XCOM 2: Are You Ready for Commander Difficulty? (WotC 2022)
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Taking a look at a veteran level campaign and talking about what it takes to move up to Commander.
Follow me on Twitter: @Tap_Cat
Channel: / tapcatvids
Mods used in this campaign:
Capnbubs Accessories - WotC
Evac All - WotC
Overwatch All - WotC
WotC GotchaAgain
WotC Shredstorm Cannon BuildFix
WotC Community Highlander
XCOM® 2: War of the Chosen, is the expansion to the 2016 award-winning strategy game of the year.
XCOM® 2: War of the Chosen adds extensive new content in the fight against ADVENT when additional resistance factions form in order to eliminate the alien threat on Earth. In response, a new enemy, known as the “Chosen,” emerges with one goal: recapture the Commander. This expansion includes new Hero classes to counter the “Chosen”, new enemies, missions, environments and increased depth in strategic gameplay.
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.
XCOM 2: The Story So far - Earth has changed. Twenty years have passed since world leaders offered an unconditional surrender to alien forces. XCOM, the planet's last line of defense, was left decimated and scattered. Now, in XCOM 2, the aliens rule Earth, building shining cities that promise a brilliant future for humanity on the surface, while concealing a sinister agenda and eliminating all who dissent from their new order.
Only those who live at the edges of the world have a margin of freedom. Here, a force gathers once again to stand up for humanity. Always on the run, and facing impossible odds, the remnant XCOM forces must find a way to ignite a global resistance, and eliminate the alien threat once and for all.
0:00 Introduction
1:43 Memorial
2:42 Quick Detour
4:19 Soldier Depth
6:52 Soldier Builds
10:35 Heavy Weapon
11:43 Avatar Project Progress
14:36 Research
16:43 Proving Grounds
18:05 Combat
25:35 State of Campaign
26:43 Up to Commander? - Hry
This was a funny video to make as it started off as a simple evaluation of someone's campaign and then morphed into a discussion of stepping up in difficulty. I'd genuinely like to hear from people who play on Veteran and ask if there's much in here that you found useful or if it's a bit too specific to that one campaign. It was a real challenge keeping this as "short" as 30 minutes so going into detail on research priorities, Avenger build, combat, etc. was literally impossible without do an hours-long video and this is already long enough that it's a big ask for viewers to stick around for the whole thing! That said, if there's something that would really be helpful to you then I'd love to hear about and see if I can put something together in the future.
I play on Veteran and this was super helpful. I'm still learning, but some key things that stood out was armor shattering first along with target prioritization. Just subbed, I enjoyed the breakdown and have enjoyed a few other of your vids.
I just moved up to commander, and have my first campaign to a point where I feel stable. Two chosen down, two rulers down, third tier weapons and armor. This video was a great checklist to confirm what I'm doing right, and remind me of what I need to be doing better.
I'd love to see a video about stepping up to Legend difficulty, and would be happy to provide my own campaign as an example
@@tarawright4339 Congrats on doing so well in your Commander campaign, it sounds like you're doing great! I hadn't thought about a video on moving up to Legend but that's an interesting idea. In one sense, the series of guides I've already made are meant to help shepherd people all the way up to Legend and I'm not sure how much I'd add. That said, if you want to send me your campaign, I'll take a look and see if I can come up with any ideas. Just send it to tapcatvids@gmail.com.
@@TapCat Thank you! I just recorded a couple missions, I'm uploading them now. I'll send an email with a link and the save file once they're finished uploading. Super appreciate any time you give to this :D
There could potentially be an even bigger problem here 13:51 look at the power. The resistance com cost 3 power and unless 1 of those 2 spots left is a power coil slot hes gonna need to demolish a building to even have the power requirments to build it. He already has 2 engineers in the power plant so he cant pump out anything more from that.
Also i never realised until u mentioned it that the blips on the blacksite missions were refering to the number of Avatar bars. I always thought it was an indicator of difficulty as they tend to appear on sites where the Rulers are.
My main problem is the fact that the game is addictive, I just feel the need to continue. Fatigie comes in after some hours and errors which otherwise would have been avoided, happen. Usually I don't play in a bad way but after a long day of work I sometimes find myself sending my ranger to slice up a muton etc... Maintained concentration is hard and the game is addictive plus expects the constant attention to details.
Doubt youll see this but wow! This is my experience as well! You just want to keep playing but its like what happens to a truck driver after too many hours on the road. Your concentration just cant be maintained at the highest level and the risk of dangerous mmistakes snowballs. Ive begun to notice that once I start taking WAY too long to outfit my squad for a mission, its a sign that ive reached a state of mental exhaustion and its time to pull the plug. It can be hard though.
