Back here since I started following 2 months. Thanks to your guides I just finished Commander Ironman, and now planning my Legendary (+Ironman) run. I feel utterly nervous, but hoping I can take on enough experience to win such a run.
Love the video keep it up. If I may offer my own personal insight and my own personal build order. I've grown quite fond of 2 openers personally. Since this seems the most fitting place to put it. Been dying to speak up since the campaign. lol Before I start disclaimer that there is no "wrong" way to play the game. War of the chosen especially offers up a great deal of variety on how to progress and there's a great deal of viable options all fairly equal in power level. The openers I've grown fond are as follows 1. Resistance ring > GTS > building based on your current campaign (Proving grounds, coms, infirmary, training center - more on this one later.) -Alternatively- 2. Laboratory > Ring > GTS* > Power (now this might seem odd but I'll touch on this) To start with my preferred method as of now is method 2. However I'd suggest newer players go for a more conventional GTS/Ring type of opener as you are completely without funds if you start with the Lab no longer giving you the ability to pick up something like a med kit or flash bangs. Both of which are very helpful at the beginning. To break down the logic further for Opener #1 the resistance ring start in short the ring opener gives you very fast early access to covert actions. Which can bring you into a strong starting point with things that grant +HP//Aim/Soldier Promotion*(the best early one in a lot of scenarios for me as it offers you quicker access to your abilities, potentially faster GTS upgrades for squad size and the ability to chase the chosen down hard if they're giving you problems... which they very likely will), more breakthroughs and the other hero units. All 3 of which are very powerful in their own regards though personally I'm not big on the skirmisher vs the other 2 but that's a topic for another time. The ring also offers you the ability to safely train rookies without them dying on you on a mission guaranteeing a squaddie promotion upon success. 1 pro to this is often times 2 or even 3 soldiers can go on a mission at a time. Training 2 or 3 rookies in the time it takes to do about 1 and a half rookies via the GTS. The downside to this is that you can't control what the rookies become and are at the mercy of RNG. Which can be a very big detriment. This should be used in conjunction with the GTS to fill in the gaps. The GTS is my #2 or even #3 building now for 1 major reason. You can't rely on "the A team". The one soldier to babysit to captain for the squad size upgrade at a reasonable time due to the will drain and the tired status. Injuries also are very costly and the infirmary may not be your third building due to a variety of scenarios such as not being offered Resistance Contacts from the Ring or Geoscape to cite one example. These things greatly slow down the trip to captain and delay the squad size upgrade longer. The third building is really up to how comfortable you feel within the campaign and what you're finding you need on a player level. There's quite a few ways to go about it and none of them are "wrong". I'd suggest the infirmary #3 as a safe option but that's not set in stone. Amount of engineers at that point in the game can impact your decision making greatly. Coms is another viable alternative if you're looking to expand fast and hard for a strong bonus on your starting continent. To talk about my preferred opener, option #2 it boils down to research. Due to everything being slower this time around the lab start accomplishes 2 big things for me. the first. is improving the research speed of the early game, this makes rushing towards early magnetic tier weapons much more viable than it would be prior. This also opens up my expansion options more based on how the campaign is going should I not decide on magnetic or a breakthrough/inspirationchanged my mind. The second thing the lab accomplishes directly relates to that. In war of the chosen the laboratory increases the chances for breakthroughs to happen. and being offered something like "rifles damage +1" early on is tremendous and completely tips the scales of the war Exceptionally early. Basically turning your conventional weapons into almost magnetic tier in at the very least 1/4th the time and no additional supply/alloy investment. Completely game changing. With that said it's not a guarantee. However the boons don't stop there. Modular weapons are big offering more upgrade slots on your guns, instant excavations which is HUGE when you've only got that one weenie engineer running around trying to get the job done the best he can, armor Health increases just to cite a few. The options it offers you and the adaptive playstyle it grants is not only big but also very versatile to whatever the game throws at you. However it does come with it's drawbacks. It costs legitimately 100% of your starting funds. So no flash bangs, no med kits, and pending on how the odds roll your second building may also be delayed though that is improbable. On top of this your rookie training slows down significantly along with global expansion though I personally like to hunker down early on to limit modifiers I need to worry about there is the income issue to work around. So it's not the perfect start. But even with these set backs I love this starter. The ring is my go-to second pick for the reasons I mentioned above. You simply will not have a captain by the time the GTS is done or near done. The GTS is also not required to train a soldier to out of squaddie tier leaving the GTS at a lower priority to me and there mostly to fill in the gaps and not there specifically to get the rookies out of dumpster tier range. Ring offers up just a great deal of boons I simply can't ignore vs the GTS. Especially when I have 0 money to spend on the GTS and it's upgrades at that point regardless. The GTS is my usual third building but this one is really dependant on the campaign, research, the starting chosen, the starting faction and so on. However the GTS at this point is much more appealing because a captain very possibly will be propping up very soon, especially with ring bonuses, and on top of that most of my rookies would be squaddie at this point and the rookies I have left are there to fill in what I need. More rangers, more genadiers, and so on. Power being the 4th slot is simply because... I need it. You will be 100% out of power if you choose anything but power for that third building. After power it's really up to the campaign and what it is you need. Missions, avatar facility spawns, wounded soldiers, research. There's way too many ways to go about it to really say something is definitive or even safe. Proving grounds are possibly the closest I can get to that but it's not set in stone. Ammo is good and if you have the shen's last gift DLC the Spark units are Fantastic this time around. They're basically a mix between a grenadier and a specialist. They're not broken overpowered but they have great action economy for that point in the game and a remarkable health pool. They also never get tired and can be taken out while wounded should the group really NEED what they offer. They can be built to sponge up damage for your team or they can be set up in such a way where they can flat delete something you need gone. Their gun also comes with shredder built in. Unlike in the base game they also can have their weapons modified. While in the base game I thought they were complete garbage they're actually much more competitive now. They do fall behind normal soldiers late game for me however. The inability to use ability points and PCS upgrades hurts them. Their entry cost is also a little steep for the proving grounds. Lastly 2 things to touch on. First the training center. Yes, the training center is great, getting abilities that your soldier normally couldn't have or doubling up on something a soldier has a 2 tiers is phenomenal beyond words. However there's 2 parts of this that I can't justify for a row 1 building. The first part is ability points and how they work. If you simply have a massive amount of "standard" soldiers then your AP won't grow very quickly regardless and unless you slammed a bunch of AP bonuses in the ring you likely won't be able to branch out too much anyway to make it meaningful for more than 1 or 2 missions at a time before 2 missions of a cooldown while they're not tired. Abilities are random so what you see your A-team getting may simply just not be impressive. I don't know about you but I really don't care if my sniper has salvo or not. On top of that not only will your AP numbers not be generally high enough but also your soldiers simply aren't high enough in level to monopolize on it. Such as quick draw and death from above or Heavy Ordinance and Holo targeting. So this building is often delayed to the end of row 2 and even down to row 3 at times. The second thing is the chosen and hero units at the start if you turn off the lost and abandoned tutorial mission. The game will start you off on gatecrasher with 3 rookies and a squaddie (they only come that way) hero unit. They will be selected randomly unless you activate one in one of the bonus options at game boot up. Assuming you let the game roll the dice all 3 of them are fantastic. The skirmisher basically fills the ranger roll and offers a clean way of killing the 4 health troopers on legend and still take a gunshot at some poor bastard giving you effectively 5 actions with 4 units. The templar offers guaranteed damage and at full focus can almost (might be able to) one-shot a sectoid. The reapers are unparalleled in scouting. information is the #1 resource in any game. Especially strategy games. The chosen is random and will 100% show up on the first retaliation mission. The assassin or warlock can be campaign ending if handled poorly. Good luck commander.
