Seems like in the early game you'd want to bee line to the 6 man team skill by leveling up a sniper or grenader as quick as possible though

At least that's my plan for the next game when a crank up the difficulty and play ironman

Found an unfortunate new bug or 2.

Got a pop up mission to kidnap a hostile VIP. When the window was up to select accept mission or decline the buttons would disappear once moused over and couldn't be pressed. Reloaded a few times and it repeated. Buttons were still "clickable" with key strokes though.

After finishing the mission it sticks on what I assume is a cut scene for the mission after the end mission loading screen. Just a picture of somewhere that looks like Mars. Esc screen still accessible, just a blank screen with nothing. Tried hitting keys thinking it may be the disappearing button trick again but Esc is the only one that functions. Replayed mission from saves on the last turn, 2nd to last, and first turn. All hung

Ok, and don't try saving the game in the hung screen and then loading it because it makes a plasma grenade come out of the monitor

i need to figure out a lot of these hidden mechanics (first time playing an xcom game)

specifically what long sight is, what squadsight is, and how to tell what the maximum distance my sniper can aim from is, also how to tell where to overwatch

Executing a Sectopod is so satisfying.

i think one thing that is not appreciated enough is teh ability to bailout of a mission.

XCom2 punishes triggering alien groups before you are ready much, much more heavily than XCcom1. I think part of this is due to being on a turn timer, so you are playing maps faster, with less time to setup perfect overwatch traps, everyone in full cover etc.

I had a retrieve equipment from a disabled train mission, and accidentally triggered two mutons and an archon. The archon used flaming pinions, or whatever the ability is called that drops missiles on the location of several of your soldiers. one of the mutons had just melee'd one of my other guys. my two snipers were both under in the location of missile attacks, so they couldn't be used. the mutons were spread out enough that explosives were not of any use. I was really in a jam.
All my soldiers were within dash distance of a common point though. Called in an extract, got the hell out there. End result was a failed mission, but a failed mission with 2 injured soldiers and none killed. I think Central yelled at me, and I have to relocate the resistance where the failed mission happened, but small price to pay vs probably losing 1-3 veteran soldiers.

Yeah, the research/base building is entirely different and all in a better way. in EW/EU there's almost always a correct decision and an incorrect one. You always picked the mission in the country with the highest panic, doing otherwise(for an easier mission or a better reward, w/e, that was wrong). You had to rush for max sats. You had to research laser weapons. If you didn't do that you'd lose no matter how elite your tactical skills were.

XCOM2 isn't more forgiving, exactly, but there's just more "right" choices, it's not black and white.

Just play to maximize your team's survival, first off, but once you hit colonel if you have a situation where the colonel has a 80% flanking shot but a rookie has a 38% shot from across the map, let the rookie shoot first.

There's a real imbalance in kills by class so your grenadiers and snipers will be collecting them disproportionately while your scout is out scouting.

I'm on my "third game" right now. I was brand spanking new to Xcom two days ago so Game 1 only lasted about ten turns before I restarted. Was a bloodbath but I learned the mechanics and then restarted.

Game two I made it to roughly what I assume is early-midgame to midgame. This time I focused on all the toys in the game and learning what they did. Saved cheated a lot, but not in a "must get flawless!" way. More of a just testing out of things worked in practice, and reloading to try new things.

Started Game three this morning on ironman and just finished the first blacksite. I'm absolutely mowing things down and looking forward to hopefully seeing the end game so I have a plan and give Commander a go next game.

Three things I've learned in the last two days to help other new players with a smoother start.

1) i forget what it's called but build the facility that lets you train guys and buy combat upgrades immediately. I was able to have a five man crew before my fourth fight and makes the game waaaaay easier to start out.

2) Grenades are awesome. Guaranteed 3 damage to start which kills a lot of basic troops. Fantastic way to finish off a pod without having to pray your 60% shot lands. The value of terrain destruction can not be understated. Removes cover. You can just blow the face of a building to get at what's inside. Also shreds armor. Missions that give a grenade update early give me an erection.

3) predator armor is awesome. Get it early. More health, and an extra inventory slot are a big deal

anyone know the answers to this?

squad sight allows your snipers to shoot enemies out of their site range. Another soldier must have the enemy in site. The sniper must also have a clear line of site to the enemy.

normally, squad sight does not apply to overwatch, an enemy must be visible in the snipers regular sight range. long shot allows you to overwatch the squad sight distance.

determining sniper vision is tricky. if you had a plain map with literally nothing on it, your sniper could see and shoot anywhere your squad has vision. Now once you have trees and buildings etc on the map. if an enemy is behind a large wall, even if your squad has vision of him, the wall blocks the snipers line of site, so you cannot use squad site.

where to overwatch is a complicated question.
First example I'll use is when your squad is concealed. get your entire squad in site range of the pod you want to trigger. set all except one to overwatch. the one you left unoverwatched, then lob a grenade or shoot at the enemy. this triggers the enemies, they move, your squad should shred them from overwatch. Its such a fine feeling setting a proper concealment ambush.

i'll let some of the better players address the less obvious overwatch situations.

first deep run, over.