Not unforgiving, but very demanding. That just about sums up XCOM 2 in my opinion, and is the main reason why this game (especially War of the Chosen) is so engaging! It was literally my first tactics game (hoo, boy!) after ignoring the genre for so long, but it ended up being the first game I've picked up in a decade where I've done several runs back-to-back (and trying to up the difficulty each time). Been playing for about a year and a half now, maybe 200 hours in or so (I'm more on the casual side) and currently in the endgame of my first Legend campaign.
RNG is a huge part of this game, but what most new players don't realize is that you're given so many tools to stack the odds in your favor. If someone gets injured or killed in a mission, it's almost always because you mis-played. Like, 95% of the time it's your fault. The other 5% is what we call "That's XCOM, Baby!" ;)
Anyone I see asking for help on Reddit, I recommend your videos to them. You explain things in such a way that it just clicks, not only loadouts/research, etc, but playing tactics. You made me a much better player.
Wow, thank you!
@@TapCat No, sir...thank you!
All of this. I shared the full campaign playlist on Reddit once it was completed but it kind of fell by the wayside unnoticed.
Really great tips Tapcat! Thanks for all the pointers, myself and the chat are already attempting to drag the campaign away from an Avatar Project failstate!
Glad it helped, I have no doubt that you are your chat can steer XCOM to victory!
Tap Cat I m a former Xcom EU player and the game DESTROYS me really early lol
The timed missions feel extra hard, as I tend to screw up my positioning while trying to accelerate torwards the goal.
And I only play Iron Man. And I still love it.
GOD, THIS GAME IS GOOD.
congrats for the channel, greetings from Brazil🤙
Thank you, I was lucky enough to visit Brazil a number of years ago and am always happy to hear from someone from there! The timed missions can definitely be tense. You need to be really efficient with your actions and I can't count how many times I've barely managed to complete them on the final turn.
I struggled massively on the easiest difficulty!
It's a punishing game.
The trick is to let the enemies walk into your view so they don’t get a turn.
@@ironwizard5747 Lol, no, it's not. It can help sometimes, but there are going to be plenty of situations, especially in timed missions, where you have no choice but to engage as soon as you can. The trick is to understand how your units synergize best together, and use them in the right order. I've finished the game on Legendary Ironman, by the way...
@@darrenjpeters Is legendary way harder than commander+ ? or just a little ?
@@lobonocturno420 It's definitely harder, more than a little, but less than way harder. If you are going well on Commander, you should be able to manage Legendary.
I’ve learned so much about XCOM 2 from your videos, to the point that I want Archons and Specters to show up
Lol, you are truly someone after my own heart!
As someone who has also been streaming XCOM 2 recently (on Commander), I'm looking forward to implementing your advice as I attempt to move up to Legend difficulty.
That's fantastic, good luck with your Legend campaign!
Thanks to your videos I was able to make the jump from rookie to veteran in just 2 campaigns.
Thanks TapCat!
That's awesome, glad to hear it!
Thank you for taking a look at Backseat's campaign! Great video!!!
Thanks, it was a fun change of pace to dig into someone else's campaign.
Great video, I liked it a lot @TapCat.
Well thought through, articulated and good tips.
Thanks, Syken, I appreciate it! FYI, I also just sent you an email as I wanted to ask you about something...
Well, I should amend that to "I tried to send you an email but the address on your channel's About page didn't work." Do me a favor and either shoot an email to tapcatvids@gmail.com so I can send a reply to a current address?
There is no way you can convince me to play on a difficulty any higher than normal. I’m tired of my guys having storm trooper accuracy 🤣.
Lmao your tellin me, I'm good on normal difficulty, never saw a point in difficulties that are made for you to pull your hair out unless you become a super nerd & learn every aspect of a game lol I ain't tryna do all that, I'll learn the basics & stuff but advance super soldier stuff na I'm good
Good hunting, Back Seat Streams! You came to the right place to take your XCOM game to the next level
Commander is the normal game difficulty for me now because I've learned so much on your videos. Veteran is too easy now. Legend still gives me the stress of losing soldiers but not too intimidating anymore. 😁
Sounds like you're actually ready to take on Legend but I don't blame you if you're not always in the mood to get stressed out!
@@TapCat Yes I've won Legend twice (after watching your clips). If I want another real challenge, I'll fire up a new game, but Commander is just right (not too easy, not too hard).