P.S. Since I ran out of characters on the comment proper. Everything mentioned in the video about the geoscape priorities is spot on. There's not really anything to add to that. The key is to have an idea of the route you'd like to take and execute while being willing to adapt to new opportunities that come your way. One last note on openers my preferred start is a skirmisher opening funny enough. Despite me not liking them terribly much as a unit as a whole, and not really caring about a second one, their faction scan bonus is increased construction speed. Which greatly benefits the start of any campaign giving you faster construction and a small edge. Of course if playing without modifiers you're prayers to RNGesus are the only things that can offer you this. The alternatives aren't bad by any means. You get "better" (debatable of course) units and different options. Templar start is healing speed up. Which can cancel out the need for an infirmary early for example. I just think the skirmisher boon at the beginning is markedly better but not overwhelmingly so. Sorry for the wall of text. Most important thing for any game is to have fun and accept that a play you made might have been wrong. In general or in context to the situation. Being open minded and accepting that failure is part of the learning experience is a big part of growing as an individual. Gaming or otherwise. You cannot learn a thing you think you know. Have fun, good luck, and good gaming. :)
Thank you very much. Means a great deal. Been really wanting to talk about these kinds of things since the start. This worked for me very well in my most recent run pulling me from the bring of disaster in one of the worst starts I've had in a while. I still have my own failings and struggle with things in the game. The assassin and warlock at the beginning cause me a great deal of grief. My method for dealing with them I find isn't really ideal but it certainly works without much risk. It just feels Awful. But I'll save that for a different guide video. I'll try to keep the comments topic appropriate based on the guide in question to not derail your comments section. Keep up the good work. Would love to hear your thoughts about my method and see what you yourself can do with it in a future run.
Hey Zierkem, I did have the time to read your long comment in detail, thanks for sharing your strategy. As for my reply to it: I think the strategy can be a good alternative build order if you accept its advantages and disadvantages. The research speed increase will be about 20% with the lab (the unavailability of scientists at the start can leave parts of the building being un-used however). I can see how this could push the day of receiving critical breakthroughs like magnetic or plasma rifles to an earlier stage. That being said, you give up on a couple of improvements for your soldiers (like early boni, more training of rookies, etc.). In the long run, it will not be noticable, as your build order is very similar, it just means in the first 5-8 missions, you are going to have a larger disadvantage than you anyways have. You make a very valid point with going for th resistance ring early. The boni of the factions, the extra soldiers and the sheer amount of passive stats (aim, hp, etc.) make it a very compelling case. Cheers, Syken
Great to hear from you. You are absolutely right about those cons to the lab opener however you will always have 1 scientist at the end of the first month due to the council mission always providing one. The lab can be upgraded to fit the second scientist at a later date once you've stabilized. So with that said the lab will always be able to reach it's non-upgraded potential just about as soon as it's finished construction. That extra research speed drops the 60+ day magnetic weaponry down to about 45-47 or so which is not insubstantial at all along with the increased breakthrough chances. I find that breakthroughs are a fast way to level out those disadvantages with no added supply cost. The other thing about the laboratory as well is that it will cut down on your overall scientist needs by the end of the game allowing you to get a little bit greedy with more missions for what you Want vs what you need. But 100% it makes the early game harder for the first few missions without a doubt so it really is up to the player and how well they can handle a lot of the early game material without things like flashbangs. I do suggest giving it a try sometime. I was skeptical about it but I found myself very surprised. The ring opener is much more "standard" I'd say and you can't go wrong with it. But the lab opening offers some fantastic up sides for the rest of the game with a temporary but significant downside early on. Keep up the good work and I look forward to more of your content!
Personally I prefer building resistance ring first, then GTS, then infirmary, then training center. There's no need to rush training center, since it takes a lot of time before you get enough ability points for it to be useful. GTS is vital, but again, it takes time to be useful. You might not have the squad size unlock ready by the time you get it if you build it first. RR is useful immediately. It gets you tons of useful things. It promotes your squaddies, and it has some missions that offer an automatic promotion to anyone, making it easier to get troops promoted enough to unlock the new squad slots without having to risk their lives in combat.
I could see this. But I always seem to get squad size before the first retaliation mission going GTS first, and it helps a lot. But yea I was suprised to see this guy advise training center so early, because he really knows how to play this game. Maybe he has a way of cheesing out some level 3 bonds early? Or AP farming? Even then you have to just pray you get some good wild card abilities.
To be honest, legendary ironman is hard, but it's nowhere as hard as it's version on Long War. Sure you need to be careful, but building order doesn't really matter as long as you know what you're doing. Sure gts is kinda early knowing that you need a sergeant to get squad size, but it allows for you to train rookies into grenadiers, rangers, etc. Resistance Ring is just perfect as a second building because it does have cool missions available, but before the avatar project is a thing, it's kinda useless since there's around 1-4 missions available with 2-3 of them requiring someone to be sergeant. In other words, legendary is hard, but as long as you get gts ,RR or infirmary first before any other buildings (other than power plant) is good enough.
Hi mate ! I just started playing X-Com a few days ago and it’s a lot of fun, you really have to think to win a mission. Love your channel with the tips, you’re really good at it … 💪🏽👋🏽🎩✅
Thank you for these guides and amazing content. Just started my first L/I WOTC run after doing veteran and commander base game. Got a flawless gate crasher (minus the loot) first try, but then lost two rookies and the mission on a neutralize the commander in the sewers. However taking inspiration from you not going to let that stop XCOM from kicking some alien butt.
Hi Syken. Thanks for all the guides and content over the years, you've helped me a lot. I fumbled my way through my first playthrough on Veteran but after watching some of your videos I managed a near perfect Commander playthrough (One death. I'm so sad). I've had a couple of aborted Legendary playthroughs, both times the first Chosen was the Warlock with the Regeneration ability. 2 armour and Regeneration! How am I supposed to deal with this guy with Rifles that deal 3 damage? So yeah, both times I quit out of frustration. My 3rd attempt is going a lot better. I must admit, I did highroll the 'Conventional weapons' breakthrough which is obviously helping a ton. Once this is done I'll try another playthrough to see if I can manage without that breakthrough carrying me through the early game. This game is great. I'm surprised I ignored it for so long being a long time Civ player as well as being a lover of turn based tactics games.
Hi OTG, great to hear that the guide helped you and that you are progressing well now. Good luck to you commander and let me know when you have beaten the game :)
I had been watching your guides for a bit, and that inspired me to finally get around to playing XCOM in ironman mode. So I played EW in normal ironman, and the run was a complete success. Therefore, I decided to up the difficulty for my WOTC ironman run to Commander. So how did the run go? Well, despite some early loses in the combat layer, I think I adjusted well there. However, it was the strategy layer that was going great, as I was getting lucky with a lot of ideal breakthroughs, rewards and whatnot. So, imo my WOTC ironman run was going better than expected..... That was until my game crashed! Thats right, during a Lost mission my game just up and crashed and it sent me to the dashboard. Then when I rebooted the game again, my save file was completely gone! It wasnt there anymore! I looked online for solutions, but there was none, only a lot of people with the same issue. So idk how many hours I lost here, but goddamnm, that bs just killed the enthusiasm I had for doing ironman runs. Never again.
Are you playing on a console or on the PC? If you do play on the PC, my suggestion is to actually buy the game via steam. The auto-save files are really handy. I played the game over 6.000 hours on many different PCs (each connected to my steam account) and although having experienced many bugs, as well as crashes to Desktop a couple of times, I never had any issues with the files. Maybe something to consider.