****in sectopods man. those things are fierce. Sectopods weren't the true problem in my game though.

not even a story spoiler, but a super minor strat spoiler


minor spoiler about letting avatar project finish


next part is about how to build start of game, i wont spoiler it because its just early game build order.

so as i see it, there are three buildings to improve your squad right away. guerrilla training center, advanced warfare center, and proving grounds.
my run i went guerrilla -> advanced warfare -> proving grounds.
i think you almost have to go guerrilla first, the squad size bumps are huge.
Advanced vs proving grounds i'm not so sure on. Advanced is nice to heal troops and for the bonus ability, however early game the proving grounds explosives upgrades are just amazing. I think waiting on the Advanced is best, as you dont really need the healing boost until you have better troops you need to get back out fast. Any other opinions on this?

The ATG has a chance to give your troops an extra skill from a different class every time you level up. I'm just playing normal ironman right now though so I can't comment on the higher difficulties were you need to keep your build orders tight.

My current build order for normal is:

1) GTC to get your squad to five immediately and six roughly the time I do the first Blacksite

2) ATG to gives guys the best chance at piling on extra perks and to heal faster so I can save resource and keep my roster a little smaller

3) Proving grounds.

I have a hunch PG may fall to like 4th or 5th for me on higher difficulties. If you can get a mission that provides a grenade and ammo loot early, or farm the black market, it may be more important to get your comms or power up first.

Have you tried the Vulture skill in GTC yet? Would be able to pick it up it really early and it may help get enough loot to push the PGs back a bit. I haven't tried it yet

May actually be a huge mistake to start training your rookies in the GTC before you have the ATG up because of all the missed chances at free perks. I'm not sure how proving grounds works behind the scenes though so I'll need to test. My sharpshooter picked up a Major talent when turned Sargent though when my highest ranked soldier was LT, so you can pick up some really high level skills if you get going early. Seems like a massive massive potential boost early and way to build some out of the box builds

PSI operatives are very nice and my standard team is now PSI Op, stealth Ranger, Specialist, pistol Sharpshooter, and two Grenadiers. The PSI Ops ability to Stasis either a nasty mob I can't quite finish in a turn or protect an exposed team mate is amazing. They can also learn a once/mission permanent mind control skill which works fairly often (toughest I've seen is Gatekeepers which is 60% success rate but I've failed my one try vs them so far). It's pretty fun to mind control an Andromedan in the first fight of a mission and have him be the meat shield for the rest of the run. The PSI Op only skills up in training at the base as far as I can tell so it's not a bad idea to leave him in training until he learns Stasis at which point he's officially awesome and a full time team member.

I had been using Flash Bangs every time I came across a Codex but last time I decided to have fun in a double Codex fight and just grenade them which resulted in four low health Codex mobs who then got picked off immediately by my pistol sharpshooter with Face Off.

I might try running a team with six PSI Ops for giggles sometime. Mind control six mobs and just goof off on the rest of the mission with the 12 man team.

Getting Implacable as a bonus skill is a lot of fun. Some classes getting an extra move if they kill something almost makes you feel bad for those poor orange bloods

Got my first UFO fight. On turn 3 my guy panicked and threw his frag grenade in to three of my guys shredding the armor off my tank :/

it just took me 16 turns with 3 wounded to do the first mission (commander level)
dear god.

If you retrain someone in the ATG you get those chances back(my best combo is a Sniper-speced Sharpshooter who got the Guardian overwatch chain Specialist skill. Killzone empties the clip).

It does seem like you can't just re-roll endlessly, though, you either have the hidden AWC skill or you don't.

The Psi Ops thing is the one area where this game is unquestionably worse than the original. The entire XP/skill tree format gets removed into just a crockpot you can throw a guy in and 6 weeks later he comes out with void rift and domination and is instantly your best guy. There's no feeling of gaining powers, because there's no reason to use a low level Psi Op(since by the time you have the Psi chamber your A-team is probably already at major level), so there's no attachment.

Somewhat oddly I ended up kind of resenting my Psi Ops characters. Who the **** are they to come in for the last 3 missions and take the spot of my beloved Grenadier "Ogre", who saved my ass so many times? Goddamn mutants is what they are, taking real American's jobs.

Reading between the lines of reports of lower difficulties, commander is a big step up in challenge.

Commander is the difference between 1 hit guaranteed kill on a lot of enemies and having to get lucky.

I dropped to the default difficulty after getting **** on in Commander/Ironman, and yeah, it makes a huge difference.

Still don't quite get what long shot does then. If snipers already have unlimited range with overwatch, does long watch let you shoot around corners then?

Snipers don't already have unlimited range with overwatch

Can't wait to get this game and join the fun. Going to wait till a sale though cuz I'm cheap like that.