The thing about Legend difficulty is that it's not just a harder version of Commander, it's practically a different game. Most obviously the strategy layer is much slower, so the campaign is way longer. And the thing is things aren't all slower by the same amount. For example Intel costs are doubled in nominal terms but the starting Intel and any Intel rewards scale up accordingly, so expansion pace is actually similar to Commander. But the building of alien facilities also take longer and plot missions knock off more Avatar progress, so the net effect is actually less pressure from the Avatar project. But Elerium Crystal costs on the other hand are WAY higher and the amount you're rewarded don't catch up to suit so it's especially difficult to get the last tier gear upgrades. I'm playing Legend for the first time and entering the late game I found myself in contact with something like 13 regions already while spending a month and a half or so just pursuing the "Alien Alloys, Elerium Crystals" rumors.
The balancing is totally different. Net effect is that the strategy layer is a bit easier but tactical is way harder because of how slow your squad leveling and gear improvement is.
Love the videos TapCat, subbed and belled!
Tapcat! Sir!
Veteran of XCOM 1 60 hours and just jumped into 2 completely uprepared,overwhelmed but not wanting to give up. There's so much more going on.
Then I found your channel like a light of hope. I won't give up on the game , finding your channel has changed everything thank you for the videos you make
I'm glad to hear it. I had a similar experience when I first started playing XCOM 2 after Enemy Unknown. This game definitely offers a different challenge and requires a different approach.
I already moved from Veteran to Commander watching your other videos :-)
That's awesome, good job!
I would generally say I'm good at tactical games. On my first playthrough I got my ass kicked despite having played Xcom EU hundreds of times. But, due to my general patience and experience, I was able to use it as a learning playthrough which has benefited me greatly. Also your videos have helped me massively, I've found them to be spoiler free and very helpful, I'm playing on Veteran, and very far into the game with only 5 casualties, and 20 soldiers, your videos are very helpful, and I would recommend them greatly to new players. PS: One of the main reasons for getting my ass kicked was i didn't know how to activate WOTC. And the mission timers kicked my ass, so I would also recommend not playing the base game. As well as extending the mission timers in settings when you're starting a new game.
Nice new strat video thanks tap cat!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I feel like multi-pod combat is something that would deserve it's own video. Cause even though it's something you shouldn't have happen, on my recent legend run I had so many cases where the extra enemies legend likes to spawn would either spawn near another pod and stick to them like glue, or they'd simply just wander into a fight naturally
Besides lower enemy counts, lower difficulties also have a downthrottling behavior. If you were fighting above a certain number of enemies, the game tries to patrol inactive pods away from the player during the alone turn. This is present all the way to Commander so even on second highest difficulty you rarely fight more than two pods unless you deliberately tried to trigger the whole map. On Legend the downthrottling is completely disabled, and on smaller maps it's not uncommon to end up literally fighting everything present in the mission!
I recently started playing this again. It was a free PSN game back in 2018. I liked the game, but was overwhelmed by the AVATAR Project doom counter, and never finished the game.
I beat the base game on the first 2 difficulties and just got WOTC for $3.99. I went back to Rookie on my first playthrough. It took longer than expected to adjust to the new content. I had something cool happen though, one of my created units got the kill shot on all 3 Chosen. I only ran into one unwinnable mission so far. It was a Protect the transmitter mission, where there was a Sectopod and a lot of other high end enemies that were camped ontop of what i needed to protect. The mission also had the Lost Swarm and Chrysallids.
Biggest change I've noticed besides the obvious stuff, is there are a lot more Sectopods and Gatekeepers in WOTC. I think I only seen one or two of each when I did the base game playthroughs. I might try Veteran one I complete this second playthrough.
I fell in love with the Hunter's Sniper rifle, it is great. On one of my last missions with the Lost, my sniper took out 10 in one turn. I don't know what I'm missing from not having the other DLC's, but the Ruler enemies look to be a major pain.
I did not expect TapCat to look like this.
While I agree with the Reaper not needing Holotargeting, Shredder is actually pretty useful when combined with Bluescreen Rounds and Banish when it comes to Sectopods. Easy one shot, but Shredder is almost necessary with the low damage of the Reaper gun. Sure, if you've got a big enough magazine it's not needed, but you can't always luck out into enough superior expanded mags.
I failed a lot of commander runs until I started rushing 1-2 Sparks. They carry the early game realy hard on commander.(thats the toughest part of the game as I see it) Well that worked for me at least.
We need more "Fashion tips for Command Difficulty" lol
I must confess that I recorded that section before I had the idea of framing the video as trying to help him and other people step up in difficulty. Later, I did think about cutting it but didn't have the heart to do it. Hopefully, people won't mind a bit of fun along with the advice!