I did read from people that were playing on PC that they had ways of preventing what happened to me by backing up saves and such. Unfortunately, im playing on the xbone, and there is no recourse for me. My game is lost. Still, XCOM on PC is something I have in mind. These games are among my favorites (particularly EU/EW), and they look pretty sweet with some of those mods I've seen. So when/if I get a PC, I'll be buying XCOM. Over 6000 hours of XCOM though? Thats impressive. And here I though I had a lot of playtime with several hundred hours myself....
I'm sorry to hear about the xbox, my suggestion is looking into the PC version, the modding alone will make it worth your time. Sucks that the console implementation is that risky - I do understand your frustration there.
Appreciate this guide. Got some questions: 1. What is your take on a Resistance Ring start (followed up with GTS) on Legendary? I have mixed feelings on it since you may be short on engineers at this stage of the game while a GTS can give better value with the time given, but maybe you might see a case for first. 2. I agree that a Training Centre is important, but why do you propose it to be so good that it deserves to be your second building? (I am saying this considering that you do get free Level 1 Bonds and your soldiers level up slowly on Legendary so you won't get much AP to work with outside of XCOM good tactics which I am sure you can do, so I was thinking of making it a second level building.) 3. On the Workshop, easier to understand where to place workshops, but how would you justify when to place a workshop? I know Power Coil placement can affect it, but I am thinking of timing. I can see uses on Legendary, but not as much on Commander and below. 4.On Lab, roughly when should I consider placing it to keep pace with the tech curve. Can be tough prioritising, but I was wondering if it is justifiable placing it as a first 3 buidling? Definitely not a 3rd row building. 5. Lastly, Resistance Comm, when do you normally start consider placing it down in general? I do get game states where I do get a steady flow of Contacts from Geoscape/Covert Ops, and others where they don't exist. So I am thinking what would be some good cues on when to place it in? One should be enough. 6. Interesting you mentioned placing a Power Relay on a power coil, normally I would put in a Shadow Chamber and a Psi Lab there, but what's your reasoning for doing this way?
1) You can build that certainly, the build order is not as important as you might think. GTS makes the game easier due to the SS-upgrade, Resistance ring can give you passive boni, both are okay, just requires you to work around the disadvantages. 2) It can be your 2nd building, you can go GTS into Training Facility and just build the RR later, just means you will be limited to 1 covered mission per month, which is still „okay“ for the first 2 month. 3) The Workshop unfortunately is the only building that I wouldn‘t recommend, it takes a lot of time, gives you a net +2 engineers and costs you momentum. By the time it is up an running, you usually have enough engineers for most of the stuff. 4) LAb is good, you can rush it from the beginning and gain quite a bit momentum. Comes at the expense of GTS SS upgrade. 5) I am holding back on that quite a bit, if you are maxed out with your connections, it is more likely that a covered mission or a strategic layer resource for +1 contact will spawn, since the game is „helping you“. One of its hidden mechanics. 6) correct, both Shadow Chamber and the PSi-lab are more efficient if you want to build them on the power coil. You can do that or go with the power plant and just build the mentioned buildings later (typically they come a bit later in a run).
@@SykenPlays Hi Syken, thanks for replying! This is useful information. Got one question for you on point 6: Say if you do decide to go power relay on a power coil and then you unlock the second of the two buildings (Psi Lab or Shadow Chamber). Do you scrap the power coil and build the new facility? Or do you decide to build the second facility and upgrade the power relay + devote engineers to top up power. Asking this to evaluate the cost of keeping momentum in the Avenger. On an informational note, I noticed a common theme across your guide videos, so I think I should share: To beat Legendary Ironman, I am getting the sense that you are emphasising two principles. One for tactical missions and one for Geoscape + Avenger. On tactical missions, you would want to maximize and dominate the action economy. That is why you want to avoid engaging more than one pod at a time, that is why scouting is important (I am noticing my gameplay becoming better with a scout, I have you to thank for that), that is why skills that maximizes action economy is so good (Salvo, Lightning Hands, Specialist Medical skills up to Lieutenant etc.), and that is why GTS upgrades are so critical. On the Geoscape/Avenger, the idea of momentum is king. Time being spent is time not being obtained back in the future. That is why you would want to priortise engineers and scientists and contacts on the map (vs supplies and intel which there are other sources that you will need to do anyways). Same for deciding the facilities to build. The best part is doing well in one reinforces the other, doing poorly has the potential to compromise the other. Hence the reverse difficulty curve coming into effect. How steep that curve going up and down will be depends on your decisions and performance. I feel that if you decide to make future XCOM 2 guides, emphasising these two principles explicitly can help to guide players along. Took me quite a number of views to piece this together.
4 years, but still, why not. I want to update some info on build order and start of game in general. Experience comes from Legend, ironman, Dark Future - original, no mods for gameplay. I always play with Dark Future as all other versions of Legend are well.. the 0 lost soldiers in your game is best proof that you should play Dark Future at least once. The whole game, it's entirety of mechanics and all that, it all will come to sense when you play with Dark Future. If you want to get the best experience - go with Dark Future, it's amazing. Now that i mentioned it, we can continue with build order. The next build order is designed for the beginning of the game, provided that you start the game at the headquarters of the skirmishers and in general at the beginning of the game on the legend with the Terminator and Dark Future. At the beginning of the game, you need to build the Resistance Ring first, as it takes only 12 days without engineer to build with the headquarters of the Skirmishers. After we complete all the operations inherent in the beginning of the game - go to the map, stay at the headquarters, completely ignore ANY pop-up events on the map (even if an engineer with a 5-day acquisition period has spawned there, yes we ignore engineer event for now, we will take him only later after we already built Resistance Ring, not before) until the first mission to obtain an engineer appears. This mission is fixed, it will always be there no matter what, there will always be one engineer for it's completion. After this mission, we put the new engineer on clearing room (yes, we do not put him to finish resistance ring, it's absolutely pointless waste of time) and return to the Skirmisher headquarters. If everything is done as described above, then the Resistance Ring and the new slot for buildings will open simultaneously on the same day. We did not lose a single day of construction, and in 12 days total we built the Resistance Ring and we can immediately begin the construction of any other module we like. Naturally, we send a group to search for a new faction. This is our chance to get usable orders early next month and it's extremely important at such start to have a chance to get additional orders. Then it all depends on preferences and how your game acts. You can start building a Guerrilla School, or a laboratory, or a testing area for the Spark, which in the early stages of the game is simply a beast (provided that there are already 2 cores and the necessary modifiers were taken at the start of the game). This depends on various number of factors. But one point is very important - we do not put an engineer to build a school (unless you have one to spare), but continue to build it without an engineer. And we continue to dig the third slot with the same engineer at the same time. If you have chosen a laboratory (but there may simply not be enough money for it, depends on how you use materials), then we also ignore it and leave the engineer to dig the same third slot. The school will be completed exactly when we already have or about to get our first sergeant. Before or after April 12th. You may have to endure exactly one mission before you can increase the squad. No more than that. It's crucial, we are on a time limit to finish with Guerilla School and increase our squad to 5. After April 12th, it's a must. I imagine you have legit and understandable question about the Chosen. The first meeting with the Chosen will be with 4 operatives and the only effective way to get a sergeant up to this point (provided that you start at the headquarters of the Skirmishers) is to rush the Resistance Ring in the hope that there will be a promotion for a one of the soldiers on one of the missions. And it is important to understand that on missions to find factions, such promotions usually do not happen, so you have to choose one or another, but we have very limited time if we want to get new orders at a start of new month. This means that next month we will not receive a new new orders and hero class. For all the above reasons, I abandoned such a build order a long time ago, as it is simply never worth it. You do not need 5 XCOM soldiers to successfully complete the terror at the end of the first month. The probability of killing the Chosen on the first terror is very much close to zero and directly depends on many factors, including and especially luck. But in 9 out of 10 scenarios, it's better (wiser) to just let the Chosen get the data from your soldier. So it can go elsewhere and not disturb you from clearing the map. The Chosen in the first encounter on the legend ALWAYS incapacitates one soldier as a check to see if you are challenging him or ignore, and if you won't interrupt him, then he will simply pull the knowledge out of your soldier and will be gone from mission. Mind you, that even if everyone on the map is already killed, even in this case activating the chosen one will also activate Faceless, and in this situation, it is this Faceless that will reduce all your optimism regarding this fight to zero, as well as it's chances of success. The only correct solution in this situation is to attack only the Faceless and ignore the Chosen. However, if you once let him know that you are up for challenge (you need to help to your soldier to trigger it), he will force you to the gravity of a situation very fast, it most likely will end with restart campaign. So i suggest to be wise, and in this case, there will be no losses on this mission. Shouldn't be, usually. It's also important to have Skirmisher with ability to pull enemy closer to him on this mission. Use that on every officer you encounter. Since 4 people are enough for this mission (the presence of an Skirmisher is still mandatory), instead of spending a whole engineer on the construction of a useless garbage and absolutely useless module at this stage (Guerrilla School), by this method you can get both a sergeant and a school and the 3rd slot by April 12 for construction. This is all only subject to the choice of the headquarters of the Skirmishers, since here the key to everything is precisely the speed of construction. The sergeant and therefore the school is needed before or after April 12th. April 12 will be the last mission for 4 operatives. In essence, what I have just described is a first month build order to get through the most difficult period of the early game. Let me know if you want to know more about research order. Cause there are a lot of options really.
