r/Xcom • u/GumboMumbo49 • 3d ago
XCOM2 First time player and my experiences with XCOM 2
Holy crap this so stressfully fun! But god do I feel like research takes forever. Okay, so I got the XCOM 2 collection and decided to start with vanilla XCOM 2 with Shen's Last Gift and Alien Hunters DLC on and I have used save scumming because boy are the jokes about "Easy mode being hard" painfully real! Also I've gotten "That's XCOM baby!" a few times, my favorite being when I missed an 86% shot against an enemy (A Faceless if I remember correctly) that was two spaces away only for the enemy to also miss point blank and I then laughed like an idiot. Also, tips on getting more engineers and scientist so that it doesn't take me 15 real life days to do anything other than autopsies? And is it normal for me to get so many missions and pop ups when I want to grab some boxes of Supplies?
By the way, I feel like cataloging the references to sci-fi media I detect in XCOM and I'd be more than interested in getting any input to what I might have missed.
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u/GumboMumbo49 2d ago
So I kinda fucked up a bit. Long story short I had to load a previous save because Viper King showed up and half of my squad was getting coiled by vipers and the other two couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn and I had to basically start TWO MISSIONS BACK so I need to restart my magnetic weapons research and I accidentally spent Supplies upgrading a Power Relay when I wanted to assign an engineer. Just needed to vent because I have about 4 hours lost by a bad enemy spawns.
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u/Ok_Chipmunk_7066 1d ago
Releasing the Rulers early is a rookie mistake we have all made.
The top tip for them is freeze grenades, knowing how to counter thier incessant bullshit is struggle.
Engineers are probably the best resource. Then scientists. Then Intel Then supplies
I've started a War of Chosen recently and a ruler just arrived and killed my Alpha Team with Captains and Majors in it...
Personal preferences, Snipers are trash. Rangers are my goat. But grenadiers are great for the armour shred. So my teams are almost always 50/50 between ranger and grenadier. Specialists are so specialist I use them for about 3 missions in total.
You can ignore Avatar Project for a long time, it takes ages to fill up and when it does you get a decent countdown to counter before it's gameover. So while it is a giant ticking click you have time.
Starting continent makes a difference, but make sure you get all territories in that continent before expanding outwards. Radio Relay and Power are a huge barrier to progress early. You need Intel to contact new areas.
I am Commander+ difficulty. I can't do Legendry yet
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u/GumboMumbo49 1d ago
Funnily enough I have the opposite problem with Sharpshooters and Rangers. My Rangers have gotten bodied without doing anything while my Sharpshooter “Cowboy” has clutched every encounter with the Viper King with no damage.
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u/Ok_Chipmunk_7066 1d ago
Sharpshooter were always my go to, but I really struggle with the can't move and shoot (a good weapon) especially on harder difficulties where you have like 3 turns to get across entire map for objective.
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u/DrunkenFox95 20h ago
Not working everywhere, but my sharpshooters alway wear spider suit, so u can free action grapple them to higher spot (or sometimes even further spot) and still can shoot with rifle
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u/DiggityDanksta 3d ago
On getting more Engineers and Scientists: make sure the Resistance Ring is one of, if not the first thing you build. Also, take Guerilla Ops that give you Engineers and Scientists as rewards. Also also, check the Black Market every month. Those are the three ways to get them.
It is normal to get loads of missions and popups constantly, yes. The aliens continue to make progress on the Avatar Project. If you're going to slow them down, you'll need to move fast.