I'm curious to hear since I've just discovered this channel and subscribed since you were talking about difficulty if you have tried any mods to affect the difficulty and if so what are some of your favorites. For example, I've been playing on Veteran quite a bit while testing different difficulty mods, and one of the mods I really like is called Very Angry Sectopods (I think that's what the name was), that among other things gives Sectopods quite a bit more health and a bladestorm-like effect that makes it substantially more dangerous when they just walk up in your face.
I don't often use mods that change difficulty but I have used A Better Advent 2 and enjoyed it quite a bit.
Am playing already on commander in my 2.playthrough, so far so good. Will be Commander+ unlocked after i finish the game on commander first ?
excellent video! have you thought about making this a regular thing? like, people submitting saves when they are stuck or in danger of losing the game and need help?
I would consider something along those lines, but this took a LOT of time to put this video together so it wouldn't be sustainable for me to do it in this same format. Syken4games actually does "Save Your Campaign" mini lets-plays where he tries to salvage viewer campaigns gone wrong and I don't know that I want to straight up copy that format either. So, while I like the idea, I'm not sure what other direction I could take it in.
Your tip to kill the ones most likely to shoot first was a massive clutch tip but my commander ironman run died after I lost against the archon king at an alien facility and my best men were rekd, allowing the avatar project to finish
I guess another thing to mention is I failed to get T2 armor, somehow not enough trooper corpses
The Archon King is no joke. I think the first time I fought him, I had a bunch of guys on a rooftop and he used Devastate... it was well named. The fall damage alone was really painful.
Just finished my first run on Commander with no casualties, thanks in no small part to you TapCat. I often found myself underscoring target priority by thinking, which unit is the most likely to actually do damage and can i kill them this turn? I did lucky with my extra abilities, I had a templar with blade storm and faceoff, my grenadier got rapid fire, and weirdly enough my specialist got death from above so he cleaned house after I gave him a spider suit.
That's awesome, glad to hear you did so well!
Hey Cat. I'm starting a stream of my own soon which marks my debut on Commander after two successful Veteran campaigns. What worries me is the strategic layer, especially in regards to facility build order. You did cover it adequately here, as you did everything else. I just wanted to share my anxiety lol. One question I do have is if it's possible to rename the Reaper/Skirmisher/Templar after a viewer before they become Elena and Mox etc. I'd loathe having to do so after the fact.
I haven't tried using a file to supply my own names in a very long time (probably pre-WotC) so I'm not able to help with that. Try not to stress too much about the build order. Start with resistance ring and GTS and go from there.
@@TapCat Thanks!
Also if you're potentially evaluating clips now, any chance I could send you some to look over? I got a few pretty fun ones
Hey TapCat have you thought about playing some saved games from other players where they are in trouble and losing the mission, to see if you can step in and fix things?
I have thought about it. I once helped someone who sent me their save by just sending them written tips. And seeing his mistakes ended up giving me ideas for a lot of the guides I did for the channel. I'm a little reluctant to play on-camera as syken4games does exactly that and I hate to copy him verbatim. I could do something similar to this video, but I spent a lot of hours on this one and I really can't sink that kind of time into an ongoing series.
So, I'm kind of stuck because I would like to do something along those lines but don't have a good idea for what form it should take if I do.
Hello, thank you for another video. What do you think about playing shadowrun I believe is a little similar with xcom 2. have a great week ahead
I tried it once and stopped almost right away. In all honesty, I have a bad habit of quitting if I don't immediately fall in love with a game. I should really go back and give Shadowrun another try because I really didn't give it a fair shake.
Customizing the troops is my favorite part of this game. He has some pretty cool designs but if you liked those outfits you should see the work I've done on my troops. I made around 30 custom characters before I even started to play. I feel like, the more I like the characters the more I like the game.
I was like that on The Sims (also building my own stuff).
Xcom 2 I make the utmost priority to save everybody. I get the know the random soldiers by the end of it and I protect the Skirmishers as you'd protect the President.
Same here. I posted a lot of fashion stuff on the XCOM subreddit if you want to check it all out, and I'm rather happy with what I was able to do in the game.
Thanks for another fix Tapcat. Sadly their Reaper didn't have tactical rigging, a huge handicap, so no talon rounds. Probably grounds to recruit a new Reaper.
Oh, snap, I completely forgot to check for tactical rigging. Oh well, the ranger can certainly use it if he gets one!