Hey Syken. Fantastic guide. Do you recommend ever purchasing engineer and scientists from hq or black market? I get really bad rng sometimes when it comes to finding personnel in the geoscape
honestly you need to improve bonds later in the game, and you cannot spec new skills much very early. i think the ideal order should be GTS, ring, proving, training. then you can get power AND consider either a lab (if u got the resources for the upkeep), infirmary (if you have many wounded or many mental problems for your soldiers), or communications (if you lack contact capacity).
@@SykenPlays sure they are helpful, but my point was that you DONT need the training center for bonds, until you unlock lvl 2 bonds and that can take some time. even then its not critical as they dont give a huge bonus at level 2. lvl 1 and lvl 3 bonds give the most in missions. lvl 1 you can get without the training center anyway... this is why i think the training center is only REALLY useful mid game, when you have several lvl 2 bonds unlocked, and have plenty of AP to give to your troops.
I admit i havent played Legend mutch but after this video i will give it a try atleast. What stood out to me right away is how is it even possable to delay the Resistance Comms for that long? Do u add contacts using the cover ops or hope for extra comms from map missions? I would imagen u die from the Avatar project becouse u cant get to more black sites with only 3 comms available.
You can win the entire campaign with only 1 area (your starting area). There are pro's and con's of expanding and different strategies around it. TLDR would be - if you expand to 3 regions, the game is more likely to provide options to you (scans, covered ops missions, etc.) to expand your territory more.
I thought this was a good video. However this is for computer I believe. Things are different somewhat for PS4 console. You don't have alot of the abilities the the computer version has ( just not enough memory )
1) I tried early training center and I think it was underused most of the time. Often in earlygame I couldn't afford soldiers to spend 6 days to lvl up bond, additional random skills were often a waste of points and buying other skills from a tree doesn't seem to make much sense until Lt./Cpt. with skills like implacable. 2) I'm not sure about labolatory either. Higher chance for inspirations and breakthroughs is cool, but does it pay enough for itself if I build it in midgame, assuming I don't need infirmary? And is research boost such a great thing, given that my worst bottleneck is going to be elerium and alloys? Not to mention the fact that I dunno if the specific breakthroughs I'd get are worth my time. Covert ops can also get me breakthroughs and there I see if it's worth at time of selecting it, while not costing me my research time.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I can go into the details around infirmary in a different video, it is a longer subject. Similar to the resource management questions.
@@SykenPlays I'm still watching the playlist, but for now I'd say that imo lab would need a video a little more, preferably with some heavy excel maths if you're ever inclined to go that much in-depth. Infirmary to me is just a case of adaptation. You get hurt consistently? Get it. You don't? Postpone, unless you have a lot of shitty quirks to treat. I'm also very interested in benefits you get from early training center, but I figure I'll see it once I watch your playthroughs
ah, that guy from the forum :P If you want a challenge, go play X-Piratez, a mod to UFO Defence :P oh and make a Let's play of it. I may watch it. As long you don't try to compare Xcom2 Battle and geoscape with Ufo defence you should be fine :P Both plays and work differently and give a unique expierence. (I mention this, because you said the .. pod mechanic works better than how it is done in the original games. Issue is, pods don't work very well with the mechanics of the og and the roaming-aliens don't work in the newer games :P)
Hey, Thanks for checking in, after reviewing the x-pirates, I might even die it a try. Only problem is that I probably need to present a normal UFO Defence run first, as I haven‘t played it on stream so far - else viewers might get surprised about Pirates and Aliens.
and one more thing: is that post regarding xcom 2 guide relevant for WOTC? For example I remember very recent sectoid pursuing a flank on me despite having 2 lost on its face and a psi skill ready to use, so I was wondering if WOTC has some changes in AI behaviour.
No typically not. They are not efficient. You get net +2 engineers at best and lose a lot of momentum plus resources. The moment that they are becoming effective (in the endgame), is when you have already surpassed the aliens.
I never do actual Ironman just to avoid losing the save. I’d be properly bummed if I got glitched after getting through half a campaign. Instead I just do a regular save and just don’t save scum
A surprising amount of people play it on PS4, although I have heard that the support isn‘t that great. Lots of ironman players report that the savegames have gone missing, which is really sad to hear.
Going for it on PS4. The big pain I’ve had outside of my own short comings is that if you run iron man I suggest you don’t skip any cutscenes. Skipping them are the most common places Xcom2 crashes on PS4.
power nodes are best for shadow chamber and psi lab. they are NOT good for power generators. you gain MORE if you use these high power requirement buildings instead!!
Hello Arthur, all of the statements are applicable for vanialla xcom2. You might also want to look for my vanialla xcom2 guide on reddit. It's the most read guide for xcom2 legendary.
Hello mate, I do have a release schedule, there is a video per day coming up normally. In order to do that on a tight timeline, I am usually pre-uploading a buch on material. Over time, you will be able to see all of them.
Thanks so much for this great effort. Getting further into my legend play throughs thanks to your vids!
You are most welcome Leonard,
Good luck on your first Legendary victory!
Back here since I started following 2 months.
Thanks to your guides I just finished Commander Ironman, and now planning my Legendary (+Ironman) run. I feel utterly nervous, but hoping I can take on enough experience to win such a run.
Fantastic, I am very glad that you have such success. Well done!
Love the video keep it up. If I may offer my own personal insight and my own personal build order. I've grown quite fond of 2 openers personally. Since this seems the most fitting place to put it. Been dying to speak up since the campaign. lol
Before I start disclaimer that there is no "wrong" way to play the game. War of the chosen especially offers up a great deal of variety on how to progress and there's a great deal of viable options all fairly equal in power level. The openers I've grown fond are as follows
1. Resistance ring > GTS > building based on your current campaign (Proving grounds, coms, infirmary, training center - more on this one later.)
-Alternatively-
2. Laboratory > Ring > GTS* > Power (now this might seem odd but I'll touch on this)
To start with my preferred method as of now is method 2. However I'd suggest newer players go for a more conventional GTS/Ring type of opener as you are completely without funds if you start with the Lab no longer giving you the ability to pick up something like a med kit or flash bangs. Both of which are very helpful at the beginning.
