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XCOM is a notoriously punishing series of strategy games, from the 90s originals up through Firaxis’ fantastic reboot, and is no different. In many ways it’s significantly harder than its predecessor,. While the in-game tutorials do a good job of laying out the basics of how it works, there is an immense amount of second-order knowledge that has to be earned in the field. Veterans have now had over a year to master its intricacies, including its very own, but Advent has thrown a wrench into our hard-earned strategies with the eponymous elites in the. Fortunately some powerful new rebel factions have joined the fight on our side to even the scales. Alongside our general guide for the base game, we’ve added some pointers to help you get the most out of these new additions, and take on the Chosen. These should be useful to both series veterans and fresh-faced recruits alike.
If you just want the WotC-specific tips, skip to last page. General tactics Look at all of your options before making a moveSince XCOM is a turn-based game, you have the luxury of unlimited time to make each move. Every turn, you should start off by cycling through your whole team to assess their options, rather than just taking actions in the automatic order. With a finite number of actions, you want to make sure that every move is as efficient and effective as possible. War of the Chosen has added a clutch feature that many players had already modded in, which is the ability to preview available targets when deciding where to move your units. Holding left alt will bring up all of the targets your soldier will be able to shoot from the tile you’re highlighting, taking out all the guesswork and making it much easier to plan your turns precisely. If you have time, take itXCOM 2 does a great job of mixing up mission parameters so you are forced to vary your tactics as the situation demands.
Many missions have time constraints forcing you to plow ahead. For missions that do not, though, you should take as much time as you need to scope out the scene and set up to engage the enemy on your terms.Concealment is a new mechanic that allows your squad to get the drop on unaware enemies.
Until concealment is broken, the enemies have a smaller radius of awareness, which is clearly telegraphed so you can maneuver freely around them. Take the time to position your troops with cover and high ground to do the most damage, then set all but one member of your squad to overwatch. Attack the unsuspecting aliens with the last soldier and enjoy the ensuing slaughter. Watch out for SectoidsThe cute, little, bobble-headed grunts of the first game have grown up.
In addition to being larger and generally more intimidating, the infusion of human DNA into the sectoids has greatly enhanced their psionic capabilities and made them a far greater threat in the field. Sectoids can now attack your soldiers psionically, causing negative effects that range from disorienting or incapacitating your troops for a turn to outright taking control over them, which can be a brutal swing in the alien’s favor depending on your positioning when it happens. They can also revive fallen foes as zombie puppets.Although scarier than their predecessors, the sectoids’ AI can be gamed to your favor once you’ve figured out how they work. Sectoids are frequently deployed with a few Advent soldiers.
If you can kill at least one of these before the sectoid has a chance to act, it will almost certainly spend its turn reviving it as a zombie. Because zombies and mind-controlled soldiers don’t act on their first turn, this can buy you time to kill the sectoid itself, which will in turn free anyone under its control. Lead with explosivesArmor works a bit differently in XCOM 2 than its predecessor. The yellow lozenge at the end of a character’s health bar acts as a constant reduction on all damage taken. However, armor can be “shredded” by explosives (or normal grenadier attacks with certain upgrades), which permanently removes it for all subsequent attacks. Furthermore, many of the cover-providing environmental elements can be destroyed by grenades. Accordingly, it is often best to lead a round of attacks with explosives, which will shred armor, destroy cover, and generally make enemies more vulnerable to attacks from the rest of your squad, ensuring the most value for your actions.
This is especially pertinent for ambushes from concealment, when unwitting enemies are more closely clustered than they will be once engaged. Grow the resistance early and oftenWhile the geoscape strategic metagame is certainly much more interesting in XCOM 2 than building satellites in Enemy Unknown, there are certain similarities to how your should approach it. The game will present you with lots of tempting options for ways to spend your time in the Avenger, picking up valuable resources or recruits. Focus on expanding the resistance early in the game, contacting new regions, and building radio towers in regions you own, once you have researched them. Both of these will increase your monthly supply income, which is critical to your long term success.Radio towers also have the added bonus of reducing the intel cost of contacting new regions, which is based on the distance to the nearest tower.
Global access becomes increasingly important as the game goes on and you are prompted to investigate alien facilities around the world. Having to spend weeks contacting multiple new regions in order to access a critical story mission or Avatar Project facility on the other side of the world can completely kill your momentum. Don’t stress too hard about the Avatar ProjectThe Avatar Project–Advent’s menacing master plan–looms over the strategic layer and sets the overall tempo for the game as it ticks down towards your loss.
Seeing that ominous red bar fill steadily up can apply a lot of pressure, and especially for new players can make the situation seem more dire than it actually is. In reality you can be a little more lax about letting the Avatar project fill up than the game wants you to think. There are no scaling consequences as the clock advances, so all that matters is that you hold off total defeat. Even when the meter runs to completion, that still gives you a generous 20 days to respond. It’s often better to let the Avatar meter tick up quite a bit early on, spending that time building out your team and developing a strong, economic foundation for the rest of the game. Once you’re in a good position, it’s not too hard to push it back by hitting a few Avatar facilities in quick succession, which should be easier to do than if you tried while earlier and less well equipped.
Covert actions from the resistance ring in War of the Chosen also sometimes let you knock the Avatar Project back a few notches, letting you avoid dangerous raids even longer. Stay classy — Character roles and buildsGrenadierWhile all of your soldiers can carry grenades into battle, grenadiers specialize in raining down explosive destruction on the battlefield, and accordingly can carry more with them than anyone else. Propelled by a specialized launcher, their grenades fly further and hit for more damage over a wider radius.