For the Avatar Project progression, let's agree to disagree. If the game immediately ended on the last pip being filled, I'd probably agree. On Veteran especially, you can do a lot of redlining, especially on WotC. If you have the Order to reduce the progress by 1 each month, you will almost never come close to even losing the game to that. And even if you don't, restoring even a single pip will reset the 20-day final doom clock - be it by raiding a facility, a covert ops, or storyline progress. I once reduced the progress to 0, for funzies.
How do you build that robot suit thing bc I have beat the game two times on rookie but just moved up
It's available in the proving grounds.
I finished the my first campaign earlier but I feel like I didn't get to see everything and it felt kinda short. Was I doing something wrong that im not understanding? I only have the base game tho so maybe thats why.
There's a lot of stuff added in the expansions, especially War of the Chosen. And the campaigns are quite a bit shorter at the lower difficulties than they are on Legend. I will say that War of the Chosen adds a lot of variety to the gameplay so you might want to consider picking it up if you want to play another campaign. If you play on PC, you can actually pick up the complete XCOM 2 collection for $13 right now because of the summer sale.
@Tapcat’s Xcom Fashion Week: You don’t know you need it until you get it 😂😂😂😂
Agreed, I can spend hours on XCOM fashion and this guy had some mods that really let him do some crazy stuff.
I remember my first campaign being cut short. My mistake was using nothing but my main squad, and the rest was mainly squaddies. Then the avenger defense mission hit while my main guys were injured. bad timea 😂
Ouch!
Holy heck tapcat! I subbed back when you were doing the alien ruler guides and when you took a break I guess I must have unsubbed. Got back into the game and checked your old guides and it turns out you're playing again, glad to see you back, you're one of the best when it comes to educating someone on the game.
Thanks, and welcome back!
I'm already doing better at XCOM thanks to your videos actually. I definitely fell into the trap of attacking the most visually striking and intimidating enemy at first (like Archons). After watching your videos I realized that if you learn the enemies behaviour and stop and think what they actually do you can quite easily circumvent them. (let the archon do his Blazing attack, it's easi dodged and you can focus on the other enemies first!)
However I feel like I'm a bit stuck on the campaign map side of things. I'm constantly low on supplies, avatar project progress bar is always quite high, the chosen are after my ass and I'm dangerously close to them finding out about my wherabouts. I guess some tips on that front would be great. I know you have an "Avenger Guide" video. I've just been a lil bit afraid of viewing it as I don't want to get specifically told exactly what to build and in what order as finding out myself is a lot more fun (at least so far lol).
Thanks for a great video! really interesting to watch, hope to see more from you soon, cheers!
The key to what you're describing comes down in large part to having the discipline on the scanning map. Scan for intel, make contact with new resistance cells, rinse, repeat. Don't chase down all the extra scanning missions that they constantly throw at you, only take one if you need it very badly. Build radio towers if you need them to keep pushing outward but otherwise keep scanning for intel and making contact. You'll have more money, you'll be able to get to more alien facilities to slow down the avatar project. Every time you take out a facility it stops further progress for 20 days.
Also keep an eye out in the Resistance Ring. You can get facility leads that way and also other ops reduce Avatar Project progress by 2 pips. Two other things... one is make sure you build Resistance Comms early enough to keep the contacts flowing. Second, don't' spend all your money as soon as it comes in. But new weapons and armor as you research them, build the facilities that you need, but don't spend on other stuff just because you can. You'll wish you had that money later because the cost of things you genuinely need really adds up.
Hope this helps, I know there's a lot to juggle in the game!
@@TapCat On thanks a bunch! That's actually really helpful. So far I've tried to not explore the whole map because I was afraid of finding more chosen and make them start searching for me.
Idk if that's a viable strategy, maybe it's not as difficult to juggle 3 chosen at once as I imagine it to be?
I'll follow your advice, I definitely scanned most of the available scans because I thought that's what you're supposed to do. But xcom fooled me again.
Cheers!
Playing XCOM 2 on higher difficulties is not about success and failure, but about becoming a better commander. You have nothing to lose except a few hard lessons to learn.
Since I started my legend playthrough my understanding of the game got a whole lot better.
But you have to make that jump first to really learn new tactics and skills and who knows....those new challenges could bring out some really good ideas that nobody has thought of yet.
Just look at how this veteran player tackles the Archon King compared to the other easier pods. When things get more difficult you get better.