To break down the logic further for Opener #1 the resistance ring start in short the ring opener gives you very fast early access to covert actions. Which can bring you into a strong starting point with things that grant +HP//Aim/Soldier Promotion*(the best early one in a lot of scenarios for me as it offers you quicker access to your abilities, potentially faster GTS upgrades for squad size and the ability to chase the chosen down hard if they're giving you problems... which they very likely will), more breakthroughs and the other hero units. All 3 of which are very powerful in their own regards though personally I'm not big on the skirmisher vs the other 2 but that's a topic for another time. The ring also offers you the ability to safely train rookies without them dying on you on a mission guaranteeing a squaddie promotion upon success. 1 pro to this is often times 2 or even 3 soldiers can go on a mission at a time. Training 2 or 3 rookies in the time it takes to do about 1 and a half rookies via the GTS. The downside to this is that you can't control what the rookies become and are at the mercy of RNG. Which can be a very big detriment. This should be used in conjunction with the GTS to fill in the gaps.
The GTS is my #2 or even #3 building now for 1 major reason. You can't rely on "the A team". The one soldier to babysit to captain for the squad size upgrade at a reasonable time due to the will drain and the tired status. Injuries also are very costly and the infirmary may not be your third building due to a variety of scenarios such as not being offered Resistance Contacts from the Ring or Geoscape to cite one example. These things greatly slow down the trip to captain and delay the squad size upgrade longer.
The third building is really up to how comfortable you feel within the campaign and what you're finding you need on a player level. There's quite a few ways to go about it and none of them are "wrong". I'd suggest the infirmary #3 as a safe option but that's not set in stone. Amount of engineers at that point in the game can impact your decision making greatly. Coms is another viable alternative if you're looking to expand fast and hard for a strong bonus on your starting continent.
To talk about my preferred opener, option #2 it boils down to research. Due to everything being slower this time around the lab start accomplishes 2 big things for me. the first. is improving the research speed of the early game, this makes rushing towards early magnetic tier weapons much more viable than it would be prior. This also opens up my expansion options more based on how the campaign is going should I not decide on magnetic or a breakthrough/inspirationchanged my mind. The second thing the lab accomplishes directly relates to that. In war of the chosen the laboratory increases the chances for breakthroughs to happen. and being offered something like "rifles damage +1" early on is tremendous and completely tips the scales of the war Exceptionally early. Basically turning your conventional weapons into almost magnetic tier in at the very least 1/4th the time and no additional supply/alloy investment. Completely game changing. With that said it's not a guarantee. However the boons don't stop there. Modular weapons are big offering more upgrade slots on your guns, instant excavations which is HUGE when you've only got that one weenie engineer running around trying to get the job done the best he can, armor Health increases just to cite a few. The options it offers you and the adaptive playstyle it grants is not only big but also very versatile to whatever the game throws at you. However it does come with it's drawbacks. It costs legitimately 100% of your starting funds. So no flash bangs, no med kits, and pending on how the odds roll your second building may also be delayed though that is improbable. On top of this your rookie training slows down significantly along with global expansion though I personally like to hunker down early on to limit modifiers I need to worry about there is the income issue to work around. So it's not the perfect start. But even with these set backs I love this starter.
The ring is my go-to second pick for the reasons I mentioned above. You simply will not have a captain by the time the GTS is done or near done. The GTS is also not required to train a soldier to out of squaddie tier leaving the GTS at a lower priority to me and there mostly to fill in the gaps and not there specifically to get the rookies out of dumpster tier range. Ring offers up just a great deal of boons I simply can't ignore vs the GTS. Especially when I have 0 money to spend on the GTS and it's upgrades at that point regardless.
The GTS is my usual third building but this one is really dependant on the campaign, research, the starting chosen, the starting faction and so on. However the GTS at this point is much more appealing because a captain very possibly will be propping up very soon, especially with ring bonuses, and on top of that most of my rookies would be squaddie at this point and the rookies I have left are there to fill in what I need. More rangers, more genadiers, and so on.
Power being the 4th slot is simply because... I need it. You will be 100% out of power if you choose anything but power for that third building. After power it's really up to the campaign and what it is you need. Missions, avatar facility spawns, wounded soldiers, research. There's way too many ways to go about it to really say something is definitive or even safe. Proving grounds are possibly the closest I can get to that but it's not set in stone. Ammo is good and if you have the shen's last gift DLC the Spark units are Fantastic this time around. They're basically a mix between a grenadier and a specialist. They're not broken overpowered but they have great action economy for that point in the game and a remarkable health pool. They also never get tired and can be taken out while wounded should the group really NEED what they offer. They can be built to sponge up damage for your team or they can be set up in such a way where they can flat delete something you need gone. Their gun also comes with shredder built in. Unlike in the base game they also can have their weapons modified. While in the base game I thought they were complete garbage they're actually much more competitive now. They do fall behind normal soldiers late game for me however. The inability to use ability points and PCS upgrades hurts them. Their entry cost is also a little steep for the proving grounds.
Lastly 2 things to touch on. First the training center. Yes, the training center is great, getting abilities that your soldier normally couldn't have or doubling up on something a soldier has a 2 tiers is phenomenal beyond words. However there's 2 parts of this that I can't justify for a row 1 building. The first part is ability points and how they work. If you simply have a massive amount of "standard" soldiers then your AP won't grow very quickly regardless and unless you slammed a bunch of AP bonuses in the ring you likely won't be able to branch out too much anyway to make it meaningful for more than 1 or 2 missions at a time before 2 missions of a cooldown while they're not tired. Abilities are random so what you see your A-team getting may simply just not be impressive. I don't know about you but I really don't care if my sniper has salvo or not. On top of that not only will your AP numbers not be generally high enough but also your soldiers simply aren't high enough in level to monopolize on it. Such as quick draw and death from above or Heavy Ordinance and Holo targeting. So this building is often delayed to the end of row 2 and even down to row 3 at times.
The second thing is the chosen and hero units at the start if you turn off the lost and abandoned tutorial mission. The game will start you off on gatecrasher with 3 rookies and a squaddie (they only come that way) hero unit. They will be selected randomly unless you activate one in one of the bonus options at game boot up. Assuming you let the game roll the dice all 3 of them are fantastic. The skirmisher basically fills the ranger roll and offers a clean way of killing the 4 health troopers on legend and still take a gunshot at some poor bastard giving you effectively 5 actions with 4 units. The templar offers guaranteed damage and at full focus can almost (might be able to) one-shot a sectoid. The reapers are unparalleled in scouting. information is the #1 resource in any game. Especially strategy games. The chosen is random and will 100% show up on the first retaliation mission. The assassin or warlock can be campaign ending if handled poorly.
Good luck commander.
P.S. Since I ran out of characters on the comment proper. Everything mentioned in the video about the geoscape priorities is spot on. There's not really anything to add to that. The key is to have an idea of the route you'd like to take and execute while being willing to adapt to new opportunities that come your way.
One last note on openers my preferred start is a skirmisher opening funny enough. Despite me not liking them terribly much as a unit as a whole, and not really caring about a second one, their faction scan bonus is increased construction speed. Which greatly benefits the start of any campaign giving you faster construction and a small edge. Of course if playing without modifiers you're prayers to RNGesus are the only things that can offer you this. The alternatives aren't bad by any means. You get "better" (debatable of course) units and different options. Templar start is healing speed up. Which can cancel out the need for an infirmary early for example. I just think the skirmisher boon at the beginning is markedly better but not overwhelmingly so.
