on in that mission. Had to use another 'nade on that sucker, literally unshootable.

Thankfully that's the sort of thing that you have to deal with less as you progress. Well, as long as you can keep some characters from dying and get them to higher ranks.

The beginning of the game is arguably the toughest part, in fact. Rely on grenades as much as possible for guaranteed hits. Once you get a few sergeants you'll notice the hit percentages increase.

I tended to skip plasma and get lasers.

Or that could be the other way round. Caveat of don't blame me when your best guy/girl dies because your guns suck for a bit!

Sometimes you lose missions like that. I had it happen a few times. The rooftop fall in particular is something I think nearly every Xcom 2 player has happen before they learn.

To roll with the punches and lose a mission or two. Sometimes shit goes bad, I’ve lost prize players on final turns before, it sucks but it’s part of the game.