I actually agree that a great way to get better is jump up in difficulty and deal with the craziness. Even if you end up dropping back down, you'll feel like you're on easy mode after getting your head kicked in on that higher level.
my tips are changing the bgm to legacy pack which change the feeling from you are the last defense of humanity to let's kick some alien ass
Geez, all of those 70%+ shots consistently hitting in this video. I almost forgot how much the lower difficulties baby you with aim assists! Because of that I didn't even get into the habit of consistently trying to remove cover until I got to Commander difficulty (that and the fact that enemies have more HP on Commander so grenades aren't the pod-wipe solution to everything anymore).
One more thing I didn't see pointed out in this video is that on most missions, you can evac if things go sideways. It's better to lose some territory or let some Dark Event go through or whatever, than to lose half a squad of Sergeants in the early game or Captains in the mid-game, (maybe with their unique gear and stuff) etc. The only hard game-over in this game is the Avatar Project completing (and losing some plot missions, but even those allow a restart on Ironman lol), so if that hasn't happened yet, you can still win. The "Saving Your Campaign" playlist on the Syken4games channel is an excellent compilation of the myriad ways to come back from what seem to be insurmountable losses.
There are so many things that I would have liked to have covered. Even after 30 minutes, I feel like I just barely scratched the surface.
I’m having trouble on my campaign. I just restarted and am having trouble as it’s early campaign.
Is there a mod that will tell me how many tiles a move will reveal/trigger? Just so i can make an educated guess as to the likelihood of triggering a pod. Sometimes i activate a second pod just due to my new position while trying to avoid expanding my map control.
That's a great question. I wish I knew of a mod that would do that, there's the little red warning tiles in the game itself but they don't show up if there's a pod that's out of your sight to begin with. I love the idea, but I've never seen a mod like that. Have you tried searching through the Steam Workshop for it?
There isn't a mod that I know of but here's some tips. Use a scanner (or several) or the ability that specialists get to scan the area around you so you can tell exactly where the enemies are before you engage. Alternatively on WoTC you can also use a Reaper to scout out the enemies location and it's very helpful to have the Reaper's ability to maintain sight of anyone they see so even if that pod moves away you can still track them. Scouting out your environment helps massively before engaging an enemy group.
@@brothersandsistersofvalhalla I understand all that, sure, all good advice. I'm talking where i'm just trying to move into cover for a shot but it is actually close enough to a corner/ledge its actually going to 'reveal' a dozen squares. I don't want a cheat to know, just the intel to decide if i'm feeling that lucky. There might be a shot that's lower risk w/its own tradeoffs.
@@adambickford8720 I don't think there's anyway to do that. The feature to show if you're going to trigger someone already doesn't work well for pods you can blatantly see. I've triggered pods by running across paths the game told me wouldn't trigger them so yeah idk what you can do about that besides what I mentioned above by trying to stay away as much as possible from groups you have marked.
The closest though it does not satisfy what you want would be "Gotcha Again" mod (vanilla or WOTC). Give it a try. One of the features is to show you an icon (yellow triangle) when mousing over a tile that could trigger a pod as long as the pod is in sight. However this seems to only work with a concealed scout (Ranger or Reaper) ahead. If you have only revealed soldiers, then the trigger icon does not show up (preserving the risk factor to make you think twice pushing too far). I hope this helps.
Shredder on reapers is great. Sting exists. Trust me when I tell you it can be the deciding factor on an alien ruler
Sting exists but it can only be used once per mission. And it would be a rare circumstance when I would care about shredding unless it was paired with Sting. I'm not crazy about taking abilities that I can only use once per mission, because there are only so many ability points to go around. That said, shredding is a great ability and it also pairs really well with Banish. So while I don't recommend taking shred to someone still trying to learn the basics, it's certainly a viable option for someone who understands how to use it (and who won't get tempted to start having their reaper take first shot every encounter).
I'm currently doing a non-ironman veteran run on vanilla. Should I also do veteran when I play wotc next. Because I'm thinking about doing C/I on wotc after I finish this campaign
The jump in difficulty going from Veteran to Commander might be the biggest between any 2 difficulty levels. I'd recommend either sticking with the base game to go up to Commander or stay on Veteran to play WotC. I don't know that I'd say WotC is harder once you're on the battlefield, but it throws a ton of new stuff at you and you're likely to have your hands full just assimilating all of that. Just know what you're getting into before you also crank up the difficulty setting.
@@TapCat thanks for the reply. I've become a much better player from following your advice and watching your videos! Just working on remaining as consistent as possible
Actually, if my Reaper rolled shred and holo targeting, I would take them. They help with banish. You may just need to banish an un-shredded Sectopod, or your Reaper is the only one in range of the last Avatar and the aliens are piling up.