Sorry for the wall of text. Most important thing for any game is to have fun and accept that a play you made might have been wrong. In general or in context to the situation. Being open minded and accepting that failure is part of the learning experience is a big part of growing as an individual. Gaming or otherwise. You cannot learn a thing you think you know. Have fun, good luck, and good gaming. :)
I love it, so much detail and effort into one comment. Well done.
Thank you very much. Means a great deal. Been really wanting to talk about these kinds of things since the start. This worked for me very well in my most recent run pulling me from the bring of disaster in one of the worst starts I've had in a while. I still have my own failings and struggle with things in the game. The assassin and warlock at the beginning cause me a great deal of grief. My method for dealing with them I find isn't really ideal but it certainly works without much risk. It just feels Awful. But I'll save that for a different guide video. I'll try to keep the comments topic appropriate based on the guide in question to not derail your comments section. Keep up the good work. Would love to hear your thoughts about my method and see what you yourself can do with it in a future run.
Hey Zierkem,
I did have the time to read your long comment in detail, thanks for sharing your strategy. As for my reply to it:
I think the strategy can be a good alternative build order if you accept its advantages and disadvantages.
The research speed increase will be about 20% with the lab (the unavailability of scientists at the start can leave parts of the building being un-used however). I can see how this could push the day of receiving critical breakthroughs like magnetic or plasma rifles to an earlier stage.
That being said, you give up on a couple of improvements for your soldiers (like early boni, more training of rookies, etc.). In the long run, it will not be noticable, as your build order is very similar, it just means in the first 5-8 missions, you are going to have a larger disadvantage than you anyways have.
You make a very valid point with going for th resistance ring early. The boni of the factions, the extra soldiers and the sheer amount of passive stats (aim, hp, etc.) make it a very compelling case.
Cheers,
Syken
Great to hear from you. You are absolutely right about those cons to the lab opener however you will always have 1 scientist at the end of the first month due to the council mission always providing one. The lab can be upgraded to fit the second scientist at a later date once you've stabilized. So with that said the lab will always be able to reach it's non-upgraded potential just about as soon as it's finished construction. That extra research speed drops the 60+ day magnetic weaponry down to about 45-47 or so which is not insubstantial at all along with the increased breakthrough chances. I find that breakthroughs are a fast way to level out those disadvantages with no added supply cost. The other thing about the laboratory as well is that it will cut down on your overall scientist needs by the end of the game allowing you to get a little bit greedy with more missions for what you Want vs what you need. But 100% it makes the early game harder for the first few missions without a doubt so it really is up to the player and how well they can handle a lot of the early game material without things like flashbangs. I do suggest giving it a try sometime. I was skeptical about it but I found myself very surprised. The ring opener is much more "standard" I'd say and you can't go wrong with it. But the lab opening offers some fantastic up sides for the rest of the game with a temporary but significant downside early on.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to more of your content!
Personally I prefer building resistance ring first, then GTS, then infirmary, then training center. There's no need to rush training center, since it takes a lot of time before you get enough ability points for it to be useful. GTS is vital, but again, it takes time to be useful. You might not have the squad size unlock ready by the time you get it if you build it first. RR is useful immediately. It gets you tons of useful things. It promotes your squaddies, and it has some missions that offer an automatic promotion to anyone, making it easier to get troops promoted enough to unlock the new squad slots without having to risk their lives in combat.
Thanks for sharing your build order.
I could see this. But I always seem to get squad size before the first retaliation mission going GTS first, and it helps a lot. But yea I was suprised to see this guy advise training center so early, because he really knows how to play this game. Maybe he has a way of cheesing out some level 3 bonds early? Or AP farming? Even then you have to just pray you get some good wild card abilities.
To be honest, legendary ironman is hard, but it's nowhere as hard as it's version on Long War. Sure you need to be careful, but building order doesn't really matter as long as you know what you're doing.
Sure gts is kinda early knowing that you need a sergeant to get squad size, but it allows for you to train rookies into grenadiers, rangers, etc. Resistance Ring is just perfect as a second building because it does have cool missions available, but before the avatar project is a thing, it's kinda useless since there's around 1-4 missions available with 2-3 of them requiring someone to be sergeant.
In other words, legendary is hard, but as long as you get gts ,RR or infirmary first before any other buildings (other than power plant) is good enough.
Hi mate !
I just started playing X-Com a few days ago and it’s a lot of fun, you really have to think to win a mission.
Love your channel with the tips, you’re really good at it … 💪🏽👋🏽🎩✅
Thanks Tudor, great to have you on board . Let me know how your run progresses
ha, mit too, have fun. This is my first xcom game after ufo: enemy unknown and xcom: terror from the deep which i played 20 years ago
Thank you for these guides and amazing content.
Just started my first L/I WOTC run after doing veteran and commander base game. Got a flawless gate crasher (minus the loot) first try, but then lost two rookies and the mission on a neutralize the commander in the sewers. However taking inspiration from you not going to let that stop XCOM from kicking some alien butt.
Great attitude, you will get far with that!
Hi Syken. Thanks for all the guides and content over the years, you've helped me a lot. I fumbled my way through my first playthrough on Veteran but after watching some of your videos I managed a near perfect Commander playthrough (One death. I'm so sad). I've had a couple of aborted Legendary playthroughs, both times the first Chosen was the Warlock with the Regeneration ability. 2 armour and Regeneration! How am I supposed to deal with this guy with Rifles that deal 3 damage? So yeah, both times I quit out of frustration.
My 3rd attempt is going a lot better. I must admit, I did highroll the 'Conventional weapons' breakthrough which is obviously helping a ton. Once this is done I'll try another playthrough to see if I can manage without that breakthrough carrying me through the early game. This game is great. I'm surprised I ignored it for so long being a long time Civ player as well as being a lover of turn based tactics games.
Hi OTG,
great to hear that the guide helped you and that you are progressing well now.
Good luck to you commander and let me know when you have beaten the game :)
I had been watching your guides for a bit, and that inspired me to finally get around to playing XCOM in ironman mode. So I played EW in normal ironman, and the run was a complete success. Therefore, I decided to up the difficulty for my WOTC ironman run to Commander.
So how did the run go? Well, despite some early loses in the combat layer, I think I adjusted well there. However, it was the strategy layer that was going great, as I was getting lucky with a lot of ideal breakthroughs, rewards and whatnot. So, imo my WOTC ironman run was going better than expected..... That was until my game crashed!
Thats right, during a Lost mission my game just up and crashed and it sent me to the dashboard. Then when I rebooted the game again, my save file was completely gone! It wasnt there anymore! I looked online for solutions, but there was none, only a lot of people with the same issue. So idk how many hours I lost here, but goddamnm, that bs just killed the enthusiasm I had for doing ironman runs. Never again.
Are you playing on a console or on the PC?
If you do play on the PC, my suggestion is to actually buy the game via steam. The auto-save files are really handy.
I played the game over 6.000 hours on many different PCs (each connected to my steam account) and although having experienced many bugs, as well as crashes to Desktop a couple of times, I never had any issues with the files. Maybe something to consider.
I did read from people that were playing on PC that they had ways of preventing what happened to me by backing up saves and such. Unfortunately, im playing on the xbone, and there is no recourse for me. My game is lost.
Still, XCOM on PC is something I have in mind. These games are among my favorites (particularly EU/EW), and they look pretty sweet with some of those mods I've seen. So when/if I get a PC, I'll be buying XCOM.
Over 6000 hours of XCOM though? Thats impressive. And here I though I had a lot of playtime with several hundred hours myself....
I'm sorry to hear about the xbox, my suggestion is looking into the PC version, the modding alone will make it worth your time. Sucks that the console implementation is that risky - I do understand your frustration there.