The thing is that I have silent killer and blood trail, and I have enough XCOM AP to just buy shred and holo target without sacrificing much.
I have restarted my WOTC campaign 6 times. I have never won. In my most recent campaign i realized… armor exists. I was so tired of everyone getting 1 shot so often i would save scum save scum fail and quit out of frustration.
Xcom 2 showing you the nanoscale vest as a grenade replacement put me off from ever building any other armor. I looked at the predator armor sitting in shen’s workshop and went “oh, extra utility slot? That means i dont lose a grenade” so i built and equipped it. Suddenly i have 3 slots on my grenadier? 2 on everyone? No wasted slot from armor???
Blew my mind.
Ideally, you should not be getting shot at all. Getting shot creates a wounded soldier, which takes them out of the fight for a period of time. It is best to try to figure out how to get flawless mission results instead. I personally focus on weapons before armor in my games.
I won't lie, I've saved /reloaded a number of times when my guys get shot, but I can honestly say it hasnt been too many times across 500h played and I've beat xcom 2 on commander/legendary smoothly. I have a theory that the xcom rng rewards specific unit placement which both ensures landing shots and preventing enemy fire, rather than being based on randomness or probability. I could swear that when I started to move/think in the way the enemy does, the game began to get easier.
500h in and still no legendary? The game rng actually helps you on every difficulty except legendary. Legendary/Ironman/Grim Horizon is where the game shines the most. Once you master that Beta strike is the next level. After that personal challenges like no chosen weapons etc makes the game harder becouse soon you will realize the game is actually easy once you understand enemy AI.
@@blackwidow7804 I've beat it on legendary, and since I bear it on that difficulty it was the only one I played. Haven't tried beyond the very base vanilla and haven't tried the additional modifiers. It's been a couple years since I stopped. I'm still convinced the rng in legendary is adjusted to favor you if you play roughly like the AI (by that I mean, I couldn't help wondering why the ai takes particular close placements/cover during its turn) but I've never done testing per se.
@@burrito4332 becouse they go for flanking position. Also the AI is designed to let you win. If it wasnt they would go for long range combat becouse they dont get aim bonus based on distance like you do. They also use certain patterns like for instance Sectoid shooting on his first move only if he have flank or Muton using grenade if he can hit more than one oponent, or Andromedon going for melee if he is in range etc.
I have quite liked the one time I had Needle on a Reaper, they can one-shot turrets to take them "oot o' the action" before the rest of the squad gets there and stay in shadow into the bargain. I also like Tactical Rigging so you can maybe also get Talon Rounds or AP Rounds on the Reaper as well, that sort of activity would surely be banned by the Geneva Convention. I'd also say that the Flamethrower is good to have around ONLY for the Lost missions (and really only if you haven't been lucky enough to draw the Between The Eyes card). I have literally never noticed the pips beneath the facilities before! Writing that one down.
This was a really helpful video, thanks! Although that first part of the game IS really brutal, once your rangers have Run 'n' Gun, your Grenadiers have Chain Shot and maybe you have at least one top level Psi-op for the Domination, a few Aim mods scattered where useful, the game just tips on it's axis and suddenly it's pretty easy (but having said that, I have benefited ENORMOUSLY from your tutelage on kill order and priority).
But if there were going to be a series of "TapCat Critiques Your Character Pool Dress Sense" then I'd like to pop in an application! 😂
I should start a series... Fashion Friday where viewers submit their best character designs and I showcase one each week.
I’ve only just beaten wotc today
Congrats!
Ok but listen to me. Reaper with banish + shredder + best weapon + 6 shots (with weapon upgrade).
I love my reaper for desperate situations.
Backseat’s ego is gonna explode
He deserves it, it takes a lot of guts to ask someone you don't really know to critique your campaign and put the results on CZcams. And I didn't tell him anything at all about what was in my video so I'm sure he had some anxiety about what I might say.
@@TapCat true. We all had a great time reacting.
Awesome video by an awesome dude- give the cat snuggles from me please x
My disbelief that I forgot to put an engineer at their station AND that I put a flamethrower on the spark was funny enough, but the realisation when loading the game on stream and seeing it confirmed was even funnier.
He is literally snuggled in my lap as I read your comment so mission accomplished!
When I watched your reaction video, I got a real kick out of "my little brother equipped the flamethrower!"
Also workshops should not be on the edge of the facility. They should be in one of the middle structure.
I have played commander both on X2 and WOTC and I have to say
Commander is miserable in Vanilla, I can't grasp how people see otherwise.
Meanwhile on WOTC I've played commander without using the ruler weapons and still fighting the rulers.
The game just gives you more tools and freedom of choice.
PS: Play Veteran if you feel like it. No reason to play Commander any otherwise. People will tell you to go impossible anyway if you're happy in Commander.
I play on Commander difficulty later in the game
That's a good idea, probably helps keep things spicy!
I don't agree about Reapers. I take one on every mission if I have one available, with a few exceptions. The intel a Reaper gives you about pod composition and locations is invaluable, and if you build a Reaper right, they can more than hold their own with damage output. I've finished the game on Legendary Ironman, by the way...
So when I said that Reapers are great scouts and you should take abilities that fuel their ability to be stealthy killing machines, you disagreed with that? The only criticism I made was at a build including abilities like holotargeting that would force the reaper to be the first to shoot an enemy to be useful because that would drop her out of shadow. If you agree that they're amazing scouts, why would disagree with me saying that you should keep them in shadow?
@@TapCat I was disagreeing with the part of the video at the start where you said that it was better to take stock classes than any of the 3 faction classes. I would agree about the other two, but not about the Reapers. Templars and skirmishers can be good, but are very situational. Reapers are always good. My apologies if I misunderstood the point you were making. I'm going to rewatch the video now to see if that's the case.
@@TapCat Ok, my bad, I misunderstood what you were saying at that point. You were making the point that the player in that campaign should be getting experience into soldiers that weren't colonels, not that he shouldn't be taking the Reaper. My apologies for going off half cocked. It's a good video, and should help people a lot. I had to learn most of this stuff the hard way. Cheers, mate.
@@darrenjpeters No worries, I seriously love reapers and have said in other videos that I think they're probably the most powerful class in the game!
@@TapCat Yeah, I one hundred percent agree with you there. I'm also a lover of Grenadiers, like yourself. If I have to take 2 of a stock class, it's almost always two Grenadiers.
What's tedious about playing this game on hardest difficulty, is that it's all about not triggering new groups of enemies, or "pods", while destroying the current group. This means constantly checking where the boundaries are, which is not fun.
Try using the mod Gotcha! Again. It tells you when a move will activate a visible pod.
Done it with untouchables trophy. The game becomes easy when your soldiers start getting overpowered. Can take on any amount of enemies.
i struggle to accept that Spectres are not high top priority enemies
I feel nothing but relief when I see Spectres in a pod of enemies. They'll never fire at you on their first turn. Yes, make a copy of one of your guys. You then have a whole turn to kill it. If you have blue screen rounds equipped on a couple of your squad (which you should) then you can kill it easily and free your soldier and his clone automatically dies. In the worst case scenario and you can't kill the Spectre because it ran somewhere you can't get to then just use Revival Protocol to free your soldier and focus on killing it's clone.
Wait and f I put a stock on a sniper then with the right ability I can cancel most enemy overwatch shots
That's true, although you really want both a scope and either an expanded magazine or auto-loader on a sniper rifle so it's tough to make room for a stock unless you get that perk for a 3rd slot.
@@TapCat So I gotta start building those com towers in a Regen with the armed to the teeth bonus and more towers in general.
@@herobrans9822 I wouldn't go completely ham with the towers, but definitely check out those bonuses and take advantage of the good one. Plus, they do help you expand faster, make more money, etc.
Oh F no, stuck on Rookie.
Am I ready for Commander? I AM GETTING MY ASS HANDED TO ME IN VETERAN LOL
and I played a LOT of xcom enemy unknow lol
I honestly believe that playing Enemy Unknown first makes it harder to succeed in XCOM 2.
@@TapCat makes sense
hahaha dude had a psi lab but no comms
This one is old scholl
Came here after ragequitting.
You're not the first to do that, but maybe someday you'll give it another try. Either way, I hope you enjoy whatever you play next!
I always re load saves I cheat
lol
rng hates me too much. I miss 6 90+ shots in a row and rage quit
It is somewhat funny watching new players go into XCOM thinking we're experts and amazing strategists. Like yeah we have a handle on the games mechanics but they don't realize a lot of XCOM is luck. You are rolling the dice in every battle. If the game feels like it it'll one shot kill your soldier straight through full cover. There's no such thing as a guaranteed strategy for victory when it comes to XCOM.
I wouldn't consider myself a really good xcom player, but I won my stuff on higher difficulties and I disagree with a lot of these tips.
You know I love Xcom 2 a lot but I swear they cheat sometimes 🤣🤣🤣
It feels that way, but the game actually cheats on your behalf at the lower difficulties and then takes off the training wheels at Commander.