Same here. The game always crashes
Yay the Guide update is comming :-D
Appreciate this guide. Got some questions:
1. What is your take on a Resistance Ring start (followed up with GTS) on Legendary? I have mixed feelings on it since you may be short on engineers at this stage of the game while a GTS can give better value with the time given, but maybe you might see a case for first.
2. I agree that a Training Centre is important, but why do you propose it to be so good that it deserves to be your second building? (I am saying this considering that you do get free Level 1 Bonds and your soldiers level up slowly on Legendary so you won't get much AP to work with outside of XCOM good tactics which I am sure you can do, so I was thinking of making it a second level building.)
3. On the Workshop, easier to understand where to place workshops, but how would you justify when to place a workshop? I know Power Coil placement can affect it, but I am thinking of timing. I can see uses on Legendary, but not as much on Commander and below.
4.On Lab, roughly when should I consider placing it to keep pace with the tech curve. Can be tough prioritising, but I was wondering if it is justifiable placing it as a first 3 buidling? Definitely not a 3rd row building.
5. Lastly, Resistance Comm, when do you normally start consider placing it down in general? I do get game states where I do get a steady flow of Contacts from Geoscape/Covert Ops, and others where they don't exist. So I am thinking what would be some good cues on when to place it in? One should be enough.
6. Interesting you mentioned placing a Power Relay on a power coil, normally I would put in a Shadow Chamber and a Psi Lab there, but what's your reasoning for doing this way?
1) You can build that certainly, the build order is not as important as you might think. GTS makes the game easier due to the SS-upgrade, Resistance ring can give you passive boni, both are okay, just requires you to work around the disadvantages.
2) It can be your 2nd building, you can go GTS into Training Facility and just build the RR later, just means you will be limited to 1 covered mission per month, which is still „okay“ for the first 2 month.
3) The Workshop unfortunately is the only building that I wouldn‘t recommend, it takes a lot of time, gives you a net +2 engineers and costs you momentum. By the time it is up an running, you usually have enough engineers for most of the stuff.
4) LAb is good, you can rush it from the beginning and gain quite a bit momentum. Comes at the expense of GTS SS upgrade.
5) I am holding back on that quite a bit, if you are maxed out with your connections, it is more likely that a covered mission or a strategic layer resource for +1 contact will spawn, since the game is „helping you“. One of its hidden mechanics.
6) correct, both Shadow Chamber and the PSi-lab are more efficient if you want to build them on the power coil. You can do that or go with the power plant and just build the mentioned buildings later (typically they come a bit later in a run).
@@SykenPlays Hi Syken, thanks for replying! This is useful information.
Got one question for you on point 6: Say if you do decide to go power relay on a power coil and then you unlock the second of the two buildings (Psi Lab or Shadow Chamber). Do you scrap the power coil and build the new facility? Or do you decide to build the second facility and upgrade the power relay + devote engineers to top up power. Asking this to evaluate the cost of keeping momentum in the Avenger.
On an informational note, I noticed a common theme across your guide videos, so I think I should share:
To beat Legendary Ironman, I am getting the sense that you are emphasising two principles. One for tactical missions and one for Geoscape + Avenger.
On tactical missions, you would want to maximize and dominate the action economy. That is why you want to avoid engaging more than one pod at a time, that is why scouting is important (I am noticing my gameplay becoming better with a scout, I have you to thank for that), that is why skills that maximizes action economy is so good (Salvo, Lightning Hands, Specialist Medical skills up to Lieutenant etc.), and that is why GTS upgrades are so critical.
On the Geoscape/Avenger, the idea of momentum is king. Time being spent is time not being obtained back in the future. That is why you would want to priortise engineers and scientists and contacts on the map (vs supplies and intel which there are other sources that you will need to do anyways). Same for deciding the facilities to build.
The best part is doing well in one reinforces the other, doing poorly has the potential to compromise the other. Hence the reverse difficulty curve coming into effect. How steep that curve going up and down will be depends on your decisions and performance.
I feel that if you decide to make future XCOM 2 guides, emphasising these two principles explicitly can help to guide players along. Took me quite a number of views to piece this together.
4 years, but still, why not. I want to update some info on build order and start of game in general. Experience comes from Legend, ironman, Dark Future - original, no mods for gameplay. I always play with Dark Future as all other versions of Legend are well.. the 0 lost soldiers in your game is best proof that you should play Dark Future at least once. The whole game, it's entirety of mechanics and all that, it all will come to sense when you play with Dark Future. If you want to get the best experience - go with Dark Future, it's amazing. Now that i mentioned it, we can continue with build order.
The next build order is designed for the beginning of the game, provided that you start the game at the headquarters of the skirmishers and in general at the beginning of the game on the legend with the Terminator and Dark Future.
At the beginning of the game, you need to build the Resistance Ring first, as it takes only 12 days without engineer to build with the headquarters of the Skirmishers. After we complete all the operations inherent in the beginning of the game - go to the map, stay at the headquarters, completely ignore ANY pop-up events on the map (even if an engineer with a 5-day acquisition period has spawned there, yes we ignore engineer event for now, we will take him only later after we already built Resistance Ring, not before) until the first mission to obtain an engineer appears.
This mission is fixed, it will always be there no matter what, there will always be one engineer for it's completion. After this mission, we put the new engineer on clearing room (yes, we do not put him to finish resistance ring, it's absolutely pointless waste of time) and return to the Skirmisher headquarters. If everything is done as described above, then the Resistance Ring and the new slot for buildings will open simultaneously on the same day. We did not lose a single day of construction, and in 12 days total we built the Resistance Ring and we can immediately begin the construction of any other module we like. Naturally, we send a group to search for a new faction. This is our chance to get usable orders early next month and it's extremely important at such start to have a chance to get additional orders.
Then it all depends on preferences and how your game acts. You can start building a Guerrilla School, or a laboratory, or a testing area for the Spark, which in the early stages of the game is simply a beast (provided that there are already 2 cores and the necessary modifiers were taken at the start of the game). This depends on various number of factors. But one point is very important - we do not put an engineer to build a school (unless you have one to spare), but continue to build it without an engineer. And we continue to dig the third slot with the same engineer at the same time. If you have chosen a laboratory (but there may simply not be enough money for it, depends on how you use materials), then we also ignore it and leave the engineer to dig the same third slot. The school will be completed exactly when we already have or about to get our first sergeant. Before or after April 12th. You may have to endure exactly one mission before you can increase the squad. No more than that. It's crucial, we are on a time limit to finish with Guerilla School and increase our squad to 5. After April 12th, it's a must.
I imagine you have legit and understandable question about the Chosen. The first meeting with the Chosen will be with 4 operatives and the only effective way to get a sergeant up to this point (provided that you start at the headquarters of the Skirmishers) is to rush the Resistance Ring in the hope that there will be a promotion for a one of the soldiers on one of the missions. And it is important to understand that on missions to find factions, such promotions usually do not happen, so you have to choose one or another, but we have very limited time if we want to get new orders at a start of new month. This means that next month we will not receive a new new orders and hero class.
For all the above reasons, I abandoned such a build order a long time ago, as it is simply never worth it. You do not need 5 XCOM soldiers to successfully complete the terror at the end of the first month. The probability of killing the Chosen on the first terror is very much close to zero and directly depends on many factors, including and especially luck. But in 9 out of 10 scenarios, it's better (wiser) to just let the Chosen get the data from your soldier. So it can go elsewhere and not disturb you from clearing the map.
The Chosen in the first encounter on the legend ALWAYS incapacitates one soldier as a check to see if you are challenging him or ignore, and if you won't interrupt him, then he will simply pull the knowledge out of your soldier and will be gone from mission. Mind you, that even if everyone on the map is already killed, even in this case activating the chosen one will also activate Faceless, and in this situation, it is this Faceless that will reduce all your optimism regarding this fight to zero, as well as it's chances of success. The only correct solution in this situation is to attack only the Faceless and ignore the Chosen. However, if you once let him know that you are up for challenge (you need to help to your soldier to trigger it), he will force you to the gravity of a situation very fast, it most likely will end with restart campaign. So i suggest to be wise, and in this case, there will be no losses on this mission. Shouldn't be, usually. It's also important to have Skirmisher with ability to pull enemy closer to him on this mission. Use that on every officer you encounter.
Since 4 people are enough for this mission (the presence of an Skirmisher is still mandatory), instead of spending a whole engineer on the construction of a useless garbage and absolutely useless module at this stage (Guerrilla School), by this method you can get both a sergeant and a school and the 3rd slot by April 12 for construction. This is all only subject to the choice of the headquarters of the Skirmishers, since here the key to everything is precisely the speed of construction. The sergeant and therefore the school is needed before or after April 12th. April 12 will be the last mission for 4 operatives. In essence, what I have just described is a first month build order to get through the most difficult period of the early game.
Let me know if you want to know more about research order. Cause there are a lot of options really.
Thanks for the in-depth answer and for sharing your thoughts.
Hey Syken. Fantastic guide. Do you recommend ever purchasing engineer and scientists from hq or black market? I get really bad rng sometimes when it comes to finding personnel in the geoscape
I regularly do that in order to keep up with the game. So yes, if you have bad RNG or things happen, by all means, go ahead and fill your ranks.
Thank you Syken
You are very welcome Giannis
honestly you need to improve bonds later in the game, and you cannot spec new skills much very early. i think the ideal order should be GTS, ring, proving, training.
then you can get power AND consider either a lab (if u got the resources for the upkeep), infirmary (if you have many wounded or many mental problems for your soldiers), or communications (if you lack contact capacity).
Bonds are helpful, I have an entire run (Rookie Balboa) only dedicated to them.
@@SykenPlays
sure they are helpful, but my point was that you DONT need the training center for bonds, until you unlock lvl 2 bonds and that can take some time.
even then its not critical as they dont give a huge bonus at level 2. lvl 1 and lvl 3 bonds give the most in missions. lvl 1 you can get without the training center anyway...
this is why i think the training center is only REALLY useful mid game, when you have several lvl 2 bonds unlocked, and have plenty of AP to give to your troops.
I admit i havent played Legend mutch but after this video i will give it a try atleast. What stood out to me right away is how is it even possable to delay the Resistance Comms for that long? Do u add contacts using the cover ops or hope for extra comms from map missions? I would imagen u die from the Avatar project becouse u cant get to more black sites with only 3 comms available.
You can win the entire campaign with only 1 area (your starting area). There are pro's and con's of expanding and different strategies around it. TLDR would be - if you expand to 3 regions, the game is more likely to provide options to you (scans, covered ops missions, etc.) to expand your territory more.
I thought this was a good video. However this is for computer I believe. Things are different somewhat for PS4 console. You don't have alot of the abilities the the computer version has ( just not enough memory )
That is an interesting point which you bring up.
I will look into it, never knew that there is a difference between the two versions.
1) I tried early training center and I think it was underused most of the time. Often in earlygame I couldn't afford soldiers to spend 6 days to lvl up bond, additional random skills were often a waste of points and buying other skills from a tree doesn't seem to make much sense until Lt./Cpt. with skills like implacable.
2) I'm not sure about labolatory either. Higher chance for inspirations and breakthroughs is cool, but does it pay enough for itself if I build it in midgame, assuming I don't need infirmary? And is research boost such a great thing, given that my worst bottleneck is going to be elerium and alloys? Not to mention the fact that I dunno if the specific breakthroughs I'd get are worth my time. Covert ops can also get me breakthroughs and there I see if it's worth at time of selecting it, while not costing me my research time.
Thanks for sharing your perspective.
I can go into the details around infirmary in a different video, it is a longer subject. Similar to the resource management questions.
@@SykenPlays I'm still watching the playlist, but for now I'd say that imo lab would need a video a little more, preferably with some heavy excel maths if you're ever inclined to go that much in-depth.
Infirmary to me is just a case of adaptation. You get hurt consistently? Get it. You don't? Postpone, unless you have a lot of shitty quirks to treat.
I'm also very interested in benefits you get from early training center, but I figure I'll see it once I watch your playthroughs
ah, that guy from the forum :P
If you want a challenge, go play X-Piratez, a mod to UFO Defence :P oh and make a Let's play of it. I may watch it.
As long you don't try to compare Xcom2 Battle and geoscape with Ufo defence you should be fine :P Both plays and work differently and give a unique expierence.
(I mention this, because you said the .. pod mechanic works better than how it is done in the original games. Issue is, pods don't work very well with the mechanics of the og and the roaming-aliens don't work in the newer games :P)
Hey,
Thanks for checking in, after reviewing the x-pirates, I might even die it a try. Only problem is that I probably need to present a normal UFO Defence run first, as I haven‘t played it on stream so far - else viewers might get surprised about Pirates and Aliens.
@@SykenPlays I doubt you don't know the port, but I'll tell you anyway: check out openXcom. Makes the game runable on modern system without Dosbox
Nice! ... 😀👍
dumb me, didn't notice you had made this one
:) I also have one on reddit, if that helps
@@SykenPlays I'll be sure to check your posts, and I reckon I'll have my thoughts regarding i.e. tech priority on a relevant video
and one more thing: is that post regarding xcom 2 guide relevant for WOTC? For example I remember very recent sectoid pursuing a flank on me despite having 2 lost on its face and a psi skill ready to use, so I was wondering if WOTC has some changes in AI behaviour.
No workshops?
No typically not. They are not efficient. You get net +2 engineers at best and lose a lot of momentum plus resources. The moment that they are becoming effective (in the endgame), is when you have already surpassed the aliens.
I never do actual Ironman just to avoid losing the save. I’d be properly bummed if I got glitched after getting through half a campaign. Instead I just do a regular save and just don’t save scum
That sucks man, I am sorry to hear that you lost a savegame
@@SykenPlays the glitch was probably my fault because I had stacked up the mods but yeah, annoying
Any PS4 Xcom 2 players in 2020?
A surprising amount of people play it on PS4, although I have heard that the support isn‘t that great. Lots of ironman players report that the savegames have gone missing, which is really sad to hear.
syken4games I myself haven’t had any problems myself, but I just wish there was more people to 1v1 online with
Udester Swag just finishing my first WOTC commander playthrough on PS4, should do the final mission tonight.
@@cyb3rrazorcut Cool, congratulations mate. I still remember my first run :)
Going for it on PS4. The big pain I’ve had outside of my own short comings is that if you run iron man I suggest you don’t skip any cutscenes. Skipping them are the most common places Xcom2 crashes on PS4.
Can anyone point me to the original xcom 2 guide?
just buy WOTC vanilla is much more boring compared to
Hi, is this related to WOTC only or can be applied to the basic game too?
It can be applied to the base game as well. My original guide on Reddit was only for the base game. Many of the core mechanics are exactly the same.
power nodes are best for shadow chamber and psi lab. they are NOT good for power generators. you gain MORE if you use these high power requirement buildings instead!!
Yep, you are right on that.
You should mention this is not a vanilla xcom guide.
Hello Arthur,
all of the statements are applicable for vanialla xcom2. You might also want to look for my vanialla xcom2 guide on reddit. It's the most read guide for xcom2 legendary.
ehhh all private videos
Hello mate,
I do have a release schedule, there is a video per day coming up normally. In order to do that on a tight timeline, I am usually pre-uploading a buch on material. Over time, you will be able to see all of them.